A Child Lost

I don't know where Angel came from; I don't know how she came to our world. She didn't know.

Of course, when I found her, the child could barely remember her own name.

I was searching for a Snowgatomon. Snowgatomon are extremely rare, and it had been prophesied that this particular Snowgatomon would digivolve into Silverangewomon, and restore the balance of the digital world.

Naturally I could not allow her to reach her ultimate level, so when my spies told me she was in Darkforest I set after her.

Etemon was after her too. He had chased her out of his dark network and into Darkforest. I had caught a few glimpses of him on the trail ahead of me. I was determined to find Snowgatomon first, according to the prophesy this 'savior-of-the-world' would specifically destroy my reign of darkness. If she though she was bringing me down she was sorely mistaken...and I wanted a piece of her. No angel digimon would stop me. Nothing would stop me.

I finally caught up to Etemon.

He was standing at the edge of a deep pool in a clearing illuminated by the light of the full moon. The cat digimon was nowhere in sight.

"Where is she? Where'd she go? You let her get away!" I accused furiously.

"She's gone. I threw her into the pool and it deleted her." I studied the pool warily, not certain whether or not to believe him.

Since I had first taken over the Darkforest of Server I had heard rumors about a magic pool deep in the woods, that deleted any creature that entered it. I had never really put much stock in such things, believing them to be superstitious rumors.

I searched the ground around the pool and saw catlike tracks in the mud and leading up to a log that went across the pool. I walked gingerly across; I could just see her tracks. Halfway across I noticed that the tracks stopped and there were deep gouge marks in the wood.

Etemon had not thrown her in; she had slipped and fallen. I turned to ask him about it but he was already headed off, already composing a song about his own greatness for defeating the 'terrifyingly dangerous' Snowgatomon. I'd have forced the issue with him, but I knew that by now he probably already believed his own lies. As far as he was concerned he really had defeated her.

I just had to be certain that she was truly dead. I looked deep into the pool and searched for any sign of her. Something silver colored shone brightly off the bottom of the pool. I used my power to levitate it out of the water, I could have dived into the water, but if it really did delete digimon...well it was better to be safe than sorry.

The object was a shiny silver tail-ring. It must have been Snowgatomon's.

I knew she wouldn't willingly leave something like that lying around, so I was fairly certain she was gone.

Which meant I would have to wait for her to reconfigure before I got my revenge.

I was certain she would reconfigure. Digimon had up to seven chances to reconfigure before they were deleted completely and their data used to build new digimon. Only digimon who were too impatient to wait until they were strong enough to digivolve were truly ever deleted.

Just to be on the safe side I searched around the edge of the pool for tracks, making certain the digimon had not simply swam to the other side and escaped. I didn't find any more tracks, but I found Angel.

She was lying on her side, in the mud of the pool, curled up in a fetal position, and crying as if she was in pain.

I had never seen anything like her, although I later learned what Angel was.

Angel, was a human.

She was in pain, I could tell that. Perhaps that is why I stayed; I was then and am now, a creature of the night. Pain elates me. The pain of others, that is.

She was covered in blood and a strange bluish liquid. Her skin was a pale ivory color and her hair was a strange silver blonde color, which I have never seen in any other human. She was young, twelve maybe thirteen, after all the time I spent with humans, I have learned how to judge their ages rather well.

She was also naked.

She looked up at me, and her eyes, still full of pain, captured my attention. They were almost blue, and they were almost silver. I learned later that her eyes were darker and bluer, the more light was present, and lighter and more silver the less light was present.

The sky was beginning to lighten in the east and I knew I should be heading indoors.

The pain emanating from her was absolutely delicious, so I picked her up and carried her with me. She whimpered when I touched her, as if just that little pressure was agonizing to her tortured skin.

Perhaps it was, I never understood her well. Never understood why she did the things she did.

I flew with her to my castle, enjoying the way she shuddered as the wind whipped over her bare flesh. The balcony doors slammed behind me as I stalked through the castle.

I carried her into a bedroom and tossed her unceremoniously onto a bed.

She cried in pain as she hit the bed, a delicious sound. Thinking of it now, I don't know if she ever stopped crying the whole time while I brought her home.

I looked down at her, and she looked up at me, her pale cheeks streaked with tears.

"This is your home now. You belong to me, as does every other creature here. You will do what I say, when I say, understand?" I snarled, I expected her to complain, or try to fight. All my other slaves did, but she did not. She nodded, she had not moved much yet and I wondered if perhaps she had some injury I had not yet seen. I had not seen any injury that would account for all the blood she was covered in.

I would have been tempted to take her in my arms and lick all that blood off of her, but it was mixed with the blue liquid, which stank of chemicals; I didn't think it would make a good combination taste-wise.

"What is your name?" I demanded.

A confused look crossed her face, as if trying to recall something just out of reach.

"Name?" her voice was a confused whisper.

"Your name, what you are called."

"A-Angel." she did not seem at all certain. If I had known anything about humans at the time I would have begun suspecting that she was not quite right, mentally. Even now sometimes I wonder.

I turned to leave the room.

"Wh-what is your name?" she asked warily, she seemed to be uncertain how to use her own voice, as if it was unfamiliar to her.

I rounded on her and snarled, "My name is of no importance to you. You will call me master. Do you understand?"

She nodded her head, but I decided that it was necessary to teach her; I raked my claws across her naked back, drawing a delicious scream. "You say, 'Yes Master.'"

"Yes, Master," the child had whimpered.

I turned and left her room, elated by her open fear.

Despite the fact that Angel seemed to be weak, she quickly recovered. To this day I don't know how she came to be in the state she was in when I found her. She could remember nothing before I found her. It was as if she had been born the day I found her.

She quickly became valuable to me. She was obedient and for some reason extremely loyal.

She was small and delicate, and would never be strong, but she had a speed and agility that even a digimon would have had trouble matching. And unlike many of my servants, daylight did not pose a problem for her, and I knew that she would always come back. She was one of the few slaves I did not have to punish for running away.

As a matter of fact I seldom ever had to punish her. She never gave me any reason to punish her, but I was a firm believer that punishment kept my slaves in line. Looking back now I don't know why I punished her as often as I did though, she never got out of line.

I remember the way she cried the first time I punished her. She lay on the floor, blood running from the whip lashes down her back, and cried. Somewhere in the castle she had found a fluttering white gown which she wore; I had opened it down the back and she held it tightly to her chest, but her back and shoulders were bared to me, a temptation I did not resist.

I knelt down and ran my tongue over the deep gashes, drinking in her blood. Even though I had caused her pain, she leaned against me, as though somehow I comforted her.

That was one of her quirks; the more I hurt her, the more she acted as though she needed me. Perhaps this dependence was part of the reason I punished her more often than she deserved. No matter how much I hurt her she was always there.

I loved her blood, something about it was enthralling. Or perhaps it was the child that was enthralling; I never had to use force or power to feed off of her, she was always willing to let me feed off her, even though it almost killed her sometimes.

Her rich blood felt good in my throat, just as she had felt good.

I slept with her, and I knew it hurt her. I still remember the way she cried the first time from the pain, and she had bled; but she came to me afterwards and begged for more.

I didn't know why she enjoyed it if it caused her pain, but I had no objection to obliging her if she really wanted it, even though I knew it caused her pain. I did not care if I hurt her, so long as my own need was fulfilled. That's the way I am. I am not ashamed that I had caused her pain, it is not in my nature to know shame.

And Angel never complained. I might not have ever known, if she had not cried when she thought I could not hear.

I don't think she hated me. I don't think she'd have done the things she did if she hated me.

For all the darkness I subjected her to, she never really became a creature of the dark. She never seemed to smile, but she was happy in a way that none of my other slaves were.

Even when I gave her no orders she found something to do. Often I could find her tending to digimon who had been injured following my orders. She was very good at healing.

I know she spent some time outside during the day. I still remember explaining to her that I could not go out in the daylight.

We were standing in the courtyard, and she was studying the closed up flowers along the walkway.

"The flowers are beautiful, don't you think so Master?"

"I suppose so," I replied, not studying the closed up buds lining the walk, I had more important things on my mind than flowers and beauty. At the time they seemed trivial.

"They are far prettier when they open though, don't you think?"

"I don't know Angel." I remember that her constant questions annoyed me, I can't remember now why.

"You don't know. Haven't you ever seen them?"

"No. I am a creature of the night. I can't survive in the sun. Even if I were just to look out at the sunlight, I would be blinded by the light." I was put out and irritable that such a thing had not been obvious to her.

"Oooh." The idea seemed to trouble her. As if she was thinking of all the things I could never see. "Don't you miss all the beauty of the day?"

"No. I see no beauty in day. It is nothing but a nightmare to me. Besides, how could I miss something I have never seen? I was born to this life. I can never be anything else."

She seemed to stop and think about this, and she didn't ask me any more questions that evening. For the rest of the night she seemed to be lost in thought, and she vanished shortly before dawn.

I didn't think too much of it, I knew that Angel would come back, she had probably found some silly errand to run.

I did not awake directly at sunset that evening. It was unusual that I ever overslept, but on that particular evening I did. It was almost an hour after sunset before I awoke.

Angel was waiting for me, rather impatiently.

I never understood her. Like all my slaves she knew that I was always hungry when I first woke, and liable to feed on the first thing I saw when I awoke. Most of them had sense enough to stay out of my way until I had been out to hunt.

But there she was, waiting on top of my coffin and swinging her legs over the edge.

I knocked her off when I opened the lid.

I stood up and looked down at her in annoyance, I was not really in the mood to handle her nonsense at the moment and I was halfway tempted to just kill her now and get it over with, it would save me from having to hunt that evening.

She seemed to sense my irritation, because she shrank back a little, but didn't lose her resolve.

"I-I have something for you Master." She held out her tiny hand, palm up. In the center of it was a tear shaped crimson crystal. I recognized it immediately. It was a memory crystal.

Memory crystals were special tools that were used by my spies. A memory crystal would be planted under their skin, and the memory of anything they say or felt while it was there, was stored in the crystal. When they returned the crystal was extracted and I could examine the memories, but the slave would have no memory whatsoever of the time while the crystal was under it's skin.

Angel had obviously used the crystal because it was a deep crimson color; they were only crimson when they were full. Blood dripped from her wrist where she had buried the crystal.

Although she was obviously pleased with herself when she first came in, she seemed to be reconsidering, as though she had only then realized that I might be displeased with her actions.

I took the crystal in my hand noticing that it was still warm from being in her body.

"What's in it."

"Uh-I-um..." she stuttered, obviously a little scared now that she had stopped to think.

"Angel." I was using my most commanding voice. She looked at me and bit her lip determinedly, trying to gather courage. "What' s in this crystal?"

"The day" she whispered, looking at the ground.

"The WHAT?" I asked her incredulously.

"The day. The day I saw today. You said that you had never seen a day before, and they are so pretty and I didn't think it was fair you could never see it so I..." her voice trailed off and tears streamed down her face. "I'm sorry Master, I know you said you didn't care and I should have asked before I used the crystal."

"I'll see what's on it first, before I decide your punishment."

"Yes, Master."

"Come here."

The child did as I commanded, and I pulled her into my lap, pulling her wrist to my mouth and lapping at the blood welling from it as I studied the crystal. Slowly I closed my eyes and opened the memories.

I opened my eyes and I was looking through Angel's eyes. She was standing barefoot on the dock outside the castle. I could feel the rough texture of the wood as she stared intently into the east. The sky gradually grew pink and I watched in astonishment as I saw the sun rise for the first time. It must have taken close to thirty minutes from the time I first started watching to the time it finally cleared the horizon.

Eventually Angel walked off of the dock and walked through the courtyard. I was amazed at the many different colors of the flowers along the walkway. There were hues I did not even know existed. She meandered along, filling her mind with memories of things that were different during the day. The bright green of the grass, the songs of the birds, the pure warmth of the sun.

She went back out on the dock and stared out at the glittering waves. They shone in the sun in a way that they could never shine under the moon. She lay down on the dock and dipped her hand under the water, she lay perfectly still and after a short period of time she reached her hand in and flicked out a fish. I had not known she could fish.

The fish lay on the dock, and flopped around, its silver scales flashing in the sunlight.

When it stopped moving she skinned and boned it, then took it inside and cooked it for dinner. I wasn't entirely sure what I thought of the thing's taste. To me fish taste about as appetizing as they smell.

Then Angel went swimming. I had swum before, but feeling the water in the sun, it was warm, something I had never experienced outside of a bathtub.

She swam until she grew tired, then climbed up onto the dock and laid out, letting the rays of the sun warm her. She dozed lightly, never really sleeping, but not really awake either. Even with her eyes closed I could see the brightness of the sun.

When she eventually sat up, the sun was going down, and she watched it for me. I watched through her eyes as the sky gradually darkened, turning orange, then pink, and finally purple, before giving over to the darkness of the night. I closed my eyes and exited the memory.

Angel had fallen asleep in my lap, her head resting quietly on my chest. I should have been furious with her for wasting a memory stone like that, but somehow it did not seem wasted, and I had enjoyed the beauty of the day, perhaps because I was looking through her eyes.

"Get up," I commanded. "I have to go hunt, and you have taken enough of my time. I will give you your punishment when I return. Go to your room and wait."

I had no idea what I was going to do with her. I did not really want to punish her, I was not even angry with her. But she had acted without my direction, and that deserved some kind of punishment.

Two hours had passed since I had awoken, and I was starving. I slipped out through the balcony and went out to hunt. As I passed over the lake I couldn't help remembering how it had looked glittering in the sun. I would never be able to tell her, but I was grateful for Angel's gift. I could not understand why she would want to do anything for me, but I was glad for the crystal she had made me.

She had given me something beautiful, and in some deep recess of my heart I wanted to give her something beautiful in return.

I returned to the castle several hours later, and found her asleep. I stood in the doorway of her room and watched her sleep; she was lying on her side, with her back to me. Her thin sheet clung to her, perfectly outlining her slim figure.

I smiled softly and slipped through the shadows to sit beside her. I leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. She woke and turned towards me, accepting my kisses.

"Master?" she sounded confused, and I knew why. I was being far more gentle than usual. Just this once I wanted to give her a night without pain.

"Hush, Angel."

She did as I told her, I made love to her that night more gently than I ever had before. I know that for that one night I never caused her pain. It was also the first time I stayed with her when I was done. I listened to her soft breathing gradually become steady as she slipped into sleep. I just lay there and watched her sleep, occasionally running my finger over the soft lines of her face. I left her just as the sun was about to rise; she was asleep, a content smile playing across her lips. I did not wish to leave her, but I was vulnerable during the day, without the protection of my coffin.

If I had known that it was our last time together, I would have stayed longer. I would have risked it.

She died the next night.

I still haven't forgiven Goldangemon for that. Forgiveness isn't in my nature either.

It was his fault, he killed her. He was coming for me, to 'end my evil reign', and he did not see her. His Evangelic Sword was leveled straight at me, and he released it straight for my heart.

I still don't know why Angel did it. She leapt in front of me, taking the full force of the attack. I was furious.

Furious with him. Furious with her.

My anger fueled my power to new heights and Goldangemon was driven away, I wanted to chase after him and destroy him, but I did not want to leave Angel alone. In the end my desire for Angel won out. I let him go. If we ever meet again I will destroy him.

I knelt and scooped the child into my arms. I could tell she was fading, but I flew back to the castle, hoping against hope that she would survive. That I could stop her from dying.

I was only fooling myself. She was human. Nothing I could do would save her. She was beyond my help.

But that didn't stop me from trying, and I refused to leave her alone. I was with her to the end. I sat next to her on the bed and clung to her arms, willing her to cling to life. But the injury was too bad. Too fatal.

She died, disintegrating into data in my arms.

I vaguely remember howling my anger to the world. How dare the world let something like this happen to me. I vaguely remember the anguish I felt.

It was only then that I really understood how much I cared for Angel. She had been my mate, by human standards, I suppose one would say she was my wife. I had other women, before and after her. But I never felt the same way as I had for that last, sweet night with her.

It's been twelve long years since then. I've tried to defeat the digidestined twice since then. And failed. I often wonder if the outcome of those battles would have been different if Angel had still been by my side.

She was so efficient.

It is hard for me to admit, even to myself, that I miss her. But I do.

I especially missed her while I inhabited Owikiwa Yukio. So often I wondered what it would have been like to hold her with his body. If I would have hurt her less that way.

But no amount of wishing will bring her back. She was human, and humans don't reconfigure. When they die it is final. They die, and then they go to their eternal reward, whether it is heaven or hell. I envy them for that.

Even after I was destroyed, I received no rest. I simply reconfigured. It has taken me two years to regain my ultimate power.

But I am back. Soon, it will be time to attack the digidestined again. Regardless of my weariness of this world I will fight on. It is what I do.

Perhaps it would be easier if I could not remember Angel. But I don't think I could ever give up my memories of her. When she was with me, for those few months, I was happy.

I regret that I never told her. It is not my nature to be able to. I cannot change my nature, even for love.

Myotismon looked up sadly from the journal he had been writing. It was the first time he had really trusted himself to write about Angel without breaking down. In spite all the pain he had suffered he was glad to have known her.

She had been far different from him, he had often wondered if he would have been willing to die for her, if the tables had been reversed. He had no way of knowing.

He stood slowly, he had thought about Angel more than usual since reconfiguring. Perhaps to ensure that he had not lost any memories of her. He looked down at the light violet crystal suspended by a chain around his neck. Her memory crystal.

Over time, the day she had saved for him had faded. He had used it far more than it was designed to be used. Everything in it was much dimmer than it really was, the sun was no longer bright and the water did not glimmer. Most of the sensations had passed out of it, so there was no warmth, no smell. But still he kept it. How could he not?

He stood on the dock and looked out at the waves. The sun was already tinting the sky with pink, soon it would creep over the horizon. Angel had taught him what beauty the day held, and now he longed for it, just as he longed for her. But he could have neither. Even in his death they had been apart.

He stayed on the dock, watching the waves, until it was barely safe for him. Reluctantly he turned his back on the rising sun and returned to the darkness to wait for night to come again.

A/N I got the idea for this story while reading DuchessRaven's story Interview with the Vampire. In her story Myotismon was complaining that fanfiction writers always make him fall in love and turn good. I got to wondering why we think that falling in love makes something evil turn good. It also made me wonder why everyone thinks Myotismon needs to change. He is what he was made to be. If he were anything else he would stop being Myotismon. We need a little darkness in our lives to balance out the light.

For this reason this story is dedicated to Myotismon.

And it's not over yet either.