A/N: Due to the commands of a certain individual *coughBloodThirstyDigimonFancough* and the positive feedback from most other people, I was able to finish this in two hours. Beware of the monster paragraph and for the fact that I like to use words that aren't in the dictionary. There's some action in the end of this chapter, but mostly it's about BWG and Daisuke's flashbacks.
If you sue me
Then I will counter sue
Maybe I'll get enough money
To buy Digimon from you
(to the tune of that song that goes: We're going to the something, we're going to the fair to see the senoritas with flowers in their hair hey!)
Chapter Three: Only To Disappear Off The Face of the Earth
Black Wargreymon hated being mocked most of all, and this bridge was mocking him. Rebuilding turned out to be a more laborious task than he had first anticipated. In fact, this was the first job that he had ever done that required him to do some actual labor. In discovering this, he realized that he hated labor almost as much as he hated to be mocked. He wished that he could just close his eyes and think the bridge done and it would be finished magically before his eyes. That way he wouldn't need to use his clumsy hands for anything besides what they were meant for. Which was fighting.
The stupid bridge, he cursed, it was now in the way of his fighting. It was just one thing after another disrupting his journey - and usually the interruptions were his own fault. He was free to roam the Digital World without anymon getting in his way, but for some reason he always found himself stopping for something idiotic. Usually he would be interrupted by his body's incessant need for food and water, which pissed him off ten-fold because he was a Control Spire Digimon and therefore wasn't real enough to need food and water. He never actually fed his body; he just sat until the feeling passed over. It never occurred to him to feed his body and therefore make himself into more of a Digimon. In many ways Black Wargreymon's brain was much like a child's - it didn't function like the brain of an older, more competent Digimon. Had he been a little smarter the bridge would have been a simpler task for him.
Black Wargreymon had walked over many bridges in his life, so why was it so hard to form a mental picture of one in his mind? Finding wood for the bridge had been easy enough, so why couldn't bridge building be like finding wood? Aggravated, he plopped down onto the ground and growled quietly to himself. Why had he made a promise to build the crappy bridge anyway? Oh yeah, he remembered, it was the feeling that provoked him. If he left the bridge the way it was, it would come back to haunt him and force him to finish. That was the other thing that prolonged his journey. His "feelings". Somehow he would have to find a way to rid himself of those. But in the meantime...
He set to work. In the process of his work, he lost many pieces of wood to the bottom of the canyon. He didn't understand the fact that if you laid the boards across the canyon they wouldn't stay there; they would plummet to the ground. Finally he realized that he would have to start to build the bridge by making it a little bit like a makeshift raft. Then he would attach it to the ground on the other side using big stakes.
Black Wargreymon found it difficult to keep each piece of wood an equal length to the other. He wanted his bridge to be both wide and strong. Carefully, he laid each piece side by side and pinned them together. Somehow he had even figured out that he should make some concrete, but of course he didn't know that was what the substance was called. His mixture was a little bit more like clay than concrete, but it worked just as well.
He tested out the length of the bridge he had made by picking it up and laying it across the canyon. It was too short and it fell between the space, startling Black Wargreymon enough for him to waver and lose his balance. He caught the bridge before it fell through, thankfully, and continued to lengthen it.
By the time he was done he had splinters in his hands and his large claws looked brittle and painful. Unfortunately for Black Wargreymon, he had never heard of a nail file, so his nails continued to bother him. Still, he wasn't quite finished. He had to make sure that the bridge fit properly in the canyon this time and he had to nail it down. Sighing, he picked up the massive structure once more. This time it fit perfectly, so he secured the ends with stakes.
When he had finally finished, he sat back, frowning at the new structure. Something important was missing. He thought about all of the bridges he had seen, and pondered about what was different about his. Then it came to him. Most of the bridges he had come across, although plain and terribly dangerous, had some kind of rail for a traveler to hang on to. Sometimes they made of rope, sometimes of vine, but Black Wargreymon's would be constructed with the same materials he used for the rest of the bridge - wood.
The hardest part about making the rail, he found, was to make the wood for it completely smooth. If someone were to touch an unshaved piece of wood, his hand would burn with splinters. Black Wargreymon wanted his bridge to be just like him - the perfect being, able to withhold anything and to strengthen with every battle. Most of all, never to need any charity from anyone else and to stand-alone in a world full of conversing beings. So, he used his torn claws to achieve this perfection.
In the end the rail had begun to take some shape. It looked like it belonged in a house - the large kind that Black Wargreymon had been to once. Black Wargreymon flew up higher to make sure that his new bridge would be hard to miss. It was gigantic, almost as massive as Black Wargreymon himself. He guessed that the Tapirmon wouldn't need a new bridge any time soon.
Speaking of the Tapirmon... They would probably come back to the bridge soon. Black Wargreymon hid himself in the shadows because he didn't want the Tapirmon to see him and get scared. That way they would never get to see the bridge and Black Wargreymon would never get to see their reactions. He wouldn't miss that for the Digital World.
***
The Digimon clique sat impatiently for their friend to come. Koushirou, meanwhile, continue to labor over his failed experiments. His usual high vocabulary was muffled with various curse words. The group stayed clear of him until he had finished, because he was working a lot harder than he usually did and dwelling a lot longer on it than he should have. They assumed that it was a genius thing, and that Koushirou's brain felt threatened a bit by Ken. He wasn't about to give in and say that Ken had the superior intellect. He tapped furiously at the worn keyboard, like a convict would his against prison bars. If the Digidestined would have thought to get close enough to his computer, they would have noticed that Koushirou was just pressing random keys on his keyboard and writing gibberish to his online chat buddies. Even he had given up on his own attempts to make the device work.
Daisuke sat silently in the background; his back propped up against a tree. Ken would never, ever be this late. Whenever he and Daisuke promised to meet, Ken would always be there first, waiting patiently and watching cars speed by in his boredom. Now that he thought about it, Ken and Daisuke met a lot. They knew each other extremely well and had a relationship that was dreamt of by most children their age. Although Daisuke usually did most of the talking when they were together, and although Ken fixed his eyes to the asphalt, they were really very close. Daisuke enjoyed Ken's company because Ken was always smart enough to know when Daisuke was hurting, even though he smiled through it. He depended on the fact that Ken always took him seriously (at times too seriously, for when Daisuke made a smart joke his eyes would meet Daisuke's with a mix of shock and pure horror) and listened to him blabber for as long as it contented him to do so. In return, Daisuke would attempt to tear Ken from his shy persona. For when he was certain Daisuke and he were alone, only then he would start talking and ribbing a little more. It bothered Daisuke for a while when Ken didn't laugh for a month after Christmas; then Ken's kindly mother comforted him and told him that he was a very lucky boy. She hadn't heard her own son laugh in a genuine way since he was six years old. Since his brother died. Daisuke had then given her a hug and apologized for bringing up the touchy subject. He knew the love that she shared between both of her sons, dead and alive, was incredibly strong. One day she had even taken him aside and thanked him over and over for being her son's friend and for giving him hope - something she had tried repeatedly to give to her son, but failed miserably each time. She knew that he would need someone his age and someone that could relate to him in order for hope to work. That someone was Daisuke. Before Daisuke could reply to her kind words, his mouth was rewarded with a fresh, delicate and delicious chocolate chip cookie. It was warm and moist and the presumably homemade chocolate chips oozed between his gums and evaporated on his soft, pink tongue. His own mother could cook, but not *this * well!
After ten cookies, Mr. Ichijouji entered the scene. At the sight of him, Daisuke stopped eating and straightened politely in his chair. Although his appearance revealed that he was a kind and gentle human being, Mr. Ichijouji was respected for different reasons. Years of bragging about his genius sons and dealing with the mounds of grief that eventually spurred from that had earned him this respect. Women respected him because after being married to his wife for so long, he still held her hand in public, took her dancing on his nights off and took her to dinner whenever she complied. Usually she would politely turn him down and say that they have food in their house and she would cook. He knew that even if he removed every item from the fridge, she still wouldn't leave. She would be too worried about Ken.
Daisuke's impression of this man was none - he wasn't the type to judge upon first impression. Since he didn't know Mr. Ichijouji, he would leave his opinions to himself until he could get a better analysis. It didn't take much to be in Daisuke's goodbooks: some food here, a listening ear there - and of course you couldn't be like T.B. but if you were like Hikari, he would like you more…
Mrs. Ichijouji greeted her husband cheerfully at the door before refilling Daisuke's plate with more cookies. Mr. Ichijouji joined Daisuke at the table and watched him devour the cookies. It took Daisuke a moment to realize that he was being watched. When he did, he offered Mr. Ichijouji a cookie without pausing his own eating.
"So you're Ken's friend, huh?" A nod confirmed Mr. Ichijouji's assumption. "I sure hope some of your eating habits rub off on my son," he chuckled, only half-joking. He ate the cookies Daisuke had offered to him in two exact bites, paused to see if his wife was looking and then rubbed the crumbs off on his navy blue blazer when her attention was elsewhere.
"I'm trying Ichijouji-san," Daisuke replied seriously.
"Good boy," Mr. Ichijouji said warmly. "My wife and I are counting on friends like you to protect our son."
"Protect him from what?" To Daisuke, Ken had seemed very self-reliant. He also knew and practiced judo sometimes.
It was Mrs. Ichijouji's turn to put her two cents in at the table. "From the evils of this world - drugs, alcohol, strangers. And, especially, from whatever he ran into when he was… away. Daisuke, do you know where he went?"
Daisuke decided just then that he had had enough cookies. He took his time licking the excess chocolate from his now-trembling hands. "Gee," he lied, "I really don't know."
Much to Daisuke's relief, they decided to change the subject. "How did you two become such good friends?"
"Soccer game," he replied simply, trying not to blink more times than was the norm. He'd learn that little trick from his sister Jun.
Mrs. Ichijouji began to tear and her ever-loving husband, the one who stuck by her even when they lost their first son, rubbed her shoulder in slow, comforting circles. Daisuke was even starting to feel a little bit uncomfortable. Not only because of the display of raw emotion before him but also because he really wanted to tell them about the Digital World. Chibimon, the Digimon who failed the most at pretending to be a stuffed toy, took that impossible moment to writher in Daisuke's lap, adding to his discomfort. Although his human friend had his fill of cookies, Chibimon wanted more. He was silenced with a brisk tap on the forehead. Daisuke clasped his hands around Chibimon's waist and was about to whisk him out from under the table to show the Ichijouji's the truth when…
Ken walked through the door. He was proudly wearing the Tamachi soccer jersey, which was slightly camouflaged by grass stains and excess dirt. It had rained the day before, making the grass slippery and wet. Ken, normally a rocket, "rocketed" to the ground several times that day, to his utter dismay. His teammates, only slightly adjusted to Ken's attitude change, left him alone to pick himself of the ground when he fell. They once had a very unpleasant experience when Ken was possessed and mean-spirited, where he had given a dull-looking boy a black eye for touching his hand. Instead of cowering in fear from him, Ken had earned respect as a ruffian. Still, they did not look forward to a repeat performance. The dull boy had thought he'd felt his eye sinking into the socket and needed to be taken to the hospital.
Besides the stains on his uniform and a miniscule scrape on the cheek, Ken was the essence of perfection. He was so silent in coming inside that only Daisuke noticed because he was facing toward the door. Every last hair was tacked into its rightful position, Daisuke noticed. It looked as though Ken had just borrowed a dirty uniform.
"Hi everyone," he greeted as he slid on his slippers. He walked into the kitchen, where he was nabbed in mid-step. If Daisuke had better hearing he could have sworn that there had been a popping noise from air rushing in to fill the recently vacated space. Ken struggled in his mother's deadly grip, his cheeks a burning rouge.
"Mama!" he protested, "Mama, I'm *dirty * and we have a *guest *!" He paused for a moment and wormed around to get a better look at his Mama's face. Immediately, he was concerned. Lately his mother had been holding him a lot but this time she looked really upset. He shot Daisuke a look, then asked,
"Mama, why are you crying?"
"I'm just so glad you're back!" she exclaimed, burying her face in his hair, much to his surprise. Awkwardly, he placed a hand on his mother's arm and rubbed it gently. Daisuke tried to keep from giggling because Ken's mom had mussed up his hair, causing it to tangle and clump together at the top of his head. He noted mentality to tease Ken later about trying a new hairstyle.
"Take a cookie, Ken," his mother urged, teasing his hair back into place.
"Oh, that's okay Mama," Ken rejected quietly, moving a little out of his mother's steel-like embrace.
"Take one!" Mr. Ichijouji, Mrs. Ichijouji and Daisuke shouted simultaneously.
"Okay…" Ken agreed, slightly unnerved by the sudden peer pressure. Daisuke pushed the plate forward and Ken nervously took a cookie from his mother's oriental plate.
Daisuke could finish his cookies in one large gulp; Ken's father in two, but it took Ken fifteen dainty bites until the cookie was dissolving in his stomach. To Daisuke the speed (or lack there of) was agonizing. He usually didn't even see most of the food he shoved into his mouth and watching Ken he could see every crumb. A stray crumb lingered at the side of Ken's mouth, but a slow-working tongue lapped it up. Daisuke had eaten two batches of cookies, but watching Ken eat made his stomach churn hungrily. He picked up a cookie from the plate and stuffed the entire thing into his waiting mouth. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ken cringe as he nibbled on the cookie, still as slow as before. Daisuke chewed twice and then swallowed, showing his new best friend the only way to eat a cookie.
Ken grimaced. He had never seen such a display of unmannerly and rude behavior. Daisuke was throwing food into his mouth at such a blinding speed it was lost in the black cavern before Ken could even see it. Of all of the Digidestined, Daisuke and Ken foiled each other the most. Their personalities differed so much that it was difficult to see how a friendship would have brewed out of this. Little did those people know, but Daisuke had a way of making these types of friendships work, even when the person was so completely different that he was the only Digidestined that ate (and swallowed) caviar. Ken swore to him that it only tasted good on whole-grain breads and such after Daisuke had engulfed and puked half a jar of the stuff.
From Ken's point of view, Daisuke's eating habits were more agonizing than his were. He had eaten two slices of pizza before he came home from soccer and was too full to handle any contests with his best friend. Now he had to sit and watch Daisuke chew with his mouth wide open. Little pieces of cookie-encrusted spittle found there way across the table to Ken's side and Ken protectively blocked his cookie with the back of his hand.
"Aww, c'mon Ken, it's just a little spit!" Daisuke laughed, spraying crumbs that were stuck between his teeth. Ken bit back a laugh - there was so much chocolate on his teeth that Ken could have told someone that Daisuke had gingivitis and they would have believed him.
"If only Hikari could see you now," Ken said, finally giving in to his laughter.
Ken's mom squeezed him tighter at the sound of his laughter. He got comfortable in her lap because he had a strange feeling that he was going to be there for a while. Daisuke and he exchanged more serious looks from across the table and Ken noticed that he was pointing to a wiggling Chibimon in his lap. He sighed and cleared his throat, upset that he would finally have to tell his story to his parents.
Ken told the long story, starting with his childhood and the feelings he had and not bothering to censor any part of it. All of it was important, even the part about Ken wishing that his brother would disappear. Through everything Ken was glad he had a friend there to guide him and to fill him in on the parts which he was absent for. Ken's parents weren't disbelieving, but they were shocked about how much had slipped by them without their knowledge. In the end even Daisuke was in tears.
Daisuke and Ken were with each other through thick and thin. Ken helped him with math; Daisuke patched up Ken-related manners with the other Digidestined. When they weren't helping each other they were having fun and terrorizing the sane people. They knew each other like they knew themselves. And while Daisuke was waiting for his friend he realized that…
Something was horribly wrong.
He expressed his concerns to the group and the group knew that Daisuke could be a flake sometimes but when it came to Ken, he knew what he was talking about. It was suggested that they trace Ken's D3 and try to pinpoint the location where he had been when they had called him last. Minutes into the search, they lost the signal.
~*~
"Where are we Wormmon? I've never been to this part of the Digital World."
"I'm sure we're heading in the right direction. I've heard about this place; apparently some really strange Digimon live here, all virus types."
"I hope they're friendly…"
"Don't worry Ken, they've never been known to attack without reason." Without reason, well that's what Ken was worried about. As far as he was concerned, every Digimon in the entire Digital World had a reason to come after him. He was not powerful anymore and he didn't have a weapon on him (he never considered Wormmon to be a weapon because he is not a material object) so the Digimon could do as they pleased. Lucky for him, most Digimon were peaceful.
He heard a rustle in the bushes behind him and he turned abruptly, almost squashing Wormmon in the process. "There's someone out there," he told Wormmon. "Come out please, and don't be afraid."
Creatures began to emerge from every crevice, rock or bush in the area. There were hundreds of them, each one a translucent shadow. The creatures whispered things among themselves and Ken only caught up to some of it. 'Yeah, he's one' 'Are you positive?' 'I never forget a face'. Ken knew that the creatures had to be talking about him and although he was frightened he wouldn't let it show through.
"I know that you're talking about me and I think I know what you're talking about. I'm sorry that I was the Kaiser and that I may have hurt you. I take full responsibility for whatever I did to harm you."
The creatures exchanged looks. "You are a brave Kaiser, child. But not brave enough. Are you now done with your old ways?"
"I swear on my own grave I am."
"So be it then, you must DIE!" The creature, who was most likely the gang leader, finally showed itself by latching onto Ken's neck. It had a transparent skin that felt pleasant and silky to the touch. Its lower body had no form and resembled a Bakemon's lower half. In comparison to the height of a Bakemon it was about an inch or so taller, but that seemed to fluctuate the more Ken struggled. The hands and arms attached to that body were ape-like, in that they were longer than its body and probably would drag along if it walked. It had the snout of a horse and the round, smooth head of a dog or cat. Instead of nostrils it had small, sharp tusks that were twisted like the ends of drills. The intense glare aimed at Ken was intelligent, superior in comparison to most Digimon. Ken knew that it would kill him if he couldn't get it off of his neck.
Meanwhile, Wormmon had Digivolved to Stingmon and was trying to pry the thing off of Ken's neck. The creature turned angrily on him and, to the amusement of his followers, told Stingmon to buzz off because the fight didn't concern him. It was either let the psychotic creature choke Ken or, the creature promised, he would snap the boy's neck with one hand. Stingmon de-Digivolved and the creature was amused to see the young Digimon in so much agony over the pain of a living boy-beast.
Ken could hardly get off of the ground and tried to breathe as much as possible while Stingmon kept the creature busy. Ken had almost drowned once in a public pool when he was little and got so scared that he practiced holding his breath every night. Now he could hold his breath for an amazing two and a half minutes, but could only survive being choked for so long. He felt that his head was starting to detach from his body and barely noticed when a young, red-transparent creature approached him.
The creature turned to his mother and said, "He don't look so scwary mama."
Mama creature panicked, rushing to her baby. She hardly noticed that, in her panic, she had mowed through Ken's legs and accidentally knocked the wobbling Ken over the edge of the cliff. Ken got a hold of the edge and tried to scream for help. The creatures watched as Wormmon, too upset to Digivolve, attempted to pull his friend to safety.
Wormmon was just too tiny to pull of that weight back up. He succeeded only in ripping Ken's favorite shirt with his mandibles and putting a crack in his left mandible. Ken was still clinging to the edge when the leader of the creatures came.
The leader looked over the situation, looked at the struggling, choked boy hanging by straining fingers from the ledge and made his decision. He lowered himself and grabbed a handful of Ken's hair with his monkey hand. Ripping Ken's head back he could see the boy was crying and struggling to breathe.
"As far as I'm concerned, I'm letting you off easy," he told Ken before adding more pressure to his head with his hand. Ken's straining fingers gave up and he let go, plunging off of the cliff and into the forest below.
A/N: Dun, Dun Dun!
PS- before I continue, I need to know…should Wormmon join Ken at the bottom of the cliff, or should they be separated. You can e-mail me or write it in a review, but it's URGENT FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER!!!
If you sue me
Then I will counter sue
Maybe I'll get enough money
To buy Digimon from you
(to the tune of that song that goes: We're going to the something, we're going to the fair to see the senoritas with flowers in their hair hey!)
Chapter Three: Only To Disappear Off The Face of the Earth
Black Wargreymon hated being mocked most of all, and this bridge was mocking him. Rebuilding turned out to be a more laborious task than he had first anticipated. In fact, this was the first job that he had ever done that required him to do some actual labor. In discovering this, he realized that he hated labor almost as much as he hated to be mocked. He wished that he could just close his eyes and think the bridge done and it would be finished magically before his eyes. That way he wouldn't need to use his clumsy hands for anything besides what they were meant for. Which was fighting.
The stupid bridge, he cursed, it was now in the way of his fighting. It was just one thing after another disrupting his journey - and usually the interruptions were his own fault. He was free to roam the Digital World without anymon getting in his way, but for some reason he always found himself stopping for something idiotic. Usually he would be interrupted by his body's incessant need for food and water, which pissed him off ten-fold because he was a Control Spire Digimon and therefore wasn't real enough to need food and water. He never actually fed his body; he just sat until the feeling passed over. It never occurred to him to feed his body and therefore make himself into more of a Digimon. In many ways Black Wargreymon's brain was much like a child's - it didn't function like the brain of an older, more competent Digimon. Had he been a little smarter the bridge would have been a simpler task for him.
Black Wargreymon had walked over many bridges in his life, so why was it so hard to form a mental picture of one in his mind? Finding wood for the bridge had been easy enough, so why couldn't bridge building be like finding wood? Aggravated, he plopped down onto the ground and growled quietly to himself. Why had he made a promise to build the crappy bridge anyway? Oh yeah, he remembered, it was the feeling that provoked him. If he left the bridge the way it was, it would come back to haunt him and force him to finish. That was the other thing that prolonged his journey. His "feelings". Somehow he would have to find a way to rid himself of those. But in the meantime...
He set to work. In the process of his work, he lost many pieces of wood to the bottom of the canyon. He didn't understand the fact that if you laid the boards across the canyon they wouldn't stay there; they would plummet to the ground. Finally he realized that he would have to start to build the bridge by making it a little bit like a makeshift raft. Then he would attach it to the ground on the other side using big stakes.
Black Wargreymon found it difficult to keep each piece of wood an equal length to the other. He wanted his bridge to be both wide and strong. Carefully, he laid each piece side by side and pinned them together. Somehow he had even figured out that he should make some concrete, but of course he didn't know that was what the substance was called. His mixture was a little bit more like clay than concrete, but it worked just as well.
He tested out the length of the bridge he had made by picking it up and laying it across the canyon. It was too short and it fell between the space, startling Black Wargreymon enough for him to waver and lose his balance. He caught the bridge before it fell through, thankfully, and continued to lengthen it.
By the time he was done he had splinters in his hands and his large claws looked brittle and painful. Unfortunately for Black Wargreymon, he had never heard of a nail file, so his nails continued to bother him. Still, he wasn't quite finished. He had to make sure that the bridge fit properly in the canyon this time and he had to nail it down. Sighing, he picked up the massive structure once more. This time it fit perfectly, so he secured the ends with stakes.
When he had finally finished, he sat back, frowning at the new structure. Something important was missing. He thought about all of the bridges he had seen, and pondered about what was different about his. Then it came to him. Most of the bridges he had come across, although plain and terribly dangerous, had some kind of rail for a traveler to hang on to. Sometimes they made of rope, sometimes of vine, but Black Wargreymon's would be constructed with the same materials he used for the rest of the bridge - wood.
The hardest part about making the rail, he found, was to make the wood for it completely smooth. If someone were to touch an unshaved piece of wood, his hand would burn with splinters. Black Wargreymon wanted his bridge to be just like him - the perfect being, able to withhold anything and to strengthen with every battle. Most of all, never to need any charity from anyone else and to stand-alone in a world full of conversing beings. So, he used his torn claws to achieve this perfection.
In the end the rail had begun to take some shape. It looked like it belonged in a house - the large kind that Black Wargreymon had been to once. Black Wargreymon flew up higher to make sure that his new bridge would be hard to miss. It was gigantic, almost as massive as Black Wargreymon himself. He guessed that the Tapirmon wouldn't need a new bridge any time soon.
Speaking of the Tapirmon... They would probably come back to the bridge soon. Black Wargreymon hid himself in the shadows because he didn't want the Tapirmon to see him and get scared. That way they would never get to see the bridge and Black Wargreymon would never get to see their reactions. He wouldn't miss that for the Digital World.
***
The Digimon clique sat impatiently for their friend to come. Koushirou, meanwhile, continue to labor over his failed experiments. His usual high vocabulary was muffled with various curse words. The group stayed clear of him until he had finished, because he was working a lot harder than he usually did and dwelling a lot longer on it than he should have. They assumed that it was a genius thing, and that Koushirou's brain felt threatened a bit by Ken. He wasn't about to give in and say that Ken had the superior intellect. He tapped furiously at the worn keyboard, like a convict would his against prison bars. If the Digidestined would have thought to get close enough to his computer, they would have noticed that Koushirou was just pressing random keys on his keyboard and writing gibberish to his online chat buddies. Even he had given up on his own attempts to make the device work.
Daisuke sat silently in the background; his back propped up against a tree. Ken would never, ever be this late. Whenever he and Daisuke promised to meet, Ken would always be there first, waiting patiently and watching cars speed by in his boredom. Now that he thought about it, Ken and Daisuke met a lot. They knew each other extremely well and had a relationship that was dreamt of by most children their age. Although Daisuke usually did most of the talking when they were together, and although Ken fixed his eyes to the asphalt, they were really very close. Daisuke enjoyed Ken's company because Ken was always smart enough to know when Daisuke was hurting, even though he smiled through it. He depended on the fact that Ken always took him seriously (at times too seriously, for when Daisuke made a smart joke his eyes would meet Daisuke's with a mix of shock and pure horror) and listened to him blabber for as long as it contented him to do so. In return, Daisuke would attempt to tear Ken from his shy persona. For when he was certain Daisuke and he were alone, only then he would start talking and ribbing a little more. It bothered Daisuke for a while when Ken didn't laugh for a month after Christmas; then Ken's kindly mother comforted him and told him that he was a very lucky boy. She hadn't heard her own son laugh in a genuine way since he was six years old. Since his brother died. Daisuke had then given her a hug and apologized for bringing up the touchy subject. He knew the love that she shared between both of her sons, dead and alive, was incredibly strong. One day she had even taken him aside and thanked him over and over for being her son's friend and for giving him hope - something she had tried repeatedly to give to her son, but failed miserably each time. She knew that he would need someone his age and someone that could relate to him in order for hope to work. That someone was Daisuke. Before Daisuke could reply to her kind words, his mouth was rewarded with a fresh, delicate and delicious chocolate chip cookie. It was warm and moist and the presumably homemade chocolate chips oozed between his gums and evaporated on his soft, pink tongue. His own mother could cook, but not *this * well!
After ten cookies, Mr. Ichijouji entered the scene. At the sight of him, Daisuke stopped eating and straightened politely in his chair. Although his appearance revealed that he was a kind and gentle human being, Mr. Ichijouji was respected for different reasons. Years of bragging about his genius sons and dealing with the mounds of grief that eventually spurred from that had earned him this respect. Women respected him because after being married to his wife for so long, he still held her hand in public, took her dancing on his nights off and took her to dinner whenever she complied. Usually she would politely turn him down and say that they have food in their house and she would cook. He knew that even if he removed every item from the fridge, she still wouldn't leave. She would be too worried about Ken.
Daisuke's impression of this man was none - he wasn't the type to judge upon first impression. Since he didn't know Mr. Ichijouji, he would leave his opinions to himself until he could get a better analysis. It didn't take much to be in Daisuke's goodbooks: some food here, a listening ear there - and of course you couldn't be like T.B. but if you were like Hikari, he would like you more…
Mrs. Ichijouji greeted her husband cheerfully at the door before refilling Daisuke's plate with more cookies. Mr. Ichijouji joined Daisuke at the table and watched him devour the cookies. It took Daisuke a moment to realize that he was being watched. When he did, he offered Mr. Ichijouji a cookie without pausing his own eating.
"So you're Ken's friend, huh?" A nod confirmed Mr. Ichijouji's assumption. "I sure hope some of your eating habits rub off on my son," he chuckled, only half-joking. He ate the cookies Daisuke had offered to him in two exact bites, paused to see if his wife was looking and then rubbed the crumbs off on his navy blue blazer when her attention was elsewhere.
"I'm trying Ichijouji-san," Daisuke replied seriously.
"Good boy," Mr. Ichijouji said warmly. "My wife and I are counting on friends like you to protect our son."
"Protect him from what?" To Daisuke, Ken had seemed very self-reliant. He also knew and practiced judo sometimes.
It was Mrs. Ichijouji's turn to put her two cents in at the table. "From the evils of this world - drugs, alcohol, strangers. And, especially, from whatever he ran into when he was… away. Daisuke, do you know where he went?"
Daisuke decided just then that he had had enough cookies. He took his time licking the excess chocolate from his now-trembling hands. "Gee," he lied, "I really don't know."
Much to Daisuke's relief, they decided to change the subject. "How did you two become such good friends?"
"Soccer game," he replied simply, trying not to blink more times than was the norm. He'd learn that little trick from his sister Jun.
Mrs. Ichijouji began to tear and her ever-loving husband, the one who stuck by her even when they lost their first son, rubbed her shoulder in slow, comforting circles. Daisuke was even starting to feel a little bit uncomfortable. Not only because of the display of raw emotion before him but also because he really wanted to tell them about the Digital World. Chibimon, the Digimon who failed the most at pretending to be a stuffed toy, took that impossible moment to writher in Daisuke's lap, adding to his discomfort. Although his human friend had his fill of cookies, Chibimon wanted more. He was silenced with a brisk tap on the forehead. Daisuke clasped his hands around Chibimon's waist and was about to whisk him out from under the table to show the Ichijouji's the truth when…
Ken walked through the door. He was proudly wearing the Tamachi soccer jersey, which was slightly camouflaged by grass stains and excess dirt. It had rained the day before, making the grass slippery and wet. Ken, normally a rocket, "rocketed" to the ground several times that day, to his utter dismay. His teammates, only slightly adjusted to Ken's attitude change, left him alone to pick himself of the ground when he fell. They once had a very unpleasant experience when Ken was possessed and mean-spirited, where he had given a dull-looking boy a black eye for touching his hand. Instead of cowering in fear from him, Ken had earned respect as a ruffian. Still, they did not look forward to a repeat performance. The dull boy had thought he'd felt his eye sinking into the socket and needed to be taken to the hospital.
Besides the stains on his uniform and a miniscule scrape on the cheek, Ken was the essence of perfection. He was so silent in coming inside that only Daisuke noticed because he was facing toward the door. Every last hair was tacked into its rightful position, Daisuke noticed. It looked as though Ken had just borrowed a dirty uniform.
"Hi everyone," he greeted as he slid on his slippers. He walked into the kitchen, where he was nabbed in mid-step. If Daisuke had better hearing he could have sworn that there had been a popping noise from air rushing in to fill the recently vacated space. Ken struggled in his mother's deadly grip, his cheeks a burning rouge.
"Mama!" he protested, "Mama, I'm *dirty * and we have a *guest *!" He paused for a moment and wormed around to get a better look at his Mama's face. Immediately, he was concerned. Lately his mother had been holding him a lot but this time she looked really upset. He shot Daisuke a look, then asked,
"Mama, why are you crying?"
"I'm just so glad you're back!" she exclaimed, burying her face in his hair, much to his surprise. Awkwardly, he placed a hand on his mother's arm and rubbed it gently. Daisuke tried to keep from giggling because Ken's mom had mussed up his hair, causing it to tangle and clump together at the top of his head. He noted mentality to tease Ken later about trying a new hairstyle.
"Take a cookie, Ken," his mother urged, teasing his hair back into place.
"Oh, that's okay Mama," Ken rejected quietly, moving a little out of his mother's steel-like embrace.
"Take one!" Mr. Ichijouji, Mrs. Ichijouji and Daisuke shouted simultaneously.
"Okay…" Ken agreed, slightly unnerved by the sudden peer pressure. Daisuke pushed the plate forward and Ken nervously took a cookie from his mother's oriental plate.
Daisuke could finish his cookies in one large gulp; Ken's father in two, but it took Ken fifteen dainty bites until the cookie was dissolving in his stomach. To Daisuke the speed (or lack there of) was agonizing. He usually didn't even see most of the food he shoved into his mouth and watching Ken he could see every crumb. A stray crumb lingered at the side of Ken's mouth, but a slow-working tongue lapped it up. Daisuke had eaten two batches of cookies, but watching Ken eat made his stomach churn hungrily. He picked up a cookie from the plate and stuffed the entire thing into his waiting mouth. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ken cringe as he nibbled on the cookie, still as slow as before. Daisuke chewed twice and then swallowed, showing his new best friend the only way to eat a cookie.
Ken grimaced. He had never seen such a display of unmannerly and rude behavior. Daisuke was throwing food into his mouth at such a blinding speed it was lost in the black cavern before Ken could even see it. Of all of the Digidestined, Daisuke and Ken foiled each other the most. Their personalities differed so much that it was difficult to see how a friendship would have brewed out of this. Little did those people know, but Daisuke had a way of making these types of friendships work, even when the person was so completely different that he was the only Digidestined that ate (and swallowed) caviar. Ken swore to him that it only tasted good on whole-grain breads and such after Daisuke had engulfed and puked half a jar of the stuff.
From Ken's point of view, Daisuke's eating habits were more agonizing than his were. He had eaten two slices of pizza before he came home from soccer and was too full to handle any contests with his best friend. Now he had to sit and watch Daisuke chew with his mouth wide open. Little pieces of cookie-encrusted spittle found there way across the table to Ken's side and Ken protectively blocked his cookie with the back of his hand.
"Aww, c'mon Ken, it's just a little spit!" Daisuke laughed, spraying crumbs that were stuck between his teeth. Ken bit back a laugh - there was so much chocolate on his teeth that Ken could have told someone that Daisuke had gingivitis and they would have believed him.
"If only Hikari could see you now," Ken said, finally giving in to his laughter.
Ken's mom squeezed him tighter at the sound of his laughter. He got comfortable in her lap because he had a strange feeling that he was going to be there for a while. Daisuke and he exchanged more serious looks from across the table and Ken noticed that he was pointing to a wiggling Chibimon in his lap. He sighed and cleared his throat, upset that he would finally have to tell his story to his parents.
Ken told the long story, starting with his childhood and the feelings he had and not bothering to censor any part of it. All of it was important, even the part about Ken wishing that his brother would disappear. Through everything Ken was glad he had a friend there to guide him and to fill him in on the parts which he was absent for. Ken's parents weren't disbelieving, but they were shocked about how much had slipped by them without their knowledge. In the end even Daisuke was in tears.
Daisuke and Ken were with each other through thick and thin. Ken helped him with math; Daisuke patched up Ken-related manners with the other Digidestined. When they weren't helping each other they were having fun and terrorizing the sane people. They knew each other like they knew themselves. And while Daisuke was waiting for his friend he realized that…
Something was horribly wrong.
He expressed his concerns to the group and the group knew that Daisuke could be a flake sometimes but when it came to Ken, he knew what he was talking about. It was suggested that they trace Ken's D3 and try to pinpoint the location where he had been when they had called him last. Minutes into the search, they lost the signal.
~*~
"Where are we Wormmon? I've never been to this part of the Digital World."
"I'm sure we're heading in the right direction. I've heard about this place; apparently some really strange Digimon live here, all virus types."
"I hope they're friendly…"
"Don't worry Ken, they've never been known to attack without reason." Without reason, well that's what Ken was worried about. As far as he was concerned, every Digimon in the entire Digital World had a reason to come after him. He was not powerful anymore and he didn't have a weapon on him (he never considered Wormmon to be a weapon because he is not a material object) so the Digimon could do as they pleased. Lucky for him, most Digimon were peaceful.
He heard a rustle in the bushes behind him and he turned abruptly, almost squashing Wormmon in the process. "There's someone out there," he told Wormmon. "Come out please, and don't be afraid."
Creatures began to emerge from every crevice, rock or bush in the area. There were hundreds of them, each one a translucent shadow. The creatures whispered things among themselves and Ken only caught up to some of it. 'Yeah, he's one' 'Are you positive?' 'I never forget a face'. Ken knew that the creatures had to be talking about him and although he was frightened he wouldn't let it show through.
"I know that you're talking about me and I think I know what you're talking about. I'm sorry that I was the Kaiser and that I may have hurt you. I take full responsibility for whatever I did to harm you."
The creatures exchanged looks. "You are a brave Kaiser, child. But not brave enough. Are you now done with your old ways?"
"I swear on my own grave I am."
"So be it then, you must DIE!" The creature, who was most likely the gang leader, finally showed itself by latching onto Ken's neck. It had a transparent skin that felt pleasant and silky to the touch. Its lower body had no form and resembled a Bakemon's lower half. In comparison to the height of a Bakemon it was about an inch or so taller, but that seemed to fluctuate the more Ken struggled. The hands and arms attached to that body were ape-like, in that they were longer than its body and probably would drag along if it walked. It had the snout of a horse and the round, smooth head of a dog or cat. Instead of nostrils it had small, sharp tusks that were twisted like the ends of drills. The intense glare aimed at Ken was intelligent, superior in comparison to most Digimon. Ken knew that it would kill him if he couldn't get it off of his neck.
Meanwhile, Wormmon had Digivolved to Stingmon and was trying to pry the thing off of Ken's neck. The creature turned angrily on him and, to the amusement of his followers, told Stingmon to buzz off because the fight didn't concern him. It was either let the psychotic creature choke Ken or, the creature promised, he would snap the boy's neck with one hand. Stingmon de-Digivolved and the creature was amused to see the young Digimon in so much agony over the pain of a living boy-beast.
Ken could hardly get off of the ground and tried to breathe as much as possible while Stingmon kept the creature busy. Ken had almost drowned once in a public pool when he was little and got so scared that he practiced holding his breath every night. Now he could hold his breath for an amazing two and a half minutes, but could only survive being choked for so long. He felt that his head was starting to detach from his body and barely noticed when a young, red-transparent creature approached him.
The creature turned to his mother and said, "He don't look so scwary mama."
Mama creature panicked, rushing to her baby. She hardly noticed that, in her panic, she had mowed through Ken's legs and accidentally knocked the wobbling Ken over the edge of the cliff. Ken got a hold of the edge and tried to scream for help. The creatures watched as Wormmon, too upset to Digivolve, attempted to pull his friend to safety.
Wormmon was just too tiny to pull of that weight back up. He succeeded only in ripping Ken's favorite shirt with his mandibles and putting a crack in his left mandible. Ken was still clinging to the edge when the leader of the creatures came.
The leader looked over the situation, looked at the struggling, choked boy hanging by straining fingers from the ledge and made his decision. He lowered himself and grabbed a handful of Ken's hair with his monkey hand. Ripping Ken's head back he could see the boy was crying and struggling to breathe.
"As far as I'm concerned, I'm letting you off easy," he told Ken before adding more pressure to his head with his hand. Ken's straining fingers gave up and he let go, plunging off of the cliff and into the forest below.
A/N: Dun, Dun Dun!
PS- before I continue, I need to know…should Wormmon join Ken at the bottom of the cliff, or should they be separated. You can e-mail me or write it in a review, but it's URGENT FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER!!!