"Doppelgangland"
2.'Pain'
"I got a heart full of pain,
Head full of stress.
Handful of anger,
Held in my chest.
Uphill struggle,
Blood, sweat and tears.
Nothing to gain,
Everything to fear."
~ 'Nobody's listening' Linkin Park.
Gingerly, Ken opened his eyes to find he was in semi-darkness. He looked around him finding that he was in a prison, one that looked horribly familiar from his days as the Emperor. Suddenly in a rush, all the feeling in his cold body came swelling back to him and he sat up quickly to escape the icy bite of the stone floor. He quickly regretted doing such a thing as a mild migraine struck his head. He shut his eyes tight and pinched his fingers between them, in a futile attempt to stop the throbbing. As he brought his hand down, he felt a whelp on his face where a guard had struck him before throwing him into the back of a van, where he received a few shocks from a taizer gun.
He had horrible flash backs of another time he had being in the back of a van and had something cause him indescribable pain, which caused him to pass out.
And this is where he had awoken this time. He stood up and shivered. He was dressed in jeans and a thin shirt, which served no protection from the cruel breeze that, seemed to find its way through the cracks in the walls. He breathed deeply and tried to squint through the darkness of the dungeon to see what was across from him, but it was pointless, he could see nothing.
He took in another deep breath and coughed. The air was so stale and heavy that it seemed impossible to breathe. Not to mention the sickening stench that had just found its way to Ken's nostrils.
'I know that smell.' He thought to himself. He looked around him; 'It smells like the Dark Ocean's beach.' He narrowed his eyes in confusion, 'That's odd.'
The sound of footsteps getting louder ripped him from his thoughts and a sickening dread filled his gut. It was time for his so-called-punishment. And as he saw it, time to get some answers. But what bothered Ken most was that he had no idea why he was in this prison in the first place and why everyone wanted to attack him. A dreadful thought filled his mind of the Ken in this world being the Emperor, but he wasn't just taking over the Digital world, but the Human world too. He shuddered and saw a tall man dressed in navy blue with a navy blue cap on his head, standing in front of his cage. He instinctively stepped back and the man began turning the key in the lock.
Suddenly Ken didn't want to know what was going on in this dimension. He didn't want to know who had locked him up or why they were going to punish him. What he did know is that he would escape at the first possible chance and that chance was now.
The tall blond man swung the door open and stepped in to grab Ken when he pulled a Judo move and forced the teen to flip over Ken's back and land hard on the floor, knocking the wind from him. The man grunted and tried to sit up, but Ken punched him in the face and ran like hell out the prison and down the corridor of other cages.
His speed decreased as he saw that the cages were filled with people and one of them held Yolei. He dashed to the bars of her prison and held them tight; furious at how she looked. She lay helplessly on the floor in a fetal position, but she looked very different to how she had looked a few hours ago. This girl lying there looked like she hadn't had a good meal in a long while. She also wore a torn and tattered dress and her hair was messy and unwashed.
Suddenly the girl sparked to life at the site of the young man standing in front of her and she rose to her feet. "Ken!" she breathed, "I'm sorry, I failed you. They caught me as soon as you escaped from the base. What are you doing here? You'll be killed, get out of here!"
"Yolei?" Ken questioned confused at what she was saying.
"Go Ken." She said quietly, as if it took all her strength to say it.
His heart filled with a deep pity for the girl and a deep affection and he lightly touched her hand that was resting on the bars, "You're freezing." He gasped.
Suddenly she grabbed his hand with a grip that was surprisingly strong. She looked into his eyes with a fear that was so intense. "I don't want to lose you Ken."
"What did they do to you?" he asked.
"It doesn't matter now, all that matters is that you get out of here!"
"Not without you."
For a flicker, her eyes left his to look behind him, but it was too late for her to scream or for him to react. The Sniper had struck him with the back of his gun and Ken fell to the floor, his world swirling in and out of focus.
~~~~****~~~~
TK handed Ken a cup of coffee and the young man took it gratefully, "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Kari sat down across from him and folded her legs; "So what you were trying to say is that your brother became the Digimon Emperor?"
The indigo-haired teen looked up sharply, "How do you know about the Emperor?"
"The Ken from our world," Cody began with a bite of repressed bitterness, "he was once called the Digimon Emperor, and from what you've told us about your brother, he seems to be an extreme version him."
"We call him Kaiser, but I'm curious about Ken being the Emperor, how did that happen?" he asked.
"It happened years ago," Davis began, "after his brother, Sam died."
They watched Ken's face drain of colour, but Davis continued.
"Because of his jealously for all the attention that Sam got, he wished that Sam would disappear and then he did. He felt so guilty about that. Then he was infected with a Dark Spore, which caused him to become the Digimon Emperor until we defeated him and befriend him."
Ken let the information filter into his brain and then looked up at them again, "He was infected with a Dark Spore?"
"Yes."
"And Osamu, sorry, Sam, wasn't?" Ken asked.
"No, he died before that happened." Cody informed him.
"Why?" TK inquired.
"Well it's just that, Osamu was infected with the Dark Spore as well as myself, though we called it a Dark Seed."
Kari's attention peeked, "Both of you were infected?"
He nodded his head.
"Then why did it only take affect on him? When Ken was infected with it, he was sucked into the Dark Ocean realm and that's where he changed. Then it started to feed off his darker impulses and he became the Emperor." Kari inquired gently.
"I don't know why it hasn't taken affect on me yet. I don't even know why it affected Osamu so badly. All I do know is that Osamu created his own Digivice because he was so jealous of me for being chosen for something important. After doing that he joined me in the desert where my digimon and I were finishing off a digimon called Millenniumon. When I saw these black things zooming at Stingmon and I, I shoved him out the way and took one myself in the back of my neck. That's when I heard my brother scream. I didn't know he had been there and I couldn't save him from it." Ken hung his head with shame.
"That's when he changed right?" Davis asked.
Ken lifted his head again to regard the teen, "No, he only started to change a few years later. About four or five, I can't really remember now. First he started to take over the digital world and then he eventually ran away from home to live there. And that's when the big trouble started. Nothing any of us did, not the old or new Chosen Children could stop him. He couldn't be reasoned with until Kouen talked him into coming back to the Human world. But even then he wasn't quite right and that's when he began slowly but surely taking over Japan."
The group had a suspicion that he was holding back some information but they let it slide for now, there were more pressing matters to discuss.
"How is that possible?" TK marveled.
"Yeah," Cody added, "it's not like in the digital world where digimon are controlled with Dark Rings and stuff. People can't be controlled like that."
"Can't they?" Ken looked at them darkly, "Osamu altered the rings and spirals to work on human beings. On people. There are a few different types, but the main, basic ring which is on all the Snipers-"
"Snipers?" Gatomon inquired. They hadn't heard a peep out of all the digimon so far so it gave them a start when she did speak and they all looked down at her.
"Snipers are sort of like Osamu's army. Like his personal police or something. They do all his bidding. They capture and kill for him. Basically whatever Osamu orders them to do, they do it. He has complete control over them. Then there is the type that Kouen is forced to wear."
"That's the third time you have mentioned Kouen, who is that?" Cody asked.
Ken paused for a long while before he finally took in a deep breath and exhaled loudly. "She was the love of Osamu's life. To me, she was like an older sister. The three of us used to spend a lot of time together but then something happened and she didn't visit us as much as she used to. Her and Osamu had a fight, she hardly talked to me about it and it was impossible to ask Osamu because at that stage he had begun working on taking over Japan."
"You think maybe she broke his heart and it caused a reaction with the Dark Spore?" Kari asked.
Ken shrugged, "It's possible. Anyway, now he has her wondering around his base like a prize that he won and she is wearing a Black Ring that doesn't control her exactly but forces her to act like he wants her to."
"That's so sad." Kari mumbled.
"Why doesn't any one fight him?" Davis questioned, "I mean, other countries and stuff, why don't they get involved?"
Ken gave a hollow laugh, "They are too afraid. Technically Osamu owns the world because he has all the power. If another country decided to try and bomb his base or one of them anyway, he would just send a few powerful digimon to go and destroy a part of their country or kill a political leader. It happened once before and no one has dared to go against him again. So that is where us Chosen Children came in." He sighed heavily, "We formed a resistance and tried to fight the Kaiser but he was many and we were few. Eventually more and more people began joining us and standing up to him. So we have been fighting in our own way. We've managed to save a few Snipers by breaking their rings and they have joined our side, but it's not enough. We fought battle after battle and eventually we lost too much."
"So you thought the only option left was to assassinate him?" Cody asked quietly.
Ken turned to him, "Don't judge me until you know what I know and you have seen what I have seen. Iori would tell you the same thing if he were alive."
Cody blanched and held Upamon tight.
"So you see why your Ken is in so much danger. If he is in my world, everyone will naturally assume it's me and the Snipers will take him to Osamu to be punished and probably even killed. I was trying to escape to the Digital world because it's the safest place at the moment. No Snipers can enter it only Osamu can and when I left him he was in no state to do that. Which meant that he could not send out orders for Digimon to hunt for me. By the time he was fit enough to enter the Digital world I would have been so far into it that it would have taken him years to find me.
But instead I ended up here, in your realm. Osamu must have tampered with the gates somehow before I escaped. He knew that I would head for the Digital world."
"He was probably trying to block the gate and instead ended up opening up a portal to other dimensions." TK concluded.
"Exactly." Ken said nodding sadly.
"We have to save Ken and Yolei." Davis stated.
"Easier said than done." TK muttered.
~~~~****~~~~
The tall Sniper shoved the dazed indigo-haired teenager through a door with a high arch. Ken narrowed his eyes against the light coming from the room. It was a strong contrast to the dark and dank corridor he had just come from.
The Sniper forced him to move to the middle of the room, which resembled a sports area, or one of those arenas that Gladiators used to fight in. Ken tilted his head to look up but felt the strong light pierce his already aching head and so he dropped his chin again and looked at the dusty caramel floor.
The Sniper used his foot to kick the back of Ken's knee, forcing him to fall hard onto his knees. "You will bow to the Kaiser." The Sniper spat at him and then left Ken alone in the large room, closing the door behind him.
Through the confusion of the situation, Ken gritted his teeth in anger for what the Sniper had told him to do. Even though Ken was no longer the Emperor he still did sometimes think what the Emperor would have thought and at this very moment he was thinking he was too proud to bow down to anyone.
"I had no idea the Snipers would catch you so easily."
Ken's head lifted sharply at the voice. His heart leapt up into his throat and at the same time, his stomach disappeared. He lifted his head to look up again and used his hand to shield his eyes from the bright florescent lights. To his horror, he saw the Emperor sitting on a black velvet throne. The only difference was that this tyrant was wearing a jump suit that was white and jet-black where it should have been royal blue. Also from what he could make out, this Emperor was not wearing the violet visors that he had worn, but instead gold-rimmed glasses. The same glasses that his brother Sam had worn.
"What? No come back?"
"Who are you?" Ken asked bravely swallowing on his anxiousness.
He heard an empty laugh; "You know who I am Ototo-chan, stop playing games. We are far past that."
Ken's stomach returned and it filled him with a sickening feeling of joy and terror, "Sam?"
"You haven't called me that since you were eight. And you know better than to call me Osamu anyway, it's Kaiser fool, do I have to keep teaching you?"
"What's going on?" Ken demanded.
"What's going on?" he laughed again, "You tried to kill me Ototo-chan remember? In my sleep, like a coward!"
Ken's eyes widened and the conversation of the two Snipers filled his head again, "Wait!" he yelled desperately, "There's something I have to tell you!"
"And what is that?"
"You won't believe me." He confessed quietly, "But I have to tell you."
"Speak then and stop wasting my time."
"I don't know how it happened, but I was brought to your world by accident. I don't belong here."
The Kaiser frowned deeply and tried to stand, but felt his wound sting and Kouen helped his back into his seat. "Not your world? Please? Do you honestly expect me to believe this lie just to spare you from the punishment of attempted murder? For a fleeting moment Ken, I thought you were smart and brave. I thought that you would come here again and fight me like a man, but you aren't a man and you certainly aren't brave or smart. If you were you would have confessed your crime and I would have gone easier on you. You're a fool dear brother, you always were and you always will be."
Ken's eyes dropped to the floor as his hand dropped to his side. A great sadness filled him as the words of his older brother filled his ears, but he quickly reminded himself that this was not his brother, but another version of his brother. But still, a part of him remembered back to the day when Sam would get angry with him and call him hurtful and degrading things.
He sighed deeply and shrugged, what else could he say, what else was there for him to do? He had no proof of his statement and even if he did, he doubted that the Kaiser would care. He knew this because a part of him remembered how it felt to think as the Emperor and the Emperor would only care that punishment was given out.
His thoughts were confirmed when he heard Osamu say, "Besides, brother, you look like Ken, you sound like Ken you move like Ken, so therefore you must be Ken. And if you are Ken, you must be killed."
Ken's head flew up at the Kaiser with shock all over his face. His eyes were wide and full of horror.
"But first you will suffer a little for my entertainment." He turned to Kouen who nodded as if reading his thoughts and hopped onto the balcony edge. She teetered there for a moment before forcing her weight forward, sending her to fall down to the arena below. Ken thought for sure that she would kill herself if she continued to fall like that, but in an instant, the nimble young woman somersaulted in mid air and landed gracefully in a crouched position. It was clear to Ken that she was an expert in a fighting and the martial arts. He hopped he would not have to fight her, for he did not like the idea of using his skills in Judo to hurt this woman.
To his relief, she sauntered past him, her copper braid swinging at her back with each step and stopped in front of a cage, which lead onto the arena. However, the terrible uneasy feeling of what was in that cage soon swallowed that relief.
When Ken saw what it was he was to fight, he began wishing it had been a man-eating lion or even Daemon, but instead it was a person who resembled his best friend, Davis. He knew that it wasn't Davis, but rather it was this world's version of him. But that didn't make it any easier for Ken to fight him. He had no desire to hurt him.
Suddenly a thought floated to him, where was this Ken? What would he do if he were forced to fight his best friend? And the answer came to him easily, for he was Ken, he would not fight him. He would refuse to fight.
"There Ken." The Kaiser called, "You are to fight Daisuke, your best friend, to the death."
"I will not fight him!" Ken yelled angrily, "How can you expect me to?"
Osamu laughed cruelly, "I never did Ken. I know you too well. So in a twist of fate, he will kill you for me."
Ken glanced at Daisuke and noticed that he wore a Dark Ring on his left wrist, just like the Snipers. He also noticed that the goggle-wearing teen's eyes were slightly red and glazed over. Then he turned to Kouen who stood frozen by the cage. She too was wearing a ring, though her eyes were not red and slightly less glazed over. He ran to her, grabbed her shoulders and began shaking her, "Why do you not stop him? I know you can hear me! You have to fight it! You can't let him keep controlling you!"
For a brief second he could see something in her spark, but it was gone as soon as it had come and Osamu was screaming down at him.
"NO ONE TALKS TO KOUEN, MY QUEEN! UNHAND HER AT ONCE!" He looked down at Daisuke, "KILL KEN! COURAGE, I ORDER YOU TO KILL HIM!"
With those words, Daisuke dashed at Ken and grabbed his neck, swinging him around and throwing at right hook to Ken's face.
~~~~****~~~~
"You said earlier that Osamu, I mean, Sam died. What happened to him?" Ken asked suddenly very interested in the story.
"Well," Davis began solemnly; Ken was about nine when it happened. They were crossing the street when a car came speeding around the corner and was about to hit Ken. Sam knocked Ken out the way and the car hit him instead. I think he died before the ambulance even got there."
Ken bowed his head and became very quiet, "How awful to see your own brother die in front of you."
"Not the same as physically killing him is it?" Cody asked earnestly though with a touch of disgust."
Ken turned very sharply to him; "I'll ask you again not to judge me Cody-kun until you have walked in my shoes."
Cody narrowed his eyes at the young man and unforgiving turned away after a moment of icy stares between them.
Ken looked to Davis, TK and Kari again, "I'm assuming Ken loved his brother till the very end?"
There was a quick glance between the Digidestined before TK answered, "Well, Ken did love his brother and he misses him terribly, but for years he felt guilty about being jealous of his brother for getting all the attention and like we said, he wished for him to disappear. Shortly after wishing that, his brother died. That's how the whole trouble of Ken turning into the Digimon Emperor started."
"He'll try to reason with him." Ken blurted out.
"Sorry?" Demiveemon asked.
"Ken, he'll try to save Osamu, try to sympathize with him, especially because he has been there and because he feels guilty about losing one brother he'll try to make up for it with my brother." Ken concluded.
"You think he will?" Kari asked.
"I would." Ken said sadly.
"How are we going to get to your world?" Gatomon urged.
"That's a good question." Ken ran his hands through his hair, which was a mannerism they were not used to seeing on Ken because their Ken did not like to mess anything up, he liked things to be as neat as possible. Clearly this Ken was far past that line of thinking.
"You'll be killed if you go back there." Kari suddenly stated as if the thought had only recently entered her head, "You can't go back."
"I have to. This is my burden, not his. I am the one who deserved to be punished not him. Besides, there are too many people back home who are depending on me and relying on me to finish the job."
"How can you just kill your own brother?" Cody spat.
Ken sighed heavily, "Stop trying to understand me Hida. My brother is too far-gone, there is nothing left to save, even if he wanted to be saved. He's done too much, hurt too many people, killed too many people, not to mention Digimon."
The child of Knowledge and Reliability jumped up, unable to hold it in anymore, "How can you say he is a lost cause? How can you just give up on your own brother? How could you kill him?"
Ken gritted his teeth and slowly turned to him, "Why do you have such a huge chip on your shoulder about this? Is this how you treated your Ken, your friend, when he stopped being the Kaiser?" Ken stood up, "I ask you again not to judge me until you have seen what I have seen. I saw the death of Iori Hida, your Doppelganger by the hands of my brother. Now ask me again. How can I avenge the death of my friend? How can I avenge the death of my partner? How can I avenge the pain of so many?"
Unable to reply, Cody sat down again and did not utter another word.
Ken looked at the rest of the group again as he sat, "Now, who is the person you go to for all computer knowledge?"
"I'll phone and see if Izzy is home." TK said jumping up.
~~~~****~~~~
Yolei paced in front of Hikari and the young man who was with her, glancing every now and then at the huge warehouse they were living in. By the looks of the place, it seemed hundreds of people lived there. The building resembled an old prison, with balconies on every floor. The doors along the corridors were to offices and some had windows which had a view of the whole warehouse and the middle floor. There was a large space in the middle of the warehouse where crates and boxes, tables and chairs as well as mattresses were scattered. To the side were two rooms. One was an old control room office; the other looked like a dojo. Then there was the cafeteria, which was off to the side behind the office. Some floors up, the platforms and other areas had been made into makeshift bedrooms with old mattresses and a few personal belongings of who ever slept there. Lots of people, ranging from young teens to adults were scattered around the warehouse.
Yolei resumed her focus and finished her sentence, "Anyway, we were sucked into the computer like always, but then instead of ending up in the Digital world, we ended up in this world. This world where everything is confusing."
Hikari, who was sitting on a large crate, thought for a moment, "I guess we are a parallel dimension and somehow the gates to the Digital world were altered. Which begs the question, what happened to our Ken?"
"He quite possibly could have switched places with Ken and Yolei here." The chocolate-haired teen shrugged.
"I'm sorry you never did tell me your name." Yolei said turning to him.
"Sorry, it's Mike."
Yolei frowned, "You have an accent."
"Yeah, I was born in New York and moved here a about two years ago." He held out his hand in a gesture to shake it with Yolei, who lightly shook it.
"Nice to meet you, Mike."
"Mike joined the resistance about a year back after his home was torn down to make the Kaiser's base. Or one of them anyway." Hikari ground out.
"That's horrible." Yolei gasped.
Mike shrugged, "Kaiser takes what he wants, when he wants. We've learned to get used to it."
"But it doesn't make it right." Hikari said, balling her hands into fists.
"No, it doesn't."
"How long ago did this all start?" Yolei asked shocked.
"About three, four years ago, I think. I'm losing track."
The lavender haired girl looked around, "Where are the other Digidestined?"
"You mean Chosen Children?" Hikari asked, "Some we lost to the Kaiser, others were captured and the rest are out patrolling. They will be back soon." She bit off the sentence and hopped off the crate, "Excuse me." And she turned and walked to a small room in the back of the warehouse.
"She doesn't like to talk about it. At first she used to cry about it, now she just gets more and more angry every time the subject is mentioned." Mike informed Yolei.
"That's horrible." The girl muttered and looked at the door that Hikari had just gone through.
~~~~****~~~~
Daisuke made another attempted to kick Ken in the gut, but the swift blocking he did stopped every blow. Growing more frustrated at being unable to fulfil his master's order, Daisuke dropped and did a sweeping kick, causing Ken to loose his footing. He stumbled backwards, leaving him momentarily off guard, letting Daisuke get in a strong punch to Ken's face again.
Reeling, Ken retaliated in instinct with a right hook of his own. It connected but seemed to do little more than anger Daisuke further.
"I don't want to hurt you." Ken panted and blocked another punch from Daisuke. However Ken noticed that the angrier Daisuke became, the stronger and faster he got. Soon Ken felt a kick to his chest, which winded him and sent him flying backwards. He tried to catch his breath as quickly as possible and to stand, but Daisuke was there, standing over him. The young man began kicking Ken in the abdomen and in the ribs until he gave one last strong kick to his side, causing Ken to roll onto his back.
Ken felt the weight of Daisuke sitting on his chest and then felt the steel grip of his fingers lock around his neck. If Ken kept refusing to fight back, Daisuke would kill him and he could not let that be on this young man's conscious. Rather hurt him now, physically, than let him live with the emotional scars. If only he could find the strength to fight back. He clawed at the ground, as he felt his lungs burn and his brain cry out for oxygen.
----~~~~-----
Ken: You are cruel, you know that?
Nic: Aww I'm sorry Ken-chan, but Osamu is a cruel person and you have to get beaten up.
Wormmon: He doesn't have to suffer you know.
Kaiser: And where's the fun in that?
Nic: I hate to admit it, but Kaiser is right, we love to feel sorry for Ken and well…
Osamu: And well, you just love to hurt him.
Nic: Well, the readers love it.
Ken: That's lovely, really, that's just peachy.
Kaiser: I can't believe you are re-writing this.
Nic: Oh, will you get over it please? It's better already isn't it?
Kaiser: Yes, but don't come crying to us when you get bombarded with ideas and are stuck writing this story.
Nic: Oh, I won't, 'cause I'll have plenty of time in the holidays.
Osamu: *-* great.
Wormmon: What did happen to me in this world?
Nic: All in due time, Wormmon, all in due time. I would like to add here that I would like to thank Akino Ame for all her support and help! Also I need to add here I'm sure, that I use the Japanese names and terms in the alternate universe (Doppelgangland). To answer Sylvyr Elf's question, no, Kouen was not in the original version of this story, I just add her to it now. She gives a huge dimension to Osamu's character. Anyway, I hope you are enjoying this, and thanks to everyone who reviewed last time, if you still enjoy it, please review again. Please though, I would like to state, in your reviews, let me know about my writing, my characters (in the case of Kouen when she becomes a bigger character that is), if something confuses you (and be specific, don't just say, 'I'm confused', tell me why, so I can fix it.) Another thing, please don't ask me to read your fics, I will read what catches my attention and what I prefer to read. I only read the first three lines of a story, so if you hook me, well done, 'cause I'm very picky. Thanks again.