77

Gray, Black, and Gold

"In spite of himself the watcher was struck with admiration for her lithe beauty. Yet at the same time a shudder of repulsion shook him, for her eyes gleamed with vibrant and magnetic evil, older than the world." – Robert E. Howard, "The Moon of Skulls"

Yamato's feet hit solid ground, jarring him. The freezing blackness had disappeared. Looking around him, he saw that he was in what must have been a restroom. No one else was present, and he wondered whether or not he was in the same building he had been in before its floor had swallowed him. Everything was silent.

He made his cautious way towards the exit. There were four stalls to be passed, and as he came to each one he pushed the door back, trying not to make any sound. It didn't make sense for Lilithmon to have simply relocated him. There was something here that could hurt him, and he wasn't about to let it take him off guard.

Having opened every stall and found all of them unoccupied, he started towards the door. Just as his hand reached it, however, he caught a glimpse of sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. Whipping his head around, he could see nothing amiss. The only things in that direction were the two sinks, set into a counter, and the long mirror above them. There was his reflection, staring back at him with suspicion. Probably it was his own movement that he had seen; he was jumping at shadows.

He returned his attention to the door and applied pressure to it, finding it heavy, but moveable. It began to open, but before he could see into the room or hallway beyond, there was another flash of movement in the direction of the mirror. Something told him that this time was different, and he wheeled to face whatever was happening.

Not his reflection this time – his reflection was gone, and the mirror was pitch black. There came a sound, the crash of phantom glass, and from the midst of the mirror's darkness emerged Lilithmon. Yamato didn't have time to react. Her left hand fastened on his neck, the long fingernails digging into his skin. She jerked him downwards and towards her, causing his stomach to collide with the edge of the counter and knocking the breath out of him. Gasping for air, he went down on both knees. He brought both of his hands up to pry hers loose, but she was ten times stronger than her physique suggested, and she kept her grip.

Lilithmon made herself comfortable atop the counter, reclining on her stomach so that she could look him in the face as she held him.

"Looks like you got the girl again," she said, smiling. Yamato's legs were working, trying to get his feet back under him, but Lilithmon tightened her stranglehold, and he got the message. He stopped trying to stand and remained on his knees, facing her with an expression he hoped had more of defiance in it than fear. He could feel a warm drop of blood on his neck where one of her nails had cut him. He gathered enough breath to speak.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I can think of several things," she said, "But mostly I want to know why only half of you are here. Where are the other six?"

Again Yamato noticed the show of ignorance. BlackTailmon had claimed not to know where Takeru and the others were, and now Lilithmon was doing the same. If Lilithmon really did have the younger Chosen Children, as Taichi had been told, why would she pretend otherwise? Not only was this a trap – it was starting to look as if it hadn't even been baited to begin with.

"They're not here," he said. It was the most noncommittal thing he could think to say. It was at once a play for more time, and a tactic for getting Lilithmon to tell what she knew.

"I know that," Lilithmon said, her violet-painted eyelids lowered in boredom. "Come on. If I can't get a straight answer from you, I'll go find your little girlfriend and ask her."

"No! I don't know where they are. They disappeared – in the Digital World. We got a message saying that you had them."

Lilithmon's grasp on his throat slackened as she digested this new information. Yamato didn't make a move to get away yet. A chance of escaping might come eventually, but he had to wait for the right moment. Where was Gabumon? The others must be searching for him by now, but how long would it take them to find him?

"So…" Lilithmon said, sounding disappointed, "It looks like I won't have a chance to play with them tonight after all." Her lecherous smile returned. "But they'll keep for a while, won't they? I'll just have to enjoy the ones I do have. Then again, suppose you're lying. Are you sure your girl wouldn't have anything else to tell me?"

"She doesn't know anything I don't," Yamato said. "You don't need to go after her. You've already got me."

Lilithmon chuckled a little at that. "My, how chivalrous you are," she said. Her eyes lit up as she thought of something. "Do you love each other, then?"

Yamato was silent a moment. "I…I guess we do."

"No you don't," Lilithmon said, with a roll of her eyes. "Love doesn't really exist, you know. It's just a tidier word for lust. Who could blame you for 'loving,' a couple of sexy kids like yourselves?"

"You're wrong," was all Yamato said, too uncomfortable for anything else.

"I dare you to convince me," Lilithmon replied. "Not many Digimon ever trouble themselves with questions of love, or lust, but I am different. I know how things work. What could possibly attract you to her besides her body?"

"She's… my friend," Yamato said, fumbling for a better way to express himself and not finding it.

"'Friend,' 'love…' How many empty words will you waste on me?"

"They're not empty!" Yamato said, and Lilithmon was surprised by his vehemence. She did not know that he had had a similar conversation before. Jyureimon had gotten the better of him, but he wouldn't fall for the same ploy again.

If she hadn't known it already, Lilithmon could see that the Chosen Children would not fall to words alone, but words were the least of the tools she possessed. Like Yamato, she had no intention of backing down from one of the tenets of her being.

"Alright," she said soothingly. "Suppose that they aren't empty words. But how strong can they really be? I think that at least a little part of you would like to test them and find out." She lowered her voice as she continued speaking. Her hand no longer choked him, instead cupping the back of his neck and drawing their faces closer together. "How about it? Now's the perfect time, when I can do anything I want to you."

Yamato squeezed his eyes shut and kept his body rigid. Whatever Lilithmon had in mind, he was determined to take no part in it.

"Why won't you look at me?" Lilithmon asked, pouting. Yamato couldn't see it, of course, but she had begun to radiate a kind of grayish half-light. "Look at me," she whispered.

Something in the command forced his eyes open, and he gazed at her in a mixture of embarrassment and horror.

"Look at me," she repeated. "Am I not beautiful? Am I not flawless?"

Unable to close his eyes again, Yamato took in the creature before him, and it seemed that she was right. As she was situated, little of her upper body was left to the imagination, and the expanse of voluptuous pink flesh, shining in the fluorescent lighting, was too smooth and uniform to be human. Then there was her face, young but mature, with an expression of calculated innocence. Yes, she was beautiful. Terribly beautiful.

"No need to say a word," she whispered. "I can see it in your eyes." What she could really see in his eyes was her reflection. Her gray luminescence was fastened on him now, draped about his body and mind like a pall. "Now," she breathed, pulling him still nearer, "Now we'll talk about love… and lust."

Gabumon's first impulse, after recovering from the shock of Yamato's sudden fall, had been to fling himself into the blackness after his partner, but in another instant it was gone, leaving only the tile floor of the hallway. Speechless, Gabumon turned to face the others. They didn't look like they'd be of any help. Palmon was worrying over Mimi, who had sunk to her knees in the middle of the hallway. Jou looked no less nervous, glancing from one of his friends to the other and towards the door where Taichi and WarGreymon had disappeared. Koshiro was either in shock or thinking hard, looking for a possible solution. Gomamon met Gabumon's gaze and opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again.

"Yamato? Yamato!" Sora was yelling, still staring at the floor as if by the force of her gaze she could reopen the aperture that had swallowed him.

"S-Sora-san," Koshiro said. "We may be able to find Yamato-san. The enemy will try to take us alive if possible. He may still be in this building!"

"Won't we try it, Sora?" Piyomon asked. The feathery Digimon looked miserable, maybe feeling an absurd kind of guilt for not allowing herself to fall with her partner's boyfriend.

"Should some of us help Taichi?" Jou asked.

"Lilithmon is an Ultimate-level Digimon," Tentomon said. "Taichi-han and WarGreymon are the only ones who can deal with her right now."

"Alright," Gabumon said, "Let's go."

He started down the branch in the hallway, calling Yamato's name once as he headed for the nearest door. While the others were still behind him he opened it, but Yamato wasn't there. Instead there was another of Lilithmon's grisly exhibits. This body was suspended from the ceiling by chains of the kind that Gabumon had recently come to associate with LadyDevimon. There was no other exit to the room, and he closed the door on it before any of the Chosen Children had a glimpse of what was inside.

"Yamato's…not there," Gabumon told his friends. He didn't have to say what he had found; he could see they had some idea already.

"Come on, then," Sora said. "The next door."

"Gaia Force!"

The great ball of energy collided with one of the horned heads of the monstrosity Lilithmon had conjured, exploding on impact. Golden scales were blasted in all directions, and the creature flailed in the void, its beaks snapping at nothing. But there was no change in the quality of its screaming, and as the smoke cleared it barreled forward, certain of its prey's location.

Again WarGreymon's primary concern was for his partner. He had just enough time to move Taichi out of the way, and the escape was much narrower than their last had been. Taichi's ribs were aching where his partner's Chrome Digizoid-clad wrists had caught him, but it was much better than being crushed and torn to death, and his own primary concern was destroying this monster and saving his friends. Watching it grope in the darkness, he waited until he could gather enough breath to speak.

"Draw it away, WarGreymon," he said softly, in case the thing was not as deaf as it was blind, "So you don't have to worry about me."

"Got it, Taichi. Stay here."

WarGreymon shot forward, into the twitching mass of heads, stabbing and slicing with his Dramon Killers whenever an opening presented itself, dodging between the beaks whenever they tried to clamp down on him. For another minute the deadly game went on. Then WarGreymon emerged into empty space on the other side and looked back. There had been little apparent damage done, but the giant hand turned in his direction, away from Taichi. The five heads drew apart from each other, the five neck-like fingers spread wide. The huge creature lunged towards its enemy again, determined to scoop him up in its grasp and annihilate him. But now WarGreymon was ready for it.

"Brave Tornado!"

WarGreymon became a vortex of orange, rushing to meet his opponent, towards the great central eye that it had left unguarded. The Dramon Killers found it and drilled into it, and instead of gore there splattered blobs of darkness that were seen against the flesh of the hand before disappearing in the uniform blackness of the void. The abomination had been screaming since its inception, but now its pitch rose higher and higher, until Taichi thought that his eardrums would burst.

The flesh of the enormous thing bulged and rippled. It was screaming – screaming – screaming – and coming apart.