Series: Division of Destiny||Story: Reign of the Undead King||Chapter: The Prisoner
Characters: Piemon, Vamdemon, Chosen Children, others||Pairings: Ken x Daisuke/Daisuke x Ken, Mimi x Sora/Sora x Mimi
Chapters: 3-40||Words: 2,595||Total: 8,079
Genre: Romance, Drama||Rated: PG-13
Summary: Vamdemon and Piemon rule supreme. Only now, ten years after their victory, are things about to change. For good or for ill.
She didn't bother opening her eyes a lot of the time. There wasn't much light in here to begin with, so she wasn't missing seeing anything. She could hear everything that happened. Not that much did, not here in Vamdemon's dungeons. Not here, in a cell she'd left a handful of times since being thrown into it.
How long ago had that been? Five years? Six? Seven? She didn't remember anymore. Time belonged to a world with the sun and stars, with friends to care about one, and a fa…
Time meant nothing in here, where the only voice she heard on a regular basis was that of her guard on the rare occasions when she spoke and on an irregular basis, her captor himself.
She hadn't heard from him in a long time. At least, she thought it was a long time.
After all, time meant nothing here.
She could've tried to guess by how often she ate or slept, but even that didn't really work. She was fed irregularly, and she had no way to tell how long she slept. There was just no way.
It had been years, that was all she could be certain of, and that because of one thing that couldn't be changed: she'd grown. Not much, not nearly as much as she would have if she'd lived in a world of light and warmth and abundant food. But the clothes she'd worn on that dreadful day no longer fit and others were brought for her. Though she didn't know why; no one saw her. Still, she didn't complain. Even if no one saw her, she didn't want to sit around in rags, or worse. What she wore wasn't fancy by any means, but they kept her covered and that was enough.
There was enough light here that if she chose to open her eyes, she could see. There wasn't anything to look at, not here. She had a small bed, with only two blankets and a thin mattress, and a pot that passed for sanitary facilities, scrubbed out twice a day by some of the monsters. The dungeon wasn't too cold, but she didn't think that was her benefit. It was just the way that it was. She didn't care to register a complaint.
Footsteps came closer. She didn't bother sitting up. She knew who it was, and she thought she knew why.
"Breakfast." The sound of a tray being set outside of the bars, then slid through the opening. She knew what it would be: water, bread, and porridge. The same breakfast she always had. She vaguely thought of steamed rice, of miso soup and natto. What had she had for breakfast that last morning? She couldn't remember anymore.
A lot of her memories had faded over her years here. What use did she have for most of them? She didn't need to think about anything, because nothing happened. Be it night or be it day, she stayed in this cell. When she got out of it, she didn't have to do anything. She only stood where she was directed, her guard by her side, and watched as monsters paraded around doing…something. She thought it was some kind of a celebration, but she was never entirely sure, and it ceased to matter after a while. Whatever they did didn't require her to think about it or even to understand it. She just had to sit and wait for it all to end.
If her stomach hadn't commanded, she wouldn't have bothered eating as often as she did. She didn't know if there was a reason to stay alive, but she just couldn't bring herself to give up and die. Maybe there were reasons she didn't know about. It wasn't much of a hope, but it was all that she had.
She inched her way over to where the tray rested, finding it more by feel and experience than bothering to open her eyes. Sometimes she kept them closed just to see how long she could do so without needing to open them.
Even without looking, she knew her guard stood there still, as she always did. There wasn't any reason to talk to her. Her guard never hurt her, never even touched her, but there was just nothing for her to say.
Her guard seldom spoke to her, either, save for letting her know when meals arrived or when it was time for her to leave the prison for whatever reason. Though once in a while, other words were said.
Such as the day when the little white cat who had once been her guard didn't turn up anymore, replaced by the guard who stood there now, tall and gray-haired and red-eyed, speaking almost as little as she herself did.
"Tailmon is no more," the new Digimon spoke, her voice striking chords of fear throughout the young captive's soul. "I am LadyDevimon."
LadyDevimon hadn't ever given an explanation on why the other one vanished. She hoped the little cat was all right somewhere. Perhaps she'd run away. A cute creature like that didn't deserve to hang around in a place like this. She hoped that the cat found friends somewhere else. Maybe even a fa…
No, she wouldn't think that word. The word that had even less meaning for her than sunlight or freedom or fresh air. The word that hadn't mean anything since the day she'd opened the door to let a monster in that wore the face of her brother.
She chewed the tasteless bread, letting her thoughts linger on other places and other times, few and far between as they were. Anything that wasn't of that moment, the moment when everything she'd known shattered.
What was the world like outside of here now? She'd been taken out sometime earlier for one of those celebrations or whatever they were and she'd heard something about years. She couldn't remember if anyone said how many or even what they'd meant by it. Sometimes she wondered if she should pay more attention to what was going on around her.
What would be the point, though? She would never be able to escape here and if she couldn't escape, what else would she do with whatever she ended up knowing? Nothing. Nothing at all.
There was so much she'd forgotten, or just didn't bother to think about anymore. Had she forgotten it when she didn't even think about it? When it never crossed her mind? She wasn't sure, and it didn't seem important enough to think about now.
Sometimes she wondered if she'd lost her mind from being in here all this time by herself. Maybe she had. Or maybe it didn't matter.
The porridge was just a touch over lukewarm, enough so she ate it instead of pushing it away. Sometimes it was cold, and she'd passed the food up more than once when it was. It all depended on how hungry she was at the time. They never forced her to eat. It was always up to her.
Eating was the one time of her day that she actually did something. Walking her cell lost all meaning after the first thousand times or so. She did that just so her legs wouldn't forget how to work, and that was usually when she bothered to open her eyes, that and when she ate. Sometimes. Like now.
She didn't bother to look up at her guard. LadyDevimon. She'd done that once and seen the other looking at her with eyes that spoke of pain somewhere deep inside. She didn't want to feel sorry for this monster too, and have her taken away.
She didn't want to think about how the little cat had vanished and was 'no more'. She thought happy thoughts about the cat, because she'd always loved cats, and wanted the best for them.
She tried not to think about Miko. She wanted her parents to have taken good care of her. She wanted…
She wanted more than she would ever have, and she knew better than to start wanting, because the first thing she wanted was to have her brother back, and that would never, ever happen.
He belongs to me now, Child of Light. His words. His voice, staring down at her, eyes as blue as the sky once was, lip curved to reveal fangs sharper than knives.
The one memory she clung to harder than all the others was of the look on his face when he'd sunk those fangs into her own neck…
She'd struggled as hard as she could to get away from him, but a child's strength was nothing to him. If she lived, she knew she'd have bruises where his gloved hands gripped her. If she lived. She didn't think she would. Taichi hadn't.
She tried not to look at where her brother stood, lounging carelessly against the wall, paying little attention to her as compared to watching the monster that prepared to eat her. She'd screamed herself hoarse once already trying to get him to stop whatever he was doing, and he hadn't listened to her at all, and that wasn't Taichi. He always listened. He always cared. He always tried to help her.
But now he looked bored, as if he wanted to do something more than watch her be shredded.
The monster pulled her close to him, shoving her head to one side, and those teeth moved, sinking into her neck, and it hurt, hurt more than she'd ever known something could hurt and she didn't die from it…
And then she was on the floor, shaking all over, blood dripping from her neck, hardly able to think or speak.
"Master? Vamdemon-sama?" Taichi moved closer, all of his attention on the monster and not for his sister. "What's wrong?" "She's the Child of Light. I should've realized…" He shook his head, wiping his mouth, and spat out what she realized now was her blood. "Bring me someone fresh. Someone I can get this taste out of my mouth with." Taichi hurried away, moving as lightly as a feather, and she trembled, heart pounding as those cold blue eyes moved to look down at her.
"If I can't feed from you, what good are you going to be?" He didn't seem to expect an answer, and she didn't have one to give even if he had. She wanted to get out of here and find her parents, find someone who could explain to her what was going on, and make all of this stop.
But she never did.
She scraped every bit of porridge from the bowl, made certain not to leave a single crumb from the bread, and drank the glass of water dry before she pushed the tray back through the bars and moved back over to the bed. She didn't feel like walking just yet, and she'd had enough of looking around the empty room. Her prison had no windows as such; just a set of bars far too high for her to reach no matter how high she reached, which let in a little wind. She wasn't allowed books or music or visitors. It left her with a large amount of unused time on her hands, all day every day. So she did what she always did.
She stretched out, eyes closed, and imagined herself and that cute little white cat and Miko, all together far from this dismal place, walking in the sunlight, unafraid and happy together.
LadyDevimon carried the tray to the kitchen, leaving it where the Veggimon would clean it up and set the next meal on it whenever that time came. Her meals weren't a regular thing; just enough to make certain she didn't die. Those were Vamdemon-sama's orders, issued after he'd made up his mind to keep the girl captive.
Vamdemon-sama refused to let his prisoner die, even if that would be a blessing. Perhaps especially if that would be a blessing.
LadyDevimon had her own suspicions on why, bolstered by conversations she'd overheard between him and Piemon at various points in the last decade. No one knew everything about the Chosen Children and what they could do, much less the Chosen Child of Light herself. Killing her could've only caused her to revive somewhere else, somewhere where Vamdemon had no control over the situation. Better to keep her where he could watch her.
She didn't have to spend all of her waking hours across from Hikari, though the thought of doing so wasn't such a bad one. Or it wouldn't have been if Hikari were more like she'd been as a child. Some part of her would always be pulled to the Child of Light, and she suspected she knew the reason why.
She wouldn't ever utter her suspicions out loud, and barely liked to think them, lest Vamdemon-sama find out. The identity of the Eighth Digimon interested him to this day almost as much as the identity of the Eighth Child had a decade earlier.
LadyDevimon took one peek into the cell before going back to her own room. She didn't need to; there wasn't any way Hikari could get out of there. Vamdemon kept the key to the cell tucked away only where he knew about it, and the lock itself was all but impossible to pick, and wasn't even where Hikari could reach it. If anyone else wanted to try, they would first have to know the girl even existed, and find their way into his fortress, and through everything else set up to make certain that no one did just that.
What Vamdemon wanted to keep, he kept. He wanted this world and he had it. He wanted to defeat the Chosen, and he'd done just that. She couldn't imagine anyone being able to beat him, not at this point. Not when he and Piemon-sama held the balance of power between them, when four Chosen served him as his undead slaves, the other three lived under Piemon's thumb, and the eighth could scarcely remember her own name.
There would be no epic rescues, no rising from the depths of despair, for this world or for the Digital World. Whatever the humans or the Digimon tried, she knew it was doomed to failure. She knew she should at least be grateful that she could stay close enough to Hikari to watch her without Vamdemon-sama suspecting anything. It was better than being destroyed.
The most she let herself hope for was that Vamdemon would relent and let the girl pass on one day, or that it would somehow happen naturally. It wouldn't save the world, by any means, but it would mean Hikari wouldn't suffer in this prison any longer. She didn't like to hope for that, but it was all she could do.
She chose a book from her shelves and settled herself where she could see if Hikari did anything. Not that she thought the girl would. But if it so happened, she would be able to watch.
If she could've, she would've liked to take Hikari out to fly, just for a little while. One benefit of her permanent evolution to Perfect was her ability to fly freely. Hikari would benefit from the fresh air, such as it was. Perhaps she could even take the girl to the Digital World, which didn't suffer from the shadows the way that this world did.
Those were all dreams that she doubted would ever come true. But those were all the dreams that she had left.
To Be Continued