Series: Division of Destiny||Story: Reign of the Undead King||Chapter: The Search
Characters: Piemon, Vamdemon, Chosen Children, others||Pairings: Ken x Daisuke/Daisuke x Ken, Mimi x Sora/Sora x Mimi
Chapters: 9-40||Words: 2,631||Total: 24,065
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.

Wizarmon made his way up the slick stone steps that led away from the dungeon cells. He didn't look behind him, though every part of his heart urged him to do so, to have one last look at LadyDevimon. He didn't listen. They were not friends; no one in Vamdemon's army had friends. Too much hung in the balance now for him to act even the smallest bit out of character. He'd told her too much already when speaking of his experiments.

I shouldn't have said anything at all about those. He needed to stop coming down here anyway. Spending time around her made it easier to talk, and harder to remember why he shouldn't.

He fought to maintain every bit of his composure, turning his thoughts resolutely to the meeting that would occur in just a few days. Finding a safe space hadn't taken as long as he'd thought it would. Soon, for the first time in years, he would actually speak to humans whose loyalty wasn't completely Vamdemon's. They would actually begin to forge a way to defeat the vampire lord.

Some part of him expected this to all end up as a trick or a dream. Perhaps he'd let something slip and not realized it and Vamdemon spun all of this in order to expose him as a spy. The only evidence he had of safety was that Gennai arranged this meeting, and that wasn't good enough. All of his information said that Piemon didn't know where Gennai's base was. If Piemon had found it, then it would make sense to lie about it, in order to lure the spy in for capture.

He couldn't spend all of his time fretting about the risks that the meeting posed. He needed to get ready for the meeting itself. If it were a trap, then he'd deal with that later. There were still slightly better chances that everything was just as Gennai said it was, which meant the long years of waiting were finally over.

What would free humans be like? He'd encountered so few before the invasion settled in and became an occupation, and most of them ran screaming from him once they knew what he was. He didn't expect them to like him, but toleration would do for now.

They definitely wouldn't be like the poor Child of Light. Yagami Hikari, that was her name. He kept it close to him, as he did all the names of those who'd once sought to fight against Vamdemon and his ilk. They may have failed and been broken in various ways, but he remembered what they'd been before. Someone had to. They certainly didn't.

He wouldn't let her stay there. He'd made his mind up on that long ago. But without somewhere he could hide her where the vampire pack wouldn't be able to trace her scent, without convincing LadyDevimon to go along with it, without being able to get into her cell and get her out without the other guards being alerted, he hadn't been able to accomplish it. That was why he'd studied transmutation, working to master the spells to make one thing become something else.

Even if he hadn't mentioned that to LadyDevimon, he knew for a fact that when he broke Hikari out of there, he would be the first suspect, just for the fact he'd done it with magic. There weren't very many of those in Vamdemon's army that had the skills to do so. The whole idea of being so obvious pained him, but his options were not the best. So long as he managed to free her, and LadyDevimon, and keep them somewhere safe until Vamdemon's reign fell, he would be satisfied.

It would also be convenient if Vamdemon came down with a sudden case of wood poisoning and reconfigured himself, but Wizarmon didn't trust to that much luck. He also wasn't certain that staking Vamdemon would actually kill him in the first place. Perhaps crushing his egg might, but that would require beating him down to the point he was an egg at all.

"Wizarmon."

Wizarmon brought his staff up by instinct, eyes narrowing, before he saw who stood a short distance away. At once he lowered his weapon and bowed gracefully.

"Vamdemon-sama." His heart pounded faster; of all those he could've met here, his so-called liege lord wasn't close to the top of the list. If anything, he occupied a permanent spot at the bottom of it. "How may I be of service?"

"Come with me." Vamdemon didn't look to see if he obeyed, but turned and stalked along, his strides brisk and sharp. Wizarmon followed, focusing his mind into patterns of calm he'd learned years earlier. They didn't always work, especially when he was around Vamdemon, but he needed to try anyway.

Luck was with him, to some extent. Vamdemon didn't ask him questions or even attempt to engage him in anything like a conversation. Wizarmon's cautious mind didn't like that, no matter how relieved part of him was. It only made him wonder what the vampire had in mind. It wasn't often that they spoke to one another, and he couldn't imagine why Vamdemon would wish to do so now.

At last they arrived at Vamdemon's destination: a simple, elegant sitting room. The four members of the flock lounged around in comfortable chairs, casually chatting with one another. Nervous cold sweat trickled down the back of Wizarmon's spine. Seeing the whole flock together never boded well.

Vamdemon strode over to an empty chair, far more elaborate than the others, and sat down. Wizarmon at once knelt before him, going over his inner calming rituals with more intensity. One wrong word, perhaps even a wrong thought, and all that he'd fought for ended here and now.

"Taichi tells me that he spoke to you of the crossbow user who he encountered some nights ago."

Wizarmon nodded, keeping his features set to a hint of confusion, nothing more. "This is true, Vamdemon-sama." He would tell nothing that he didn't have to, and no more than he was asked.

"You've patrolled the area since then?" Another nod in answer, but nothing more. "Have you discovered anything else?"

Now he shook his head. "I explored that region in an attempt to find the crossbow bolt itself, in case it could tell us anything. But there wasn't any sign of it. The crossbow user most likely retrieved it." And good for whomever that was. It showed some sense, at least. He hoped he had the chance to talk to them when he met with the resistance.

"That storm the other night wiped out their scent trail." Taichi spoke up, a furrow between his eyebrows. "If it weren't for that, I could've found them." "Perhaps." Vamdemon shrugged. "Wizarmon, your magic might be able to tell us what his nose cannot. Taichi, take him to that area and see what you can both find. Anything that can lead us to whomever this might be will be useful."

Wizarmon's heart clenched tight. He almost wished that he had been uncovered. At least that would only truly bring down himself, while this put many others at risk.

"As you wish, Vamdemon-sama." He wanted to believe there wasn't any trail, at least none that he could find. But he had to try to find it, no matter what.

The vampire overlord gestured them away. Taichi sprang to his feet and Wizarmon rose up, turning for the door.

"Taichi, feed before you go. We don't need a repeat of that night." Vamdemon spoke before they could depart. The brunet rolled his eyes, making certain to do so with his back turned to his master. Wizarmon couldn't have been more grateful for his hat and cloak, concealing the small smile that touched on his lips just then.

"All right, I'll go have a snack. Meet me outside, this won't take long."

Wizarmon knew where he was going; the vampire pack kept pens of humans they could use when hunting was bad or they didn't feel like hunting at all. Very few had ever escaped from those pens, and most of those who had ended up being caught and bled dry within a few weeks anyway.

For all of that, those humans were kept in excellent condition, given room to move around in, and fed better than the wild humans that still roamed the cities. Wizarmon sickened at the thought of it.

He took the time between leaving the meeting area and exiting the castle to compose himself and focus on what he would need to do. While Vamdemon himself knew some magic, Taichi and the rest of the herd hadn't been taught anything of the like. But whatever he did would make its way back to the master sooner or later, which meant he had to move with caution.

I can't keep this up forever. He'd already worked himself into an emotional frazzle over the long years. He'd never expected this to go on as long as it had. Sooner or later he would slip. He knew it.

A light breeze ghosted through the castle courtyard, sending a swirl of fallen leaves skittering across the cobblestones. Wizarmon wondered at times where the castle had come from; it hadn't been here when they'd arrived. Vamdemon and his troops had taken refuge in whatever human buildings they'd been able to find then. But shortly after the conquest was secured, the castle rose up in all of its barbaric splendor. It mirrored Vamdemon's castle as it had once been in the Digital World almost to the letter.

"Ready to go?" Taichi landed next to him, a faint trace of red still on his lips that he didn't bother to wipe away. "I hope you can find something. I've got a few words for whoever it was that tried to shoot me."

Wizarmon bent his head. "I'll do my best." He had a few words as well, mainly involving how to shoot more accurately and which parts of a vampire were the most vulnerable.

He chose not to say that out loud, however.

The two of them took off, soaring past the guards at the front gate with little more than a wave. The vampire pack had permission to come and go as they pleased, and being with Taichi granted Wizarmon that same privilege, for tonight.

Neither of them spoke until they arrived at the district the aborted attack had taken place in. Wizarmon looked around, sketching out what he would need to do to get this search begun. He hadn't practiced tracking spells very often, nor had he needed to. If he failed to find anything, and perhaps if he succeeded, he would use that for an excuse.

"Need me to do anything?" Taichi landed on a branch, his fingers digging casually into the trunk of the tree. Wizarmon shook his head.

"This shouldn't take very long." He hadn't decided if he wanted it to or not. But he began, closing his eyes and focusing his thoughts on what images and impressions that he could gather from the area.

The wind, still kicking up dust and leaves and whatever pieces of trash littered the area here, just as it had back at the castle, now smoothed out, leaving nothing but a deadly silence all around. Wizarmon worked his fingers in the movements of the spell, searching for information. He not only had made a serious study of this, he'd never done it in this world at all. That made quite a difference; magic worked in its own ways in each world and part of what he'd spent most of his time studying here had been how to recreate many of the spells he'd known how to do in the Digital World.

"Anything?" Taichi asked, looking around to the four corners of the compass. "This is getting boring."

"I'm sorry. I can't speed this up." Wizarmon grunted the words out, fighting to focus harder. He'd managed to catch a few threads of someone who wasn't Taichi and who seemed to have a great deal of hatred for vampires in their soul. That did cover a great deal of the population of the planet in general, but hatred this deep, in this area, could only be from the attempted hunter.

Somewhere, a pebble bounced and a sudden gust of wind brought a hint of human on it. Wizarmon and Taichi both stiffened, and Wizarmon swore to himself. He would've expected the hunter would return to the area sooner or later. But why did it have to be now?

"You keep going. I'll check on this." Taichi lifted off from the tree and ghosted away, circling around to where the sound and scent came from. Wizarmon wished the crossbow wielder, if that was truly who it was, the best of luck and kept himself bent on his task.

The longer he searched, the more certain he was that the arrival was indeed that same attempted hunter. The scent of hate was stronger since that light sound, and he began to pick up the faintest of images. He couldn't entirely be certain of what they were, only that they formed the foundation of the hate.

Is that Vamdemon? He couldn't keep enough of a grip on the images, not with his lack of mastery of the spell, to know for certain but he thought it was. It wasn't much of a leap to make; anyone who hated vampires enough to try to kill them likely hated Vamdemon most of all.

Wizarmon pulled himself out of the spell and straightened up, his limbs strained and creaking from having been nearly frozen for too long. He would need to spend some time on the training field to work these aches out. His skills didn't lie in physical combat, but the mage who refused to at least go jogging now and then would be more of a handicap than a help on the battlefield.

"Taichi?" Wizarmon gripped his staff more tightly as he looked around. A sensation prickled down his spine; he hadn't been able to find out everything, or even very much at all, about the shooter, but he had a feeling he knew where they were. It wasn't a clear one and he had to concentrate to get more than the sensation of being watched, and right now, he couldn't be sure if it was because of the remnants of the spell or because the archer really was there watching him.

No answer came from the vampire, and Wizarmon strained harder in his attempts to see something. Anything. He wasn't very particular, as long as he could get some sense of what was going on.

One footstep, clear as could be, then another. It wasn't Taichi; the vampire wouldn't have bothered to set foot to ground when he could be more maneuverable in the air. The wind settled again, and Wizarmon wished that it didn't. His nose couldn't compare to that of some Digimon, but it would've helped to get a better sense of who was around and who wasn't.

Footsteps, faster and with more purpose, sounded, and Wizarmon whirled in the direction he heard them coming from, and wasted no time. Regardless of what he felt or wanted, he had to be Vamdemon's loyal warrior for now, and that meant defending himself from attack. With a single spoken word, fire erupted from the tip of his staff, circling all around him. A quick wave sent it forward, in the direction the footsteps came from, and Wizarmon couldn't make up his mind on what he wanted to hope for, victory or defeat.

The scream that echoed a heartbeat later didn't give him any of the answers he wanted either.

To Be Continued