Series: Division of Destiny||Story: Reign of the Undead King||Chapter: The Choices
Characters: Piemon, Vamdemon, Chosen Children, others||Pairings: Ken x Daisuke/Daisuke x Ken, Mimi x Sora/Sora x Mimi
Chapters: 22-40||Words: 2,661||Total: 58,523
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 touched down inside the ruined building, all of his senses, normal and mage-related, alert to the slightest hint of anyone else around. He could feel other presences, human ones, and nodded to himself. The resistance people were here already.
There was another presence, however, that had followed him from the area around the castle, and he didn't trust that. He couldn't be sure if it were human, vampire, or Digimon, but he had a way to deal with it nevertheless. A wave of his wand and a few moments of intense concentration created a barrier all around the building, one that wouldn't let anyone in without his approval. Anyone who tried would meet with resistance much like a solid wall. It would sap at his energy to keep it up for more than a few minutes, but he couldn't let this meeting be overheard.
Slowly he moved forward until he found a clear area. There wasn't much of it; the whole building rang of emptiness and destruction. Once, perhaps, it had been a hub of human effort, and from what types of ruins he could see, he thought it had been one of their communication places.
That's right. This used to be the Fuji TV station. Some humans had gathered there during the initial war, fighting to the last. Wizarmon didn't know what became of them, other than they'd lost horribly.
"Stay where you are." A voice that sounded vaguely familiar rang through the air, and Wizarmon froze. "Who are you?"
"I am Wizarmon. Gennai sent me here to meet with you, if you're of the human resistance." Wizarmon made no moves. He wasn't sure if they had a weapon of some kind aimed at him, or if they had any weapons at all, but he didn't want to frighten them more than they already were.
Soft whispers, ones that came from at least two or three other voices besides the one that spoke up first, echoed around. Wizarmon did his best not to listen in, affording them what privacy he could. Finally the first voice spoke up again.
"Who do you serve?"
"No one but myself. I work with Gennai and I fake servitude to Vamdemon, but my loyalties are my own," Wizarmon replied. He spoke the utter truth; these humans had been betrayed by Digimon and conquered by them. He didn't want to start things off with this potential new alliance by lying.
Footsteps echoed, and one by one, humans came out to where he could see them. There were six of them, two female and four male, and all of them stared at him, cautious and untrusting.
Wizarmon looked from one of them to the other, and when his eyes landed on one of the males, a shiver unlike any he'd ever felt in his entire life ran down his spine. This one was clearly one of the oldest of the group, with messy dark blue hair and eyes, taller than all the rest as well. He carried a knife by his side, and had a backpack as well. Like all of them, he looked ready to fight or flee at a moment's notice.
"And you all would be?" Wizarmon made no extra moves. His attention kept drifting back to the tall one, however, no matter how much he tried to look at any of the others.
"Ken." One of the other males spoke up, and Wizarmon noticed that he looked much like the one that he himself kept looking at. "This is Miyako, Iori, Jun, Daisuke, and Osamu." The last was the one that kept drawing his attention, and Wizarmon filed the name away without even thinking about it.
Then one of the other names spoken tugged at his attention and he looked toward the one known as Daisuke. "Are you the one who was once Vamdemon's blood pet?"
Daisuke stiffened, bringing up the weapon he carried. Wizarmon caught enough of a glimpse of it to recognize it for an inexpertly made crossbow. That answered more questions without him even having to ask.
"I'll take that as a yes. I have no intentions of telling Vamdemon anything about this meeting. I want him gone as much as you do. We Digimon do not all support him, though most of the ones here do, or won't go against him." Wizarmon shook his head. He didn't know how many of them would try to help the humans if it came down to a fight. Probably not nearly enough.
"What is it you can do for us?" Ken said after a few uncomfortable moments. "We want to get rid of him. Is there a way to do it?"
Wizarmon thought his answer over with care. "I don't know," he said at last. "I'm sure that there is, because Gennai wouldn't have called the original Chosen Children if there wasn't, but now? I'm not so certain."
"What happened to them?" Miyako asked, taking a small step forward, the eager light of knowledge in her eyes. "We've never really known what happened."
Wizarmon sighed. Of all the questions, they had to ask the one that struck into his heart the most. "It's a long story. In short, Vamdemon captured one of them, and transformed her into his vampire slave. She passed the curse on to others, and they became his vampire pack. Without being a united team, the others were able to be captured, and ended up sent back to the Digital World, where they live to this day."
"We can do storytime later," Daisuke said, speaking the words as if biting them off. "Would a stake through his heart kill Vamdemon? I'm willing to try it."
"No one's ever tried it, so far as I know. But Digital World vampires aren't like human vampires. Digimon can be reborn, from a place called the Village of Beginnings. The last I heard, it was still free, but that could change at any moment. I can never be certain of what information I get from there."
Wizarmon hated seeing the look that passed over all their faces at that. He struggled to find some form of hope he could give them, something that would spark the fight once again.
"If he were to be reborn there, he would start off as a young, powerless Digimon. He might not make the same choices and he might not even remember who he used to be. Some Digimon do, and some don't." He wasn't certain if he'd ever been recycled himself or not. If he had been, he was one of those who didn't remember it. "If he did remember, he could be watched to make certain he didn't cause any more trouble."
"I'd rather he couldn't come back at all," Daisuke grumbled. "Isn't there any way to make sure about that?"
"None that I know of. But Gennai might have a few ideas," Wizarmon said.
Silence reigned for another few moments, broken this time by Iori. "We need to stop him no matter what. We can watch him or whatever else we need to do once he's no longer ruling our world."
Miyako nodded slowly. "He's right. This has gone on long enough."
"Then how do we do it?" Daisuke wanted to know, tilting his head to the side. "Because I can tell you that he's not going to politely sit down and let me slam a stake into him."
A small smile flickered over Ken's lips, though it held little of amusement. "That would be too convenient anyway. But we still need to get a good test of the crossbow, and if it does work…"
Wizarmon could see the logic from that. If they could place a crossbow bolt through Vamdemon's heart, presuming he had one, that would solve a great many of their problems. It would be a step in the right direction if nothing else.
He considered what else they might need for this, a slight frown tugging his lips downward. "Vamdemon is a Virus-type Digimon. Vaccine-types are the most powerful against them, and there are not that many of those available now. I once believed that an angel Digimon might be able to help. I don't know if that's possible now."
"Why not?" Osamu asked, the first time he'd spoken during the whole encounter. Wizarmon found his voice familiar, as if he'd waited to hear it his entire life. He couldn't remember ever having had the same desire that Tailmon had told him of once, but he thought this might be how she felt. Or had felt.
"Because there are only two that I know of. One of them isn't in this world anymore. He's in the Digital World, and has been under Piemon's care for the last ten years." Wizarmon wished he'd asked more about that now. Perhaps he would when he next spoke to Gennai. "And the other is in this world but isn't available for even worse reasons."
Jun looked every bit as interested in this as Miyako had been. This wasn't surprising; humans didn't exactly get news of what was going on with Digimon, and since this could help them free their world, they wanted every scrap of information that they could get hold of. "What do you mean?"
How to answer that? There was so much that he would have to explain to have it all make sense, and he wasn't even sure of all the details himself. He did his best, however. "The way a Digimon evolves depends upon what happens to them. Being partnered to a human can help evolution, but that's only one of the factors involved. Every Digimon has a different path that their evolution could take." He refused to think of how it was possible that his own could involve Piemon. That would be a nightmare for another day. "This Digimon was one of those who could have become an angel Digimon, under the right circumstances."
"And those circumstances can't happen anymore?" Osamu asked, leaning forward with an intent gleam in his eyes. Here was someone intelligent, who wanted to put that intelligence to good use. Wizarmon wondered what the human would think of his own research projects. Perhaps they would find out…
"Not so far as I know. But there are other problems as well. I cannot be certain, but I feel Tailmon was meant to be partnered to a special Chosen Child, one who Vamdemon knew something of, and wished destroyed at all costs. For the most part, he's succeeded in that."
Ken's eyes narrowed suddenly and he shifted forward as well. "Would this have something to do with a girl being held prisoner by him?"
Now how in the world had he known about that? Wizarmon wondered if they had their own spies in the castle somehow. There were some humans who worked there, in very low level positions.
"The one who would've been the Child of Light is his prisoner, yes. She's only allowed out on rare occasions, and no one but her jailer spends any significant time with her."
Ken glanced from him to the others, started to open his mouth, then closed it again, attention darting back to Wizarmon. "Is there any way that we could get her out of there?"
All of these questions that he didn't know the answers to! But Wizarmon tried anyway. "It may be possible, but it wouldn't be easy. I've been researching spells that would be useful for doing so." The issue with those was that they very clearly would be his magic, and he wasn't yet ready to end his spying on Vamdemon. There was too much yet that he could learn, if he put himself into the right places.
"None of this is ever going to be easy, so I think we can stop saying it won't be. We already know that." Daisuke ran one finger up and down his crossbow. "So we want to kill Vamdemon and get this girl out of the dungeon. Probably not in that order, though."
"Her jailer might be willing to help us, if I can speak to her." Wizarmon chose his words with the utmost care. "It will be chancy, but a risk I wish to take." He wouldn't leave LadyDevimon there. He knew a spark of Tailmon still lived deep within her, and he hoped there would be a chance to bring her back out again.
"Who is her jailer?" There was a clear hint of anticipation in Ken's voice; he knew something about this. Wizarmon still couldn't guess how he knew.
"LadyDevimon."
Ken glanced toward Daisuke, a quick nod, little more than the briefest tilt of his head. Daisuke's shoulders twitched as if he shrugged, then he looked back at Wizarmon.
"We still need to test the crossbow. Our best chance is doing it on one of the pack. And we need to get rid of them anyway. Any way you can help with that?"
"Perhaps. Ever since someone shot at him, Vamdemon's kept the pack close to the castle." Wizarmon did not miss the triumphant smirk that flicked over Daisuke's features. He'd found the mysterious hunter. Not that he was one little bit surprised. "If I hear about them going back out, I'll see if I can get a message to you somehow."
Osamu nodded, pulling a scrap of well-worn paper from his pocket and handing it over. "This is how Gennai gets in touch with me. It's safe from being detected by anything Vamdemon can come up with, or so he tells me."
Well, he hadn't expected that. He could only hope it would work with his own mishmash set up of a communications device. "I'll try it once I've returned to the castle." And he wouldn't mind at all having a way to keep in touch with Osamu.
"Is there anything else that we can work out?" Miyako asked.
"I think we've covered everything important," Daisuke said, a frown forming between his eyebrows. "We just have to figure out how to do it all without all of us getting killed."
That would be a very good thing in Wizarmon's opinion. Then he remembered. "I think that I might have been followed coming here. I set up a firewall to make certain whoever it was didn't get in to see what we were up to, and I'll make certain that they don't learn anything once I leave. But you'd best watch your own backs as well."
All six of them tensed up, Daisuke's hand going to the knife he wore on his belt. "And you didn't think to tell us this before?"
"Excuse me if I feel saving your world is slightly more important than a follower who can't hear anything," Wizarmon snapped, eyes flashing underneath his hat. "Whoever it is can't get in here, and my loyalty to Vamdemon has gone unquestioned for longer than you have known Digimon existed. I do not think this is something for you to worry about."
Daisuke's grip tightened on the hilt of his blade. "I'll decide what I worry about."
Jun rested one hand on his shoulder. "Daisuke. Calm down. He's right, and if anything goes wrong, it's going to cause him more trouble than it does us." That wasn't how Wizarmon would've put it, but it was true all the same.
"We'll meet back here in a week and see what else has happened," Osamu decided. Wizarmon nodded; that should be time enough to approach LadyDevimon and feel her out concerning getting Hikari out of there. Not to mention it would be more than time enough for Vamdemon to decide to let the pack roam free once more. He'd be the last person to complain if one of them ended up with a sharp piece of wood through them.
"Good luck," he said by way of farewell, and headed back outside. Now he just needed to think up plausible lies for the benefit of whoever lurked there.
To Be Continued