Series: Division of Destiny||Story: Reign of the Undead King||Chapter: The Gift
Characters: Piemon, Vamdemon, Chosen Children, others||Pairings: Ken x Daisuke/Daisuke x Ken, Mimi x Sora/Sora x Mimi
Chapters: 23-40||Words: 2,554||Total: 61,077
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.

Her lungs ached for another breath of fresh air. Or fresher; though the air outside wasn't the sweetly-scented stuff she remembered from her earliest childhood, it was still an improvement over what she had to deal with here in Vamdemon's dungeons. But everything out there would be better than what he had to deal with here.

The only exception for that was her company. She couldn't imagine not wanting to have LadyDevimon with her. Perhaps having other people around wouldn't be such a bad thing, but she wouldn't give up LadyDevimon, no matter what.

She didn't know what anyone else, what other humans, might think about this, but she didn't care, either. They didn't understand what it was like for her. In all this time, only LadyDevimon cared about her. Even if it was just at Vamdemon's order, the Digimon still did her best, even to taking her outside.

Unsurprisingly, her thoughts turned back to the trip and the person that they'd met there. Ken, her memories supplied. The first person who wasn't LadyDevimon who'd she'd spoken to in roughly a decade. The first other human, at least. Most of the Digimon who came around didn't bother to say a word to her for any number of reasons. She didn't count the vampires as human and she didn't think they counted themselves either.

Would she ever see him again? She didn't dare to hope for it. If Vamdemon learned about the meeting, she didn't doubt for a moment that he wouldn't rest until Ken and any of his friends were crushed completely. That was LadyDevimon hadn't said a word about it, and why she'd warned her to do the same.

She tried not to toss and turn on her cot. She didn't want to be restless. She would've preferred to doze off into her customary daze, to let the hours slip by without even noticing them. But over and over she relived not just the meeting with Ken but every other moment of the trip.

Her memories of the city before the invasion and her capture and imprisonment were thin and weak at best. But she was almost certain it had never looked anything like this, with shattered and ruined buildings in every direction, thick gray fog that human eye couldn't penetrate everywhere, and no sign of a blue sky so far as she looked.

That had to be Vamdemon's doing, that last. All of it was his doing to some degree or other but to blot the sun from the sky? Only a vampire would want to do that.

She remembered sunlight. The more she thought of those days the clearer the memories became. They weren't very strong memories but with effort she could remember the warmth of sun when she played outside and how much stronger the light was than torchlight or lanterns. If she let herself think of other things for a few moments, then the memories slipped away again. She didn't know if that was Vamdemon's doing or not. She didn't put it past him to do anything he could to crush what little hope she could dredge up in this world.

He'd done it for everyone else, after all. He lived off making certain no one ever believed they could defeat him.

She hadn't thought about fighting him in years. Doing so again surprised her. She didn't think that she could. He was so much stronger than she was, able to wave aside attacks that would've destroyed others with a twitch of his fingers. And that assumed that anyone could even manage to attack him in the first place. The whispered words of those Digimon who passed through on one errand or another told of how his pack defended him with their lives. Or unlives.

The wording didn't matter at all. What mattered was that her brother was one of those who'd throw himself in front of this monster to protect him. That twisted at the depth of her heart. Taichi should've been fighting to protect the world. She knew it. He was, or had been, the kind of person who would fight for other people. Defending the world would've been completely his style.

That was all Vamdemon's fault as well. She didn't know if she could ever fight him, but if she did, then she would do it to avenge her brother. Her real brother, not the monster she'd seen who sucked the blood out of people and used her brother's name and face.

Staying down here didn't provide that many options for fighting anyone, regardless of how much she wanted to. That desire flickered in the deepest part of her soul for now, little more than a bank of glowing coals. But, she had to admit to herself, that was a little better than what she'd had not all that long ago. That desire had been a small pile of gray shadows, nothing more.

The trip outside had sparked it. She wanted it again. She wanted more. She wanted air and sunlight and tree and people. She wanted…Digimon. If she, who'd spent ten years of her life held captive by the worst Digimon of them all, with one of his servants as her only constant guardian, could want them in her life, then couldn't other people? Surely all Digimon couldn't be like Vamdemon. LadyDevimon wasn't. She was almost certain that the little white cat who'd been there before hadn't been. Wizarmon wasn't either. She believed that devoutly.

They were only a handful of examples but she wanted to believe there were more. There was an entire world of Digimon. Just like some humans were good and some weren't, Digimon had to be the same.

She wondered what the Digital World would be like. Did it have sunlight or was it foggy like this world now? Had he brought the fog just to conceal himself or did he want to make it like his own world?

There were so many questions and for the first time in forever she began to feel as if she really wanted the answers.

But she couldn't get them here and she had no idea of how to get out of here. LadyDevimon wouldn't take her completely away. Little trips, yes, but anything more than that couldn't be hoped for. Should be hoped for, perhaps, but it was a vain hope, one that wouldn't ever be realized.

Hope and light…two things that she found she wanted more than ever before. And neither one of them seemed to be in reach at the moment. She wanted hopes that made sense, that stood a chance of coming true. She hoped for light but there wasn't any way she could gain it.

But she couldn't bring herself to entirely give up the hope just yet. Maybe there would be a way. Just because she didn't know of it didn't mean it wasn't there. It just meant she didn't know about it for now.

She opened her eyes and looked up now at the barred window so far out of her reach. It served one purpose only, making certain the air in here remained as fresh as the rest of the castle. But now she let herself drink in the pale light that trickled inside. She'd seldom bothered before. It hadn't meant anything. Nothing had meant anything until now.

And it had all changed because of that one little trip outside. If she'd know how this would work out she would've tried or it that much sooner.

She wanted to go again so very much.

Something had changed with Hikari. It worried LadyDevimon more than she wanted to admit. It hadn't been more than a few days since the trip outside, but the girl still moved more than she had before, her eyes going up to the barred window more often, and when they weren't there, instead of laying down and resting, she frequently would sit and watch LadyDevimon herself.

She still didn't speak very often and that eased the demon Digimon's fears a fraction. She wasn't the only guard; just the one that Hikari was closest to. If any of the Veggimon or some of the hidden guards heard her saying anything extra, especially if she mentioned anything that LadyDevimon thought she might want to talk about concerning that trip, then she didn't know how Vamdemon-sama might react.

No, she knew. She knew very well. She just didn't want to think about it. He might well be more interested in finding his lost blood pet but for this, he would turn his attention here. For that matter, as soon as he found Daisuke, he would glance this way at the first sign of trouble. And Vamdemon-sama had a very wide definition of 'trouble'.

He couldn't feed off Hikari. He wouldn't be able to turn her into one of his flock, either. But he could hurt her. There were more ways to do that than there had once been stars in the sky. All he would have to do was let Taichi take care of her for a few days, and what spark she'd managed to recover would extinguish itself, never to rise again.

I…should get her out of here. The idea worried her. It was the right thing to do, it always had been, but there had never been anywhere for them to go. The humans wouldn't take them in, and any Digimon would definitely turn them back over to Vamdemon-sama in hopes of a reward.

That might well be better than what could happen if any of the pack found out that she'd tried to take away Vamdemon's prized prisoner. They would probably both end up hoping that all Vamdemon did was let Taichi watch over his sister.

Perhaps not unsurprisingly, her thoughts turned toward that boy they'd met. Ichijouji Ken. There was something about him that had drawn Hikari as surely as a moth was drawn to a flame. Could he…

That couldn't be true, could it? They were all gone, all defeated, crushed either to Vamdemon's will or Piemon's. She knew they'd never rise up again; it wasn't possible. The pack were all undead now, Vamdemon's slaves for the duration of their existence. Piemon had done even worse, from all reports. Those three would never be able to think for themselves again.

There couldn't be any Chosen Children left. She remembered the information they'd gathered in the old days, before Vamdemon had his triumph. There'd been eight of them, no more and no less. She'd never found out what Vamdemon did with the Crest of Light, though she thought he still kept it somewhere in the castle, where Hikari could never find it.

She didn't know what would happen if she did.

LadyDevimon glanced toward where Hikari sat on her cot, back pressed against the gray stone wall, head tilted back to the weak light as it streamed in. So different now than the child who'd been thrown in here all those years ago, who'd fought and demanded to be released, to have her brother back, her family back…

Something tight and hard in LadyDevimon's heart clenched. I wanted to kill her, once. And yet the moment that their eyes had met, she had known that no matter what, she couldn't do it. She could never have raised a paw against this girl.

I…I waited for someone…didn't I? That had been so long ago that she'd almost forgotten. Back before Vamdemon found her and she began her training that led her to being an Adult and then a Perfect. She'd sworn her loyalty to him; he'd given her purpose and shelter, both very hard to come by in the Digital World.

Wizarmon would know, she realized. They'd met back then. She'd told him…things. Things she no longer remembered for herself.

Her scarlet eyes darkened a fraction. I did worse than kill her. I protected her, but only because I wasn't allowed to kill her in the end. I kept her here instead of taking her somewhere where she would be safe.

That had to change. That had to stop. Whatever the cost, she had to pay it in the end. Perhaps it was all that she deserved for not having done her proper duty in so long. And the more she began to consider it, the more she saw the sparks of life flickering in Hikari's eyes and features, the more she knew what her duty was. And it wasn't to Vamdemon. It had never been to him.

This realization didn't change certain facts, as much as she wished it did. Taking Hikari out of here posed a risk that she would have to deal with. Neither humans nor Digimon would give them shelter.

Then I'll find it for myself. If there were places where humans could live in safety, at least so much as was possible in these days, then she would be able to find such a place as well. Perhaps she could even bargain with them, or Hikari could, eventually, for food and clothing. She didn't know what else humans needed. Hikari had managed all this time with food and a place to rest, but she needed more.

Companionship. Her reaction to Ken showed that she needed that more than anything else. It would take time to get them settled in somewhere, but it would have to happen.

Perhaps they couldn't defeat Vamdmeon like this, but if that stray thought could somehow be right, if Ken could somehow be a Chosen Child, then perhaps there were others. Perhaps they could fight Vamdemon and bring peace and freedom back to this world.

Another thought crossed her mind, and she welcomed it. She didn't know where all of those necessities for humans might be in this world, but she did know where at least some of them were in another world. And there, it would be that much harder for Vamdemon to find them. Hikari could truly grow there, in a world that held much more light than this one, even while it lay in the grip of the Dark Masters.

Perhaps she could even persuade them to help her. She hadn't spoken to Black Rosemon before, had only met her a few times when Piemon and Vamdemon met, when she had been Tailmon and Black Rosemon had been LadyDevimon. But those few times might well be enough. It would be risky. It could end with her reformatting. It could put Hikari into danger that she couldn't get her out of.

But it was better than doing nothing, which was all she'd spent the last few years doing. It would take time, and she would have to do her best to make certain Vamdemon didn't know where they were. The less people who knew, the better.

She would start with Wizarmon. He would help her; she believed that with all of her being.

And the fact the less people who knew the better included Hikari. LadyDevimon found herself smiling at the thought. For ten years the girl hadn't had any gifts, any sort of hope to treasure. And while LadyDevimon couldn't give her that hope now, if this plan worked, then she would have a gift to give her that would surpass all the others in two worlds.

The gift of freedom.

To Be Continued