A/N: Here's Chapter 2! The first real divergence is right here, as you can probably tell. Check the end notes for a bit of a partial explanation on this chapter if you like. Enjoy!
Why keep fighting? Fighting makes everyone sad, doesn't it?
Angemon's world is dark fluid colours, blending together incoherently, and a child's satin-smooth voice; disoriented and lost, he flutters his wings helplessly. He doesn't even feel air here, but still he struggles. Where is this? How did he arrive here? He remembers blackness and redness, maleficent light and bats and blood…
Vamdemon.
His movements become more desperate, but it's all to no avail; this space seems ignorant of the normal rules of direction. But he has to escape. He has to protect Takeru, and the others! And that girl, Hikari the Eighth – without her, they –
"Who are you?"
Doubts, fears – your despair! Let me out more often – it would help us, don't you think?
"Explain yourself."
Like right now! I mean, you want to keep fighting? Really? Isn't that just more pain? It's not worth it if you'll just lose.
I can't win? How would you know?
No, of course not. We're not the Eighth Child's partner, and to be honest, what can that Chosen Child of ours do for us? See how he bawls? How he can't even handle one real fight?
No, that's… The sea of hues solidifies into images like the paintings on File Island, in that wretched mansion. Takeru, shocked, scared, tearful. Digimon, scattered like splintered marionettes over the roof of the structure that had been their battlefield, no longer in flight. Proud Vamdemon, triumphantly backhanding WereGarurumon with little exertion.
Look at us the angel! Look at our partner, the so-called child of Hope! Can you tell me honestly that we're meant to destroy the dark?
Angemon's image, inverted as if through a mirror. But the brightened paints darken and warp, the imaginary canvas of the emptiness becoming more like glass reflecting light, until instead he sees tattered black wings, leather buckles, the abhorrent Mark of Evil blazing on his chest…
Just despair! Won't that be better than this acerbic light? Won't it be easier?
Takeru, crying, throwing his Digivice and Crest at him in a child's tantrum, and suddenly Angemon's petite again like Tokomon. The now-material desert drags the Digimon into its golden sands while his partner runs, runs, runs away…
"Angemon! Angemon, I'm sorry! I believe in you! Please get up!"
"Takeru…? Are you…?"
"If we don't think we can win, what's the point in fighting? The answer is… that we're strong enough to make it happen now! There's no point backing away now! I'm sorry I didn't believe you before, Angemon!"
The burning-hot sands melt away, and after a too-deep scream, the voice quiets itself.
"Takeru, you're really… growing up…"
Golden light, the hope for salvation, descends upon him, and the oily colours closing in dissipate in the radiance of the great rising beacon. Angemon feels power once lost flowing back into him, but the light does not cease when he expects it to and continues to buoy him. This is it, he realizes, the great light of his partner's soul.
Hope.
"Angemon, super-evolve!"
A/N: Though it's not an attack used in the show, looking up Vamdemon's attack set yields Nightmare Wave, an attack described as "a dark wave that hypnotizes the enemy, amplifying their doubts and driving them mad." I'm taking some liberties with its portrayal, since we don't get one in the show – but given the number of extra powers Vamdemon displays anyway, I don't think it's too much of an issue.