I can barely believe that I finished something for once. I'm so happy that I could get another chapter of this FanFic out, I have so much planned for it despite the fact that this particular chapter ends with a cliffie (Heheh. I'm good with those). But yeah, despite that, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and please review! Enjoy!


Chapter 3~

I'm not proud of your actions, Moroamon. There are no excuses for what you recently achieved. Not only did you not obey my commands, but you showed yourself to a DigiDestined, multiples of them even, and haven't even attempted to harm a one of them. I will not accept this kind of behavior; that is why I sent those pains upon your system, to re-train you, yet again. Get their data; don't fail me this time. Or you can kiss your own life good-bye.

I blinked slowly as Lord Devimon's words sunk into my mind, melting in with all of my other wonderings and thoughts. Master may not have known it, but I was pleased that with myself; I had been able to restrain myself from taking the lives of any that stood between me and that human DigiDestined's data. It wasn't like me at all, no, but I felt like I'd really accomplished something, however small it may've seemed to anyone else. It was like being named the most powerful Digimon in the Digital World; not just anyone could be or do such a thing.

Alone in this white nurse's office, I pondered getting up and escaping through the rain-pattered window; I would earn back a pinch of Master's trust if I went through with such an elaborate escape. Or, I could even go back into the air vents and escape the way I'd come in. Any kind of plan of escape or offensive measures would make Master smile in his own deviously-natured way; there was no such thing as happiness in his eyes. He found different words, but nothing that was 'happiness', or even a synonym of such a wonderfully disturbed word.

It was so overused now; it meant nothing to anyone anymore. Nowadays, it was just a way to describe how one was or was not feeling at that particular moment. It was a way to group humans into categories that I'd learned by observation didn't usually get along very well, because the humans that just wanted to remain in the solitude of their silence just kept getting dragged back into anything bright, sunny, and 'fun' by their ankles (True story, actually.) by the frilly, floral-scented humans all dressed in blinding colors that played with my vision like a little toddler with a black and white spotted ball. They were like parasites; all they lived to do was invade an innocently unaware host (although, sometimes not so ignorant), drain said creation of all nutrients and vitamins needed for functional life, and reproduce more and more of the parasitical life form's kind. That was what all humans seemed to do, but not necessarily in that general way.

What they did, however, was slightly more difficult than the vocation of a parasite over its lifespan: In their path lay a perfectly obscure, intelligent, fellow human, but they say fault in their own kind, and instantly becoming enveloped in the darkness of an imagined higher status, without looking in mirror first to see the guilty dirt of sin and flaws within their own pores. You can't see the world through a mirror, and you can't see the world and the creatures in it until you have looked in a mirror and have seen the monster lurking deep beneath your own skin. You need to know exactly what yanks your chain until your ankles are sore, blistered, and bloody before you can go around towing other people's shackles, and you'll need a fairly decent reason for pulling on their binds also. It has to be important; you can't just go up to someone and start pushing their buttons for the heck of the thrill. Everything and everyone has a purpose; why waste it with meaningless games and puzzles?

Sighing and rolling over on the patient bed above the sheets and blankets, I stared at the wall, the tip of my long, furry black tail struggling to keep my feet warm against the chill of the tempting window, opened a crack to let in a bit of the damp, fresh air, despite the fact that the minutest bit of rainwater was seeping in through the break. Master would be pleased a bit more if I left now, and even more so if I stole the sweet bloody data of a few innocent beings. Three or four un-DigiDestineds might be enough to make up for my mistakes.

I physically shook my head, evading from continuing that thought any further; the only humans I was to be attacking were the DigiDestined ones, and no others. At least, in my head that was the only thing that I was to be doing, despite finding Lord Devimon's wants repulsive and vile. However, I had no choice but to repay him for befriending me in my time of loneliness and despair. It was the right thing to do, but I had to admit…somehow, it felt like the wrong way to be showing my appreciation for it.

As time went on and I grew hungrier for data and more strength, regular DigiDestined blood didn't feel like enough to satisfy me for as long as it was usually meant to do. I was always starving, and human-made food wasn't an option that I had been given by Master Devimon. He told me that if I ate it, I would lose that what made me strong, though he never precisely told me what said fixation was. I didn't understand what he meant over three quarters of the time he said things to me, but if I let on at all about said dilemma, I would only earn myself a very painful beating until I learned to know everything that was possible to be memorized as if my life depended on it. I did know one thing: That 'if' hadn't been spoken by Master.

My life did depend on my being able to carry out every single whim that Master ever breathed. If Master even thought about me destroying another human, I had to be aware, hastily locate the nearest Digi-Destined being…and kill it brutally. Gore pleased Master; the bloodier the mauling, the better, in his eyes anyway. I had a strange feeling within every fiber of my being every time I was forced to devour the contents of a vein in the human body, the tissue still lukewarm from the draining life of the limp carcass that always lay before me, a meal to a predator.

I didn't eat the meat of the human; however, my sharp, arrowhead-similar teeth had purpose in the feeding: They were to sever the vital, soft parts of the human body, and once dead, to aid in the releasing of the sweet, warm nectar. And if I sounded like a vampire or some kind of mythical beast/being to anyone, they were sadly mistaken. Vampires and bloodthirsty bats were just legends, stories told round a campfire to frighten the little ones into leaving the adults to talk over more mature topics. A Digital hybrid was by no means just a story, I was no character in a book, written by an author like Stephen King with a distorted, yet fascinatingly intricate psyche, like any book handwritten about the Digital World. It took a true, dedicated Digimon to write about such a place; there was so much that was needed to be put in it, though a Digimon had plenty of time to write such a thing, for they never would earn themselves an expiration date that wasn't someone else's cause. Every Digimon had one thing in common for certain: We were all immortal.

Being unable to die, and only slowly growing old, was something that many humans wanted, but they only wanted it after they'd begun to receive the effects of age. Apparently, many to all humans were, at one point or another in their lives, obsessed with something about how their appearance was portrayed. Be it whatever it may be, they loathed said feature, and did all that was available to try and reverse its effects. Digimon didn't have the choice of surgery or medication to heal and transfigure themselves; they were forced to suffer through the agony of hating themselves until they found a way onto the path of suicide, or got over it by ignoring said faults.

But a Digital suicide was a hard thing to accomplish; it wasn't like you could just leap from the side of a cliff. It didn't work like that. Of course you would harm yourself; however, you wouldn't necessarily die from the fall or the landing. Digimon were clearly stronger than any human being could ever dream of being, we had the ability to survive even the most drastic of injuries and surroundings, things that humans could die from in a heartbeat. Digimon were undeniably skilled in all areas of aptitude, there wasn't one thing that we couldn't do, or were incapable of learning to do.

Anyone can learn, but you only truly know something if you put it into practice and use it in your life as much as possible, whenever it is needed. Everyone's time would be wasted if the person just took their dear sweet time trying every single little plan their mind came up with, and didn't just dive right in with the knowledge that what they'd learned over the years would be enough to suffice as a solution. But some solutions had consequences, like all actions. Some were obvious and destroyed being and lives; others weren't as lucky as to realize the damage that they've caused someone. Physically or sentimentally.

I sighed, tossing and turning on the plush materials; I wasn't used to such softness, I couldn't sleep, Master didn't allow it. He said it dulled the senses, and made a fighter into a weak, sentimental little worm that was trapped on the sidewalks during a rainstorm, only to be fried and trampled in the heat and traffic of the midday sunlight. Master had asked me if I wanted to be like those soft-bodied creatures, unable to escape the burn of the sun until it was too late, incapable of getting away from the pain, easily killed, and unloved by everything that noticed them. I had stood before Master, staring intently at my toes as I answered him, 'No, sir. I don't.' But I couldn't help but wonder to myself now and again how they truly felt inside, more likely than not, unaware of what Master knew of them. Do they feel unloved? Must they, like me, learn to adore their solitude?

Staring at the rain as it rolled down the window like tears, I wondered if the families of all the children I'd rid the world of had let any of their neighbors know about what had happened, and if those people who'd gotten word of said news were afraid at all for their own children, had they had any at all. Were they afraid that that murderer might come and take away their little children, slaying them, only to leave behind everything but their innocent blood and life? Of course, there was no purpose that they would own to be unafraid of me: A heartless machine with a natural lust for data and blood, claws similar to a werewolf on furry hands and feet, fangs like Dracula within my closed jaws, both of those features canceling each other out as what kind of mythical monster I was supposed to be. Spilt-blood eyes that burned themselves into your brain cells without even attempting to, for they had a mind and personality all their own, eyes of a vampire; shiny black hair that curled around my ash-tinted, pointed ears, another trait of the man-wolf.

I'm still alone; I hear nothing. I still have a chance to get myself out of here before anyone comes back—A knock broke me from my thoughts, making me jerk up quickly into a sitting position, my lanky legs partially dangling over the side of the cotton snow-white bed. A soft chill passed through my bones as a head poked into the room through the small opening currently between the door and the entryway, twin navy eyes and a bright, sparkling smile meeting my straining gaze, full of fear and the want to flee, the need to get out of there before any more of that blonde-headed human got near me.

Despite the stiffness in my legs, I skittered across the linoleum floor beneath my feet, and made a mad jump for the small crack of a window, even though I didn't exactly…open said escape route. It got in my way, and things that stood in my path for too long and became a nuisance to my mind were taken care of thusly. So I smashed it and scampered out like a lady-human in a hot pink bath robe who just walked by her screen entry and saw a moose swimming in her chlorinated water basin. If you aren't going to drink it, why ruin it for anything that will?

I sprinted like a mad man down the flooding streets, the sun trying with much difficulty to break through the crowd of clouds, but I refused to give it permission to do so. Rain would be here every day as long as I was around, Master had made it so. It hadn't let up in America, why would it beg for a difference in Japan? It didn't matter at all if one country was shrouded with the dark gloom of my Dark Master as long as many others saw the light of the true day. Light and darkness were the only two to rule the world like brothers; fire and water shared their power with the forests and the frozen glaciers of the chilly northlands like a group of gods, always feuding over who was meant to direct the world, keep it balanced. But it was never more in order than when with the light and the dark.

The only problem was the beings within the earth, the ones who walked upon it as if they owned that dirt. They just didn't seem to realize that what they were crushing was more than just an old rock; it was a home for creatures that no ordinary creature could see, that not just anyone could feel the presence of. Of course, all—for the most part—were aware of them, but did they truly take their existence into thought and picture what they might undergo when they see what the humans had done to their world? No, of course the humans did not. They never noticed anything until it was upon them like a riptide, dragging them under the surface and swallowing them into an abyss of a grave.

Part of my soul wanted to drag me back into that building, find the human boy with that beautiful scent; it was so intoxicating, what I wouldn't do just to catch the slightest of tastes of that human…Even thinking of the poor soul made my mouth water like insanity, the sweet salivation running uncontrollably down the sides of my mouth to match the pellets of rain. I let my long tongue lap over my lips and chin, retrieving as much of the warm saliva from the freedom of my face and returning it to the cavern of my mouth, the cool wet tingle of the rain water on my face trumping along with it. Even the smell of the gravity-stricken water cannot compare to the bouquet of that boy.

I growled deeply, the light thundering that shouted, 'Keep your distance' echoing from within my throat like lightning from within the blackest storm cloud. The memory of that mahogany-headed human was becoming a distraction to my being, everything just led my thoughts right back to him, and I didn't understand it, I almost hated it. Master evidently didn't enjoy my mind being so fogged up with thoughts of an unimaginable glory that wasn't his, that I couldn't steal away and bring back to him. I almost wanted to find that boy and just slay him, just to prove to myself that his life wasn't going to be as fulfilling as I could imagine it would be.

Almost.

Thinking about it was one thing, but actually picturing myself doing something to harm that strangely fragrant and tender humanoid was entirely different, nearly impossible to imagine. This kind of a feeling was odd, completely against what I was supposed to be conjuring up within myself; I was not supposed to want to stalk a human for the hell of stalking said being. I wasn't meant for games, I was built for destruction and chaos, as Master Devimon had told me many, many times before this hour.

But I just couldn't resist.

The thought of even catching one single breath of his wonderful aroma just once more was something I couldn't deny myself the privilege of gaining, no matter what Master wanted me to do instead. He told me no, I could hear his thoughts within my skull again even now, commanding me to stop thinking like a halfwit human and obey his orders to find another DigiDestined to feed off of, but I ignored both him and my irritated stomach, the hope of even seeing the bright honey-shaded eyes of that human enough to make my heart perform small twirls around and around within my ribcage, the reason for the strange behavior of such a vital member yet another unknown mystery to me. No matter, the only anonymity I wish to have solved now is the location of that boy.

I leapt with a small grunt at the sudden movement onto the tip of a slippery light post—the new, electrical version of the humans' poor excuse for projectile torches during hurricanes—as a blinding pink car raced by me with a blonde in the same colored blouse talking to a small, metallic box, obviously quite wrapped up in her conversation. I could never figure out why humans carried around so many boxes with buttons and symbols on them. One time I'd grown curious enough to snatch one from a human walking underneath the tree I was perched up in, but I hit one button and it was ready to explode, so I threw it as far as I could and got out of there. The human seemed a bit unsettled by that—which means he ran as fast as he could to get out of there.

Jumping from post to tree to post, I followed the faint scent of the DigiDestined boy, the memory of his warm touch against my skin still vivid in my mind. Never had a human touched me before; it was the newest experience I'd had since the slender, easily portable bomb with antennae. His eyes had been incredibly brilliant, like a handful of fresh honey held up against the setting sun. I'd observed human features before since every being, be a Digimon, human, or animal, had a form of curiosity in their makeup. But never had I witnessed a humanoid even close to what that being had been, it was almost impossible for a creature to seem so warm. So…I wasn't even sure I knew the correct word. Currently, I only knew one thing: Find that DigiDestined, and learn exactly what made him so different from every other.

I leapt from the post I'd been perched on with a slight grunt, landing in the middle of the road despite all of the automobiles; I reacted fast enough to be able to outwit each of their movements, they stood no chance against me anyway. Master had built me in such a specific and delicate way that if one of those hunks of dead metal slammed into me, it would be the one retaining all of the damage. I was capable of demolishing a building with one special attack if I wanted to, and the only reason I knew that was because I'd grown tired of traveling for that day and had been sick of chasing after DigiDestined. So I did the only logical thing left and destroyed someone's backyard shack a few times, rebuilding it each time since I didn't get an idea on what to do next until after I was nearly discovered by the property's owners. Master was not happy one little bit that day.

Snapping to my feet like a yo-yo, I sprang right into a sprint, barely wasting a breath of oxygen getting halfway across the city. Wind rushed by me with hurricane-force, blowing my wild black/brown-highlights-from-the-sun hair back out of my face like was always done whenever I ran at this magnitude of speed. Lord Devimon had crafted my body in such a way that I would barely to never feel the faults that normal humans did, such as tire, hunger, thirst, or any emotions other than those used in a fight to add boosts to power and strength. That meant those were all things I couldn't comprehend like an ordinary being; no matter how hard I tried, I'd never be able to completely understand them.

Stopping at a moment's notice, the jagged wind blowing the rain against me and causing my hair to flail around madly, I took in a sharp breath of the air and rain falling around me, and purred like a Gatomon at the bouquet it beheld: The DigiDestined boy; he was close, very close. The sense was enough to make me shudder violently, my nature begging me to hurry up and find the creature already before I went entirely insane with bloodlust and took out this half of Odaiba. That would make Master the most joyful Devi-blood in his clan, but I'd never truly enjoyed my animal-similar mindlessness at times. Though it wasn't something I could learn to control as simply as a human toddler learning to ride a bicycle, it was nature, instinct, habit. And that meant it must be dealt with as if there truly was nothing wrong with it.

Right and wrong were two other things that Master had attempted to convince me time and time again that I could not comprehend, while he, on the other hand, could easily distinguish, and that demolishing the DigiDestined and making him the ruler of both the Digital World and the Human World was correct in all ways. For some reason I couldn't seem to reach, I couldn't find the strength to fully believe in his words above all else, like he wished for me to. I found it impossible to believe that murdering innocent, oblivious beings, be them humans or aliens, could be justified by anyone in any way. However, Master was not one to be simply persuaded into changing his mind without a fight, and I had no purpose in battling with him, despite my beliefs. I found no desire in harming him to gain what I wanted: Understanding.

Lord Devimon was the head of his Devi-blood clan, and LadyDevimon as his right hand, though he showed no true affections for anything or anyone but his own hide and the destruction of worlds. DeviDramon rivaled my spot at Master's feet without cease, but he was a little human-world-worm compared to my abilities and was nothing more than an annoying tick that could be easily squished between the tips of my claws. Not that Master would allow that; I didn't appreciate his commands to destroy, but for DeviDramon…I would make a certain exception.

The Lady of The Dark had told me once of a female angel Digimon that had battled her once, had attempted to steal her status in the Digital World, and if I ever crossed the path of one even close to the description that she'd given in the telling of the fight to confront it as AngeWomon, and destroy it immediately after it turned its head in response to the name. She'd given an oath to reward me greatly if I accomplished the mission for her, but had never said exactly what she would do, and I'd always been too unsure of my words to bring the topic up again until I'd done as she'd ordered. So far…I'd never come across a Digimon that responded to the name, only had given me another name in reply to it: Gatomon. However, I'd seen many Gatomon, and none seemed to have any idea what I was speaking of when I mentioned a fight with the Lady of the Dark. Most days I could tell when beings lied, and none of their emotions had been deceitful after having come out as words.

Walking with a slight hesitance at trusting the sureness that this was an intelligent initiative I felt within my core, I took in another few snappish breaths through my black-tipped nose, catching a strong trail despite the fact that the rain was coming quite close to finishing its goal of wiping away all traces of the human—and, according to the bouquets, two others. A surge of confidence hit me like a tidal wave in the middle of the ocean; this had to be the building that that brunette-boy lived in, it just had to be. His smell was far too strong here for it to just be some kind of coincidence. I'd found the residence of the boy with the mahogany hair.

A breeze coasted over my skin, the chilled rain pelting against me almost crossly, as if even the clouds were angered at my presence here. It was clear that Master did not want me to go anywhere close to that edifice, even if it was the only thing that could be used to wipe out the whole DigiDestined population with one fatal slash. Thunder boomed over my head like a MonoChromon's roar just before it is about to attack another, fighting one another to establish territory boundaries, and rights to all the present food sources. Lightning twirled like raging Piximon above my head, slashing their spears across the dark evening skies with multiple flashes of bright white light. There was something here that Master didn't want me near, didn't want me to know of, but I had to go in. I just had to; destiny was a mistress of the unknown, but I had to learn of her ways somehow, and this would be a decent start. No matter what Lord Devimon thought.

I scurried up the dark, wet steps up to the see-through door, all kinds of scents surging from the cracks around the door. There was a scent quite close to that of the mahogany-haired boy, three of them to be exact, but none that were quite as intoxicating. Attempting to stay out of the light that was leaking from the windows everywhere, though they were all continuing flickering and threatening to go off entirely, I gasped when that same door opened, and a girl about the age of sixteen, dressed in a school or possibly even a camp-ish uniform carrying an umbrella burst out of the building, mumbling something to herself about being late for a date, though I wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about. Humans close to her age were always quite odd, and I found them very interesting to follow; you could learn so much about the ruts that creatures like them could so easily fall into by observing such beings. I was tempted to follow her; the smells of her skin was similar to that of my target's, but not close enough. Not a perfect match.

Letting out a small gasp, I leapt up from the shadows onto the very top of the door, balancing with ease on the slender platform before flipping myself over, and slipping into the building, clinging to the ceiling with my claws, hoping to stay unnoticed. There were only a few humans wandering around the halls, but it would only take one set of eyes to notice me and make everyone in a five-mile radius aware of my presence. I had to be quick, quiet, and clever; otherwise it would be that much harder to get back in next time.

A scent that I was beginning to recognize far too quickly; I could almost see those unique, honey-colored eyes. The bouquet was so strong that I could barely keep my balance on the ceiling, nearly tumbling down to the floor, which was awaiting my failure below me. Attempting to stay as hushed and inconspicuous as possible, I scurried along the ceiling, my claws clicking and clacking every time I forced them into the plaster and wood. My movements became faster and faster as the smells began to fade into one single trail; my pupils dilated until there wasn't even a sliver of white in my eyes, my thirst for the DigiDestined overwhelming my want of knowledge about that human. Instincts put up a better fight within me than intellect.

It only took me a moment to find a flight of steps, each one powdered with the delectable taste of a DigiDestined. My instincts and body were completely out of my control, and now all of my functions lay in Master's hands like puppet strings. He could command me like a one-being army, and I could wipe out the whole earth—and the Digital World—with a single stride, without even pausing to breathe. I had the power to destroy anything that I wished, and demolish it in a way that no one would be able to replace it, or even learn what it was that had even been disassembled in the first place. The most deadly part of every Digimon, however, was not what power we had within our grasp to command. It was the fact that, considering the humans' resources of weapons, there was absolutely nothing that could destroy us. Except for another Digimon, that is. But other than that flaw, we were built to fight, made for causing death and worldwide chaos.

No longer caring if anyone heard me, since they would probably have gotten the news from America and that woman on the train earlier that there was some kind of villain running amuck, and not to leave their residences under any circumstance, I picked up my pace, making the little scratching noises turn into bangs and loud scrapes. But I suddenly skittered to a hasty stop when a door quite near me suddenly flung open and a woman that seemed to have an angered aura flowing rapidly around her stormed out of one of the apartment complexes, mumbling something to herself about how her child and his friends had disappeared for a few weeks and she hadn't worried herself sick then, so why should she worry about a murderer on the loose that no one had really even caught a good long glimpse of? If she had been a DigiDestined, or at least smelled a bit more like one, then it was fairly simple for me to be able to see that she wouldn't have lasted very long if my allies had come in for a kill instead. There was only one thing about her that stuck me as incredibly helpful. Almost a sign from Kamisama.

The door into the enclosure, the handle—and the woman as well—both sharing the scent of the DigiDestined I sought, was open, but just a crack. Just enough for me to be able to slip in without alerting anyone. Something in the deep, dark atmosphere was telling me that what I was doing, who I was after, was worth the chase, and this was how they were going to assist me in my hunt. I didn't care for my thirst for knowledge about him anymore. Blood would be shed tonight, and my hunger satisfied through his death.

I dropped from the ceiling back onto the floor beneath, landing squarely on my feet in a way that all human gymnasts could only wish that they would eventually be able to. Walking on the tips of my claws like I always did, the sharp points drilling with constant clicks into the floor, though there was no other sounds anywhere around me, I moved over to the slightly open door, feeling no sense of intrusion whatsoever as I swung it open, the hinges creaking lightly as I did so. I could hear the blood pumping through my calm brain as I moved into the DigiDestined-aroma-ed room, the incredibly strong scent giving me a slight headache from such luxury. I wasn't used to having such a wonderful scent tickling my lungs for such a long time.

Though I wasn't expecting a second bouquet to be dwelling in the air. It consisted much more of parchment and some kind of twisted candy that reminded me moreso of arteries than any kind of sweet creation that humans and other beings enjoyed to snack on. There was also the unmistakable scent of pine, rich dirt, and some kind of fuzz, or fluffiness of some kind. However, I wasn't entirely sure why I would be able to detect such a thing on a human. There were another two scents—making the total number of noticeable, distinct smells in the entire apartment altogether four—that had the unmistakable tingle of a Digimon's aroma to their DNA, but I felt that that was highly unlikely. Despite the fact that they were DigiDestined, undeniably at that, no scent of any kind of Digimon had been anywhere on the mahogany-haired boy. If there was a Digimon living in the same residence for the past week, I would've been able to sense it.

Ignoring the nagging feeling that I knew just had to be Master in my mind again (he was mentioning the Digi-scent over and over again), I proceeded without any sound through the home, the only echo being that of my claws against the floor and the reverberation of voices only a few yards away from me. By following the faint reverberation of quiet, excited-by-the-incredible-storm-just-outside-the-window voice, I found my way to the bedroom—or so I assumed, most human teenagers stayed nearby their own boundaries of the home almost as if they left they would be mauled by another of their pack—that smelled the most like a DigiDestined. There was no possible way that the boy could find a way out, all that there was left was a window, and then a very steep drop back down to the street that no human no completely confined in the bubbly pre-wrap object could survive, and no other way to possibly get out of the apartment that didn't involve getting past me.

Just as I reached the door, I looked up to see that the lights had begun to flicker again, this time flicking off permanently, the only source of brightness coming from underneath the door and from all of the windows around the home as lightning flashed outside like beacons and thunder rumbled like battle cries. Though dim light was not the only thing coming from underneath the door crack, barely audible voices could be heard, though possibly not the ears of a human. One voice I recognized as the DigiDestined I sought…but there were three more that I could not place in my memories. Then they will be appetizers to my course. The one I seek shall be the feast of a lifetime.

My senses were heightened extraordinarily as Master's mind fused with mine in a kind of cross, and every emotion I had once had, or maybe never even truly owned, was erased from all strands of my DNA. Any chance of me leaving without a true feast of warm life was out of the question now that his will was just as strong within me as my very own. There was no excuse for leaving empty-handed.

I reached out with my claws extended first to touch the door, the wood splintering underneath the sharp tips of the pointed bone. The scraping silenced those within the small confines of the room, both of them beginning to whisper about what that could possibly be as the scent of two Digimon neared the door. But they would be no match for me, even if they were able to digivolve into stronger forms here in the human world. With Lord Devimon, the Emperor of Darkness, on my side, there would be nothing to stop me.

My hand slid down from the wood to the slick metal of the doorknob, the coldness of it reminding me of my own flesh, though Master didn't let my thoughts wander among topics as such for very long. Business came first in this existence, thinking came after instincts. Turning the knob, the door hinges squeaked and squealed loudly as I swung the door open, an eerie silence and indolence to each movement, similar to the stillness of the soundless atmosphere. Thunder rumbled all around as I took one step towards the two DigiDestined, one sitting on the bed while the other was on the floor with two small Digimon that I could've stomped into the dirt with one quick slam. Their scents were the exact ones I'd followed, and their faces were illuminated like innocent angels by the man-made lights they held in their hands like flame-less torches.

The first boy, the one on the bed, had unruly chestnut-hued hair that was held out of his face by a pair of goggles that looked so familiar it almost frightened me. His eyes were so bright and lively in his fear and confusion, the fact that he recognized me from earlier today also evident in his gaze as he stared through the beam his light source gave off at me. The beautiful brown that they were, like the wood of the trees I ran amongst so often, were inviting and tender, the kind that almost begged you to gaze back into them with a curiosity of what lay behind them. It was a complicated thing to describe, though feelings were never meant to be said, but shown.

The other wasn't as elegant as the tanned-skinned one, though he was clearly something to behold. His bluish-black-possibly-even-royal-purple-in-such-bleak-lighting hung only barely past his ears, both ends curled back around them, giving him a very feminine appearance at the first glance. The eyes of the second creature were of a bold blue, one that gave you the impression of staring straight into the ocean itself, facing down a Seadramon that intended to steal your data in order to make itself stronger, give it a fighting chance of getting to the human world that was spoken of in myths and legends in the Digital World. His skin was nowhere near as deeply hued as the one that smelled undeniably tempting, though his scent was incredibly fresh and sweet like human sugar.

The two Digimon that had previously been resting beside him were up on their feet, staring me down and growling with what seemed to be an attempt to be menacing. One was small, round, and its fur the shade of a quite exquisitely vivid blue. Its large eyes were a hue of scarlet, giving it an advantage in its raging appearance though it clearly had too much of the cute-little-bean gene in its nature to be taken as anything other than a nuisance to this cause. The other had a caterpillar/worm-like appearance, with its slick green skin and pinkish-red antennae. But neither of them mattered to Master; the only thing that did was that I retrieved the data of the feminine-like boy, and took the other into the Digital World alive. To share.

As my lips parted to show eager fangs, ready and willing to sink into the flesh of both of them, to feel the warmth of blood that felt so far away, that would be the only heat I would ever feel in this pitiful existence that was here only to kill and make beings as miserable as I, my words fell from my mouth like drops of what I was about to be awarded, the words of darkness one of many poems I'd seen over my years of wandering aimlessly around the Earth, "Oh, blade, you'll warm tonight! Awash in crimson-purple flows, your sheen will dull with aching flesh: Palpating, anatomic mounds. Caressing, dancing, writhing round your metal form—whetted 'gainst a lonely bone, then to probe the pounding, begging heart. And all the while the prey will howl before they crumple; meet the mud—a taut and unbelieving jowl will open out for giving blood. A vent from down below, once a brutal show of metal in the man…" As the last of my words dripping from my lips, lightning flashed outside, lighting the whole area like a beacon of hope that wouldn't be able to make it here in time. Nothing would be able to move fast enough to save anyone now. Death—satisfaction to my thirst—was inevitable.