Not long after regaining access to the Digital World and setting up the golden spire system, Millenniummon knew that he had to deal with the matter of V-mon.

Even after going to all this trouble to use Wormmon's connection to V-mon to find this sealed temple, these emotions his core forced upon him didn't want to unseal the dragon child. Not when V-mon had fought besides Ryo twice. Oh, Agumon had given Ryo some help at the beginning of the tournament, according to Ken's memories, since Taichi didn't need to train the way Ryo did and Ryo's fights weren't at the same time as Taichi's, but if Ryo had gotten far enough to fight Taichi? Agumon wasn't going to fight for Ryo against his own partner, and they both knew it.

Ryo had asked Wormmon to stay behind after the first few fights, because Ryo didn't want to waste Wormmon's precious chance to speak with his partner through the device Gennai built.

V-mon was the one who had fought for Ryo even against the Legendary Child of Courage. The one who had insisted on going with him to the floating mountain, even knowing that MoonMillenniummon would soon awaken there.

So V-mon was killed in the blast that convinced the Four Holy Beasts that god and partner alike were dead and gone.

Death should have stripped V-mon's memories of both Ryo and Millenniummon from him, but with the worlds connected Digimon were remembering more when they revived. Millenniummon had never lost any of his memories to death, and now he knew that was Ryo's doing. Because his human counterpart possessed exceptional strength. V-mon was the partner of one of the Chosen Children, so who knew what knowledge he might retain, unless the Four Holy Beasts or someone else dealt with those memories?

Ryo would want to be sure that V-mon was alright as soon as he returned, so best to deal with the risk a fellow dragon's (and ancient digimon's) senses might be able to detect his energies within the Child of Kindness now.

"I think this is it, Wormmon," Ken said, stepping towards the egg on the altar. "I wonder why he didn't wake up at Primary Village?"

Wormmon looked worried. "Do you think they did something to V-mon?"

"I don't know, but I should find out before I try to move the egg. It might be trapped," he said, sitting down and getting out his laptop.

Well now, wasn't this interesting.

It was strangely practical that the Child of Kindness was bonded to a useless Wormmon: his crest wouldn't let him empower his partner any significant amount, so there was no point in giving him a partner with powerful digivolutions he would never be able to attain. Yet Wormmon had a secondary bond to V-mon, one that would let them merge with ease, and Ken could give power to V-mon. So Wormmon himself might be useless to Ken (for Millenniummon, he was useful practice) but his merged form might actually be formidable. It would depend on the abilities of V-mon's partner. It was almost a pity that a DNA digivolution would link Ken's mind to that of V-mon's partner, and he couldn't have them noticing a foreign presence in the link.

Well, he consoled himself, if he needed access to an enforcer he had the other Chosen. That would avoid getting his mask's hands dirty.

Wormmon climbed into his lap. "Do you think we can wake him up?"

"I was right: there is something keeping him asleep. I could try to break it, but it's keyed to his partner," he told Wormmon. He smiled down at the bug. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"V-mon will so happy if his partner is there when he wakes up!" Wormmon rejoiced, clasping his little forelegs together.

The worship of Digimon was boring, but what he felt through the link? The thought of having his nemesis smiling up at him like this made him smile down at Wormmon.

"Right. If we bring the digi-egg to the real world, then even if we can't find V-mon's partner, he'll find V-mon." Partners were drawn together. Even after he knew that Ryo could give Digimon the power to ignore Millenniummon's invulnerability, he still could not run from the human. He'd done his best to throw barriers in Ryo's path, but it was not only Ryo's skill that made them surmountable. Millenniummon's own drive to be near his partner had resulted in self-sabotage. If the only way to regain his former competence was to give his core what it wanted, then so be it. "Try lifting his egg, Wormmon."

"Me?"

"You're connected to V-mon, remember? You're not his partner, but I bet you can still pick up his egg."

Even the mask had to suppress a laugh as Wormmon carefully managed to carry the egg. Not a mocking one, but a kind one, seeing Wormmon take his chance to help the friend he'd missed for two years so seriously. 'Ken' couldn't carry the egg, but he could carry Wormmon in his backpack.

"That's Daisuke's egg!" Hikari said as soon as Wormmon pushed it out of Ken's backpack onto the floor of Taichi's room.

And that was why Millenniummon had constructed shields that could hold up against even Zhuqaiomon's examination before contacting the other Chosen Children. None of them had the first idea of how to control their powers, and he had no intention of being seen by the Child of Light and exorcised by the Child of Purity. Posing as their friend was dangerous, but studying their powers was his best chance to find some way of sealing Ryo's.

"Really?" Ken said happily, sitting on the floor. "Your friend from Taichi's soccer club?"

Hikari nodded. "Daisuke is…" she paused, and he saw darkness behind her eyes. Darkness he'd put there by swatting those Numemon. Of course he didn't regret getting those disgusting creatures off him, but her emotions had opened her channel of power and let the Will of the Digital World empower Koromon. That was inconvenient. "He's nice, but he doesn't think. It's a good thing the fighting is over. He'd want to protect everyone, and…"

"He's a good kid," Taichi agreed. "Some of the new Chosen Children I'm not so happy about: Mimi's and Koushiro's friends are fine, but a lot of the kids you said were at the tournament? Who picked those jerks? Daisuke has a lot of heart."

"That's a relief," Wormmon said. "V-mon was my friend: he's strong and brave and protected me and Ken even when he couldn't digivolve. He deserves a partner as nice as Ken." But not Wormmon's Ken, judging from the way Wormmon scuttled back to Ken's lap.

"Let me give him a call," Taichi said, leaving the room.

Wormmon's happiness to see his newly-hatched friend was dimmed by V-mon not remembering him. "But I know we're going to be best friends!" V-mon reassured him, which restored the little bug's spirits.

That happiness touched Ken's heart, and with it the brain Millenniummon inhabited.

Wormmon wasn't his Ryo, but feeling even the echo of his host's bond?

He must have this. He must.

Failure was no longer an option, not when it would leave him a mental cripple.

Fate had brought his partner to the Digital World so that he would become obsessed with Ryo and be unable to fight him effectively. Not when he was programmed to protect Ryo. It had worked: he'd let Ryo kill him three times, and even allowed Ken to live, so distracted by Ryo's presence and the growing realization that he was not acting like himself. That something was wrong with his mind.

He watched Tailmon congratulating V-mon on finally finding his partner, even if V-mon didn't remember going without his partner before, and evaluated her. If he was any judge, she'd regained most of the acumen she'd possessed as Vamdemon's right hand. The bond had only forced her to be incompetent when acting competently would have consisted of slitting Hikari's throat before the human could make her betray her master.

If he wanted to be himself again, if he wanted to rule the worlds, he needed Ryo by his side. The way Tailmon sat at Hikari's, the former assassin drawing on all her skills to ensure the safety of the Child of Light.

When Ryo was among the rebels, Millenniummon's own mind refused to strip him of allies and protectors. Once Ryo was his? Why, any rebels would be threats to Ryo: attempting to bring down their god, they might go after his partner.

As galling as he found the thought of being some pampered pet like the Wormmon, every scrap of data he could find confirmed that once Ryo had been summoned to the Digital World? Once he'd been brought somewhere Millenniummon could sense him, and he had possessed a God's ability to survey his domain?

It was too late. He couldn't deactivate the programming. All he could do was satisfy it, so it would stop forcing him to crave something he'd done without for thousands of years. So it would stop turning his mind against itself. So he could stop obsessing over someone when he had a conquest to arrange.

A charade of caring for the Wormmon to keep up appearances provided test data, not merely on the Wormmon but the human partner, observing Ken's reactions to those memories. Now Daisuke and V-mon would provide another sample to observe.

It was one thing to try to defeat Ryo, another to pit himself against both the human meant for him and his own self.

He couldn't capture Ryo and break him. He couldn't mind control him: that plan had also been made to fail. He couldn't expect Ryo to abandon valuable allies like the Chosen Children: that would be stupid when humans were weak on their own and Ryo knew what it took to fight Ultimate Digimon.

To satisfy his programming, he needed Ryo safe and at his side. To keep Ryo from fighting him, he needed Ryo ignorant. Needed him happy with things as they were.

'Friends' let him practice making humans happy. Wormmon let him practice making a partner happy.

Four years to prepare simultaneously felt like an empty eternity and not enough time at all.

After going up and around closer to the angle of Ryo's original path, they emerged into a lab filled with tubes. Keramon was clinging to the side of one of them, all his tentacles wrapped around it. His head rotated when they came in, and he jumped down to pose in front of the tube, large arms spread to make himself appear more menacing as he glared at Ryo.

"Down, Keramon," MoonMillenniummon said to his creation.

Ryo was staring at what was in that tube.

The hair, the eyes: that was Ken. Not the Ken of 2004, but the little kid who needed someone to fix his brother's computer before he noticed there was something weird on the screen.

Except Ken would have smiled to see him, not MoonMillenniummon, before yawning and closing his eyes again. And Ken didn't have patches of metal on his stomach, or feet that were bare metal bones.

"This is Keramon's partner. An artificial human for an artificial Digimon," the Digimon explained as Ryo stared. "Reproducing Keramon's exact pattern required far more precise control than the Order's type of artificial human offered me, so I devised a different method. Keramon is not good at restraining his strength, so I build this prototype sturdier. He linked to Keramon instead of generating his own partner as soon as he became self aware: if he malfunctions and dies, Keramon will lose the will to live. Therefore, I will not allow him out of the tube until he is complete, no matter how he begs to hold his partner."

"Did you have to use Ken?" Ryo's voice was quiet even in his own ears. For a moment he wondered if Millenniummon heard it over the humming equipment.

"It would have been out of character to beg or steal a blood sample from another Chosen Child, and I needed to build a human base with a powerful ability to link to Digimon to compensate for Keramon not being built with linking to humans in mind."

Right now, the… cyborg clone? But this was the Digital World, so was he an artificial intelligence? Either way, there were tubes and cords linking him to the tube he was in. "What am I going to tell Ken?" Did this make Osamu an uncle, too?

"You can tell them that I got Daisuke's blood one of those times he ignored his safety going for a goal and I had to patch him up, and once I finish this one and make BlackWarGreymon's partner he had best propose before I force the issue. Loving parents are clearly beneficial to humans, so unless he wants the sentience of the spire system to be connected to a partner as unstable as Takeru…"

This time Ryo didn't even manage the 'Wha?' part of what before becoming speechless.

"Wormmon and V-mon are natural DNA Digivolution partners, not that I could risk allowing them to digivolve together, when I would be pulled into the link between Ken and Daisuke… Roleplaying my host's crush was valuable practice," MoonMillenniummon said smugly, "and Daisuke is a sweet little thing, if I could do with a bit less excitability. I suppose he can't help being passionate, given his Crest. Well, not unless he wished to be weak."

"You pretended to like someone else when you were trying to, to get your hands on me?" Planning to break V-mon's partner's heart was one more for the incredibly long list of his partner's evil deeds, Ryo guessed.

"I needed to be able to imitate Ken in love, and the best way to do that was to observe him in love. Daisuke is… If Taichi and Mimi were allowed to breed and the offspring inherited a double dose of complete obliviousness, but he's an affectionate pet. I was planning to keep him for you, and so Ken would remain a besotted template for me to copy."

Ryo just stared.

"I just talked the Chosen Children into helping me overthrow the Four Holy Beasts and take control of the Digital World," MoonMillenniummon told him. "Before them, it was Apocalymon and the other Dark Masters. If it weren't for my inability to lie to you, I would have had no difficulty talking you into a threesome. An Adult evolution is still nothing compared to an Ultimate with my power and experience. Of course, now I've hurt Ken, so Daisuke will be trying to bite my face off. If anyone lets him find out the coordinates of this mountain, he'll be here in minutes. Fortunate that being blown up wiped V-mon's memory." He sounded approving, or was Ryo hearing things?

"Like a guard dog?" Even if it was nice to hear that yeah, Ken really did have good friends. "Are all of them really just things to you?"

"Yes. Obviously. A thing is a term encompassing all objects of discussion. People are objects that can be discussed, therefore people are things. Ken, my previous pet Digimon, Ken's puppy, even you and I. The only difference between myself and Ken is that I am a smarter, more capable thing, as are you. Ken and Wormmon, Daisuke and V-mon, you and I are all the evidence one needs that partners are made for each other." MoonMillenniummon ceased pretending to be affected by gravity and solid matter to stick one of his heads into a cabinet and come out with a chocolate bar in that mouth. Floating over to the tube, he stuck that head through the wall.

"Chocolate!" Keramon cried, and the boy opened his eyes and let out a happy laugh to see the candy.

The evil god let him snatch it before asking. "First you say…"

"Can I please have some chocolate-with-big-eyes!"

"And then?"

"Thankyou, Moony-or-whoever-gave-me-something-so-they'll-do-it-again!"

"Now you may open it. That's the trouble with language downloads." MoonMillenniummon sighed as the mini-Ken ripped open the chocolate, floating back over Ryo's head. "I'll have to wait until he's further into in-training stage before he'll understand the concept of stage directions."

Was this feeling what made people hit their head against the wall?

"Wait until I clone the Child of Desire for the artificial Digimon I am crafting to embody the spire system," the dark serpent gloated. "I'll have to upgrade the intelligence, but that one will be just as lethal as BlackWarGreymon with a little training."

"What's his name?"

"Kera, currently." He waved his tail at Keramon, who had returned to plaster himself to the front of the tube.

"So he'd be Diablo if Keramon digivolved?"

"Of course. Personal names are a human concept. All of the artificial humans were 'Gennai' after an extinct relative of Lampmon, but the surviving Gennai was contaminated enough by contact with the Chosen Children to decide the new ones should have human-style names. If it matters to you, 'Treasure' may count as a nickname."

When Ryo didn't respond, a red-eyed head eventually lowered to look at him upside-down.

"…Ryo?" he asked after a few moments, that dark voice almost soft with concern.

"I'm in the future. No one I can talk to about the Digital World remembers me except my parents, Gennai and Ken, and what can I even say to Ken? When you did that to him because of me? And now I have to tell him about this," Ryo said, sounding close enough to despairing the part of him that noticed things like that was getting worried, as though there wasn't enough going wrong in his head.

"…It is too much?" the evil Digimon asked.

"Why… why do you do things like this, possessing people and killing them and cloning them without asking and blasting me to the future and… I wanted a partner like everyone else's! I thought if I had a partner, I…"

"That you'd be safe from me?"

Ryo shook his head. "Agumon and V-mon fought you to protect me: my partner would have to, so I'd have to be worried about them, but… Why can't you be… You really are a monster," he said, and hung his head.

Darkness coiled around him, suddenly solid. Ryo should have felt scared, trapped, but he was just too tired to care enough to overrule the part of him that felt comforted by the evil god's presence. "I have been a monster since I wandered the deserts of the Digital World, searching. For all my mastery of the Digital World's secrets, I know very little of anything else. I hoped to learn how to take proper care of you from the Child of Kindness, but I can no longer wear that mask. Or any mask. Not with you. If you were not my partner I could keep you as innocent and happy as I kept Wormmon while I dreamed of the day I would have you curled up by my side with such contentment. But you are my partner, and so I cannot lie to you and manipulate you."

"So you don't know what to do any more than I do."

"I can see countless ways this can end in misery. Once it does? To gain the power to reorder time, to reorder your time when you are the balance to my powers, I would have to destroy all the worlds and times that currently exist. If I did that, then once you compelled the truth from me and discovered what I had done? Surely no matter how I shaped your history you would still despise me. Yet I am driven to do whatever I must to have you by my side. If all other hopes are exhausted, then I must slay the ENIAC and shatter time."

Too, too much and if it weren't for those coils he might have fallen. It wasn't like the fate of the world hadn't rested on his shoulders before, but all those times he'd done nothing but delay Millenniummon. After the first time, he'd started coming back after a few days! First he and Ken beat Millenniummon only for him to return as MoonMillenniummon, then the Four Holy Beasts pulled him into the Digital World because MoonMillenniummon was about to revive again and now here he was years in the future and the monster who captured and enslaved everyone had as good as won.

And used Ken to do it, when Ryo wasn't here to save him. When this was his job, his responsibility.

How was he supposed to stop his partner now?

"Why must I be compelled to tell you the truth, even when it harms you instead of protecting you…" He felt one of those muzzles, cool and scaled, nudge against his cheek."Can this programming that compels me not even be internally consistent? Or is it that it harnesses my own mind, from within my own mind, and knows every method I could use to evade it as soon as I invent them? Yet why would it ruin my ability to attain what it forces me to desire? Is there any victory to be found when I fight not only my beloved but myself? When I possessed Ken, I realized that I had stumbled into a way to avoid fighting you, and even that is as sabotaged as my other plans…"

Ryo scrunched his eyes shut tighter, and the darkness held him.

Safe, said whatever part of him made him a Chosen Child. My partner's here. I'm not alone. We can do this.

He wished that part of him was right, but no matter how much he wanted it to be true, it was just impossible.

The coils remained solid yet weightless, holding him up instead of dragging him down. A head tucked itself against the side of his own, and he felt Millenniummon's body warm, vengeful spirit or not. He let himself sag backwards against that support, knowing his partner wouldn't let go.

That might or might not be the problem.

He wasn't sure how much time passed before his feet left the ground. He didn't open his eyes, even when he felt the transfer between the worlds.

"Hey, you're that jerk, aren't you! What are you doing to him?" a barely-familiar voice demanded.

"Let go of Ryo!" Wormmon.

"Comfort him," MoonMillenniummon ordered, voice a hiss, as he gently lowered Ryo onto a bed, coils passing through it so there was no need to drop him for even a centimeter.

The evil god had brought him to his friends?

"Is he alright?" Ken asked.

"Simply overwhelmed. Once again, I gave him too many truths. My partner is still a Child, even if in the past he has evolved under pressure into something strong enough to stand against even me. He cannot be expected to handle so much now when he has not even reached his adult stage," MoonMillenniummon said, defensive not of himself but of Ryo. "He needs softness I cannot provide." That muzzle pressed against his cheek in a farewell, and the coils shifted as they released him.

Ryo opened his mouth and managed to say, "Stay."

"I do not think that is wise."

"It's not, but you're my partner," Ryo said. "This is…" Your job. The way you're mine. Please, please try? "Stay?"

An amused huff of breath in his ear. "Do you wish to give V-mon and his partner the chance to bite my faces off?"

Ryo laughed, and it almost startled him, but, "That sounds fun." Without opening his eyes, he raised a hand to pull the head down against his shoulder. "Stay."

"…You ask of me what I wish most of all, my beloved," and this time, this time he sounded kind.

This is why the Ryo games are so darn fascinating to me as an SF fan and someone interested in applied psychology for practical reasons. I like scientist, or perhaps even more engineer characters - like Tony Stark applies what he knows to actually doing things he wants to do - whether they be mad scientists, nice/parental scientists, the long story that is Frankenstein from Noblesse, etc. If you're in a bad situation, you try to do something about it... if you can. After Millenniummon realizes that Ryo is his partner, he makes various attempts to get out of the fact that he is now screwed. They don't help, and judging from the Tamers drama CD what's left of him in Cyberdramon is suicidal.

Tailmon wants to stop serving Vamdemon, so her story has a happy ending, but imagine if she actually liked Vamdemon, or just had a life of her own that wasn't compatible with being Hikari's partner?