A/N: Beware your fears made into light, for they will bury you with such terrible right.
DAVIS
It felt like he was sinking not into water, but quicksand.
The darkness had wrapped itself around him so tightly it was an uncomfortable blanket, filled with an icy chill unlike anything he had felt before. The screams and cries of the others had faded away, and the cold he tried to battle against in vain had drowned his anger with terrible fear.
Tiny hands were pulling him down further into the blackness, and he could not see anything, eyes opened or not, and air was becoming scarce…
Finally, he felt himself slipping away, a pull at his heart the only thing remaining to feel, which it did as though it was ripped from his chest by a bear, but Davis did not scream – he was losing enough air already. He wasn't sure what to do when his mind began to dull and mist, and before long, darkness took him completely.
But then he felt something warm, grabbing his wrist; suspiciously tight in grip and pulling him, like fingers, not the stubby claws he felt all around him.
There was a blinding flash, and before he could think, Davis was coughing and gasping for air, his eyes readjusting to the light painting the stone beneath him. The air was heavy and hot to taste, but he did not care, every morsel of air in his lungs like food to a starved man.
Slowly, he lifted his head, eyes swimming with colours, but gradually allowing him to see clearly once more. Before him was a water feature, spraying water onto a square of paintings, looking like roses wilting over time. Around him, the stone led up some steps from the empty square he was in, small shops and a hotel to either side of him and behind him a strange, large white tower.
'What is this?' he whispered to himself, not a soul there to hear him, allowing a thought to come to him undisturbed, and so he yelled, 'VEEMON!'
It just had to be the Digital World. That was the only possible explanation. This was not any place he had been to before, but only the Digital World could pull people so suddenly. Tai had told him about how he had fallen into darkness twice returning to the Digital World. Any second now he would burst into hysterics, seeing his reptilian friend for the first time in two arduous years.
But no little blue dragon-esque creature caught his eye. Only the same empty street giving a hollow rebuttal with his own echoed word. He felt his heart go into free-fall within him, and he bit his lip to distract from the disappointing, bitter sting he felt it experience.
'VEEMON!' he shouted again, more desperately still, and still nothing happened. 'Calm down… c'mon, he's gotta be around here somewhere; it's the Digital World!'
His own words failed to lift his spirits, but he began moving across the stone floor toward the steps, leading to a line of closed shops. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the most obvious starting point – a large wooden gate, small enough to open alone.
Walking across to it, he put a hand atop it, ready to push one door aside when he froze, gawking at what he saw; his hand had a glove on. He was wearing his usual garb from the Digital World, convincing him entirely that he was in the very place, and just needed to begin moving.
With a newfound strength and resolve, he pushed the gate open just enough to slip through, pushing it closed behind him. Now he was looking at the second floor of a shop and beyond that a larger gate, a small sign obscured by the chimney; perhaps it would tell him where he was.
Working his way down the steps that led down and around to the front of the building, he took notice that the lights were on, and yet nobody was stood outside, even though it still appeared to be early in the night, the stars dull and few in the glinting sky above.
'Veemon?' he questioned, heading down a final set of steps. A statue-like postbox was to his left as he descended them slowly, the painted face the only one in sight. 'Veemon, you there?'
'You shouldn't wander – night is coming.'
Spooked, Davis felt his feet leave the ground a little as he jumped and turned around to see who was behind him, atop the steps; a young, beautiful woman with large and wise teal eyes looked down at him.
'Who are you?'
'My name is Aerith,' she said in a voice as sweet as honey and smooth as silk. 'Listen to me, the streets aren't a safe place to be. There're Heartless around.'
He cocked an eyebrow high; unsure that he had heard her correctly, he tried to summon polite words for reply. 'Sorry, but I think I heard you wrong. I thought you said "Heartless".'
Now she lifted an eyebrow, 'Yes. You do know about Heartless, don't you?'
He scratched the back of his head and smiled with challenge.
'Oh, I see!' she clapped her hands together. 'You're new to Traverse Town, aren't you?'
He snapped his fingers and pointed at her, 'Bingo!'
'Well, then it is important for you to get somewhere safe until morning…' she pulled a fist to her cheek in thought. 'The hotel's a no-go. Too many come up there… maybe Cid can fit you into his shop, since he's been blocked off from his house.'
'Right,' he said, his mind blank and improvising, 'so, can we talk at this place? I wanna know why there's some random person in the Digital World.'
'Digital World? Did you hit your head fleeing from Heartless?'
'Listen, it's really important that I get out there and find my friends – they're human like us,' Davis said urgently, climbing a few steps. 'There's Kari, Tai, Joe, Cody, Ken, Yolei-'
He stopped dead in place at her name, the anger he had felt lost in the uncertainty of his arrival clouding his thoughts. Whatever means the Digital World had used to bring him here didn't concern him, but Yolei's constant yelling at him got on his nerves, even for the slightest things in the most desperate of situations, like bumping his head on a railing in a flooding underwater complex to pass the time or keeping a secret for his friend who she happened to be sweet on…
It brought a rise in his stomach just to imagine finding Yolei right now. Every second away from her was a blessing.
'Well, I need to find… my friends,' he revised, 'see, they were swallowed by this black thing and then I woke here, so they should be here too, right?'
'Well, friends are never far apart if they believe they'll meet each other again,' Aerith said serenely, beckoning behind her. 'As for Cid, he has this place for his store, making it easy to move safely at night when they come. I have to go now, so I'll see you another time, maybe.'
She said this, but she did not move, and her face grew fixed with concentration, making a terrible awkwardness grip at Davis.
'S-something wrong?' he croaked.
She leaned in slightly, examining him, 'You look slightly familiar… spiky hair… jacket and shorts… hmm, maybe I imagined it… but just in case, you've got to tell me your name, okay?'
With her brown hair and strong yet kind eyes, Davis saw a flash of an older Kari before him, bringing a smile and answer to him lips. 'It's Davis.'
'Davis – that's a strong name,' she giggled, beginning to walk her own way. 'Sorry about before, you look similar to someone I think I knew once.'
'Th-that's okay!'
But she was gone, rounding the corner before he managed to speak, colour and heat rising into his face when he realised how uncool he must have looked. Tai would be ashamed if he could see how his protégé had failed to talk to a stranger very well.
Then he realised his blunder of not speaking pointedly and pressing her about how she was in the Digital World when it had been sealed off. Davis chuckled when he remembered her mention of "Heartless" rather than Digimon and began to walk across the grounds toward the large gate before him, another to his left looking ungainly and worn and had what looked suspiciously like dents and claw marks in the wood.
Casting his attention to what was before him, he looked to the sign above the gate, aged yet legible.
Farewell,
Traverse Town wishes you well
on the journey to your home, wherever it may lie.
Traverse Town… the many tales of Tentomon barely retained any space in Davis's mind, as back then he had cast him out whenever possible, so he was unsure if a journey to Traverse Town was one of his stops in his seemingly world-tour.
Davis lifted his hand and placed it upon the gate, feeling its weight with the slightest exertion of his strength. He pressed harder, but it still didn't yield. He wondered if perhaps it had been locked. Judging by the time, Davis pondered the idea of staying at this "Cid's" until it was light and they unlocked the gate. Even more curious to him was why humans were in the Digital World, adults, at that, while he had been sealed off from it.
He turned around, stroking his chin in thought and began to wander back toward the shop when he was brought to a halt by something obstructing his path; a curious little creature of nefarious black, with a metal helmet through which large yellow eyes peered up at him. It was doing a strange little dance on the spot.
'A Digimon?' he thought aloud, unable to hide his jubilation at seeing one for the first time in two years. 'Hey, little guy, what's your name? Is it Shadowmon or somethin' like that?'
It said nothing, but continued its little jig on the spot, unblinking.
'Um,' Davis stepped forward, 'are you okay?'
Again, it said nothing and didn't blink, a metallic rattle coming from its helmet as it danced faster on the spot.
Davis!
He stopped dead at the call in his head. Warmth filled his chest at the voice he had come to love so deeply.
'Kari?'
The creature had halted its dance at once, the rattle fading with it as it stared for a moment, Davis stationary and trying to locate Kari to no avail. A great sadness filled him with this, and then the creature began jumping and waving its skinny black claws around.
With pops of darkness, several of its like surrounded Davis with the same dance circling around him like some tribal rite of passage, filling Davis with a deep sense of dread for whatever they were doing, the rattles united into one infuriating and scary note, like a heartbeat.
And then, it stopped. They all jumped in toward him, black shapes getting closer and grasping his arms and legs. They had a great cold about their touch Davis hated in an instant, and with struggle, he tried to shake them off, but they were heavy and clingy.
'Get… urgh… gerroffa…'
He was losing his sense of time. Everything was swimming before his eyes and he could feel himself losing something precious, pulling from his heart specifically. He felt himself fall to his knees, the black creatures massing around him and making him feel like he was trapped within an igloo.
Davis, don't give in!
There it was again, in the darkness around him, there was that echo of her sweet voice in his head. He feared that he was losing himself to be hearing it, but there was a peculiar warmth in it. Desperately he focussed upon it, intent on easing the cold bite these creatures and their touch were giving him even the slightest bit.
And then, they unlatched themselves all at once and jumped away, leaving him to gasp for breath he had been denied. They did not disturb him for the moment, his fear and rage giving way to his will to survive. He tried to concentrate on the strength left in his legs, being a decent sprinter from soccer training naturally, he felt a desperate but sound relief and readied when he spotted it, clutched in his hand as though always there.
It looked like a sword, but the blade was instead rounded like a small pipe would be, and at the end was a black scythe-like curve. It was completely black and had the shape of a-
'Key?' Davis asked himself, lifting it up to inspect it and rising to his feet; it was as light as a feather, but looked heavy for a fully-grown man to struggle with carrying. 'What is this thing?'
The shadows stirred with their dance, but did not approach again. Catching onto the general gist of it, Davis pointed the strange weapon's tip at one, watching it lean away in the middle of its dance. Without hesitation, he swung it between two of them, making them separate and making a break for it, the rattling of their helmets slow to follow after him.
He planned in his haste to simply go to the gate at the back of the district and seal himself off from them, but a shadowy mass popped to life before him at the turn. Deciding to trust this "Cid" all of a sudden, he looked, but another popped before the doors of the shop.
He turned the other way, the rattling shadows giving chase as he ran without thought into a back alley, the wall at the back solid wood. Panting, he turned to face his pursuers, who were inching closer to him, while he inched further and further back until, a full, tense minute later, he bumped into the wall, and thus the end of his rope, in a sense, and he knew it.
Fear gripped at his heart at the thought of one of those shadows touching him with their frosty bodies. If they massed around him, he wasn't sure he would survive. No Digimon was this cruel, not after they had cleansed their world…
He looked at the sword in his hand and then back to the shadows, sweat beading at his face. Through his fear, he knew that if he was to survive…
One leapt at him stupidly, rattling and dancing in the air.
On instinct, he dragged the sword across its chest, the shadow erupting like black water and vanishing.
Davis's mind jammed; if they didn't turn into data, and they weren't Digimon, what could they be?
Where these the Heartless Aerith had warned him about moments ago? Why hadn't he listened to her and gone in the shop? Was Yolei right in calling him an idiot after all?
That's rich; an idiot like you saying something mature like that!
They all jumped toward him at once, blackness darker than the night sky falling closer and closer toward him. With an ungraceful and desperate swing that made him fall back against the wooden wall, Davis cut them all with the odd sword in his hand.
Smoke fell on him, dark and cold as winter's mist. Once it was gone, he breathed again in relief – they were gone. They couldn't hurt him. A weight lifted from his chest with each breath.
And then he cast a glance to what was in his hand beneath his face, staring at it as he rose to his feet once again, stumbling slightly.
'What is this thing?'
He turned it over carefully, afraid of the sharp spike at its tip. Then, all of a sudden, it erupted into flame before his eyes, his fingers uncurling from the handle on instinct while it faded into the wind. Davis blew needlessly at his fingers, trying to cool a burn that was not even there, much to his astonishment.
'Incredible,' someone applauded, clapping their hands at him. Looking around frantically for the source, he looked up and found them sat upon the guttering of Cid's store, looking down at him. 'Truly, it was an impressive showing.'
It was a boy, but it was difficult to make him out against the night sky…
And then, eyes wide, Davis watched as the boy jumped down from the roof and landed on the ground, rolling safely and assuming a walking pace as though it were nothing. But that physical impossibility was nothing compared to the nonsense before him.
Like a mirror, he was watching himself walk toward him, hair, clothes and smile all the same as him, only his hair being black and clothes being dark and with a bigger furred collar on his jacket being the difference. He didn't find it in him to speak, confused beyond all measure.
'What's the matter?' the boy smiled. 'Not going to make a crack about how handsome you must look?'
'Wha- but… you look like me!'
'Nothing gets past you, I see. I should know, I am you, for all intents and purposes.'
Davis pointed, offended, 'I wouldn't talk like that!'
'Dear me,' the boy who looked like him shrugged, 'nothing gets past you…'
'Shut up!' Davis shook his hand angrily, so lost and desperate for answers. 'Why do you look like me? What were those things? What was that sword-thing?'
The boy didn't reply, smiling more broadly.
'Answer me!'
'Shut up… answer me…' the boy said to himself. 'Which one should I do? Decisions, decisions.'
With a flush of fury, Davis slashed at the boy with the sword, missing him as he jumped back with ease and raised an eyebrow at him. It was only then that Davis recognised that the sword was in his hand again, dancing embers coming from it's the black tang.
'So, you are the Fury,' the boy that wore his face said in deep consideration, confusing Davis once again. 'Not mine to start quarrel with, after all.'
Mind blank, he aimed the sword between him and the boy's chest, hoping that he didn't see him for being as feeble as he felt. Sweat beaded at his face just from the gesture.
'Get that away from me, or you'll regret it,' he said fearlessly back at Davis. The air seemed thick with danger, and not from the one holding the blade, and Davis knew it. 'I don't intend to hurt you unless you force my hand.'
'Give me answers,' Davis said as bravely as he could. 'Who are you?'
'A servant of the world,' he picked at the sword's length and placed it away from his chest in a manner that one would a worthless trinket. 'It is not for you to know my name.'
'What does that even mean?'
Trying to threaten his look-alike, Davis swung the sword dramatically as he spoke, but something flashed in those hollow replicas of his eyes, and in a moment, he felt a deep pain in his stomach, having been delivered the very sole of his duplicate's boot into it with enough force to ridiculously make him crash feet back into and down the unyielding wooden wall.
'Need to know basis,' the boy's footsteps closed in on Davis, but all he felt was a ringing in his ears, pain in his stomach and hazed perception of the ground he lay upon. 'Once you recognise that your heart asked for solitude, the sooner you'll come to understand it for yourself.'
Davis spat, rejecting the air that caught in his throat with rapid wheezing.
'I guess you'll need to be placed at the starting point. Traverse Town should be hers, but I suppose we can't guess at every little detail now, can we?'
Recovering himself, Davis swung at the boy with the sword, missing him as he bounded easily back. Davis was silently relieved he had not done something regrettable, but at the same time, he was so angry…
Pain etched its existence into his chest, his heart feeling like it was at the mercy of a chisel. Davis was pained and confused deeply by the sudden pain that did not subside for several minutes. They boy with his face merely stood a distance away, watching during the one second reprieve before pain struck again at his heart.
'I wouldn't get lost in your anger,' the boy suggested indifferently. 'Hearts can be stronger than diamonds, or as weak as paper. You'd do well to remember that,' the boy cut off with what was a short, almost amused gasp. 'Well, well. I had best be off.'
There was a pop, Davis looking up against the pain that urged him to stay still and saw darkness vanishing into thin air.
His eyes began to lose their light, his mind numbing at the pain in his chest. It was far worse than the occasional sting of pain he felt, one he had adjusted to living with. His ears began failing, everything sounding like it was beneath water to him, the wind sounding almost milky and thick to his ears. The only other sound was some hammering across from him, but he fell into darkness before he could see who or what was making the racket.
