Chapter 10: The Architect

###

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon.

###

He found himself in his father's house, alone, something that rarely happened. Ed wandered around for a few seconds to try and find him, but he couldn't find the man anywhere, even after looking through into his room. Glancing around it, everything was in order, all the pictures on the walls of family and friends were neat, the blue bed on the opposite end of the room from the door was made and there wasn't any unnecessary clutter lying around.

"Dad!" Ed called out, wondering where his old man was. Something about this whole situation seemed rather eerie. Looking outside, he saw it was summer. It's a dream, he thought. In South America, it would be winter and there wouldn't be any leaves on the trees.

He needed to wake up but even though he tried to will himself awake, he couldn't. It was as if there was something preventing him. So, he thought about it for a second and moved out of his father's room down the hall and to the right, on the same side as his father's room. In the meantime, he tried all sorts of things such as pinching himself to wake up.

Unfortunately, right in the bathroom was a brunette girl with her hair in a ponytail wearing a white shirt and long, black pants.

"You!" Ed exclaimed. It all made sense to him. The only person who ever saw his drawings of Coonmon other than him and his father was her. "You're Mapachemon's partner, aren't you?"

"I am," she said. "I thought you weren't going to use those drawings though. I'm sorry if you were offended."

Ed glowered at her. "You went through my personal stuff. The reason why I didn't scan that drawing in my original digivice was because the digimon was too unstable, too dangerous the way I designed him."

"No, you only refused to scan him because your father told you not to," she objected.

"And he gave some good reasons not to. The digimon's a strong telepath. The only reason I designed him like that was to try and find…" Ed was cut off.

"Ed, I'm here to save you." The black-haired boy was silenced by that. Then the look of shock turned back to one of anger.

"There's no reason to save me. If anything, Marie, I'm going to have to save you from Coonmon," he shot back. "Get out of my head."

Then she did something that he hadn't expected. Mapachemon appeared behind her, destroying that part of the house completely as his dream was filled with disturbing images. He realized he couldn't fight it on his own unless he tried to combat her himself.

###

He woke up, trying to get the twisted imagery out of his mind. He tried to fight it off, thinking of everyone he loved, not noticing the red glow from his digivice. "Get out of my mind!" he yelled, getting the attention of his partner digimon who was sleeping in another part of the cave.

"Ed, what's wrong?" the brown-furred raccoon asked, concerned for his partner.

The boy stopped holding the sides of his head and took a deep breath. He got up and started walking, even though he felt the grogginess of only a few hours' sleep. "Prokyomon, we have to get out of here."

"What? Why?" he asked, leaping onto his partner's shoulder.

"She's in the digital world and she tried using her partner to attack my mind," the black-haired boy replied. Then he pulled out his digivice. The black and gold device showed him that there was a signal coming straight for him from the direction of the dozen or so tamers that arrived in the digital world many hours before.

He ran as quickly as he could, hoping that he could get away.

The pink beams of energy… He noticed one headed for him. It was going to hit him and he knew it. So he let it.

And he was somewhere else immediately. Checking his digivice, he was hundreds of miles away from the other signal.

He took a deep breath and let it go, dropping down to the ground. They were in the middle of a forest with large amounts of mist.

Then he saw an illusion standing in front of him of a skinny man with long, black hair in a ponytail and black, circular sunglasses. "Dad?" he asked, getting back up again before the image disappeared into the mist.

###

The ponytailed man walked in the door to see his son on the couch, watching TV. He smiled at the boy, who looked at him. "How was work?" Ed asked.

"Good. My design was accepted," the man responded. He was Marcos Diaz, an architect.

"That's great," the black-haired boy replied, getting up. Then he noticed his mother walk into the room with an angry expression on her voice. He had no idea why she was looking so mad.

"Hi, honey, how are you doing?" the man asked, smiling at her.

"What time is it?" she asked, livid.

"It's about five-thirty. I'm sorry, I had to stay a little while after work. My design got accepted," the man replied.

"What? That's your excuse?" the woman asked, angrily. "I know what you were really doing."

Marcos looked at her with a bit of confusion. "I had to wait a little bit to find out whether I had been accepted or not."

The woman glared at him. "Stop making excuses. I know you were with another woman," she accused.

The man looked at her in shock. "Why would I ever do that to you?" he asked. "Don't you remember when we first got together how I broke up with you temporarily because you were still married?"

Ed looked up at that. He had no idea that his mother was married before. At the same time, he wanted to get out of the room since he knew that this was about to get ugly.

"Yeah? Well, that doesn't mean anything, you…" It got ugly alright as Ed's mother started spouting out streams of profanity so he ran into his room, shutting the door behind him. His mother didn't notice that he did that, but his father did, momentarily distracting the man from the argument he was in. "Are you even listening to me?" the woman shouted when she noticed that Marcos wasn't even looking at her. She caught her husband's attention, though.

"Look at what we're doing to each other and to our son. Think of him, please," the long-haired man requested, trying to soothe the argument.

Unfortunately, she still wanted to argue.

Ed moved over to his desk and put on his earbuds before starting to draw. He drew a picture of a raccoon, an idea he had in his head for an original digimon of his own creation.

He even gave it a name: Coonmon.

###

Prokyomon hung out on his partner's shoulder while he walked through the foggy swamps they were currently stuck in. Ed was watching out for more illusions. He wanted to know what those were about.

"So, what now?" the digimon inquired. "Where are we going?"

"According to my digivice, there's a city about thirty kilometers north of here," Ed responded, ready to get out of the digital world and back home with his dad where he belonged. "I was thinking of heading straight there. After that… I don't know. Maybe we should find a way to get to the Sovereigns' level. I think they might be able to send us back to my world. After all, that one named Zhuqiaomon had to have a way to send his Devas into my world, right?"

"That's an idea," Prokyomon replied. "So, how about those others?"

Ed pulled out his digivice. There were more Tamers now, a lot more. It seemed like there was almost an army in the digital world, ready to strike. And to make things worse, there were several teams spreading out toward the cardinal directions.

It turned out that the area that Ed and his partner landed in was the center of the highest level of the digital world. The American boy wondered if there was a quicker way to get to Sovereign's level than this.

He decided to switch into a jog. At least that meant that he was getting exercise. Not to mention it helped that he had near infinite stamina in the digital world so long as he put his mind to it and didn't think about getting tired.

Not that he didn't get exercise back home.

###

"So, what's up, man?" a skinny, black boy asked. He was wearing a blue shirt and black shorts. Ed wasn't smiling like he was.

"Nothing in particular."

The other boy knew something was up. They met at the nearby elementary school to play a little basketball before it got too hot outside and it was obvious that Ed was in a bad mood. "Come on, you can tell me," he assured his best friend.

"Matt, I think my parents are getting a divorce," Ed stated. "My mom… she's been acting a bit weird for some reason. My dad's trying to hold everything together, but…"

Matt looked at his friend in understanding. "Don't worry, Ed. No matter what happens, you'll still have your friends."

"Yeah, I know that," the black-haired boy responded, still downcast.

"Come on, man, let's shoot some hoops. That should get your mind off of this," Matt said.

They started playing and the world was sane for at least a few minutes.

###

Ed continued his jog until something crossed his line of sight. He spotted his friend Matt, walking away from him. Seeing this, he ran after his friend, who switched to a run himself. "Ed, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to try to find out who is doing this," he replied. The figure disappeared and he was in a clearing. Looking up, he saw some bat-like Pipismon hanging from the nearby trees.

"They couldn't be causing this," the raccoon spoke.

"No, definitely not." Ed checked his digivice. There weren't any nearby digivice signals, although one did seem to be heading his way. He knew it as the one from earlier. Clicking on his screen, he identified the person that was headed his way as Gunter Kaufmann.

Him? He met the teen in Paris on accident. He had apparently detected his digivice signal. There was no way he could be working for… No… She couldn't have…

It figured. The one ally he had made while trapped in that apartment in Paris had to have gotten brainwashed by that girl. By the digimon he created…

###

One day, his father took him driving. It was a good stress reliever for both of them. Ed wanted his dad to take him to his hometown in California, but his old man wouldn't take him that far. Still, going across town to Henderson was a good idea. Maybe if he was good, he'd convince his dad to take him to Hoover Dam.

Still, they had a good time just exploring. "So, what do you want to do when you grow up?" Marcos asked from the driver's seat of the SUV they were in.

"I want to make video games," Ed responded, a little embarrassed by his admission.

"Make video games. You're not going to be an architect like your old man?" he joked, smiling widely.

Ed just shrugged. "Well, it's kind of like architecture. Video game makers have to build stuff, right?"

"Yeah, you're right. I'm sure that some of your artwork can go toward that," Marcos told him. "Though, it's a bit more complicated than that. You'll have to learn how to program and that will take some work. It's like learning another language in a way."

"Can you program?" Ed inquired.

"Nah, I just know how to draw. There is a little computer work with my job, but other than that…"

Ed nodded at his father.

"You know, on the way home, we should head by the library and check out a computer book. I hear C++ is a commonly used programming language that's use in a lot of game programming, though it's going to be a while before you can create a game with it."

"Hey, maybe I should start doing that. The sooner, the better, right?" the boy asked, smiling widely. That had to be the best day he had in a long time. Or so he thought.

###

Later on, he was at his house trying out that programming book he got from the library. He still couldn't make heads or tails on it and didn't get all the math. It seemed like high-school level stuff. Still, he moved along, reaching the chapter on if-statements when his mother opened the door.

Ed turned to her, smiling. "Hi, mom."

"Hi, Ed, how was your day?" she asked. She was still dressed for work as a manager at a local bank.

"Great! Dad and I went for a drive. We went all the way to Henderson and then we went to the library," the boy responded. He noticed his mother's face change upon seeing what was on the computer. "I decided to try to learn how to program video games. You know, put my drawings to good use." He smiled more widely, though he felt uneasy for some reason.

Then everything went down the drain.

"You're what?!" his mother shouted angrily.

"Learning to program. There's nothing wrong with that," Ed responded, his facial expression one of confusion.

"Get off that computer right now!" she yelled. "You are not learning how to program, young man!"

Ed just sat there in confusion. "What? Why?"

"Marcos! What is this?" she shrieked. Her mental stability was definitely become questionable as of late.

Her husband walked into the room, just as confused as Ed was. "He expressed interest in computer science and I thought I'd help him along. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Are you kidding me? My ex-husband was a computer programmer, you idiot!" she exclaimed.

Marcos stood there, flabbergasted. "I didn't know that. You never talk about him. Heck, I don't even know his name!"

"Yeah, and you don't need to know it. Now get your son off that computer before he turns into him," she ordered.

Marcos didn't want to deny his wife's requests most of the time, but this time he was angry. "No."

"What did you say?" the woman turned around and asked.

"I said no," he responded. "There's no reason to."

"Then I'll do it myself!" she yelled, walking straight toward the computer, pushing her son out of the way and turning it off manually.

"Mom!" Ed complained, really confused by his mother's actions.

"Now to return this stupid library book!" the woman said, running out of the house.

"What now?" the chubby boy asked, confused. "She's gone completely nuts."

Marcos made a split second decision. "While she's at work tomorrow, I'm going to change the locks. There's no way I'm going to let this continue."

"So, your marriage is over?" Ed inquired, tearing up.

"I hope not but I'm going to tell her that she can't come back in unless she gets some psychiatric help." The man looked sadly toward the door. "There's something else going on. I know it." He then rushed off.

###

Ed continued moving. He checked his digivice for more signals and located a large one. He only hoped that it was friendly.

At one point, he spotted another figure, a blond boy with a bowl-cut wearing a blue suit and a white dress-shirt with no tie. The boy turned around and ran. "Gus?"

"So, that's what he looks like," Prokyomon commented, though he was definitely concerned for his partner. "You know, I don't like this that much."

Ed moved forward as quickly as his stout body could go. "We have to check this out. Gunter is coming and he's got Infermon with him. There's no way we can take him on. You can't even reach Champion yet."

The truth was that they had been traveling through that marshy swamp for hours and he was getting sick of it.

He ran a little further, eventually slipping on some moss. He got up and brushed off some of the dirt. "Man, my dad's going to ask me what I did in the digital world and of course I'm going to answer that I tripped in the swamp." He continued on, eventually getting to a clearing where the illusion his hazel-eyed friend Gus waited for him, smiling like the last time he saw him before...

Ed didn't want to think of what happened three weeks before on the way to a friend's house. Instead, he moved forward and asked a question to his 'friend'. "Who are you?"

"I am the guardian of this forest." The stocky boy looked up to see the illusion of his friend disappear. It turned out that one of the trees wasn't actually a tree, but a large Cherrymon instead. "What you saw was merely an illusion created by the mists."

Ed stood there in shock. "There's a city nearby. How far until I reach it?" he asked, getting straight to the point.

"It's only a couple kilometers away. You should be there within the hour. It's unusual seeing a human here." The large tree smiled.

"Well, I've never met a talking tree before either," the stocky boy told him with a grin of his own.

"Before you go, though, I want you to look at something," Cherrymon said, indicating a puddle with his cane. "You seem to have a lot on your mind."

"I saw some images of people I haven't seen in a while," Ed told the tree, moving toward the puddle and looking inside. At first he saw his own reflection but then it changed into the image of his own mother.

He remembered that day too well.

###

After being barred from the house with the ultimatum that she get psychological help, Lorena Diaz almost immediately filed for divorce from Marcos. That began a fairly short custody battle that almost ended with her ex-husband getting her son.

That was until she pulled her trump card on him.

"Your honor, you can't do this!" the woman yelled out, her expression showing sheer horror. The judge immediately called for order to the court room.

"Ma'am, you haven't received the ruling yet," he said in a southern accent. He was a man in his fifties with a receding hairline and a white moustache. "Now, tell me your final reasons why Marcos Diaz can't take custody of your son." The old man doubted that she would bring up any sort of logical reason. But that was just what she did.

She revealed a secret that changed everything. Glaring at Marcos, she spoke with venom in her voice. "Do a DNA test. That man is not my son's father."

The court gasped and there was a large amount of murmuring. Marcos looked at the woman with shock and disbelief.

"Your honor," the long-haired man said with determination, "I will undergo a DNA test to prove that Ed is in fact my son.

###

Sometime later, they got the test results back and Marcos found out that the woman who divorced him was telling the truth and there was nothing he could do about it. The woman got Eduardo and he left the courthouse broken.

That night, he sat there at his dining table, looking at one of the few pictures he had left since the boy was moved out. He didn't care what the DNA said, there was no way he wasn't his boy.

No way.

That was when he heard a noise in his back yard and went to investigate. Upon walking out into the dusk, he saw some of his neighbors pointing at it over the cinderblock wall. There was a small building on top of his swimming pool.

Marcos stood there with his mouth agape. He had no idea how this could have gotten there. Then suddenly, the door on the front of it opened and an old man walked out. And tripped. Marcos ran over to help him up.

The man appeared to be Asian of a sort. He could never tell anyone of those nationalities apart. "Oh, thank you. Oh, great, what the heck am I doing here?" the man looked around.

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Marcos said, not sure what to make of the situation. "You're in Las Vegas. What are you, some kind of alien or something?"

"Las Vegas? Wow, I've never been to sin city before. I had an opportunity forever ago when I went to college at Palo Alto, but I didn't go along with my friends. It was a bachelor party for my friend Antonio, actually." The old man chuckled. "Never cared much for gambling anyway."

"Really? My wife… er, ex-wife went there for university," the black-haired man told him, giving him a bit of a smile.

"Yeah? What years did she go there?" the Watchmaker inquired, curious before turning toward his clock shop.

"'84 to '88, I believe." The man didn't know what to do with this whole thing.

"That's funny. That's around the time I went there," the old man told him, grinning crookedly. "What was your ex's name?"

"You probably won't remember her, but her name was Lorena Alvarez before marrying me and before marrying her first husband," Marcos told him, before being surprised by the look of recognition on the old man's face.

"Her… I should have known. She's a wild one, that girl. I knew her first husband. He was a nice guy, but he shouldn't have married her. One time he came home with flowers and found her kissing another man."

Marcos looked at the old man in shock and shame. He was the other man. He broke off the relationship for a while but then they got together after she finalized her divorce. "I thought I had a son with her but it turns out that he wasn't mine. Is there a chance that maybe he's the father?" he asked, shivering.

"What's the boy's birth date?" the old man asked.

"August 2, 1988," Marcos replied.

"It's definitely possible. Do you know his name?" the Watchmaker inquired.

"No, I don't. What's his name and where does he live? I need to see what he's like to get my son away from… away from that woman." Now he was really shivering. He hoped that his plan worked and that the man was a good man. A few seconds later, he got the answer.

###

Ed flinched from the sight of his mother's face. He couldn't stand her anymore after everything that happened and after she kept away from his real father for no reason.

He shivered in the cold, moist air, hoping that maybe the past two years since the divorce were a dream, or at least the past three weeks. Then again, if his mother hadn't kidnapped him and put him in some Parisian orphanage, then he wouldn't have met his partner.

His thoughts of self-doubt were interrupted by the sound of trees falling in the distance. "Do you hear that? We've got to get out of here!" Prokyomon yelled to his partner, who had his digivice in hand.

Just then, a tree fell down, almost on top of Ed. Prokyomon couldn't stand the thought of seeing his partner get crushed by the falling debris or getting killed by whatever it was.

And sure enough, it had to be Infermon. The brown raccoon could see the silhouette of the Ultimate's Tamer on the back. He had to get his partner out of the way of that tree and to the safety of that city.

And his Tamer's scream as the tree headed toward him at an alarming rate only triggered the needed reaction.

DIGIVOLUTION_

"Prokyomon digivolve to…" The new form was humanoid in appearance aside from the head of a raccoon and had grey shoulder pads, yellow armor with grey stripes down it and grey pants. The digimon had a pointed grey mask covering his face as well.

"…Guepardomon!"

"Guepardomon…" Ed muttered to himself as his partner got him out of the way.

Cherrymon glared at the giant virus angrily and turned to face him. "Do you realize what you've done?" he shouted and suddenly a large assortment of Woodmon and Mushroomon came out of the woodwork. The large tree realized he wouldn't be able to take this large digimon alone, but with his army, it would be a piece of cake. "Quick, get out of here. We'll distract him!"

Ed wasn't sure about that. "Don't kill the Tamer. He's a friend of mine!" the heavy boy shouted as Guepardomon landed behind.

"Don't worry, I won't. You have my word," Cherrymon stated. "Now go! Your partner's not strong enough to take him on."

Ed had to concede to that. It was better not to pick useless fights.

However, he had this inkling in his stomach that Cherrymon and his comrades were pretty much doomed.

###

It wasn't that long after when the Tamer and his partner reached the outer gates of Oppidum Septentrionale. There he spotted a pair of guards, Knightmon, at the entrance. He hoped that these ones didn't try to decapitate him or something.

The two guards let him through and he walked right on in. Before he was out of earshot though, one of the guards spoke to him. "Since you're a Tamer, you are to go straight to the capital building."

Ed nodded. "Okay, I'll do that. Thanks."

"On the other hand, there will be a delegation waiting to meet you at the end of the bridge. The Chancellor has already detected you from a distance."

Ed nodded again, this time unsure. Then he remembered something. "By the way, if a Tamer with an Infermon tries to get in, don't let him."

"Thank you. We'll keep a look out for him," the Knightmon assured him before turning around and facing the forest. Ed had no idea how long this bridge was, but the view of the massive moat around the city filled him with awe. He also greatly appreciated the beautiful white stone that the bridge made of. He guessed that it was marble, but he wouldn't voice it just in case he was wrong.

He was most of the way to the end when he saw the Chancellor's delegation. Unfortunately for him, the Chancellor was a digimon that he didn't want to see, dressed in red robes. The digimon was Daemon and he had an Anubimon and a MachGaogamon along with an assortment of other digimon.

"Hello, Ed, welcome to Oppidum Septentrionale," the robed digimon greeted him cordially. "I hope you enjoy your stay."

###

The long search was over and Marcos Diaz had finally found the man he was looking for. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the class to end. He walked briskly through the university's hallways. He wanted to see just what the man was like before letting him know of his son's existence and so he stopped in the open doorway of the lecture hall and watched as the man taught his final class of the day.

"Okay, so classes in C++ have a number of features. One of them is known as encapsulation," the man said, smiling. He had short, curly black hair and was wearing a nice suit. The man was also sitting on top of his desk in the front of the classroom. "Who can tell me what encapsulation is in programming?"

A student raised his hand. To Marcos' surprise, the class seemed pretty attentive. The professor called on the dark skinned boy who answered. "It's marking a variable in a class public or private, right?"

"Exactly. Good job, Esteban," the professor smiled widely. Looking at the man, Marcos eliminated all doubt that he was his step-son's father. "Now, public and private aren't the only reserved keywords that are used in encapsulation, but we'll only be working with them for now. The protected keyword won't be useful until we get into inheritance, which we'll be going into next week. But for now, just memorize the first two."

The man looked at the clock. "Okay, we've only got a couple minutes left. Your assignment for the day is a simple one: make a class for the stats of a character in a video game. It should be a pretty easy endeavor. Then try and access those stats using a console application. Oh, and since it's the weekend, don't party too much!" he joked to the students. Then the bell rang. "Class dismissed. Enjoy your weekends!" he exclaimed cheerfully.

Marcos had to go into the lecture hall completely to avoid being trampled by a couple dozen university students. He wasn't sure that the professor noticed his presence until the man looked right at him. "So, are you just going to stand there like that or are you going to tell me whether I did good or not teaching the class?" the curly haired man asked, smiling widely.

"To be honest, I didn't understand a single thing of what you were teaching about," the long-haired man stated bluntly.

"That's why you shouldn't come here in the middle of the term," the professor stated good-naturedly, still smiling widely and pointing at him with a coffee mug in that hand while at the same time grabbing a group of files. Then he headed toward his office in the back of the room. "Come on in. It's obvious you've got something important to talk about, coming all the way from Uruguay."

"You could tell where I'm originally from by my accent, huh?" the man asked.

"Oh, please, it's obvious by how you pronounce your Y's and Ll's," the man said, sitting down at his desk.

"Most people can't tell us from Argentineans," Marcos remarked as he sat down. He was really starting to like this guy.

"Oh, I've had plenty of friends from the Rioplatense area. You guys pronounce your Y's like the letter combination 'si' in the English word 'fusion', assuming you know English of course. Argentineans pronounce it like the 'sh' in 'ship'."

"I actually live in the United States. I've lived there for about sixteen years, actually," the long-haired man stated.

"Oh, so you do know English," the professor said with a smile before drinking a cup of coffee. "I used to live there. Went to University there. Worst few years of my life, actually. Moved back for a couple years to get my masters in the late ninety's since I wanted to teach here and it was better then. Helped that I was staying with my brother in Oxnard, California."

"That's a little far from Palo Alto, don't you think?" Marcos asked.

"Yeah, but gas prices were lower back then. Now they're $2.00 a gallon. What a rip-off," the large man said, almost joking. "So, whatcha here for?"

"Well, it turns out that we have an ex-wife in common," Marcos said, getting straight to the point and causing the professor to spit out his coffee in the process. The curly-haired man went up to grab a towel. "Sorry about that."

"No, I have to apologize. I should have treated Lorena a little better by not going out of town so much," the man replied, blotting up the coffee on his desk and trying to get it out of the papers he was grading. "Man, how am I going to explain this to my students when they get these back?"

"Sorry, sorry," Marcos continued to apologize.

"No problem. You had no idea. So, what else is going on? I take it you wanted to talk to somebody about this, relieve your stress?" the man finished blotting up the papers and went over to get a fresh cup of coffee.

"A bit more than that. You see, we had a child. Then I lost custody to her when he turned out not to be mine," Marcos explained, getting a dumbfounded reaction from the professor. The man stood there for a couple seconds before speaking.

"And you think he might be mine?" he asked, not buying it.

"Well, yeah. You see, he was born about eight months after you guys divorced. I thought he was simply born a month early, but I guess that wasn't the case."

The professor stirred his coffee and sat down again, not sure what to think of this. Marcos placed a photograph on the cluttered desk and slid it to him. "He's the splitting image of you, Antonio."

Antonio Urrutía picked up the photo of his son, looking at it with shock. "He… He looks just like one of my nephews."

Marcos got up. "I'm afraid for him. During the last days of our marriage, his mother was slowly becoming more erratic. Please, have a DNA test done and get custody of him. The judge will be on your side. I'll even testify for you."

Antonio nodded. "I… I have a son." He clenched his fist tight. "I have a son," he repeated, trying to make himself believe it. He couldn't believe that Lorena had hated him so much that she'd keep him from him. He turned toward the man that he had only met that day and one time previously with determination. "I'll do it. I'll fly to the United States for him."

###

A/N: As if you didn't see those plot twists coming... Hehe. They were actually planned from the beginning of World Tournament, believe it or not. I wanted to reveal them a little later, but I just couldn't wait. At least this fic doesn't have a Kudzu plot like the other one… Ugh!

And as for Daemon… wait and see.