Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon. Or Heroes of Olympus. As will become painfully clear in the Spring of 2015, apparently.

Author's Note: Written for the Novel with Prompts Challenge found on the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges forum. The prompt for this chapter is "gaming".

Just like every other chapter, this chapter is highly inspired by the events that take place in Heroes of Olympus... but it was also heavily influenced and inspired by a creepypasta read-a-thon I accidentally found myself combing through while bored one evening. If you are at all into reading creepypastas, I'm sure you'll be able to guess which one inspired me the most. I hope you...

Enjoy!

Chapter Eleven

Davis didn't stick around after they returned to the Real World. Sure, it was interesting that once Izzy connected to the internet in the Real World, he was unable to locate a Missing Person that fit Takato's description—but Davis's mind was elsewhere. As soon as he knew that Takato had a place to sleep for the night (at Izzy's), he took off down the street and into the darkness, trying to cure the mess of thoughts running around in his head.

Tomorrow, he would be embarking on another adventure through the Digital World, but every bone in his body told him that this was going to be completely different – and not just because TK wasn't here this time.

He hadn't mentioned seeing Huang, his old imaginary friend, but he told himself that there was no reason to. Sure, maybe the prophecy had said "beware the earth", and he remembered Huang as a creature that came from within the earth. And yeah, maybe his gut was telling him that there was a reason that he had seen that dragon today after all of these years of forgetting he even existed. But all of that had to be some freaky coincidence, right? After all, if Huang was somehow involved in what was going on right now, that meant that he was real. And if Huang was real, that meant that Davis had seen his first digimon – not when he was eight as he originally thought – but when he was much, much younger.

Stuff like that could really deep-fry the brain.

He trudged toward his apartment, DemiVeemon secured in his arms, and tried not to think about his old imaginary friend – and all of the messed-up things that led up to his eventual disappearance. But he couldn't help it.

x X x

The first time Huang tried to kill him, he must've been about two. Jun was at school, his father was at work, and he was home alone with his mother while she watched her soaps. He didn't remember exactly when he met Huang, but he would always see him on the TV screen, blended into the scenes like he had always been there. While his mother heard two lovers quarreling, all Davis heard was Huang's voice, beckoning him to listen. Huang once explained that his parents and sister couldn't see him, because they weren't special like Davis.

The landline started to ring, and Mrs Motomiya got up to answer it in the other room.

"It's cold out today, little hero," Huang said. "Don't you want to get warm?"

Davis hadn't noticed the cold until Huang said something, and then it was very near unbearable. He wanted to cry for his mother to come warm him up, but Huang hushed him before he got out the first whimper.

"Your mother's on the phone," he chided. "You don't want to disturb her, do you? No… Go to the fireplace. It'll warm you right up."

He was going to point out that he couldn't, because he was locked in his playpen when the gate unlatched and swung open all on its own. Being only two, he only experienced a hint of surprise before he walked out of the playpen, dragging his favorite blanket with him, and headed toward the roaring fireplace. He remembered the warmth of the fire growing as he got closer and being mesmerized by its beauty. Huang watched from the television, urging him closer and closer.

Everything was going great until his mother walked back into the room with him just inches from crawling into the fire pit. She screamed and raced over to snatch him up, yelling, "What were you thinking!?" She yanked the smoldering baby blanket out of his hands and tossed it to the ground.

Davis tried to point at the dragon on the TV, but he had disappeared. He watched over his mother's shoulder as the flames claimed his baby blanket and turned it to ash.

Huang continued to appear to Davis in the television screen for the next several years. Once when Davis was three, he gave him a present. A brown box seemed to appear out of nowhere on the living room floor right in front of the television.

"You looked bored, little hero," he said, "so I got you a few toys to play with."

Inside were a bunch of knives. Davis managed not to kill himself, but he did end up in timeout for the rest of the day once his father caught him playing with what was apparently a housewarming gift from his grandparents to his parents.

When Davis was four, Huang found a new way to get him to listen to his crazy ideas – by pointing out where his parents kept the sweets on top of the fridge in the kitchen. He sat him down and gave him the plan: He would push a kitchen table chair over to the oven, climb onto the chair, climb onto the stove, stand on the back of the stove on the stove's control panel, and then—

"You'll still be a little too short to reach the top of the fridge, little hero. But don't worry; I thought of that too. You can use your soccer ball for a little more height."

He stared from his soccer ball to the oven for several long minutes, but even at only four, he knew that a soccer ball wasn't a very good balancing tool. He couldn't bring himself to try it, not with his mother just in the next room. Huang continued to tell him to do it, just give it a try, the reward would be worth it… But then his mother walked in, and Davis simply asked for the sweet bun he had been eyeing, and she happily obliged since he had been so good the last week.

The last time Huang appeared, Davis was five. Having woken that morning with a fever, he was left to stay home alone with a babysitter while his sister went to school and his parents to work. The first few hours, he had slept peacefully, but shortly after lunchtime, his capacity of remaining bored without becoming destructive had reached its limit. That's when Huang appeared saying that he had a game that they could play.

"Let's play pretend," Huang said. "Go to the window and open it."

Davis complied; he threw open the window with a firm push. He glanced over the windowsill down at the ground below. They were on the fifth story of the apartment building, and the parking lot was directly below them. Black asphalt glittered in the afternoon sun up at him.

"Pretend that there is a great big trampoline below that window and jump," Huang explained. "If you believe hard enough, you'll bounce right back up like a feather."

Being both feverish and only five, Davis really wanted to believe him. It did sound incredibly fun, after all, but he wasn't entirely gullible. "That's a really long way down."

"Don't you have an imagination, little Child of Miracles? If you are who they say you are, I know you do… But I cannot let your destiny to come to pass. You must believe to play. It wouldn't be any fun if it were a short drop. Go on. You'll love it."

Davis didn't understand most of what Huang had just said, so he clung to the game that he was being urged to play. He toyed with the idea, picturing himself as he fell through the air only to bounce right back up to the window in a totally miraculous twist. He grinned at the image, being reminded of one of the gravity defying ninjas he had seen on the television the other day before he nodded.

"Okay!"

A few minutes later, Davis's mother walked in from work while on her lunch break and shrieked in horror. Huang was gone once again, but Davis had maneuvered his way onto the windowsill. He was wondering if he should dive off like he did at the swimming pool or just jump blindly when his mother snatched him up quicker than he could blink. For years afterward, his parents argued over who had been the one to leave the window unlocked in the first place to let that even happen.

Now, Davis was sure that Huang, his psychotic imaginary friend, had been a digimon all along. But if that were true, then he had been, what – trying to get rid of him before he fulfilled his destiny of becoming a digidestined? His life was more messed up than he realized.

Davis remembered after that last visit, his mother took him to his room and had a long talk with him, but he only understood some of it. She took his hands, checked his fever, and made sure he hadn't scraped himself on the windowpane. He hadn't.

"Davis, listen to me. You have a big imagination, and there's nothing wrong with that. Thinking and dreaming big is where most miracles come from, but you have to be careful. If you confuse what's real and what's imaginary, you could end up hurting yourself. I know you're so brave, willing to try anything, but you have to remember to be cautious. If you don't, one day that bravery will get you killed."

His babysitter had been fired almost immediately following the incident. His parents, after much worry and debate, finally agreed that he was not the world's youngest suicidal kid ever, but that it had just been the product of a feverish hallucination and too much television.

For years, he had believed the exact same thing, too. His parents forbid him from watching television for almost an entire year, and Davis gradually forgot all about Huang. All of the strange events just faded into the back of his mind, like a dream he had once had. Except now he knew it was very, very real.

"This is so messed up," Davis muttered.

DemiVeemon looked up at him with a quizzical look upon his face. "Davish? What are you talking about?"

He couldn't explain it. Something was starting to come together in his head, like several puzzle pieces finally clicking in place. And he had no idea if this was a good or bad thing.

The year he turned nine was the same year that the original digidestined first went to the Digital World and Myotismon tried to take over the Real World. By then, he was back to being able to watch television without his parents worrying that he might try to throw himself out another window, but he had managed to retain his reputation for being reckless and a handful. His parents would complain that he was making them go gray early, but he could tell that they enjoyed his exuberance – usually.

His family was one of the thousands that were taken to the Convention Center during Myotismon's reign, and it wasn't long before he and Jun were separated from their parents to be checked as the eighth child. He stayed by Jun's side as they were shuffled into line just as his parents always instructed him.

As they waited, Davis told her corny jokes, trying to keep his sister's spirits up. As annoying as she could be at times, he considered it a victory every time he could make her laugh. But then she would scowl and say, "Where do you think we are!? The amusement park?" and she'd go right back to trying not to cry.

The ghost-dudes (which Davis would later learn were called Bakemon) patrolled up and down the line, making sure that they stayed single-file and didn't cry too loudly. They weren't doing a very good job, and Davis kept having random thoughts of trying to slip away to somehow save the day. But it was like Jun could read his mind. Anytime he thought Now!, she would grab his hand for comfort, and he would be forced to stay put.

They reached the front of the line where Gatomon and her Bakemon guards waited. Jun went first.

"It's not her," the feline digimon said.

Jun tearfully walked off to the side as Davis stepped forward – the first time he would ever see any of the partner digimon face-to-face.

Gatomon shook her head. "It's not him."

A single heartbeat passed as Davis tried to get his feet to move – those Bakemon were a lot scarier up close – when the wall behind Gatomon turned into a black vortex and Myotismon appeared. Gatomon cowered at the sight; Davis forgot to breathe.

"Beware, Gatomon, if you lie to me, I will destroy every child here until I find the one I am looking for, and I will know if you are lying to me. So… Look again."

Gatomon did as instructed, but she shook her again. "It's not him."

"Do not lie to me!"

"I'm not!" Gatomon said. "You told me to look for my partner, and I am, but this isn't him!"

Davis's heart pounded. For a moment, he had a crazy thought that maybe Gatomon was lying. Maybe he was the eighth whatchamacallit.

Myotismon seemed to be thinking along the same lines. He was staring at him like he knew Davis had a secret, and he knew what that secret happened to be. For a very brief moment, he was reminded of Huang. The same strange penetrating presence had been true for both creatures, but he realized that there was one big difference: Huang's eyes had always been closed like he was asleep. His presence, the very power that he possessed, was always limited by the fact that he was stuck in whatever dreamland had him communicating through TV screens. If Huang was truly asleep, Davis wanted him to stay that way, because he didn't want to know what he would be like fully awake. This vampire-dude was bad enough.

"Yes," Myotismon murmured. "Maybe you are telling the truth. So, why do I know you then, boy?"

Davis took a half-step back. "Hey, buddy? I think you're confusing me for somebody else!"

"Davis!" Jun hissed from the sidelines, trying to get him to shut up.

Fear rose in his throat as the vampire-creature glided forward. He continued to advance until he was staring down his nose at Davis, towering over him easily by several feet, as if he were no more significant than an insect.

"Maybe," he agreed in a silky voice. "But know this, boy. If you ever do somehow step in the way of our plans, it will be your doom."

"I'm not trying to step in anybody's way."

He murmured as if in a different voice altogether, "A wise choice."

With a chill, Davis realized that his voice suddenly sounded remarkably like Huang's. But that didn't make sense. It had to be a coincidence. A trick of the ears.

He laughed, as if the mere thought of Davis ever somehow being a nuisance amused him. Then he stepped back into his inky black vortex and disappeared. Jun, sobbing as if she had just witnessed a massacre, grabbed his arm and dragged him out of there as fast as she could, as if afraid that Gatomon or Myotismon would change their minds. Davis walked away feeling as if he were moving through a daze.

Soon after, the original eight digidestined defeated Myotismon (and VenomMyotismon), and the world returned to relative normalcy. He became friends with the very girl that Myotismon had been searching for not a year later, and at twelve, he joined the ranks of the digidestined, defending two worlds from the Powers of Darkness. And in the end, he had helped defeat MaloMyotismon, as if he had always known that he would be there in his last moments.

Davis wondered if it was all just a coincidence, or if it were destiny playing its hand…

He was almost to his apartment complex when he imagined Huang's voice: It wasn't his plans that he warned you to stay out of, little hero. It was mine. It's time to start running.

"Huang," Davis muttered, "you're not really here. You're just a figment of my imagination."

There was no answer. Even DemiVeemon didn't respond. Either he knew that Davis was in the middle of some serious self-reflection, or he was afraid his partner was losing his mind. Either way, Davis was grateful.

But now, at least, Davis understood something. Huang had been watching him his entire life and trying to get him out of the game before he could do anything to stop him. Somehow, he had known that he would one day be after him. Maybe not all of those future-seeing Lights that Kari had mentioned were on the side of the good guys; maybe some of them were passing off future information to the ones that wanted them dead. Takato's prophecy warned them to beware the earth, and Bearmon had mentioned sinkholes opening up and swallowing digimon whole. Davis knew it had something to do with the sleeping dragon that had been his imaginary friend for the first five years of his life.

"DemiVeemon, do you believe in fate?" Davis asked, staring up at his apartment building.

"I believe that you and I were meant to be partners," he said. "And I believe that we're meant to find TK."

Davis smiled sadly. "Yeah… Me too."

I cannot let your destiny come to pass, the sleeping dragon had said.

"Nothing is going to stop us from kicking some bad guy butt," Davis muttered. "Whoever you are, you're going to regret messing with the digidestined."

"Hear, hear!" DemiVeemon cheered.