Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ A New Emperor ❯ War ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter 4: War

First, this could be the last chapter in this story for a little while...I'm going to try and finish The Wall, and that has thirteen chapters left and is a pretty complex fic, so it could be awhile. I don't want to abandon it.

Second, thanks to all who have been reading and reviewing. But I can't help but notice alot of people seem to be reading without reviewing. I don't want to pressure you if you don't want to...but I'll just say that I'm more likely to work faster on updates if I think alot of people are showing interest in the fic. So if you like what you're reading, I encourage you to review, even if you don't have anything particularly insightful to say. Just say that you like what you see, comment on something specific, I don't really care...just show that you like it.

Third...yes, I bumped the rating up from K+ to T, but the fic itself shouldn't change. I'm not adding any adult themes, I just wanna be safe because I don't want it taken down because of a technicality. So the fic won't get any more adult...if you've been fine to this point, don't worry about it.

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"Sounds like you had an awfully nice night." Ken said, poking at a tomato in his salad. It was a slow day at the mall, just a trickle of customers flowing about through the shops, and he and Tai had decided to stop off for a quick salad.

"You bet. And it was all possible because I keep a spare in the glove compartment." He pointed at Ken with his fork before sticking it back into his bowl of greens. "Remember that, best advice I think I can give any man."

"We've got an emperor running amuck in the digital world, you know. You should be trying to get some sleep, this isn't like a few months ago. We need you. We need all twelve of the digidestined to bring their A-game every day, or we've already lost."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm good for it. Besides, what can I do anymore? You're the one with the magic stick! I've become irrelevant!" He leaned in, over his bowl. "Hey, you want me to get you a pair of goggles? I can steal em right off Davis's head if you'd like. It's sort of the trademark of the leader, and-"

"I don't wear goggles." Ken said shortly, reaching for his water glass as Tai fell back into his seat. "The gesture is nice, however. Now, I'm going to assume that you didn't advise we come here for the..." he motioned down at the salad with his fork "...food. You have something you want to say?"

Tai glanced around, then leaned back in. "We're waiting."

"For the health inspector?" He poked around in his lettuce. "Good, because I swear I saw a dead wasp in here."

"Izzy's been talking with Gennai. We've got some new information." Tai pulled back his sleeve and looked at his watch. "We're supposed to meet in about three minutes, in that empty store that used to sell slasher movies."

"Why all the secrecy?" Ken glanced around. "Was it my french fries comment? Because his room doesn't smell like french fries, at least I don't think so. And I would know!"

"No...we don't know this Emperor kid. We don't know who he is in the real world. We don't even know his name. He could be sitting next to me in algebra, or behind me in science. He could live next door to any one of us. So we've decided to mix up our meeting locations for the time being."

Ken nodded. "Why call the meeting?"

"Well, we do need to go into the digital world and let the Emperor know we're down for another hand if he wants. Give him a full day alone in there, he'll probably have made a digimon entirely out of giga cannons or...something."

Ken bit his lower lip. "Uh-huh." It has his turn to lean in. "Now, I have to ask you something." He turned around, carefully making sure nobody was around, before turning back. "Did you call in the bomb threat this morning?"

Tai went red. "Well, how else was I gonna get school to cancel for the rest of the day?"

"Ohhh, oh!" Ken threw his fork to the ground. "You idiot! Do you read the news?! You can't just call in random bomb threats to get out of school because you feel like it!"

"Do you mind?" Tai put his palm up, facing Ken. "Be quiet. This saving the world gig is more important than school."

"Do you have any idea what'll happen if you get caught?! You're looking at eight years, and that's if you get tried as a juvenile!"

"Will you calm down? I took care of it, and I'm not getting caught, that's all that matters."

"And I suppose you called in one at the high school too?" Ken hissed, standing up.

"Nah, that was Matt."

"Oh, bunch of geniuses I'm working with!" Ken looked up at the ceiling. "Ever hear of faking sick? Cutting class? Something that isn't a major criminal offense?"

"C'mon, let's go." Tai had turned his focus on a garbage can against the wall opposite the food court. Ken turned around to look at it. Joe was standing next to it. He pulled out what appeared to be a perfectly good orange and threw it in to the can before briskly walking away.

"Change of plans." Tai said, pushing up from the table. "We're meeting in the movie theater, screen number twelve. The projector's broken so we should be clear." He began walking away from the table. Ken got up and followed.

"Like a regular Mata Hari." Ken mumbled sarcastically.

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"Alright, everyone here?" Izzy asked, sitting in a chair in the upper left corner, facing everyone else.

"Looks that way." Tai said, looking things over. "Twelve people...twelve digimon. Alright, let's do this."

"Alright. Gennai's been poking around, he's got some new information." Izzy opened his laptop up. "This Emperor kid. His name is Cory Bradford. Born in America, parents unknown. Kid's been skipping around foster homes his entire life, but they never last more than a year."

"Little brat? I knew it." Davis interrupted.

"No. He had some really bad luck. Every set of parents he ever had died. It's crazy, it looks like he had a dozen foster set of parents kick the bucket. Anyway, two years ago, he came to Japan to try his luck here. But two more sets of parents died, and then about two months ago, he 'disappeared' and was never found. Presumed dead."

"Lines up. He ran away to the digital world and never came back." Ken mused. "Interesting."

"Yup. That's about all we got on the kid. Point is, he's a human child just like the rest of us. And he hasn't touched the real world in two months, so we can't attack him from that angle."

"That's all we could dig up?" Ken asked, disappointed.

"He's a bit of a mystery, I know. Gennai did find out some other things, however." He looked at Cody. "I know you've got issues with what we're doing, so here's the lowdown. Those Agumon and Tankmon are regular digimon, who were just going around wherever minding their own business as recent as...a couple days ago."

"I knew it!" Cody said through gritted teeth.

"But-but that's not the whole thing. They weren't tainted or manipulated in any way. It's all bribery. Cory offers them his modifications in exchange for loyalty. I'm afraid even the best digimon often can't resist the idea of basically digivolving without actually digivolving, so he doesn't have any problems getting forces together."

"Genius." Ken said quietly. Everyone turned to face him. "He's found a way to form an army of immense power by using currently existing digimon, without corrupting them directly. It's even incredibly efficient since he only has to use parts of digimon for his enhancements."

"Exactly." Izzy continued. "Right now, his capabilities are limited by his low supply of power, so he's being as efficient as possible in building up his forces. Unfortunately, it doesn't make a bit of difference for us. Now, as best as we can assume, his plan goes a little something like this: Build up a massive army of digimon who are willing to do anything to get his magic modifications, take over the entire digital world, and then one of two things. He either absorbs everything, converts it into power, and then does who knows what, or builds a nice throne and takes his place as ruler of the digital world."

"Plus...I'm willing to bet the digimon in his army will grow stronger on their own." Ken said slowly.

"What do you mean?" Mimi asked.

"Well, the Digimon in his army get exposed to battles and fights. As they continue to fight, they get stronger and stronger, they might even digivolve on their own from all the fighting experience they'll get."

"That sounds accurate. So at the end, if Cory decides he wants to absorb everything, he'll have that much more power to draw on." Izzy finished. "When you think about it, that's basically generating power at no cost to him. It naturally occurs out of nowhere."

"So basically...we haven't seen anything yet." Matt stated.

"There's alot of stuff in the digital world. Alot. And he only needs a tiny fraction of it to get the ball rolling. And once he gets the ball rolling, he's gonna keep rolling until he's got everything." Izzy metaphorized. "So we've gotta get him now, before that ball can get started."

"So, we can safely estimate he's sitting on eighteen of his crystals right now." Sora said slowly.

"Maybe he's nocturnal. I mean, he could be doing anything during the night..." Kari trailed off. "If he's not coming into the real world anyway."

"Well, if he can attack during the night, he hasn't yet." Izzy responded.

"You sound pretty confident." TK said.

"I've set up a system of relays. In the event of an attack, or the rumor of an attack, I'm alerted within ninety seconds. I investigate quickly, then call you guys up if it's serious. Response time shouldn't be any more than seven minutes."

"Nice work. But when do we sleep?" Tai couldn't help but inquire.

"I dunno. Energy drinks, hypnosis, naps...whatever. But we've got to be constantly on call." Izzy pointed to his drink holder, which was holding a can of Wired.

"So if we can stay on top of things, he should be prevented from obtaining more power." Matt concluded. "He'll keep throwing his crystals at us, but if we can hold him back, his storage will deplete fast. Then, when he's out of power and is back to trying to find rookies to absorb, we finish the job."

"It's not that simple. Destroying towns and attacking digimon is just one thing Cory is capable of doing to get power." Izzy corrected. "He could find digimon who would volunteer to be absorbed-"

"What do you mean?" TK interrupted. "Who'd volunteer to get sacrificed so someone like Cory has a little more gas in his tank?"

"You'd be surprised." Izzy picked up his drink and drank from it before continuing. "There are digimon who strongly believe in what Cory's doing. They're willing to sacrifice themselves in the name of it."

"What is it they believe he's doing?" Davis asked.

"Uniting the entire digital world under the rule of one person. I guess it's appealing to the right digimon." Izzy shrugged "The point is, he could do that, he could mine it from underground, he could buy it off the black market...there are alot of things he can do that we'd never notice. Hell, he might've already done them."

"Well...then what can we do?" Joe asked. "If we can't stop him now, and we sure can't stop him later, when do we stop him?"

Silence followed, everyone turning their heads to Ken.

"We've got three options, the way I see it." Ken began, holding up the index, middle and ring finger of his left hand. "We convince him to see our side of the story, see if he wants to join the rest of the digidestined in trying to save the two worlds."

"Scratch that one." Tai said immediately. "It sounds nice, but a little too nice to be reasonable. Not gonna happen, unless you've got Henry Kissinger on speed dial."

"I figured as much." He brought down his ring finger. "Two, we go in there now and go on the offensive. Instead of just coming around to protect the town or save the innocent digimon, we seek Cory out ourselves. If we can do it quickly, he might be exposed enough for us to deal with before he gets out of hand. We wait too long, he's got a base made of Metalseadramons and Positron Lasers."

"I'm not feeling it. If he keeps the crystals on him, which I'm sure he does, it won't work." TK reminded.

"I was thinking a sneak attack. Maybe have Angemon snipe him from a distance or something."

Izzy shook his head. "Good concept, but the odds are stacked against us. We probably won't be able to track him down, and then the issue of actually dealing with him is another thing entirely."

"Alright." He pulled down his middle finger, leaving just one up. "So we're down to my last idea."

"Let's hear it." Sora encouraged.

"We play his game." Ken nodded slowly. "We build up our own reserves of power. We recruit our own army. We set up to go toe-to-toe with him for the long haul. Hopefully, we can wear down on him over time."

"I like it." Yolei said quickly.

"Course you like it, it's all we got." Matt responded.

"Seriously though. It works. Very ambitious, won't be easy...but we can do it." Tai said.

"Hold it." Kari spoke up. "What's our advantage?"

"What do you mean?" Ken asked.

"Well, whatever Cory can give the digimon, you can. But whatever you can give the digimon, Cory can. You're both capable of doing the same things."

"We're the digidestined. That our advantage! We're on the side of all that's good and decent, how can any digimon with so much as a speck of honor turn that down?" Davis responded.

"It's a nice thought, but we can't depend on that. The reality is the digimon are likely to side with whoever they think will win." Izzy responded.

"Everyone wants to be a winner." Ken added. "And we're batting three hundred and thirty three in meetings with Cory, so we're already playing catchup."

"So we need an advantage." Kari said. "Any ideas?"

Ken put his right index finger to his chin for a second, then snapped his fingers and started pointing at the girls one by one. "Sora, Mimi, Kari, Yolei, pushup bras. You got em?"

"Ken!" Sora exasperated, unconsciously covering her chest area with her hands.

"Alright. If you don't wanna win." Ken shrugged.

"Well, it's settled then. We get ready for a long fight. Where do we start?" Sora spoke.

"We need to try to recruit digimon to our side of the fight before Cory can get to them." Ken mused.

"Yeah, my mom's gonna be so happy to learn I pulled my first serious bribe. 'Oh yeah son, you're well on your way to being the next Tony Soprano.' I can see it now." Cody spat.

Ken looked at Cody and sighed. "Cody, are you gonna be a problem?" He walked up to him, placing his hand on Cody's shoulder. "Look, I was...tired and frustrated yesterday. I'm sorry if I...I dunno, came off as uncaring." For genuine effect, he went down on one knee to Cody's level. "I care, trust me. I care." Ken scratched the side of his head. "But I'm doing this because I care. I care...too much-" he motioned emphatically with his hands "-to let this kid do what he wants. So I'm going to do whatever it takes to stop him. Got it?"

Slowly, looking slightly stunned, Cody nodded.

"Good. We okay?"

Again, Cody nodded.

"Alright. We're gonna be doing new things in there, and I need to know you're with me."

"I got it." Cody said, smiling again. "Thanks, Ken. I'll do what I have to too. It's just...yesterday it was so...shoot first, ask questions later, I didn't like it."

"I understand, but it won't be the last time you're gonna have a hard choice to make. And I need you to stick with me." Ken pushed himself up. "Okay. The way I see it, we need to get started in two directions. Six of us should try recruiting, the other six should try and find out exactly how many ways this power can be harnessed. We need to get a sense of what Cory can do to increase his reserves, and what we can do do increase ours."

"Split us up, Ken." Tai responded.

"Yeah. The man with the magic stick should lead the charge." Izzy added.

"Alright." Ken looked around at everyone, licking his lips. "Let's go with...Yolei, Tai, Sora, Kari, Mimi, and Joe, you guys should go to the Koromon village on File Island and see if you can't convince them to fight for us. You guys seem pretty good vocationally, so I'll trust you to do a good job convincing them if need be."

"Sounds good!" Tai responded.

"Wait..." Joe said slowly. "Are you tryin to say something?" He pointed at everyone in his group. "I'm not feminine! I'm not even paranoid anymore! In fact, you weren't even around when I was!"

Tai stepped on his foot. "Shut up!" He hissed.

"What? Tai, he's putting us with the-" he pointed back at the girls. "the...oh." He looked back at Ken, shaking his head. "Nevermind."

"Joe's got a point." Sora said. "Did gender play any role in this? Ken, be honest."

Ken shrugged. "This is all about convincing digimon to pick us over him...I just think a woman's touch would help. I mean, if you don't want to wear the pushup bra, I don't care, I just think-"

"It's okay. I gotcha." Sora said, giggling.

"Everyone else, come with me. We're going hunting for...anything that might be useful." Izzy opened up his laptop. "Everyone stay in touch, and don't hesitate to ask for help. Remember, together we stand, divided we fall."

Everyone nodded as one.

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"Alright. We've got three cards to play." Yolei said, talking to the rest of the group, as they were standing just outside the Koromon village. "We've got the 'we're on the side of good' argument. That should come first, since it's a good initial hook. I want Tai, Mimi, Joe, Kari and Sora telling stories about four years ago, I want everyone turning on the charm, I want bright, clean colors, I want everyone toning down on the language. I want us to be like The Beatles, and Cory to be like the Rolling Stones. I want to look like angels out there."

"Sounds good to me." Mimi said.

"If that doesn't go through. We've can go with 'we're going to win' side. For that, we need the digimon to strut their stuff." She motioned at the half-dozen assembled partners.

Gatomon was exaggeratingly huffing and puffing her chest in and out. "Consider it done."

"We need to be assertive and confident, make it sound like we're really sure we're gonna beat Cory. I want other old stories told, except from a different angle. I want you guys talking about how powerful the evil digimon you fought were and the odds you overcame. I want details, it's gotta be emphatic. And feel free to be a little threatening and menacing. We want to imply 'If you're not with us, you're against us. And if you're against us, something bad is gonna happen to you.'"

"On it." Tai said, cracking his neck.

"And then." She took a deep breath. "If, if those two don't pan out with some of these guys...we whip out the bribes. We discuss certain...upgrades we can offer, we can talk money, power, whatever tickles their fancy. The sky's the limit when we've got Ken, so don't worry about overdoing it. We're salesmen and saleswomen, so act like it."

"Alright." Sora said. "Let's get pitching."

"Well...let's not forget the 'join us or die' option." Tai added hesitantly.

"Tai!" Kari exclaimed. "We're trying to distance ourselves from Cory, not get closer!"
"Hey." He shrugged. "I'm just saying. It's like Gennai said, you gotta do-"

"-what you gotta do." Everyone chorused.

"We get it." Joe said. "But we don't gotta do this. At least not yet."

"Alright. I'm just saying." Tai repeated.

"Let's get this show on the road." The six humans and six digimon marched into the town. As expected, half the digidestined purposefully walking through the village drew quite a bit of attention. Koromon bouncing through the town saw the group, and began to follow. Some emerged from structures set up all over the town to follow.

"They look hungry for some direction." Kari muttered.

"You don't suppose Cory already got here, do you?" Tai mused.

"We've gotta hope." Sora replied. "It's all we got."

"Right." Joe said. After a few more moments of walking, they were just a few steps away from the edge of the town. The group, almost as one, spun around to face a large collection of Koromon laid out on the dirt, facing them, awaiting whatever was coming to come.

Kari stepped forward just about two feet, took a deep breath, and then began her pre-scripted introduction.

"Koromon." She bit her lower lip. "This world has been placed in grave peril."

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"What are we even looking for?" Davis whined as the he, Matt, Ken, Cody, Izzy, and TK cut through an overgrown jungle.

"We're looking for something to look for." Ken replied, slicing through a clump of vines with a beam of light from his rod. "Basically."

"Oh come on!" Davis moaned, following Ken through the gaps in the foilage. "Could you at least give us an idea? Throw us a bone? How are we going to find something we don't even know we're looking for?"

"I don't even know what we're looking for." Ken responded. "Anything that might help...where I can find the 'black market' Izzy mentioned, where I might be able to find the Emperor, where I could find a large storage of power I could use...whatever it is the Emperor is doing, or planning to do...something like that."

"That doesn't even begin to give us an idea of where to look." Cody couldn't help but add to Davis's complaint. "I'm sorry Ken, but this world is huge. We need...something."

"Yeah, especially given that even if we find what we're looking for we won't even know it." Matt said, picking through ferns. "We could be looking at it right now for all we know."

"Hey, if I could do something about it, I would." Ken began, spinning around to look behind him at the five. "But I can't. All we can do is look and hope."

Suddenly, Ken froze. Slowly, he began to raise his rod in his right hand, turning his head left and right. He put his left hand up in the air, then motioned downwards. The other five present digidestined got down on the forest floor.

His eyes wide and alert, Ken continued to look about slowly. Finally, he pointed the orb of the rod out, slightly angling towards the sky, to the northwest.

A single abrasive crack sounded through the air, causing the digidestined and their partners to wince. If it wasn't a gunshot, it sure sounded an awful lot like it.

A flash of metal hit the air right in front of Ken's rod, deflecting off the invisible barrier created from it. Then, a string of white light flew out at great speed from the orb, extending far into the topography. A grunt was heard in the distance, and then the beam whipped back towards Ken, carrying a most unnatural-looking Renamon on it's end.

The Renamon was thrown to the ground before Ken as the rope flew back into his rod. He twirled it in his hand, then pointed it down at the Renamon. It had clearly been tainted by the touch of the Emperor, for instead of a right arm, it bore merely a forearm with a elongated rifle. Ken looked down at the modified digimon. The orb began to glow, and quite suddenly, the weapon was severed from the Renamon and flew up into Ken's waiting left hand.

Left with just a stump of a right arm, it tried to get up, but the orb glowed again and it was sent back down to the ground, half buried under greens.

"Stay." Ken said flatly, as if talking to a dog. Then, he turned his attention to the rifle, throwing it up into the air and using his rod to hold it there, slowly spinning it around so he could get a good look at it in it's entirety.

"I've never seen a digimon use a sniper rifle before." Izzy said quietly as the digidestined got back up from the ground. Now that the action had stopped, the scope on the top and the long, narrow barrel clearly showed what sort of weapon it was.

Finally, Ken looked up. "It's a Barrett M107 Sniper Rifle. Most advanced in the world. It's no digimon weapon, this comes from earth." He threw it to the side. "Most interesting. It seems his...creativity knows no bounds." He looked back down at the Renamon, who seemed unable to move.

"You'd think the Emperor would be smart enough to know you can't send a rookie to do a mega's job." Ken spat. "Even if the rookie is a freak." He bent down so he was just above the Renamon, looking hard into her eyes. "You like guns?"

She didn't respond, nor acknowledge she was being spoken to.

"Betcha couldn't resist when Cory came around and offered you a chance to be what someone like yourself could never be." He sprung back up to a standing position and kicked her hard in the face, sending her across the dirt floor into a nearby tree. "I suppose I can't blame you. A rookie, completely worthless, no hope of ever becoming anything." He walked back up to the Renamon and delivered another brutal kick to her face, kicking up dirt and sending her spinning around the tree.

"Ken, calm down!" TK finally said, at first partially shocked silent by his outburst.

"Let me handle it." Ken said quietly, almost soothingly, holding his palm out to TK. "Now, Renamon, today's your lucky day. I need information, so if you can tell me something worth knowing, I can send you on your way. Hell, I'll even give you an arm back!"

Suddenly, the Renamon was able to move again. She rolled over onto her back and jumped up. Ken kept the rod pointed at her.

"Worth knowing?" She choked out, pushing her back up against the tree she had just crashed into.

"Yes. Worth knowing." Ken repeated.

"How am I supposed to know what's worth knowing to you?" She managed to get out, clutching her chest.

Ken rolled his eyes, almost looking as if he was having fun with this interrogation. "Fine. Let's try this another way." He cleared his throat. "Where can I find the Emperor?"

"I dunno, I'm a grunt! You think I'd know this kind of stuff?!" The Renamon said, regaining some of her composure.

Ken sighed. "That's a shame." He twirled the rod again, a small orb of light flowing from the rod to his left hand. The orb took the form of a large silver revolver, glistening in the sun in Ken's hand. He casually flipped it over to his right hand, slipped the rod into a holder in his belt, and pointed it at the Renamon. He fired, an ear-piercing shot ringing through the forest, the recoil nearly sending the revolver pointing straight up into the sky.

The .50 calibur bullet blew the stump of the Renamon's right arm off, leaving a bleeding mess. The Renamon groaned, grabbed at the new wound, and fell over.

"I said I don't know!" She managed to screech, rolling over in pain.

"If you don't know, then you're useless. And there are few things that anger me more than a useless digimon." Ken said smoothly. "Now, maybe you can tell me what the Emperor has been doing lately?"

"I told you, he doesn't tell grunts-AHH!" Ken fired again, a shot of immense power blowing the Renamon's right arm clean off, creating an even bigger mess on the ground around them. The other five digidestined all felt like they should say something, but found themselves unable to say anything. Only watch in amazement.

"What, you want me to lie?!" She screamed, rolling back and forth, now without any arms at all.

"Nah." Ken snickered. "If you lied, I woulda shot you someplace else. Now, maybe you can tell me what the Emperor is doing right now?"

"He doesn't-AGH!" This time, Ken shot her left leg off. Izzy keeled over and threw up on the ground. Cody went pale white. It was like a trainwreck, nobody could stop watching, nor stop it from happening.

"How about what he's planning to do in the future?" Ken asked, leveling the gun at her right leg and final appendage.

"I told you, I-UGH!" She was pushed across the dirt slightly by the force of the bullet blowing her right leg off. Now she was nothing more than a torso and head, losing blood fast.

"Now, you're gonna die of blood loss real soon here, so you'd better hope you can answer one of my next two questions." He leveled the gun at her chest. "Would you happen to be aware of a way I could acquire a large amount of power? One that doesn't involve mass genocide of digimon?"

"You said it yourself!" She managed to say in a whisper, every breath or attempt to move forcing more blood out. "I'm a nobody, I don't know any of this!"

"That's a damn shame." Ken said menacingly, pulling the hammer of the revolver back.

Suddenly, TK grabbed Ken's gun arm and pointed it up into the sky. Ken looked over at TK, who was sternly looking back at him. "Stop! She doesn't know anything, this is...this is wrong!"

Ken punched across his body into TK's stomach, causing him to keel over. He then pushed him back into the brush, leveling the gun back at the Renamon. "I'll be the judge of that." He said quietly to TK before firing.

The bullet erupted into her chest, spilling fresh blood. The Renamon's head fell back and her body lay still, seemingly dead. But then, Ken walked up to what was left of her and kicked her in the head. She was suddenly alive again, moving back and forth on the ground.

"Stop playing stupid. Your heart's on the right, I shot you in the left." Ken said, pointing the gun at the right side of her chest. "I've only got one bullet left, and there's only one place it's interested in making it's home. Answer me this question and I'll send you on your way, with brand spanking new limbs, so listen closely."

TK pushed himself back up, watching the extremely irregular scene of Ken standing over a half-dead Renamon, holding an oversized revolver, and looking far too evil.

"How might I go about locating the Digital World's Black Market?" Ken asked slowly.

The Renamon's eyes widened. "I-I know that! I've been there!" She said, blood continuing to pump out of her body with every word.

"Good. Care to share?" Ken asked, lowering the weapon.

"The sewers on File Island...go directly below the monolith in the middle of the forest and call out for a RedVeggiemon. He'll take you." She replied. "Now give me my limbs back!"

"That's a good girl." Ken said slowly. And then, without warning, he pulled the hammer back and fired into her heart. She gasped a few times as more blood oozed out of her, and then fell back to the ground, dead. "Very good girl." Ken said quietly, as he dissolved the revolver back into power, which went back into his rod.

"She lieing?" Izzy asked, still on his knees from his bout of sickness, a pool of vomit at his knees.

"Nah. She was telling the truth." Ken said, absorbing the body parts into his rod. "At least she thinks she was."

"Then why?!" TK demanded, running up to Ken and taking a stance right in front of him. "Why kill her when she just gave us all the help she should give?"

Ken's eyes went over to the left, looking off into the distance for a second before coming back to TK. "One, because she tried to kill us, and I don't take kindly to people who try to kill me. Two, she only helped us because she was in incredible pain, not because of a change of heart, so she's still a digimon who's willing to sell out to the highest bidder. Third, because she has no honor, showcased by her willingness to give us information that could prove detrimental to the man she agreed to work for, and who gave her more power than she could ever dream of otherwise, all because she couldn't handle a little pain and the thought of her death. All things considered, I wish I could have given her something worse than death."

"But you agreed to let her go if she told you something useful." TK said through gritted teeth. "You talk about honor-"
"What do you care?" Ken asked, turning around and walking back towards the rest of the group. "She was a lowlife Renamon who sold out to the powers of darkness. Are you saying she didn't deserve what she got?"

"Yeah, we should never give anyone second chances." Cody said dryly.

Ken froze midstep, slowly turning his head to look over at Cody. He opened his mouth to say something, but it never got out. He closed his mouth as suddenly as he had opened it, gave a slight snicker, and continued walking.

"Maybe we should...I dunno, go home for the day?" Davis suggested. "Y'know, come back in the morning fresh? Sleep and relaxation could do us some good. The black market isn't going anywhere..."

"I agree." Matt said, watching Ken walk away, catching the hint. They needed to put out the fire building between Ken and everyone else. Even if that meant giving up the rest of the day, it was important that Ken was given time to gather himself and apologize to the group.

"If that's the consensus." Ken said loudly, suddenly stopping. "Anyone got the time?"

Izzy checked his watch. "Five-Thirty. We've been wandering around in this forest for four and a half hours, how did the time ever get away from us like that..."

Ken pulled out a walkie-talkie from his jacket, pulling it up to his face. "How'd the pitch go?"

Kari's voice crackled through. "I think we scared them a bit, but we've recruited them to our side. They should be willing to fight for us."

"How's the cost-to-benefit ratio?"

"Pretty much the works...a good eighty percent bought into the 'we're good and they're evil' stuff. Couple held out until we offered the bennies, but I'd estimate it to be about a dozen, nothing we can't handle."

"Excellent. So that's the Koromon village, the ShogunGekomon Castle, and the Biyomon town. We've got a lead, but everyone else wants to go home, so go ahead and leave whenever." He put the electronic device back into his belt. "Let's go then." He walked up to Izzy as he activated his computer.

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"Kenny boy's mad." Cory mused, pacing around the twelve-foot long capsule inside the large, otherwise completely dark and bland room. "Oh, he's mad. You should have seen him work the Renamon."

"Why'd you bother sending a rookie?" A voice from inside the capsule spoke. "Waste of time and resources."

Cory shrugged. "Worth a shot. And it came close to working. But that's not the problem. The problem is, Ken's the only one who's angry."

"Jeez, you blew up an entire town, you'd think that'd mean something." Said the voice from the capsule again.

"Exactly. If they're not angry, they'll never go after me with everything they got. And if they don't go after me with everything they've got, I'm just wasting my time."

"Got any ideas?" Came the voice.

"Sure." He reached inside his coat and pulled out a wooden brown box about eight inches tall, a foot long, and perhaps two inches thick with a gold clasp holding it closed. He flicked it open and pulled the cover back, revealing a golden revolver. "If this doesn't work, nothing will."

"Perhaps you've forgotten. We need them alive. All of them."

"True. But I heavily suspect this gambit will lure him out of hiding. As such, we're killing two birds with one stone. It's a risk I'm willing to take."

"Very well. What's the timeline on Ken?"

"All I have are guesses based on my understanding on how his mind works. I believe the event to transpire exactly two weeks from today should be the clincher."

"Very good." Came the voice.

"Yes. Very good indeed." Cory repeated.

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