Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Descent into Darkness ❯ Chapter Five ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon. I do not claim to own Digimon. Toei own Digimon and Sensation Animation (formally known as Saban) make the dub. This is for fun not profit.

Please R&R

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Descent into Darkness

Part Five

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"Are you sure? Maybe it was just a bad dream?" Patamon asked as Takeru checked his emails. He wished that he could believe his digimon's suggestion but he knew it was real. Two panicked emails from Miyako soon proved that his intuition had been correct.

"It wasn't just a dream. Look!" He pointed to the screen. "Even not leaving her alone didn't help." Takeru could feel his shoulders shaking as he tried to hold back sobs. "We failed her, Patamon! I failed her. I was supposed to protect her and I couldn't."

"Breaking down isn't going to help her, Takeru." Patamon told him. "You'll have to be calm if we are going to figure out to rescue her."

"At least Gatomon is with her." Takeru took some small comfort from that because in the dreams Hikari had always been alone. "But how long can she hold out for? She's almost certainly in that Dark World and we've seen how the energy of that place effects her even in small doses. I know that she'll fight as hard as she can but she isn't invincible. No one is." As he spoke Takeru sent an email to the others saying much the same thing and telling them that he'd somehow known when she was taken. Then he closed his d-terminal and told his digimon what he hadn't put in the email. "I don't know if I could bear it if she was turned against us. I think that I love her."

"Of course you do. She's your best friend… best human friend anyway." Patamon sounded confused.

"That's not what I mean. I think that I'm in love with her. Romantic Love." He wasn't sure if Patamon would understand. However his digimon seemed puzzled for only a moment.

"Oh, you mean like in those films your mother watches? The ones she always needs a big box of tissues to watch?"

"Something like that."

"Have you ever told her?" Patamon asked.

"I'm too scared to. I don't want to ruin our friendship. I mean she flirts with every guy in site… or she did until all this started." He frowned. "That's not all. Daisuke hasn't been chasing her either. It must be because of what's been happening to her. He's obviously far more considerate than I gave him credit for."

"It was him who got the Digimental of Friendship for a reason." Patamon looked thoughtful. "Well get her back, Takeru and then you are going to tell her. Hikari's got more sense that to hold it against you."

An email from Ken saved Takeru from having to answer that. The message suggested that they would all have to cut school the next day and meet in the Digital World just as soon as everyone was awake. Takeru sent an email expressing his agreement and then called Yamato's mobile phone. His brother was not happy at be woken in the small hours but when he heard the news he stopped grumbling and said that he'd contact Koushiro and Jyou.

That just left Iori. Takeru knew the younger boy's bedroom was directly above his own. He climbed on his bed and knocked quietly on the ceiling three times and prayed that Iori, and only Iori, heard. He was rewarded by a startled bump as Iori jumped out of bed. He was certain the boy would figure it was a wake up call and moments later he got an "I'm up!" email.

Now everyone was awake he wrote a quick note in case he wasn't back by the time his mother got up, turned on his computer and opened a digiport.

---

"Is this the place from your dreams, Kari-chan?" Gatomon asked in a subdued tone. Hikari glanced down at her and nodded. "No wonder it scares you."

"It's even more unpleasant in reality." She pointed to the lighthouse, though that was probably the wrong word given the nature of the beam. "Look at that. Even the light is black." She sat down on a rock. "At least you're with me this time. That's a definite improvement over the dreams."

"It is ugly." Gatomon agreed. "But it's not the appearance that freaks me out. Looks can be deceiving. It's the atmosphere. It matches the looks perfectly. I can feel the evil. This place… it makes Vamdemon's aura seem aura seem like sweetness and light."

"I can feel that as well, Gatomon. It's seeping into me and I can't stop it. I don't know what to do."

"See if you can send an email to the others." The digimon suggested. "Maybe you'll be able to get a message through. We need to keep in contact with them if we can."

"Very practical, Gatomon." Hikari smiled at her partner and began to type. She decided to be brutally honest about what she thought her chances of holding out were. The others had to be warned. Once she was satisfied she sent the message and hoped it would get through. "I just wish that this whole mess hadn't stopped me having that talk with Takeru." She sighed. "Now there's a good chance that he'll never know how I felt."

"It's not as if you are going to die, Kari-chan." Gatomon told her. "That's never been the danger."

"In this case I'll be as good as dead." Hikari sighed. "If this… whatever… manages to change me I doubt that I'll feel the same way about him."

"Possibly not." Gatomon conceded. "But you mustn't give up hope -- no pun intended."

"I know." Hikari glanced around again. "We're being watched by something. Several somethings in fact. I can't see them but I can feel them. And where is he? He'd always spoken by now in my dreams. What is he waiting for? It's creeping me out."

"Ah, but you aren't dreaming this time." It was the mocking voice from her dream but she detected something in its tone that had never been there in her dreams… uncertainty. She turned towards it but no one was there. "So impatient to meet me, my Kari-chan?" The voice was amused but the uncertainty was still there. Somehow she knew that things weren't going quite as it had planned.

"I am not your Kari-chan!" She spat. A cold determination took hold of her. "Whatever I may become I will never be your anything … except your enemy of course!" She lifted her chin proudly. She could feel the darkness gathering within her as well as around her but wasn't sure that she cared anymore. They felt different and maybe her own Darkness could fight him and the darkness of this world where her Light had failed her. "If you need me to fulfil you plans you obviously don't deserve my help. I must be better than you!"

{Be careful, digidestined girl.} A voice that she didn't know sounded in her head. {Dagomon is trying to trick you into letting his Darkness control you. There is another way and I think that you are strong enough to do it.}

{That guy's called Dagomon then? Who are you? What's this other option? I don't think I can stay with the Light at the moment.} She asked inside her head sure the other would hear her.

{He is. I'll tell you later. And I know that but I think you are strong enough to control your own Darkness instead of it or indeed his controlling you. That's a rare gift.}

(Gift?} She asked incredulously. {You call it a gift? And I don't trust you… I can sense you. You're Dark as well.}

{That is true and it is good that you don't trust me. It shows that you are wise. I have always disliked dealing with the foolish.}

Hikari didn't reply to the voice because she had suddenly realised that Dagomon had not replied. He really was stunned by her response. Apparently he hadn't expected her to resist him once the Darkness took hold of her. She wasn't sure exactly how she knew this but she did. Apparently her psychic gifts worked just as well when powered by the Dark as the Light. Interesting and useful

"What's the matter, Dagomon?" She asked in a mocking tone. "Speechless?" She was aware that Gatomon was staring at her with borderline terror and gave her partner a quick, reassuring smile.

"You can't stop me, girl." Dagomon's threat might have been scarier if he hadn't sounded like he wasn't sure what the hell was going on. "You will be my tool to spread the darkness to the Digital and Human worlds and you will be my bride…"

"Your bride?" Hikari laughed incredulously. "You really are a slave of the bad horror movie cliché aren't you? I wouldn't marry you if you were the last quasi-humanoid male in the multiverse. I'm really not turned on by tentacles… and somehow I just know that you're the sort of guy to have tentacles." She glanced down as her d-terminal pinged. "Now if you'll excuse me. I've got mail."

---

"Is something wrong, master?" Black Gatomon asked respectfully. She was pretty sure that there was given the fact that Dagomon was swearing sulferously. "Can I help?" Something must have gone really wrong with his plan, she realised somewhat smugly, for him to be this angry.

"I underestimated the girl." He growled. "She has accepted the Dark and yet still she scorns me."

She looked up at her master in feigned confusion. "How is that possible? You are the master of the dark. How can she accept it and not you?"

Dagomon turned his glowing eyes upon his servant. "I don't know, little one, I just don't know. I'm the Master of this World. The one who twisted it. Its darkness comes from me and returns to me. The only way she should be able to resist me is if her Darkness comes from elsewhere but we know that's not true. She was Light and we were the ones who Darkened her. Anyway even if the Darkness of the Digital World had found a way into her heart I was the pioneer of the Darkness there as well before the first Chosen Children came and drove me back to here."

"Not all of it." Black Gatomon bowed her head. Even with a respectful tone she risked his anger by speaking of this and if he ever suspected that this World had its own innate source of darkness and that she served it she'd be a dead cat. So she copped out. "Your brothers created some of it."

"And they are dead. I should be able to control their legacies. Though Milleniummon's Children seemed determined to evade me… a problem I am working on. There's something else. Stop dancing around the subject."

"Devimon." She said bluntly in spite of the danger. She could feel her master's surprise. Apparently he didn't follow her logic. "The one who was killed by the digidestined."

"What about him? True, he's always resisted my rule and that of my brothers but he's merely a champion with delusions of grandeur."

"He… that… there are legends in that world. They say there was a time when he was the only Virus in the entire Digital World. That he was the Darkness that had to exist so that there could be Light. I never believed it for if it was true then what of here." That last bit was a direct lie but he seemed to believe her. "If he was that old there was no way that he would just be a champion."

"That's an interesting point, Little One. Could the Digital World have its own innate darkness? I have never thought so." He did not sound angry, just thoughtful. "But anything is possible. After all there are still a few Vaccines running around here."

"So what are you going to do about her?" She asked, relieved that he believed what she had said about not believing the tales.

"I'll break her if I have to but I think that once she realizes that she can't resist me she'll come to her senses. I just wish I knew how she managed to bring her digimon with her."

"My sister is here?" she asked in surprise, she couldn't remember the last time there had been a vaccine Gatomon here and even though this one was alien to this world and not truly one of her sisters the thought was strangely comforting. All the same she had better act scared. "What the hell! This means trouble. It really does." She feigned total panic.

"Calm down. The little white cat is ringless and can't digivolve. She'll be too weak to do anything except offer moral support. Not that that isn't damaging enough. I can't believe that she actually talked back to me!"

"Gatomon?"

"No, Hikari. I'd expect the pathetic little vaccine to talk back." He rose and strode to the communication device. "She seemed totally unafraid of me. I'll have to correct that." He mused. "I think that I'll have her brought here. There's no reason to risk everything by meeting her just anywhere when I can have her here at the heart of my power." He made a gesture and the panel lit up. "Take a detachment and go and fetch me the human girl. Ensure the digimon and digivice are left behind and don't bother being too gentle with her. She deserves punishing for her resistance."

"It will be as you command, master." A voice replied from the panel. He turned back to her.

"Go to the Digital World and observe the Chosen Children. Somehow they are getting email through my barrier and I want to know how."

"I will." She bowed and he opened a gate to the Digital World.

---

"Apparently my email only got through to Ken." Hikari said with a frown. She and Gatomon were sheltering in a cave. "He thinks that it's because his dark D3 gives him some sort of link to here."

"That does sound like a reasonable explanation, Hikari-sama." Gatomon said in a nervous tone of voice. "Are you going to reply?"

Hikari looked down at her digimon in shock. "What did you just call me? No, don't answer that - just tell me why you called me that?" She met her partner's eyes and saw more than a little fear there.

"I - you - I…" The digimon began. "Dark… you… upset… "

"Gatomon-chan, please try and talk coherently." Hikari gave her partner a gentle smile. "Try deep breathing."

"You've changed." Gatomon said finally. "I felt it happen. I know you've turned to the Dark even if you don't. I-I didn't want to make you angry."

"I do know. I went to the only place in myself that had the power I needed to fight him, Gatomon-chan," Hikari said softly. "Are you going to leave me?" She asked sadly.

"Never!" Shock replaced fear in Gatomon's eyes and voice. "I'm your digimon, Hikari-sama. Wherever you go I'll follow you. Whatever you do I'll support you -- even if I don't approve. You'll have to put up with me I'm afraid."

"What's to put up with?" Hikari kept her tone mild. "And please stop calling me Hikari-sama. Does what you just said sound like the actions of a servant -- let alone a slave? I'll understand if you don't feel you can call me Kari-chan anymore in the circumstances but I'm not and never will be your mistress."

"Do you really mean that, Kari-chan?" Gatomon looked up at her hopefully.

"Of course I do." Hikari confirmed. "The one person I'm definitely not going to turn against is my best friend. That's a promise. I'm not sure where all this is going to end up but you may soon be the only friend I have left and to answer your question yes I am going to reply." She began to type an email to Ken.

"Are you going to tell them what happened?" Gatomon asked.

"Yes. They deserve to know. I don't know how they'll react or what they'll do about it but I am going to tell them."

"They won't abandon you either. They might fight you at some point but they'll never give up on you." Gatomon looked at the screen. "Someone spoke to you in your head?"

Hikari nodded as she sent the email. "I don't know who but he did."

"That would be me." Said a voice from behind them. They both turned and even though she had never seen him Hikari recognised him.

"Devimon." She said in a neutral tone that masked her inner shock perfectly.

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