Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Pins and Needles ❯ Ken ( Chapter 4 )

DISCLAIMER: Digimon Adventure 02 isn't mine. It belongs to Toei Animation, and I'm not making any profit off using their characters and situations (don't I wish!), unless you count the endless joy of spreading pain/misery/smut around the internet. I guess that could almost be considered a profit. No copyright infringement intended, all rights reserved.

A/N: More of general Ken evil in this part. There's also some violence and general unpleasantness. Poor Taichi. Oh, and I really meant to get Ken back into Yamato's cell before the end of this part so that they could spend some more quality time together, but it would have been too long for a chapter of this fanfic. I guess you'll just have to wait for the next part. Mwahahahahaha.

DISCLAIMER: See previous parts.

A/N: More of general Ken evil in this part. There's also some violence and general unpleasantness. Poor Taichi. Oh, and I really meant to get Ken back into Yamato's cell before the end of this part so that they could spend some more quality time together, but it would have been too long for a chapter of this fanfic. I guess you'll just have to wait for the next part. Mwahahahahaha.

Part Four

There was too much blood.

Slowly, the Digimon Kaizer climbed to his feet. He frowned, not exactly worried, but somewhat displeased with himself because he had meant to stop ages ago. Fueled by simple frustration, no matter how understandable, his control had slipped. He had wanted to break Yagami-kun, yes, but not quite so literally. Lasting injuries were so very counterproductive. What good was a servant with a broken arm, really? And a dead servant even less so, but this made the fifth day and Ken had run out of options.

"I trust I've made my point?" he whispered, not expecting an answer.

The dark body on the floor of the Quiet Room stirred. As the Digimon Kaizer watched impassively, it began to roll over onto its side. There was no particular haste to the movement, just an unerring determination that in itself seemed like a kind of strength. Yagami-kun did not push himself to sit up or stand, but rather collapsed the moment their eyes could meet and lay panting raggedly for several minutes, his expression contorted with pain.

He'd had a nice body five days ago, sculpted but not excessively so; all lean muscle and smooth coffee-colored skin. That was then, this was now -- and now Yagami-kun might have difficulty explaining to his next date how he had acquired the mosaic of deep, crisscrossed scars on his back or perhaps the much neater thin white lines that curved around his pectorals and sliced into his dark nipples. They were only jagged-edged bleeding cuts at the moment, so messy that Ken couldn't really see what all he had done anymore, but he had had some experience with scars and thought he knew how these ones would heal. How vain was Yagami-kun, when you got down to it, and how morbid? Would he pay for the surgery to disguise his injuries, or wear muscle shirts to show them off?

When Yagami-kun seemed able to breathe properly again, he opened his one good eye -- the other one had swollen shut -- and licked his dry, cracking lips. "Go to hell," the brunet said in a hiss.

Lying there in a pool of his own shining crimson blood, cradling an arm that was most likely broken, he defied the Digimon Kaizer. For such a long time, Ken simply stared at him and couldn't quite bring himself to believe it. He had brought Yagami-kun to the Quiet Room with such grand expectations initially. Expectations that he should someday see a sort of reverence in those angry gleaming amber eyes. And while he knew that he would still eventually have Yagami-kun on his hands and knees, scuttling here and there spiderlike to fetch things -- he was beginning to suspect that he would have to break the older boy's mind to do it.

Breaking things was ineloquent. Frankly, Ken much preferred to bend them so slowly that they did not know what was happening to them until they were in exactly the desired shape, but he had learned that one could not bend a human being in such a manner without exacting his or her express consent. Otherwise, he had no leverage, and he ended up in bloody rooms with persons like Yagami-kun and the ugly realization that nothing he could ever do would move them. True enough, it had been only a business week, but then, a game of chess could be lost in five moves and still take hours to play.

The five moves that he had attempted were the primal chords of human nature. Fear, power, safety, sex, and pain. The first, perhaps Ken should have known better than to so much as attempt with a Keeper of Courage, and Yagami-kun had of course no interest in sharing his gloomy little kingdom. Safety which his pride would never allow him to accept. Sex that he would have preferred from a female. Pain came last, and it was the least effective, for pain lacking fear was a deterrent and did not convert.

One move each day. The third day's struggle had made Yagami-kun into a challenge, something worth conquering, perhaps, but truthfully, by the end of the fourth day, he had become an aggravation. Now? Now the Digimon Kaizer saw that if he wanted this young man to be silent, he would have to cut out his tongue. If he wanted the derision to leave his one-time leader's eyes, he would have to rip them from the sockets. Threats? Yagami-kun had only laughed and pointed out that Ken would do with his friends as he liked, whether or not he, Taichi, gave in. It was terribly jaded but observant of him.

Was this a portension of Daisuke?

No, Ken thought. It could not be. Five days of wasted effort was suitably irksome -- but six months would have been intolerable. He had not spent all this time to do only what could have been accomplished with Black Matter. He would have Daisuke at his feet willingly, or he would not have him at all. This was a setback, yes, but he would find a way. Perhaps another test subject would prove more enlightening? The Digimon Kaizer fastened on that idea, but reluctantly shoved it away. None of his other semi-loyal subjects were even half as like Daisuke as Yagami-kun.

When the Digimon Kaizer spun abruptly to leave without so much as a parting shot, it must have come as quite the surprise to his captive. Certainly, Ken had considered kicking him one last time in the side before making his grand exit, but that seemed far too childish. He was not a little boy throwing a temper tantrum, damn it. He was a man with considerably more clout than that, and men did not stomp their feet or scream and shout. They went out and changed things instead of merely complaining about them. Control. The Digimon Kaizer took a deep breath, and closed the door to the Quiet Room behind him.

The Quiet Room was one of his favorite things about his new base of operations. Nestled in among the cells, it somehow managed to maintain a balmy temperature of 75 degrees without insulation or visible heating vents. Not too cold and not too hot. The walls and ceiling were a nice sterile shade of white and made of plaster instead of stone. Except for the strange permanent brown stains of old faded blood on that bright white paint, the Quiet Room would have been much less out of place in a bustling office building than a reformatory in the Digital World. There was no documentation in any of the prison's extensive archives as to its intended purpose, and only a simple placard to the left of the door revealed its name.

Of course, Ken mused as he leisurely peeled off his surgical gloves and slipped into the fur-lined ones that actually kept his hands warm, one did not have to know the precise history of a blood-stained sword to understand its function.

It was so cold out in the corridor, and always something of a shock after he had spent time in the Quiet Room. The bitter chill of it bit into the exposed skin of his face with sharp little teeth and made his breath chalky white like smoke. The Digimon Kaizer thrust his shoulders more deeply into his cloak, drawing its collar under his chin. He did not huddle or shiver, but he did speed his pace towards the elevator at the other end of the corridor. Even in the dead of night, his own room was lovely and warm with modern heaters. He could plan from there.

There was a flash of color behind him, and Ken turned to face it so quickly that he had no time to register what color exactly before he saw her. The Digimon Kaizer smiled. He was in no danger from Yelena, the little Russian girl who had darted forward to retrieve the plastic gloves he had so carelessly discarded. Their eyes met only briefly, and then he gazed down at her frost-bitten hands. The only thing he felt was a vague awareness that perhaps he should have felt something.

Perhaps if Yelena had not tried to run from him, he wouldn't have put the collar of Black Matter around her ten-year-old throat -- but he had to make an example of her, for the others. He so preferred to have even the lowliest of his servants completely aware at all times of what was befalling him or her, but the price for that awareness was training and discipline and a good deal of hard work. The Cadets couldn't be allowed Yelena's escape attempt to stand without punishment or they would start to feel hope again. So he had gone to her with a collar and explained to her empty Black Matter eyes that she felt no cold, that in fact it was much too hot for comfort's sake, and she had believed him so deeply that she was naked now and perspiring from her imagined heat. She would die from exposure today with beads of frozen sweat all over her body. An appropriate consequence for a crime of such magnitude, Ken thought.

Stingmon met him by the elevator, standing patiently at attention as though he had been waiting there while his master worked for only a few minutes instead of the six or seven hours that had passed in actuality. The elevator behind him was more of a birdcage than anything else, all done in rusted metal with a dozen or so lengths of heavy chain that ran through a pulley in the ceiling far above them. It was also comfortably MugenDramon-sized, and though perhaps no longer sturdy enough to carry such a large digimon, Stingmon could certainly come along for the ride. Ordinarily, the Digimon Kaizer rather preferred the solid grey stone staircases that spiraled from one tier to the next on the other side of the compound, but sixty levels underground made walking impractical.

A sensor in the elevator caused it to open at their approach like a flower, the birdcage walls lowering to brush against the ground in a way that had been most likely quite impressive before its joints began to creak. As it slammed shut around them and began to rise, Stingmon said quite clearly, "How did your meeting go, Digimon Kaizer-sama?"

"As I expected, unfortunately." Ken didn't appreciate the reminder, and had to resist a sudden powerful urge to reach out with one hand and dig his gloved fingers into the lacerations on his digimon partner's back. They were each the rough width of a metatarsal bone, but uneven because Stingmon had struggled. Struggled, and called out for his Ken-chan. The Digimon Kaizer blinked rapidly and clenched his fists until the memory faded. "Yagami-kun is too...willful."

Like you are, he did not add.

There was a moment of silence from the Insect-type that had the flavor of hesitation. "Agumon has adjusted better."

What a stupid, useless thing to say. "Of course he has. And if I were to subdue Yagami-kun first with Black Matter, he, too, would adjust."

"Then why don't you?" Stingmon asked quietly.

They had had this conversation before, but that was the trouble with mindless servants; you had to tell them everything again and again. Ken let out an exasperated breath and prepared to try once more. "Because that wouldn't be any fun."

Besides, as he had so cheerfully informed Ishida-kun, Ken wanted to win this particular game on his own merits. Perhaps he would have felt differently if he had created Black Matter instead of merely refining the substance, but as things were it seemed too much like cheating. The Digimon Kaizer did not need to cheat.

"Master? If I may offer a suggestion?"

He rarely asked for permission to speak his mind, and for that Ken was instantaneously wary, but he nodded his acquiescence.

"You may. Be aware, however, that I will not hesitate to punish you for your foolishness if I do not like what you have to say. It's not a good day to test my patience, Stingmon."

The digimon didn't flinch and when he raised his head, there was no fear in his multi-faceted eyes. "If you wish it so," Stingmon agreed. "Nevertheless, I think you ought to kill him."

An interesting idea, provided that the him in question was whom he suspected. "Yagami-kun, you mean? Yes, I suppose I really should, now that I know he will never serve his only purpose here." The Digimon Kaizer rolled the words around in his mouth, and liked the taste of them, but then he sighed. "No, Stingmon. Not just yet."

"But why not? Digimon Kaizer-sama, you have just said that Taichi-kun is useless. He only causes you frustration and anger."

Looking at him, Ken was uncertain as to how to explain. His digimon was both so very right and so very wrong. "I must be ready for Daisuke when he comes to challenge me, Stingmon -- do you understand that? Even though Yagami-kun makes a poor test subject, he is better than nothing and it would be foolish of me to kill him until I have at least located an acceptable substitute." Ken paused thoughtfully. "None of the others even know Daisuke. They would not help me to...defeat him."

Understand might have been a better word for it, but neither quite expressed his intentions in this matter. He did understand Daisuke, or he had at one time. The Digimon Kaizer closed his eyes and decided that what he truly wanted to do was destroy the other boy. Not in the manner of a simple child accidentally stepping on one of his toys, but calculated eventual complete and utter eradication of everything that made Daisuke who he was. Everything that had once made the Digimon Kaizer grow soft and weak when he should have never let down his guard.

"What about Yamato-kun?"

It took Ken longer than it should have to track the question. Of course, they had been discussing replacements for Yagami-kun. When he put these two thoughts together, the Digimon Kaizer came closer to laughter than he had in several days. Ishida-kun to help him prepare for Daisuke? "Don't be ridiculous, Stingmon. They are nothing alike."

Insect expressions were difficult to read most of the time, but at that moment Stingmon managed to look surprised. "Digimon Kaizer-sama, you know that Daisuke wields Taichi-kun's Digimental because Courage recognizes something in them both. Do you really think that Friendship would have accepted him if he and Yamato-kun were not also similar?"

Reproachful, he actually sounded reproachful. He shouldn't have been able to sound anything. Ken studied him, and decided to conduct a more thorough test of his digimon's loyalty as soon as possible, but the suggestion had merit regardless of its dubious source. If what Stingmon said were true, and Daisuke really did share characteristics with each of his semi-idols, then Ishida-kun was certainly worth a visit. Even if the experiment proved unworkable, the Digimon Kaizer could have used a pleasant diversion from his nonsuccess with Yagami-kun, and he had had such fun toying with the blond's pretty little head before.

Yes, he had made his decision. So thinking, Ken pressed his thumb into the number 3 on the elevator's keypad -- a collection of self-heated glowing buttons that were the only part of it that looked even vaguely like a recent addition -- and stumbled slightly when it almost immediately screeched to a halt. They had been just below the correct tier, which indicated that his conversation with Stingmon had taken quite some time. The cage opened once more and he stepped out of it, but put a hand up to stop the Adult-level from following. Some things, one simply did not do in the presence of one's digimon partner.

Which reminded him. "Stingmon?"

"Yes, Digimon Kaizer-sama?"

"Where are you keeping this boy's Gabumon?" He nodded his head in the general direction of Ishida-kun's cell.

There was a muted buzzing noise, and Ken realized after a moment of confusion that it came from the digimon's suddenly-vibrating wings. He made no attempt to fly. A gesture of annoyance, perhaps? Either way, Stingmon's voice betrayed no emotion when he answered. "With all the other ones, of course. Why do you ask?"

"Curiosity. You see, it just occurred to me that I hadn't given you specific instructions and I wanted to know how you operated without them. I'm suitably impressed." In a way, he was -- suitably impressed with Stingmon's acting ability. When such emptiness came and went, it could not be construed as a good sign. Before he had been suspicious, but now he knew for certain that there was a weakness in his digimon's collar. Perhaps he had not treated the Black Matter for it properly? Never mind now. He had to maneuver Stingmon into a refitting without alerting him to the danger. "I grow weary of the day's tasks, Stingmon. Find a hard-working Insekimon and bring him to the Quiet Room. I'd very much like to hurt him for a while."

There. With a strong Insekimon, he had his guard and his misnomer all in one. It wasn't even an unusual request, and Stingmon merely nodded before stepping back across the elevator's threshold, choosing a floor with one of his shining silver claws, and then sinking out of sight. He hadn't scented the trap, then -- or perhaps the Black Matter still had a partial hold on his mind even when it was flawed and he could not save himself. The Digimon Kaizer smirked and turned on his heel.

He had his hand poised to open Ishida-kun's cell door when it first occurred to him that he hadn't given a moment of thought to how he would secure the other boy's surrender. Going through the entire dance all over again would have been exhausting, and Ken was in no mood for long productions. He wanted to have everything sorted before he went into that tiny grey room.

Power? Very possibly, but not for the lure or Ishida-kun would reject it as surely as had his predecessor. Sex, then? It was a possibility, to be certain, but their last rendezvous had been several days ago and supposing -- just supposing -- that the older boy had enough sense not to fornicate with the enemy, an openly sexual approach had every chance of shutting him down instead of opening him up.

That left pain, safety, and...

Of course. The most obvious option of them all, and Ken could have hit himself for not thinking of it sooner. Fear. What had not worked on Yagami-kun for his practicality would drive Ishida-kun to his knees. He prized his darling little friends above all else, and it had already made him stupid once. For someone who was ordinarily much cleverer than Yagami-kun, it had taken him three times as long to comprehend that one of his old team mates had turned against him.

Would it take Daisuke that long? Longer?

There was only one way to find out.

End of Part Four.