Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Remembering To Burn ❯ Chapter One ( Chapter 1 )

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. Daisuke's little problem is still inspired by the Empress of the Eclipse's Entrapped. Which you should still go read. (Not to mention my version which I wrote with her permission and which forms a prequel to this story)

Ken: A rewrite?

Firebird: I've just passed my one year anniversary. The plot of the overall story arc/timeline has changed quite radically since it's first inception. It was time to go back and start ensuring that the earlier parts will fit the later plot. The changes to this story, while important, have been fairly minor. "Descent into Darkness" requires a much more thorough rewrite as do parts of "Passage Through Shadow 1 - Prelude to a Storm." (most specifically the Prophecy). However the changes here may be few but they are important. My readers should re-read this.

Ken: I see.

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Remembering to Burn

Part One

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The Digimon Kaiser, Ken Ichijouji, knew that he was not having a good day. You know you aren't having a good day when one moment you're in the middle of a pitch battle and the next you find yourself opening your eyes to pitch-blackness and are lying on cold, wet rocks with no idea how you got there. {What the hell?} He wondered as he sat up, every muscle in his body screamed in protest. It felt as if he had fallen a long way but nothing seemed to be broken. {Where am I and how did I get here?} The last thing he remembered was fighting the Chosen Children and then the world had . . . Exploded? No more like imploded. Anyway something very strange had happened. IN such a situation he knew that the first thing he had to figure out where he was. It felt like underground somewhere though that told him little.

"Wormmon!" He yelled irritably. "Wormmon!"

"It's no good," said a voice he recognised all too well. It was coming from behind him.

"What do you mean, Motomiya?" he snapped as he turned towards the voice. He couldn't see the other boy but he noticed a faint light glowing from that direction.

"Our digimon and D3s aren't here. In fact as far as I can tell there's only the three of us here."

"Three? And what's that light?"

"Hikari's here too. I think that she's still unconscious." Daisuke appeared as he came closer, he was holding something luminescent. "And I found some glowing fungi. It probably wasn't really safe to pick them but I needed a light source quickly and there wasn't anything else."

"Glowing. So that means we're underground?" Well that confirmed his suspicions.

"We're in a cave. A large one thankfully," A brief thread of self mocking irony threaded through Daisuke's voice before he returned to his previous clipped tone. "I can't see any way out close by but I haven't explored properly yet." There was a pause. "Hikari's on a ledge just above us. I was about to climb up to see if she is all right. I don't suppose you'd care to join me."

Ken wasn't sure why but he didn't even think about what to do. He just clambered up the cave wall after Daisuke. When they reached the ledge where the girl was lying Daisuke placed the bundle of glowing fungi down and prodded them. They reacted to the touch by brightening enough for the two boys to get a good look at her. The sight of her injuries made Ken gasp. There was a large bruise on her temple and her right arm was twisted at an unnatural angle -- obviously broken. For just a second his mind froze in shocked realisation. He had always assumed that this game would have some sort of player preservation protocols in it. He had thought that if he killed his opponents they'd just be booted from the Digital World and not actually die. It looked like he was wrong because he had no doubt that the digidestined girl's life was in real danger. If they ever got out of this situation, he would like to have a word with whoever had designed this place. Games were not supposed to be dangerous. For now, he had more important things to do. He took a breath, removed his cloak, and began to tear it into strips.

"Motomiya, do you have anything I can use as a splint? We need to set this arm as best we can."

Daisuke stared at him. "Why?"

"Because we can't move her until we've set it and we need to get her back to the Real World as soon as possible. She needs a doctor and quickly!"

"I can see that. I meant why do you care?" Even as he spoke Daisuke was rifling through the inside of his jacket and produced a long wooden ruler. "Will this do?"

"It'll have to do." Ken took it and then reached for his whip. He wrapped the flail round its handle to make it even more inflexible. Then he paused and gritted his teeth against what would happen next. As he started to push the arm back into place as best he could without doing even more damage to it, the unconscious girl screamed. He cringed internally but refused to let it show. He couldn't let his adversary know how confused he was feeling at the moment. He quickly used the strips of cloth to secure the two makeshift splints to her arm. A second, quieter groan from her alerted him to the fact that the Kamiya girl was waking up. Unfortunately she tried to sit up before either of the boys could stop her, though both of them moved to. Having a severe concussion and sitting up suddenly do not mix at all well so of course she began to vomit violently. Ken was half amazed to find that it was him who held her shoulders gently, guided her so that she would spew on the floor and not on her clothes and instinctively murmured quiet reassurances to her. The stress and pain of the situation was obviously too much for her because as soon as she had finished she passed out in his arms again. He gently put her into the best approximation of the recovery position her arm would allow and looked up to find Daisuke watching him with a thoughtful.

"You confuse me." The red head told him. "You behave like a monster, you run away from home without so much as a goodbye leaving your parents worried sick and then, just when I'm all primed to hate you, you'll suddenly turn round and do something that proves that you are human after all."

Ken considered this and latched on to the only thing he actually had an answer for. "Worried sick about me?" He laughed bitterly. "All they care about is losing their genius meal ticket." Ken blinked. {Why am I telling him this?} He couldn't seem to stop though. "No one cares about me. Not the real me. Everyone wants me to be my brother." Dammit! He really did not need Daisuke Motomiya knowing this.

"No." Daisuke said thoughtfully. "I think that they care about you. I've seen them on T.V. and that's not just grief that their meal ticket is gone. They may not have realised it until you were gone but it's YOU they are worried about. Not some clone." A strange expression crossed his face. "Now if I didn't go home it's possible that my parents wouldn't even notice that I was gone. I managed to disappoint them as soon as I was born. Jun would notice though." He snorted wryly. "At least she doesn't blame me for not being a match."

"Blame you for what?" Ken stared at the Digidestined leader. His eyes must be getting used to the dim light because he could see the tears that Daisuke blinked away and tried to hide.

"My parents had another son, he was a couple of years older than Jun. He developed Leukaemia about twelve years ago and needed a bone marrow doner. No one in the family matched and being mixed race the chances of finding a match outside the family were slim. So they decided to have another kid -- me -- to be a donor but I didn't match either and Yuki died when I was two. It still gets thrown in my face whenever I manage to upset them. Jun defends me as best she can but why do they blame me? IT WASN'T MY FAULT!" He shouted the last bit and it echoed back in a roar of sound.

"They blame you for an accident of biology?" Ken was shocked.

"Exactly! So don't try and blame your behaviour on how bad your life is. It's not an excuse. It may be an explanation but it's not an excuse."

Ken stared at him and then bowed his head. "I think that I'd better find an exit." He decided to change the subject quickly. He didn't want to think about this. "Give me half the fungi. You stay with Kamiya. If she vomits..."

"I've studied first aid, Ken. I know how to stop an unconscious person choking on their own vomit."

Ken was surprised but nodded and began to pick his way down from the ledge. It was only as he reached the main floor that he realized that he'd forgotten to remind Daisuke not to call him Ken.

-----

At the site of the interrupted fight a group of very confused Chosen Children and their digimon were searching for two missing friends and one missing enemy. They had been in the middle of another fight when strange patches of darkness had engulfed the three missing children. These had then collapsed inwards, disappearing as they took their victims with them. All that had been left were three unconscious digimon and the vanished kids' D3s. There was no doubt about it. This was very bad.

"It's no good." Takeru said after they had searched everywhere nearby. "We'll have to go home and tell the others what has happened and come up with a cover story. Maybe Koushiro recorded something on his computer that will help us figure out what's going on here. Somebody bring their digimon and D3s."

"Even Ken's?" Miyako asked in surprise.

"Especially Ken's I think." It was Iori who answered her. He had a thoughtful expression on his face. "For one thing Wormmon may know something about this."

"If he ever wakes up." Miyako said sourly.

"If he doesn't it will still tell us something. If any of the digimon don't wake up it'll tell us that their human partner is dead. Right, TK?"

Takeru just nodded. He looked extremely worried.

"Another thing to consider." Iori added. "Is that while we do have to concentrate on finding out what happened here and getting them back we can't afford to let this opportunity slide. Koushiro might be able to come up with a more efficient way to combat Ken if he studies his digivice."

"I never thought of that." Miyako conceded and picked up Wormmon and Ken's digivice. "What do you think happened?"

The younger child grimaced. "I have no idea."

----

{I feel different.} Ken thought to himself as he carefully explored the cave trying to find an exit. {And my neck's not hurting.} That thought made him pause in surprise. His neck had been hurting for so long that he had almost forgotten that it did. He'd got used to it but he certainly noticed the absence of the pain now and raised a hand thoughtfully to his neck as he carried on with his explorations. {When was the last time it didn't hurt?} He wondered as he clambered towards a likely looking tunnel. He seemed to recall a brief respite recently. After a moment's thought he realised it had been that time in the lift. Just while they were stuck. Immediately afterwards it had come back even worse than usual. {Maybe Motomiya is a painkiller for me.} He chuckled to himself at that thought. {I hope that Wormmon's okay.} Now that thought bought him to another abrupt halt. {Why in the world am I worrying about a character in a game?} It wasn't the first time that he'd caught himself developing a bond with the little, green digimon but for once no voice rose out of nowhere to tell him it was unhealthy to care about something that didn't exist. Come to think of it whenever he heard that voice his neck hurt worse and he usually did something nasty to Wormmon immediately afterwards. Also he suddenly had a vague memory of promising someone not to listen to that voice. "Curiouser and curiouser." he murmured out loud as he finished exploring the ledge he was on. The tunnel didn't obviously lead to an exit but didn't seem to be blocked like the last two had been either. He was about to move on when something cold and sharp was prodded into his back.

"Don't move human creature." A cold, dead voice told him. "Or you will die."

Ken froze instantly, somehow resisting the urge to snap at them and ask them if they knew who they were dealing with. Common sense dictated that he shouldn't piss off whatever sort of digimon was holding spear to his back. Especially not now that he knew he could die. "Who are you?"

"I am Necramon, warden of the deep caves. I am an Ultimate Virus and my death spear attack is truly soul rending." This was not good. The digimon's very name left a cold, unexplained lump in his stomach. "With me stand an army of other digimon. Make ready to come with me to my mistress." Great, just great. Why did he have the feeling that he knew this digimon and not in a good sense. He couldn't recall having come across a Necramon before.

"How can I make ready to go anywhere when there's a spear pressed against my back?" He asked in what he hoped was a reasonable tone.

The only reply to his question was a cold chuckle but the spear was removed. There was a strange fizzing noise and a cold, grey light filled the cave. It was so bright that it left Ken blinking while his eyes adjusted. Once they had he looked towards where he'd left Daisuke and Hikari. They were also surrounded by strange sub-terranean digimon of all shapes and sizes. Unfortunately Necramon hadn't been kidding about his army. Two of them were already dumping Hikari onto a stretcher roughly. Whoever had sent these digimon apparently didn't need rings to control them and they had known about Hikari's condition. This alarmed him because there was nothing in the actions of the creatures that had captured them spoke of concern.

-----

Elsewhere in the caves a human girl observed the events on a monitor. There was a scowl on her face.

"Damn it! I thought maybe the spore would have changed him but block the signal they influence him by and he's the same as he ever was." She stroked the head of a serpentine digimon that was curled around her body loosely with its head on her shoulder also watching the screen.

"Why not let the signal through?" The boy who was standing behind her asked. "Or better yet just kill him and Motomiya now. We only need Kamiya."

"Wouldn't be real and I don't want whoever has been influencing him knowing about us... yet."

"Plus it doesn't matter what he's like I'm going to kill him slowly." Another girl said from across the room. "Which is also why we aren't killing them now."

"Yes, indeed, Ali. You wouldn't have it any other way." He sighed.

"Does he remember yet?" Ali pouted but otherwise ignored him. "I really want him to remember. If he realises what he's done it'll hurt him far more than anything I can do to him."

"No." The first girl frowned. "It doesn't seem to be related to the spore. I thought it was but the other one doesn't seem to remember either. Hopefully it'll disintegrate with time."

"Do we have time?"

"All the time in the world. Only the Child of Light's death need be reasonably quick." She glanced at Ali's disappointed expression and her lips twitched. "Reasonably."

Ali gave a malicious smile and rose to her feet. "Shall I get our guests' accommodation ready, Chiharu?"

"Yes, do."

The smile became even nastier. "This is going to be fun."

The boy just shook his head. "Living enemies can escape." He warned. "I know we need the Child of Light alive but we should kill the other two now. They are a danger to us as long as they live."

"Denbe, you're such a pessimist sometimes." The first girl said.

"I'm supposed to be, Chiharu-chan. I'm supposed to be."

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