Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ The Other Side of the Mirror ❯ Descent of Life ( Chapter 2 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

By: Sugah

<center>~The Other Side of the Mirror~

~Part 2~</center>

Wormmon knew the sounds of a slap very well. He knew the sound of a kick, the sound something makes when the breath is knocked from the lungs. He knew all of these things, and at the same time, was mildly confused.

There hadn't been any Digimon recently captured. The Chosen Children hadn't been captured.

~Who is he…hurting…?~ His mind stumbled over the word. Even now, after nearly a year of the exposure to the unexpected darkness in his Ken, the thought of the once-gentle boy hurting anyone was dreadful. It was wrong, and Wormmon couldn't quite grasp why his human had never known that.

"Look…do you see it?" the green Digimon heard. A hideous sense of curiosity assailed the small insect, and slowly, the worm crept closer to the edge of the doorway. He could already tell that the room was completely lightless; he wouldn't have been able to see anything.

Yet he had to know just who was in the room.

"This was part of the device I used, you know…"

As he was only inches away from the edge and looking around it with his large blue eyes, a ringed Koromon, the kind they used for message-relay when the communications where down, hopped up behind him. With a small squeak of surprise, Wormmon turned around almost gratefully, and the red-eyed Koromon handed over a sheet of the week's account. Wormmon nodded as he grasped the paper carefully, watching the pink in-training form hop out of sight.

"What is it?" a dark voice remarked. The sinewy form of the Kaizer had appeared in the doorway, deadly silent, and stood over him.

His body moving spasmodically, the Digimon turned to look up at the leather-clad Kaizer, for he was the Kaizer now, and tried not to flinch at the sight of those eyes filled with hate. "It's a report, Master," he said as respectfully as he could, and raised the paper as high as possible.

With a snort of disgust, the Kaizer reached down and snagged the paper, raising it to face level as Wormmon gratefully shrank down and made himself as small as possible. After a second of scanning the words, the hand tightened into a fist, and the countenance of the Kaizer darkened, twisting into fury.

"Those…bastards…" he growled, and a faint demonic light entered his eyes. "I'll destroy them!"

Without a further word to his small partner, or a glance at the room behind him, the black-clad Kaizer strode off, screaming for an Airdramon and all of his best forces.

Wormmon sighed in relief, and his body slumped. ~He's changed so much…Even more so.~ A slight tremor shook through him. ~I've never seen him like this! Oh, Ken-chan,~ he lamented. ~What's happening to you?~

~What's this?~ Wormmon peered carefully down at the fallen object, assuming that the Kaizer had dropped it; his assumption wasn't very far off, but Wormmon couldn't bring himself to quite touch it yet.

He looked at a small slightly curving piece of metal, a faint off-white color, the color of a bloodless body, and covered in the fine smallish runes of the Digiworld. Wormmon, on an instinctive level, recognized that this thing, this piece of a modified dark ring, was something he had to be careful with.

Things like this were dangerous.

A small scrabble of noise brought his attention from the part of the ring to the small cell-room that the Kaizer had inhabited so recently, and Wormmon moved closer, curious. In his haste to gather the troops, the Kaizer had forgotten to close the door, dropped this remnant, and now, whatever he had imprisoned was making its way to freedom.

Wormmon felt a stab of fear, and backed off, preparing to use a sticky net, if needed. "Who's in there?" he demanded, the fear in his voice sounding shrill.

Within the small square of light cast by the open door, a hand appeared.

~A human?~ wondered Wormmon.

He watched in fascination as the hand, a left hand by the looks of it, pushed against the floor, and Wormmon made out a faint outline of a person, only a few shades lighter then the surrounding black. It rose unsteadily to its feet, swaying twice before a foot stepped into the light.

Then, as Wormmon looked on in confusion, and not without some shock, the knees buckled again and the body fell forward to catch itself on bloody hands. A tousled head of hair hid the face, but Wormmon recognized the outfit, even though it was ripped and dirty and bloody.

He recognized the eyes that looked out from a too-pale face, the face itself. The lips moved in an attempt to say something, and Wormmon suddenly knew-

Before he realized it, he had nearly flown into the arms of the boy he knew, the boy he called "Ken-chan!" with a great tearful cry. Arms gathered him close, hugging him tighter until he squirmed around, peering worriedly into the bruised and bloody face.

"Ken! Ken-chan! What's happened to you?"

The boy shook his head, fresh tears in his eyes and coursing his cheeks, and made a peculiar swiping motion at his throat. His hands were shaking visibly as he sat there, and stroked the green insect reassuringly. ~… Wormmon,~ the boy thought, wondering. ~I know you…~

And Wormmon knew why there had been silence, before. "He took your voice," he whispered in a horrified little tone. Ken nodded slowly.

"It doesn't matter!" Wormmon stated with the fervor of one who knew he was right. "I've got you back, and he won't hurt you now! I swear it!"

His only response was a tight squeeze, something that worried the Digimon more than the peculiar little motion. Instead of worrying, though, he merely allowed the hug, and waited until Ken's apparent distress had abated.

"Let's get out of here," he suggested.

Ken nodded as well, a feral light in his eyes, mixed with the fear of the hunted. ~My friend.~ Then he stood, still shaky on his legs and the pinprick feeling only slightly diminished, and hurried out of the door. A small clatter snagged his attention; his foot brushed by something small and hard, and Ken looked down.

Reflexively, he moved back a step, his face twisting into a mask of fear, and swallowed. Wormmon looked down, noting that the piece of the ring was still on the floor, and frowned.

Broken piece of ring.

A double of Ken.

Ring. Ken.

Something clicked together inside the tiny creature, and the green Digimon gasped, twisting around to look at Ken. He put his face on the same level. "He ringed you?" Wormmon exclaimed in alarm.

In Wormmon's mind there was only one of Ken, and he had him right now. The other Kaizer, regardless of his resemblance, wasn't Ken. That's all it was. Kaizer, and Ken. Wormmon couldn't begin to understand the complete mechanics of the procedure the original Ken had done, only it had given him his Ken back.

And, frankly, Wormmon didn't care how.

But the thought of getting ringed was horrifying, and having it happening to Ken…

He watched with furious eyes as Ken nodded, thinking deeply, his glance straying slowly to the ring and back.

"I'm going to kill him, somehow." Wormmon muttered, his body trembling slightly with this rage against the indignity to his human.

A small smile graced the pale face of Ken, and he hugged Wormmon closer for a second, grateful for the undiminished love, then bent to retrieve the broken piece and placing it carefully within his belt. Somehow he knew that the ring was important.

The ring was the Key.

Daisuke looked uneasily into the sky, the last of the group as they reached the foot of the hundred foot high waterfall. The water roared against his ears, pounding a thick subset beat into his chest.

But something was setting his instincts on edge, a nervous tic that he had slowly and quite unconsciously developed during the time spent in the digital world. As far as he could see, the sky was empty, a clear vivid blue that he rarely saw on earth.

Yet something…

Frowning, he looked down to see that he had fallen quite a bit behind in his momentary lapse of sky-gazing, and waved, "Hey! Wait for me!"

In the hurry to catch up to the group, Daisuke failed to see the faint glimmer of a shadow flash across the sky off in the distance.

Not so far away, on the cliffs above the same falls the Digidestined were traipsing through for their portal, Ken was running for his life from a pair of DarkTyranomon on guard-duty.

His heart was rabbiting in his throat, choking him from the much-needed breath as he dodged the fallen logs and stumps of the broken trees. He knew he wasn't able to outrun them, and knocking down the trees, trying to crush him with their large feet was apparently their favorite method of entertainment.

~Dammit,~ he thought, feeling the aches in his already bruised legs. A whistle and a thundering growl, with a few high-pitched snapping noises were the only indication of the next missile. Ken desperately dodged to the left, following his instincts and rolled.

The slab of wood gouged up dirt, spraying it in arcs, only inches away from him. For a second he gaped, gasping in air, and blinked. That was the closest one yet.

~Dammit!~ he repeated fiercely, making a rude face and scrambled behind the trees. He could hear the falls; maybe if he got close enough to them he could trick the Digimon into falling down those massive heights.

And if worse came to worse, he could always jump.

"So where's this portal at, anyway?" Daisuke found it hard to hear himself speak, and cupped his hands around his mouth. To his annoyance, Miyako only made a "what?" motion, and pointed to her ears. "Por-taaal!" Daisuke screamed, holding out his hand and digivice.

Miyako shook her head again, shrugging, and pointed to the far side of the waterfall, where Daisuke could just make out a faint blocky outline. ~God,~ the redhead thought. ~How're we gonna get over there?~

The redhead scratched his head, and watched as the others began to look around the base of the falls, searching for a hidden pathway or a shallow spot to cross. It was beginning to look like they wouldn't be able to cross without getting wet.

At the crest of the fall, approximately one hundred and forty three feet above them, Ken skidded to a halt, whirling to face the two black Digimon as they approached boldly out of the trees. They moved like predators, watching him with gleaming eyes and hungry mouths. The one on the left still carried a good-sized chunk of tree, poised to the throwing.

~I can't dodge that!~ Ken forced himself to think, the heels of his scuffed boots scraping the edge of the raised boulder. On his shoulder, Wormmon was saying something, but with the roar of the falling water Ken wasn't sure of exactly what. Just in case the small green creature was thinking of fighting, Ken reached up to clasp a hand around the smooth middle. ~Trust me, friend,~ he said silently.

The empty-handed DarkTyranomon roared suddenly, painfully loud from this distance.

Ken clapped hands to his head in an effort to save his hearing, his eyes fluttering shut for a split second.

As he opened his eyes, realizing his mistake, the second one threw the broken jagged tree-

-and Ken jumped backwards, trying desperately to avoid the rushing tree, his arms upraised and feeling the dig of splinters before the heavy weight knocked the breath of him and replaced it with stars zooming in his head.

Then he was falling, flying towards the water and trapped with the sure weight of the wood slamming down atop him.

Daisuke was the only one who noticed the faint roar, a tinny sound above the thunder of the water. ~What's a Digimon doing out here?~ he wondered, and looked up as a shadow grew on the water, and stared.

There was a log falling from the sky?!-

~The hell?~

-A glimpse of a pale white face, blue uniform-

-Then a tremendous splash that had nearly everything soaked as a wave rushed up against the waterfall, strewn with spume and churning water.

Blinking, Daisuke wiped water out of his face, looking skyward again to see a faint outline of a Tyranomon for less then a second; it disappeared only a moment later, and Daisuke wasn't sure if he had really seen it at all. ~A Digimon just threw a tree at us…~

Off to his left, the others were just as soaked, and obviously yelling. Miyako was pointing skyward, most likely screaming, while Takeru blinked slowly, wringing out his hat. Hikari was wiping her arms and smiling faintly at Iori, who was merely standing stock-still, a scowl on his face. All of them were looking up with faint looks of wariness.

~No one's hurt,~ he sighed thankfully, his gaze once more on the choppy water and the now dark shadow near the bottom of the once-clear water, and a small frown-line appeared on his forehead.

~But…that was the Kaizer?~

~No…it couldn't be! His own troops wouldn't throw him off a cliff…would they?~

He must have been hallucinating. Just a simple paranoid dream that the Kaizer was attacking them with trees. Yeah.

Shakily, feeling slightly more than odd, Daisuke pushed back the goggles in his dripping hair, and began to track his way to the team at Miyako's excited waving.

The lack of water, since it was nearly everywhere but in the pond at the moment, had revealed a shallow and slippery set of stones at the shallower side of the falls. Years of erosion had eaten away at the rock behind the waterfall, and there was a narrow and cramped path.

Besides, they were already wet, and any spray wouldn't hurt them.

~Just watch out for falling trees,~ Daisuke smirked to himself, giving the excuse that the waterfall was too loud to hear anyone's shouts, and stepped behind the thick sheet of water.

It hurt to breath.

It hurt to move, much less open his eyes, but gradually they slotted open. The sound of the pounding water was louder now, but his ears rang from the resounding roar.

He inhaled sharply at the all-over pain in his body, the sting of the superficial cuts, and tried to blink away the water from his eyelashes. Cool shade touched his face, and he slowly came to see that he was lying in thick growth of bushes, hidden from almost every angle.

An arm was stretched out in front of him; he was focusing on making it move, since he couldn't concentrate on anything else, when a flicker of movement caught his eye, and he froze.

A yellow shoe stopped in front of him, inches away, and he slowly pushed away the quick-rising panic. If he didn't remain calm, he'd either drown or get himself killed-

-But those were the Digidestined!

Ken curled his fingers stiffly, trying to get his arm to move and cursing with it only scraped a small distance, praying that he'd go unnoticed, and they'd leave.

There was a flash of light beyond his vision, and he winced. A second pair of feet, in blue and yellow sneakers, stopped close, and he heard a faint indiscernible yelling over the noise of the falls.

Ken held his breath, hearing a "-go on, I'll…there-" and winced as his back spasmed with tension.

The second pair of feet disappeared.

For a second Ken relaxed; it looked as if yellow-shoes was going to leave, when they did a funky little shuffle.

Something clattered onto the ground, rolling to a stop beside his lax hand.

Goggles.

~Shit!~ he coughed as he inhaled water with his next hasty breath, and tried to move his hand again. Waves of blackening dizziness swamped him, and he cursed his hands as they merely twitched.

A brown knee dropped down to the ground, scabby and water-glistening. A yellow glove, the same shade of the sneakers, groped around the ground, reaching for the pair of lenses.

Again, Ken found his breath frozen in his lungs as a second hand braced on the ground, and the rest of the body came into view. A head appeared, cocked under the uplifting armful of leafy branches, the damp brown hair contrasting sharply against the green of the foliage.

Startled brown eyes met his, and to his amazement, Ken watched a wide-eyed blush form. For what seemed to be an endless moment of breathless fear, the blue-haired once-Kaizer swallowed, and closed his eyes against his fate, and slipped into unconsciousness.