Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Wicked Chains ❯ Battlefield ( Chapter 10 )

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

By: Sugah

~Soulmates…it's not possible…~

Takeru stared grimly out of the window, following the line of the clouds and the reappearing sun as they roved across the city, and tried hard not to listen to the small rustling sounds Daisuke was making in his uneasy rest. Hikari was still in deep thought, after that strange episode her surge of empathy had taken her through, and Daisuke…

Daisuke wouldn't love him. He knew that, knew it no matter how he diced it up. He had seen in that day, in his eyes, in his words…his heart.

~Then why am I sitting here, waiting for him?~ he asked himself. ~Why, when…~

~Dammit,~ he cursed, frustrated and unable remember why he was angry in the first place.

The whispered curse reached Hikari, and the girl closed her eyes briefly. Her hand was smoothing back the hair of Daisuke's head. His body trembled still, as he was still curled up in the clutches of that strange dream. But her mind was occupied with the small bits of information she was trying to pull together, the dream itself, and Daisuke's strong, yet breaking, control over it.

~Gomen ne, Takeru,~ she sent silently, wishing Takeru the best. "Takeru…I'd like to go to the digital world with Daisuke. I think he needs it," she paused, while the blond stared at her in surprise, and smiled brightly at him. "Would you go and get the others?"

"I don't think they'll want to come…"

"They will if it's only you." Her gaze was solemn. "I know how they feel, and it's wrong. They're hurt, but not as much as Daisuke. So shut up and go; it'll do you good to get out." ~I need to do this…~

"Hikari-!"

"Go!" she snapped then, tired of his excuses, and glared at him. "I'll meet you at the site of the base in an half hour."

Making a face, Takeru muttered something under his breath, and stormed out of the room. Hikari fought back an unexpected sneer on her face, and looked down at Daisuke.

"You didn't have to do that," he whispered, without opening his eyes.

"Yes, I did," Hikari replied, not surprised to hear him. "We, however, need to be somewhere."

"Why?" a soft sigh followed his words. "It'll just-I can't…" ~Don't you understand? It hurts to go there…it hurts to remember…~

"I think you have to know what happened, Daisuke. And you need to be where it happened."

After a long moment, dry and empty eyes slid open. Daisuke raised his head, watching her steadily, without emotion. No…he didn't dare show emotion. "Kari…?"

She favored him with a gentle smile. "No one saw him die, Daisuke. An explosion, but no body." Then she winked, and her smile widened, as Daisuke exhaled suddenly, eyes bright. "We're wasting time…"

"Daisuke!" A small blue form rocketed into his arms, and the redhead fought down a smile for his partner. "You came! I missed you!"

"Yeah…"

"Are you okay?" Veemon asked, intently looking up from the tight circle of Daisuke's arms, and waited.

A hand stroked the blue skin. "I'll be okay." He looked over at Hikari, then, his face relaxed enough to smile faintly and shrugged. "So where do we go?"

"We'll have to Digivolve-it was quite a distance."

Daisuke pulled out his Digivice, then summoned forth enough energy to shift Veemon into his larger dragon form. "What happened after I fell, Hikari? I heard him scream…then I hit the trees…" He closed his eyes against a flash of pain, memories of the terrifying fall and the snapping branches…

The light faded, and XVeemon knelt to gather Daisuke into his powerful arms. Hikari had transformed Gatomon into Nefertimon, and was climbing onto the creamy back. She turned to look over her shoulder at him.

"Something had attacked us; the explosion knocked you off. The others think that he pushed you…but…"

"He wouldn't…" Daisuke whispered with a negative shake of his head. "We were running because he didn't want me to get hurt…Otherwise he would have tried to-"

"I know."

Both Digimon jumped, beating their wings as the ground rapidly fell away. Daisuke leaned back against the warm flexing chest, feeling safe and able to face it all for the first time.

~He might not be dead,~ the little voice reminded him. ~What if he's not…?~

~What would I say to him?~ He adjusted his goggles, nervously and fought back the anticipation, the dread coiling in his stomach. He thought of that wicked smile curving that mouth…the familiar glint of mischievous innocence…

Then the first signs of the battle came into view; Daisuke pushed back a sense of horror as he saw blackened and broken trees, craters in the earth and the broken debris of the fortress on the ground. Destruction incarnate. "What was it?" he asked hoarsely the girl hovering on her own partner. "What could have done this?" Of it's own accord, his hand rose up to cover his mouth in awfulness of the scene.

"It was some kind of Frankenstein Digimon. Kimeramon. He had created it from other Digimon, using their bodies, and…it destroyed his base."

"We were nowhere near the base!"

Hikari looked down. "No, not then. When you fell…he sat there for a moment, watching. I think he would have jumped off after you, if Kimeramon hadn't used his attack again. It nearly knocked us all from the air, and it was really fast…He made the Airdramon fly where the smoke was coming from…Kimeramon destroyed his base…"

Daisuke was silent for a long second. "How…how did-" He barely noticed as they started flying again, only close enough and slow enough to speak over the wind. "What happened?!"

"Come on…" she merely said, and urged the feline into a tight spiral. Daisuke could do nothing but follow her down into the broken line of trees.

"Daisuke…" XVeemon rumbled for him alone, mildly soothing in the vibration.

"Yeah?" he replied after a short pause.

"If it matters, I think you did what was needed…" The intelligent creature turned his head to peer at him with a single red eye, and nodded solemnly. "I followed you, that day, and-" He regarded Daisuke carefully. "When you fell, I Digivolved. I caught you just under the trees-that's why you survived."

"I don't understand," Daisuke whispered. His grip on the muscular forearm tightened. ~What is he saying?~

"I know what love is. You had love."

"XVeemon…" Daisuke squeezed his eyes shut tight, and swallowed. ~Love? Real love?~ "How can I make them understand that?"

Now the azure Digimon couldn't answer. He turned his head away, noting the waiting position of Nefertimon, and dropped several feet. "I don't know," he said softly.

"What happened when you found me?" Daisuke whispered.

"I carried you to where the other Chosen were-"

-Daisuke waited without breathing-

"-And the Kaizer went mad. He thought you were dead…you were very bloody, and you didn't move when I laid you down…" Taloned feet spread carefully, touched down, and the wings settled as XVeemon lowered his arms.

"He tried to get to us, but Takeru was already fighting him. The others just watched, and everyone forgot about the monster Digimon until the base started to explode again. Daisuke…something in him splintered; the glasses were gone, and he was bleeding from the mouth." XVeemon made a faint grimace. "Takeru doesn't like him very much, does he?"

"No, XVeemon, he doesn't," Daisuke replied softly. Anger and hate and a wilting sadness crept over him. "Then what?" ~I have to know…~

"Kimeramon attacked us, and he just stood there! I thought humans had more sense, but it was like-"

"He wanted to die, too," Daisuke whispered softly. ~Oh Ken,~ he thought.

"Yes," Hikari agreed as she stepped up beside him. Her gaze panned out over the view, the shattered trees and burned ground. "His world was gone. I could feel it." Her fathomless eyes regarded him for a moment-Daisuke felt a strange sense of ageless wisdom peering out at him and shivered-before she smiled at him in her familiar way and the feeling disappeared. "Just a little ways, yet."

"Did-did he-"

"No…Wormmon was there. He took a lot of the blow as he knocked Ken out of the way-"

Chocolate eyes widened. "Hikari-"

She blinked. "What?"

Wariness clouded the boy's features. "You called him Ken…how…"

A bitter smile flitted through her eyes, shadowed by some inner torment. "You dream of death, night after night. You fear being alone. Ken is loneliness, but with you he is Ken."

Daisuke stared at her, stiff and pale. "I don't dream!" he lied. "And that made no sense."

She gave him a raised brow. "I saw it! I was there, Daisuke, in your dream!" After a second, while he recoiled, she said in a softer voice. "I know you have to help him…somehow..."

"But how-"

"I'll explain it better when we get to where we need to be…"

He followed her without a word, then, shaking torn apart inside, haunted by flashes of dark blood and a sibilant voice calling him. When they stepped into the view of the final battle, Daisuke unconsciously squeezed his arms around his middle. "God, Hikari!" he exclaimed in shock.

The wind was playing in teasing swirls with her hair as she looked at him again with that ageless look. "I know."

Cracked and shattered concrete decorated the landscape on a scale that made Daisuke's head hurt; Metal and wood and parts of the hull lay in twisted heaps. The partial half of the base-what was left of it-was off to their left, but that wasn't what captured Daisuke's attention.

Almost center to the destruction was a slight crater, and a larger and dangerously unstable pile of rubble and gleaming sharp metal. A single leaning spire, dusty and cracked in half, protruded from the middle; the pile of fragments was the only thing holding it up. The cracked upper half was several hundred yards away, blown by some incredible force, while the lower half tapered to a sharp broken-needle point.

A piece of blue cloth, familiar, fluttered and waved from its pierced seam on the tip.

His heart seized suddenly, and he stumbled as he took it in. "…there? He was there?" ~He was buried under this,~ he guessed.

Then he was running, skidding around piles and gasping for breath as he dashed a precarious path to the last monument of the child-Kaizer. ~No..~

~No…not dead…can't be in there…~

He skidded to a stop just short of tripping on a crumbling block of cement, panting for breath. After he skirted a lot of the jagged stones with an absent care, he dropped to his knees and began yanking anything that would move and tossing it away. "Ken," he whispered under his breath. "Ken…"

Hikari watched him with a patient look, glancing at the sky to where she knew the others would be coming from.

Did she have enough strength to do this? Could she do this?

~I have to show him,~ she reassured herself, and took silent steps forward. Daisuke was digging frantically into the precarious pile, tugging with all his strength on a long board thicker than him. "He's not under there," she said.

"But-" Tears glittered in the edges of those chocolate eyes; Hikari felt a stab of agony pierce her. "How do we know until we look?" he whispered, and continued his frenzied removal. Dust rose, coating them both as Daisuke cursed under his breath, heedless of the splinters and the shallow stinging cuts on his arms.

~Wait,~ a voice whispered to her, and so she did, kneeling beside him and watching as small chunks of metal were piled off to the side.

Then, after lifted a cracked and large convoluted pane of glass, smeared with dust and dried blood, Daisuke froze. His breath sighed away in an odd punctured sound.

A blood spattered Digivice, black and dark in the shadows, lay half exposed in the dirt.

"Oh…oh no…" came Daisuke's helpless whisper. He reached with grief shaking his hands to loosen the object and lifted it into his shaking hands. "No…" he repeated. The tears gathered strength, slipping down his cheeks and dripping onto his cupped hands.

A hand settled on his shoulder.

"Look," she said, and closed her eyes.

Daisuke looked at the small and darkened screen of the Digivice-

-his world expanded-

-and he saw.

Screams shatter through the deafening explosions.

XVeemon…

He has Daisuke!? Thank god-he's alive!

~I'm in her head…her memory…~

The image of a fiery world greets me, as I look over my shoulder to see a defiant blue Dragon, XVeemon, cradling a limp and bloody form so familiar-

I look to see the Kaizer, his glasses gone and his face pale-I don't think he knows what's going on, if anything at all, only that Daisuke is near, and could be dead. His mouth moves, words that I can't hear, but I know what he is screaming. I can hear his soul.

~Ken!~

I duck, as another explosion sends debris skittering over my head and into the trees-

Wormmon, limp, disappears behind a cloud of dust-knocked far from his master.

Takeru is running, shouting, and missing his hat. Blood streams down his face; he has gotten hurt. I feel a stab of pity for him, knowing that the Kaizer would beat him to the prize of a redheaded boy-but who am I to counter fate?

But fate is cruel and blind as well-

Takeru tackles the Kaizer from behind before the boy ever had a chance to reach Daisuke-

-Overhead, and a little to the right a strange Digimon appeared-the orange and white Kimeramon was destroying everything!-our Digimon are urging us to flee-it's too powerful-

And the next explosion sends Takeru flying, and the Kaizer sprawling across the ground. He rises to his knees, screaming into the sky-I can't believe my eyes-are those tears?!- and the strange Digimon drops down behind him just as Kimeramon looses his last attack-

-the world went white-

When he raised his head, finding his senses reeling from the sensation of another mind, tear-streaked and dusty, he looked at Hikari with a barely contained expression of rage and joy and loss. "That's what happened…" he said with a faint familiar spark. A question rose in his eyes, and Hikari knew what he was asking.

"I don't know who the other Digimon was…He saved Ken, though, and managed to stop the creation." She smiled tiredly at him.

Daisuke closed his eyes, and hugged the Digivice close. "Thanks…I don't know how you did that, but thanks…"

"It's a gift," she winked mysteriously, and the redhead laughed faintly. She squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, and whispered that she'd be right there if he needed her, and rose. As she left, his gaze fell upon the shifting mass he had been trying to move by himself, sighing. Fingers tightened on the black device, and he simply observed for a moment, imprinting the image into his head-

--and something small and glittering fell from the upper depths of the wreckage.

Curious, he reached forward and snagged a small rectangle of lavender-pink metal from the dust. ~What's this? I've never seen anything like this…~ As he drew back his hand, all intent on examining it in the light, his hand brushed by a round and buried object on his right.

It shivered, and rolled as his hand moved by. Then, with a sudden crack that startled Daisuke as his gaze flew to the small object, a fracture appeared on the surface, widening with spider-like lines.

"Hey-"

A small green object tumbled out, shivering as the remains of the shell dissolved.

~It's a Digimon!~ With a muttered curse, his hand dropped the flat coin-like object into his pocket before he reached back into the dark shadowed depths and grazed the small green newborn with a finger. "Hey," he whispered softly. "What are you doing in there?"

"Ken?" it whimpered softly, turning large blue eyes, unmistakable eyes, and sniffled. "Ken?!"

~…it can't be…~ "Wormmon…?" The creature, small and a pale green, regarded him with fear from beneath a leaf-like appendage. It quivered slightly, then, and somehow bounced forward.

"Where's Ken?" he asked, and crept into Daisuke's hand.

"I-I don't know," came Daisuke's broken reply. ~Oh god…~ "Help me find him?" He didn't know how, or why the Digiegg of Wormmon had appeared in the pile. He didn't think Wormmon had died, so why-

~The other Digimon!~ he realized. ~It was Wormmon who saved him!~

With a bitten-back sob he drew the newborn form of Wormmon from the wreckage and pulled him close, hugging tightly as the tears came. "We'll find him, okay?"

"But something's wrong…" the small Digimon whispered. "I can't feel him…"

"I can't feel him anywhere!"

"Your instructions are clear."

Hazed gray eyes regarded her without emotion.

"Bring the boy to me-we have a special treat for him. The others…do what you wish…"

A small cruel smile played about the lips of Chaivirmon, and the slender figure cocked his head.

"Such fun," the low voice mocked.

Aruchenimon smiled darkly, cold eyes behind the dark lenses glittered. This one would do nicely. "I will be watching," she reminded him, and stepped back.

The body of the boy shrugged, and took a step forward. After a second, a line of concentration formed on the smooth skin of his forehead. Wind gusted, suddenly, snapping out the lines of his cape and hair in a wild frenzy as power crackled around him.

The feet lifted from the ground, energy and dark motes of power shifting fluidly, and the hybrid creation rose with increasing speed until he was just a small speck against the darker blue of the sky.

"Will it control him enough to finish them off?" a modulated voice, odd for such a strange creature as it appeared behind Aruchenimon. Bandages and dry rotting skin showing through the gaps, Mummymon grinned and hoisted his gun in his hand. "We can always do it the old fashioned way, my dear."

"But this…" she paused to savor it. "This is more painful by far."

Find.

Kill. Destroy.

Words echoed through the mind of the controlled human boy, endless flowing words that inspired him, told him what to do and how to do it. Words that he didn't understand where they flowed from, only that they must be his thoughts.

So he must be the killer.

A giggle escaped him; the insinuating intelligent coils of red shell explored the abilities of this strange body, enjoying the range of skill. Wind whipped against his face as he honed in on the feeling of the other, his other, and followed it to where a dim memory of pain and explosions surfaced.

The small laughter exploded into hysterical and mad cackles; but the insanity of his sounds didn't bother him. They matched his inner thoughts, the screams of a anguished rage deep inside.

Despite being unable to fully control his victims, he chose a rather brutal and effect way of forcing a hand.

Pain.

Chaivirmon worked through pain. He excelled in giving pain. His entire programming was to systematically store and destroy anything not connected to physical and mental pain, and use the memories, the body itself, to control the host. Memories could be used against the host; the coils around the body would contribute to physical pain, tightening or drawing blood.

Thus, through his own pain, Ken would annihilate the Chosen, more powerful than any Digimon and unable to be stopped.

Deep inside the core of Chaivirmon, a small lingering hope flourished by the knowledge of one single thing.

Sometimes, love hurts.