There's No Rest for the Wicked

Disclaimer: I neither own nor will claim to own Digimon, its characters, or its storyline in any shape or form whatsoever. *scribbles down signature on sheet of paper in front of a bunch of lawyers*

A/N: Since some of the digimon in this chapter haven't been in the anime, I had to improvise the descriptions of the attacks, so bear with me. However, the names of the attacks should be correct (if they weren't already dubbed), as should the English names for some digimon, since I pulled them from Megchan's Encyclopedia, which is now down, but thank goodness for web archives.

***

Chapter 3 - Penumbra

During the day, this beach might have been the perfect place for young, energetic digimon to play games with their partners, or a place where older digimon started a long day of hard work, carrying in supplies from trading rafts. But now, at night, it was a deserted wasteland, a whipping post for the dark waves that periodically smashed against it.

Brushing away straight strands of indigo hair with his black-gloved hand, Ken silently took in the entire deserted scenery and scanned the site with cold blue eyes. To his right was a dense forest, which began abruptly where the beach stopped. To his left was the roaring ocean whose end even he wouldn't be able to see in the foggy darkness. And before and behind him was nothing but endless dunes of grayish-brown sand.

Ken once again adorned the Emperor suit of old, except this time his violet-tinted shades were missing, and his indigo hair was flat, not spiky as it had been before. On one side of his belt was hooked a curled-up black whip, one stronger and deadlier than the one he had used when he was younger, and on the other side hung his dark D-3.

Though it didn't seem like it would make much of a difference in this place, the regally dressed boy took three steps forward so that he was at the exact coordinates Daemon had given him.

Counting down the seconds in his head, Ken put all of his senses on high alert, trying to detect any early signals of the Demon Lord's presence.

Then, at exactly midnight, still sensing no one, the boy called out, "Daemon, I'm here just like you asked. Now stop fooling around and come out from whatever rock you're hiding under!"

The sands behind him began to stir, and instinctively, Ken quickly turned around, his hand immediately flying to the whip at his side.

Out from a dark, swirling hole in the ground, came the aforementioned virus digimon whose searing gaze seemed to penetrate the very depths of the boy's soul.

'This isn't gonna work; he's liable to detect me within you,' the Digidestined of Kindness thought to the side of him in control.

'Pipe down, or he definitely will,' Ken's dark side mentally ordered.

As soon as Daemon had fully emerged, the sands beneath him returned, and for a few long seconds, human and digimon simply stood there, each measuring the other up.

Finally, the mega-level digimon broke the silence. "Ken Ichijouji--it's been a long time."

"Not long enough," the teenage emperor was quick to retort.

Daemon brushed off the cliched insult and continued insinuatingly, "I see you haven't changed much. You're still as impertinent as ever...but I can't help wonder..." He began to circle the boy. "...what is it about you that seems so different from the last time you were the Digimon Emperor?"

'This isn't working...' Ken thought in a nervous, singsong voice.

'Shut up...' his dark side replied in the same manner.

Not losing his cool for a second, the boy smirked and said aloud, "It's the hairdo, right? Never really did like the old one, so I decided to change it. But let's skip the pleasantries, Daemon." He swept one side of his cape away for emphasis. "You asked for me, and now you have me, so what is it that you want?"

A low chuckle rumbled from Daemon's hooded face. "A better question is, what is it that you want? A certain Digidestined perhaps?"

With a wave of his hand, the distant sound of crunching trees was heard, and the ground began to shake. Not long after, a Skull Greymon stomped out of the nearby forest and loomed over them carrying a tattered girl in his grasp.

'Yolei!' Ken mentally exclaimed.

The bearer of the Digieggs of Love and Sincerity was still alive all right, but her clothes were torn in various places, and blood stained the parts that weren't in shreds. The orange helmet she usually adorned had long since been knocked off, allowing her disheveled, long hair to flow freely over her ashen face.

Ken wanted to run to her so badly--to whisk her out of that savage beast's claws, to hold her tightly in his arms, to tell her everything was going to be all right--but the Emperor firmly stood his ground.

Seeing that he might only make things worse, Ken reluctantly did as he was told, but not without a cold, white anger building up inside of him.

In the meantime, a half-conscious Yolei had managed to open up her eyes wide enough to see the familiar figure of the boy she loved down below her. Despite the beating she had taken from the skeleton digimon, her face brightened at the sight of him. However, the look didn't last for long as her eyes rested upon his attire.

"Ken..." she moaned weakly, a sinking feeling overcoming her. "No...no, you promised..." She recognized the combination of hair and clothing as the same kind he had donned the last time his dark side had taken over.

The boy sharply turned his head away from her and turned his focus back on Daemon, who was chuckling in amusement.

"Can't stand to see her like this, Ichijouji? Well, she'll be in even worse shape if you don't come quietly with me." A black, swirling hole in the sand appeared between him and the boy. "What's it going to be?"

Ken's head lowered, and his hands clenched into fists. There was a long pause between them before he finally said in a deadpan voice, "Fine have it your way."

The Demon Lord burst out in maniacal laughter. "Excellent!"

"Go ahead and torture her some more," the indigo-haired boy nonchalantly added, raising his head confidently.

"WHAT?!" was the surprised exclamation that simultaneously came from Daemon and Yolei.

"You heard me; you can even kill her off for all I care."

'What are you doing?!' the Digidestined of Kindness thought in a panicked tone.

‘I never did say that I would bring her back alive. Now if you’ll excuse me�E The Emperor mentally shoved Ken down and did his best to ignore his light side’s furious protests. "I was just disappointed that you were stupid enough to think I actually had feelings for her."

No matter how terrible the pain that Skull Greymon had inflicted on her was, the pain in Yolei's heart was a thousand times worse. Even though she knew deep down that it wasn't the real Ken talking, it still hurt to hear those words come from the same lips that had many times sworn eternal love to her.

"The only reason I came was to find out why you called me here," the teenage emperor continued as he coolly stepped around the black portal in the ground. "Why would a mega-level digimon be interested in a human being, perfect though I am, like me?"

With a small motion of the dark lord's hand, the hole in the sand disappeared, but strangely, Daemon seemed unshaken by this sudden turn of events. "It seems like I've gotten far more than I expected."

Daemon approached the boy once more, but this time the lithe human jumped back, his muscles taunt and ready and his gloved hand clasping the handle of his drawn weapon.

"Don't mock me, boy. Not even with the Dark Spore's power could you inflict a scratch on me."

"True enough," the teenage human conceded, "but that doesn't me I can't make it more of a nuisance for you to catch me unless you tell me what you want."

"Fine, if it will make this easier, I'll tell you." Daemon halted his approach before continuing. "My objective hasn't changed, Ichijouji: I still want that Dark Spore in your body."

"Then why the elaborate kidnapping? Couldn't you have just abducted me instead? It would have saved you much more trouble."

"Yes, I could have done so if I wished, but I didn't know how much had changed since I was here last. I didn't even know for certain if the Dark Spore was still active, much less still inside you after all these years."

"So you kidnapped the ditz in hopes that I'd go ballistic and prove that I still had an active little spore within me." It wasn't a question.

"Of course, and now I see that I was correct. The Dark Spore still lives inside you; your presence here proves it, doesn't it, Emperor�Er should I say, Ichijouji's dark side?"

From within the deep recesses of his mind, Ken's protests grew louder. 'He knows! That's it--deal's off. Now give me my body back!'

On the outside, the Emperor stopped to smile an extremely devious smile.

If Ken had had control of his body, his face would have turned a deadly white instead of retaining its particularly evil smirk.

Curling his whip back up and taking a step backwards, the Emperor stated, "Thanks for the info, Daemon. That's all I wanted to know." Then, he tilted his head upward and shouted, "Show time, boys!"

"Cold Flame!"

An icy blue fireball shot out from the dense forest and hit Skull Greymon from behind. The skeleton digimon let out a pained roar and reflexively let go of the lavender-haired girl, who was then sent hurtling forward from the momentum of the blast.

"Death Arrow!"

Immediately afterward, a black streak flew from near the same source of the previous attack and headed straight for Daemon with extreme accuracy. The mega-level digimon was able to block the attack with his hands, however, but not without being driven back a few meters towards the ocean.

The Digimon Emperor didn't have time to smirk in pride as heard a scream rapidly approaching his direction. He turned around and barely managed to catch a falling Yolei, who was almost hysterical from the sudden flying lesson.

"Are you all right?" was the concerned question that came from the boy's mouth before he could stop it.

Regaining her wits as quickly as she could, Yolei looked up into midnight blue eyes with her hopeful, scarlet eyes and squeaked out, "Ken?"

In the meantime, two sinister-looking digimon had emerged from the thick woods and engaged in battle with the furious Skull Greymon. The first was a tall, blue humanoid digimon who appeared to be on fire, but a freezing cold fire rather than a blazing hot one. The second was a much larger, black creature with a single, giant eye and short red wings. On one arm of each was clasped a Dark Band, one of the Emperor's newest creations, which looked like a Dark Ring but was as long as a Dark Spiral and stronger than both his old models of controlling devices.

The appearance of these two digimon caused the fleeting, relieved sparkle in the Emperor's eyes to disappear and replace it with his former iciness.

"Ken is gone," the boy answered. Before Yolei could protest, he abruptly dropped the girl onto the hard sands of the beach and glared down at her. "I, the Digimon Emperor, am now in control."

A low growl from Daemon's direction forced them to postpone any further debates on the ownership of Ken's body.

"A Blue Meramon and a Ghoulmon?" the demon digimon snarled. "Impressive, Ichijouji; I never thought that you were capable of controlling digimon as powerful as them, but even they won't be enough to defeat me. You didn't seriously think I would come here with a Skull Greymon as my only bodyguard?"

Not far from where the two humans stood, a thick, black fog began to form. From its dark core came a tall, winged, goat-like digimon.

The Emperor clenched his teeth, "What the devil...!"

"You're not too far off, Ichijouji. This," Daemon said, pointing to the newly arrived digimon, "is Mephismon, an ultimate Fallen Angel digimon." Mephismon grunted in acknowledgment.

'Darn, this isn't good. Even with a mega along with an ultimate on my side, it won't be enough to defeat the both of them and Daemon.' The Emperor remained seething as Mephismon joined the fray against his Dark-Banded forces. 'With my two digimon revealing themselves at the same time, I should have expected him to pull out his backup this soon. Now if only mine would get their goody-two shoes butts over here...'

"Ken! Yolei!" shouted someone from above.

The scowl on the Emperor's face was immediately replaced by a relieved smirk.

"T. K.! Kari! Cody!" yelled back an overjoyed Yolei, who was waving the trio and their digimon down.

Pegasusmon, with T.K., Cody, and Armadillomon on his back, and Nefertimon, with Kari and Hawkmon on hers, landed gracefully beside the two teenagers on the beach.

"Yolei! You're all right!" Hawkmon gleefully cried, flying into the girl's open arms.

"Hawkmon!" Yolei gave a laugh of joy. "I was about to say the same for you!" she exclaimed, hugging her partner digimon close.

"It's about time you got here," sneered the regally dressed boy, not turning to face the new arrivals. "One minute later, and your little pack of Digidestined would have been down by one more."

T. K.'s eyes narrowed as soon as he got down and had a better look at the indigo-haired teenager. "What do you mean 'one more,' Ken?"

The name struck a sharp chord in the Emperor's system. He whirled around to glower at the blond, and that look was all T. K. needed to confirm what he had hoped wasn't true.

"So you did turn back," the Digidestined of Hope hissed.

"Ken, how could you?" asked Cody, his body visibly shaking with anger as joined T.K., who was now only slightly taller than the youngest of the group.

The Emperor didn't have time to give a smug response, for Daemon had begun to grow weary of their little reunion. "Skull Greymon, Mephismon, finish off the humans first!"

Both ultimate-level digimon pushed away their opponents for a split second and aimed their attacks at the group of teenagers.

"Dark Shot!"

"Death Cloud!"

Not wasting a second, the former Digidestined of Kindness ordered, "Ghoulmon, Blue Meramon, intercept those attacks!"

The controlled digimon did as they were told, leaping in front of the children and firing their own attacks.

"Explosion Eye!"

"Ice Phantom!"

Each opposing attack neutralized the other in a huge explosion, and the four digimon resumed their battle.

As the Emperor's controlled digimon leapt back into action, the indigo-haired boy yelled at the Digidestined, "Well, what are you waiting for, another death threat from Daemon?"

Much as the other two boys didn't like it, they saw that their only options were either to help him or to die at the hands of the Demon Lord.

By this time, Pegasusmon and Nefertimon had de-digivolved to Patamon and Gatomon and were ready for action.

"Don't worry, T. K. We'll take care of him later. Just remember the plan," Patamon whispered to his partner quickly.

Armadillomon tugged at Cody's pant leg, snapping him out of his angry reverie. "Ready whenever you are, Cody."

T. K. and Cody nodded to each other.

"Patamon digivolve to...Angemon!"

"Armadillomon digivolve to...Ankylomon!"

"Ankylomon...Angemon...DNA digivolve to...Shakkoumon!"

"Are you sure you're up for this, Yolei?" asked Kari, concern evident in her voice. After looking at how bad of shape Yolei was in, she was surprised the glasses-wearing girl was still able to stand up on her own.

"Absolutely!"

Kari cringed at the girl's seemingly enthusiastic reply. It was obvious to her that the bearer of the Digieggs of Love and Sincerity was forcing herself to act cheerful when she really must have felt like a mess.

The Digidestined of Light took her best friend's hand in her own. "Yolei, you can't hide anything from me; I know inside and out, you're hurting deeply." Kari's gentle eyes penetrated into Yolei's shimmering ones. "Look, I'm sorry about everything that's happened to you, but if we want to end this nightmare, you have got to be honest with me. Otherwise, we'll never be able to summon the power needed to defeat the monster who started this all."

Yolei sighed. "I'm sorry, Kari. You're right; this whole ordeal was almost too much for me. But I need to set this pain aside and help fight," she looked longingly at the cloaked back of the boy she loved, "if I ever want to see Ken again."

Kari nodded. "I understand."

"Hawkmon digivolve to...Aquilamon!"

"Aquilamon...Gatomon...DNA digivolve to...Silphymon!"

Silphymon flew onto the battlefield to join Shakkoumon, who had already gone to help the two controlled digimon.

"'Bout time you girls ended your sentimental rubbish," Ken's dark side gruffly stated without looking at them. "I was about to hurl onto my new black boots."

Without warning, Yolei hobbled up from behind and slapped the Emperor hard across his face. "When this is through, Digimon Emperor, mark my words: Ken and I will send you back to the slime hole you crawled out of."

The indigo-haired boy had the urge to pull out his whip and beat some sense into her, but something deep within him prevented his body from executing that thought. So instead, he regained his composure, looked her straight in the eye, and seethed, "And mark my words, Inoue." He waited for her to flinch at the formality, but Yolei wouldn't give him the pleasure, "You will pay dearly for laying a hand on me."

Ghoulmon's Explosion Eye rang out across the sandy beach as if to emphasize those words and cast an eerie shadow on the teenager's face.

Yolei shivered at the look but pretended that it was because of the frigid night air as she half-heartedly turned to watch the six forest-demolishing digimon.

And the battle raged on.

***

Gwen: Ack! Yolei abuse again!
Gaia: Hey, at least I only hinted at it this time.
Gwen: But she still got beat up.
G: And what's wrong with that?
Gwen: Only everything.
Gaia: Well, how did you expect Daemon and Skull Greymon to react to her bad-mouthing in the previous chapter? Give her a cup of tea?
Gwen: That would have been nice.
G and Gaia: *face-fault*

A/N: Just in case any of you wanted to check up on these digimon, Ghoulmon is the English name for Deathmon, but like I said, I’m mostly going to be using the English or dubbed names and attacks in this story. Also, since May is going to be a busy month for me, as I'm sure it will be for some of you, I don't know how long it's going to take for the next chapter to be out or how long the next chapter will be, so please be patient and again, bear with me here.

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