Memory Lapse
part 3~

Daisuke awoke bright and early the next morning, finally feeling refreshed. Ken lay beside him, eyes open. "Good morning, Daisuke-kun."

"'Morning. How are you feeling?"

"Much better. And you?"

"Great." Daisuke stretched like a cat and yawned contentedly. "I feel much better."

"I hope so--it's got to be almost noon already. You've been asleep the whole morning."

"Aa?" Daisuke looked sheepish. "Well, as long as you didn't get too bored. Oh--I should change that dressing, shouldn't I?"

Ken gingerly touched the strip of cloth wrapped around his head. "I was wondering about that..."

Daisuke's face was grave. "You hit your head pretty hard. I guess the bleeding's stopped by now, though." He gently removed the goggles from Ken's inky-blue hair and unwound the soaked cloth. Under the fabric the wound had indeed closed--still leaving Ken's forehead a bloody mess. "Just a second, I'll clean that up." He tore a peice from the Kaiser's discarded cape and ran outside, leaving Ken alone in the dank cave.

The young genius frowned, inspecting the bundle of fabric that Dai had just unrolled. It was dark purple with yellow trim, and had what looked like a single cracked shoulder pad hanging from it. It looks familiar, but...wrong, somehow. Ken couldn't remember the word to describe the object he held. His head hurt--again.

Sighing, Ken laid down the fabric again as Daisuke returned. "There's a lake nearby, but I don't know if I want to drink out of it. Anyway, I'vr got some water on the cloth. Here, tilt your head." Ken did so, allowing Daisuke to gently clean the dried blood from his forehead. He occasionally winced, but otherwise held quite still.

Daisuke sat back to take another look. "It's not so bad--it's mostly hidden by your bangs. I'd better put another dressing on it just in case, though." He tore away a longer strip from the garment and wound it around Ken's head, securing it once again with the goggles. Ken shot him a questioning look. "My goggles--you can borrow them, to keep the bandage on tight. There's not enough left out of the cape to tie it around your head.

Ken nodded, storing both words in his memory. Cape. Goggles. Familiar words, but still out of his reach. "Thanks, Daisuke."

"No problem." Daisuke grinned at his handiwork. "It looks like you're gonna be okay. And I managed to do it without Jyou!"

"Jyou?" The name didn't ring a bell with Ken, and he looked at Daisuke curiously.

"A friend of mine. Well, friend of a friend. He's studying to be a doctor." at Ken's quizzical look, he added, "healing people, fixing them up. Like what I'm doing with you."

Ken added the word to his internal dictionary with a nod. "And this Jyou taught you to be a doctor?"

"No, no." Daisuke laughed. "Jyou's learning to be a doctor. I was just saying that even though I don't know anything about medicine or healing people, I still fixed you up okay."

Ken smiled.

"Anyway--I guess I should tell you more about everything, so you won't be so confused. Right now--" he gestured around him, "--we're not on Earth. That's the place where we live, in case you've forgotten. We're in a place called the Digital World, it's kind of an alternate dimension inside computers, really." Daisuke frowned, unable to really explain the way he wanted to. "Normally we're from Earth, in a country--a big peice of land--called Japan. I come from a section of Japan called Odaiba, and you're from Tamachi. Anyway, we come to the Digital World for a few reasons. We're supposed to protect it from harm with the help of the creatures that live here, Digimon." He took a deep breath. "We call ourselves the Chosen Children, and we've been defending the Digital World from a guy called the Digimon Kaiser."

Ken absorbed all the information; remembering the meanings of some of the words, discerning others from their context. To Daisuke's relief he did not ask for further infomation on the Kaiser. "Are we the only Chosen Children?"

"Actually, Ken, you're not a Chosen Child." Ken looked disappointed. "There are quite a few Chosen, though. Let's see. There's Taichi, the guy who gave me the goggles. And Yamato, his best friend, who plays in a band. Making music, you know?" Ken nodded, remembering music. "Koushirou, who's a computer geek--computers are like these, only bigger." He showed Ken his inoperative D-Terminal. He's a geek because he spends all his time with him computer. I think you were a computer geek too, but you played soccer as well. Oh! Soccer. My favorite sport--you kick around a ball, that's a little round thing, um, and you play against other people, and kick it away from them and into a goal, which is a space...uh...I'm not making sense. I'll show you later. Andway, I play soccer, and so do you, and Taichi. Let's see, other Chosen...there's Mimi, who lives in America. That's another country. Sora, who works in a flower shop---you remember what flowers are? Takeru, Yamato's little brother, and Hikari, Taichi's little sister. People who live together." Daisuke's definitions were terribly confusing, but Ken was understanding most of it. "Jyou I already told you about. Miyako is a computer geek too, and Iori practices kendo. He hits people with sticks. I'd tell you about their Digimon, but you'd never remember all their names." Daisuke grinned.

"What about my Digimon?" Ken asked worriedly.

"Yours? Well, you've got a lot of Digimon...allies...but I don't know if you have a partner. If you do I've never met him." (A/N: This takes place directly after they find out Ken is the Kaiser. It's unlikely that Daisuke knows that Wormmon is actually Ken's partner.)

Ken looked saddened. "What about yours, then?"

"Oh!" Daisuke perked up, but immediately bit his lip. "Well, his name is V-mon and we've only been partners for a little while, but we're really close. He's been...captured...by the Digimon Kaiser and is at the Kaiser's base."

"Kaiser?" The word struck a rough chrod in Ken, but he was unable to recall any memory.

"A dictator who's been threatening the Digital World." Daisuke wouldn't meet Ken's eyes. "The Chosen have been fighting him for a while."

Although the subject of the Kaiser intrigued him, V-mon was more of a curiosity. "Aren't you going to go after your Digimon? He's your partner, right?" Ken couldn't remember the exact definition of the word 'partner,' but other words came to him when he tried. Friend. Together. Join. These he remembered, though their purposes were hazy.

"Of course!" Daisuke looked at Ken strangly.

"Well...how far away is he? Can we walk?"

Daisuke's jaw dropped. Ken was offering to help free V-mon? It was almost too good to be true! Though... Daisuke thought nervously, what if someone in the base recognizes him? They're sure to make a fuss that the Kaiser is back, and say something to Ken! Loyalty to V-mon won out, however, and Daisuke thanked Ken gratefully. "If you're up to it, that I'm sure we'd get there in no time."

"I'm fine." Ken offered Daisuke a shy smile--an expression that the cinnamon-eyed boy still wasn't used to seeing--and got to his feet. "I'd like to meet your Digimon, and of course I want to help you. We're friends, right?"

"Yeah." Daisuke smiled genuinely in return. "We're friends."

@~*~@~*~@~*~@~*~@~*~@~*~@~*~@

(A/N: As tempted as I am to leave it right there--what a sappy end to the chapter!--I'll continue. Athena's right, when I get excited with a fic I usually try and do a short chapter every day, for lack of time--and because the closing sentence in that last paragraph there just screams 'next chapter!' However, I've got a few extra minutes tonight, so why not keep going? I'm sure I'll find something good to end this next part with. If not, just come back up here and read the 'we're friends' line again. Ja ne! ~Shi)

Daisuke and Ken began the long trek across the digital landscape, Daisuke chattering nonstop the whole way. He had told Ken everything he knew about everything--schools, sports, Japan, the Digital World, the Chosen, and what little knowledge he could offer about computers and books. He told Ken about his parents; who he had learned about through the media, and about Tamachi; which Daisuke had visited a few times. Eventually Ken was feeling much better and much more equipped to face the world.

"If you never get your memory back," Daisuke joked, "I'll teach you everything I know, and then maybe you can come to my school. I mean, I guess some of your genius stuff is inborn, but since we're friends you could come to Odaiba." Daisuke gaily filled him in about how much Ken would love being in the company of Hikari and Miyako and Iori and Takeru. "You'd love Miyako-chan, she likes a lot of the same stuff you used to. And she'd be thrilled, because she really likes you." Ken smiled in reply. "That would be nice. Though I would like to get my memory back."

"Point. Just a suggestion, though, you know!" Daisuke laughed. His face hardened a moment later and he pointed to a large black shape moving in the sky. "There it is--the Kaiser's base."

Daisuke marveled at the technology of Ken's modified D-3 as he handed it back to the wild-haired boy. He had been able to use the digivice to track the base; a function his own D-3 could never perform. Ken, for the most part, was confused by the little device.

The base was huge. Both boys stood still for a moment just to look. "Wow..." Ken breathed. "Look at that...it's like a big, floating..." Unable to recall the word for stone, he used a cruder-sounding word. "...rock."

"That's what I was thinking," agreed Daisuke, who had immediately thought of the word rock to describe the monstrosity. "Shall we go inside?"

The two proceeded to one of the lower doors of the collossal structure, stopping at the door. There was a keypad on the side of it. Daisuke put in some random combinations of numbers and looked frustrated hwne all of them failed to yield.

Ken looked at the keypad, touching the door with his fingertips. "This is...familiar, somehow."

"Do you think you know the code?" Daisuke asked.

"I don't know." Ken closed his eyes and tried to remember, but the harder he thought the further away it seemed to slip. He let his fingers stray over the keypad, letting them unconsciously tap out a familiar rhythm.

"You got it!" Daisuke crowed as the door slid open. "Nice going, Ken! Now...how will we get past the Kaiser's troops? He has lots of Digimon working with him."

Ken looked down the dark passageway. "I'm not entirely sure. Are there other humans here?"

Daisuke frowned. "I don't know--I doubt it. But I guess just walking in might work, because how would we get in if we didn't belong there? I bet no one will say anything. We have no Digimon, so they won't be looking for Dark Rings."

"Right." Daisuke had explained the Rings just a few minutes before. "Okay, where do you think your partner will be?"

"I'm not sure." The boys had come to a staircase and begun to climb. "Maybe there's a computer or something we can look at. But I don't know anything about computers."

"I used to, I think." Ken said slowly. "Maybe it'll come back to me, like the code did."

"It's worth a try," Daisuke agreed. "How about I look on the bottom level, since that's where the bad guys usually put the dungeons, and you find a computer?"

Ken felt uneasy about splitting up, but didn't say so. "All right. V-mon is blue and looks like a dragon, you said? He can't be too hard to find. We'll meet back here soon."

"Got it. Good luck, Ken."

"Good luck."

@~*~@~*~@~*~@~*~@~*~@~*~@~*~@

Ken ascended the staircase as quietly as he could, calming his breathing after jumping at many shadows. I'll try the top floor and work my way down.

Once he had reached the apex of the base he slipped though the nearest door and into a dark hallway. He hadn't encountered any of the elusive Digimon yet, but he expected he'd know one when he saw it.

The inky-haired child wandered down the hall, his heavy boots making far too much noise on the stone floor for his liking. It's so dark in here. It gives me the creeps.

Pausing for a moment, Ken heard the sound of faint sobbing from nearby. Someone's...crying? What if that's V-mon? Ken eased up and put his ear against one of the big metal doors. The sobs were louder, now, despairing. But what if it's the Digimon Kaiser? You don't even know what he looks like, Ken. You could get yourself killed.

Something about the voice producing the wailing sounds moved something within him, though, and he knew he had to confront whoever-it-was. Ken gently slid the door open and stepped inside.

The room was large and vastly furnished, with a huge black silken-sheeted bed and several armchairs. A table with a glowing machine--a computer?--was in the corner, and there were many books on shelves. There were other objects that Ken couldn't identify by name.

On the bed, a small green creature was crying its beautiful blue eyes out. It looked up, sniffling slightly and regarded Ken, a spark of joy lighting the chubby face. "Ken-chan!!"

~to be continued...

yeah, as tempted as i am, i thought that would be a good place to end it. if i let the conversation between ken and wormmon start i'll never be able to stop. hey, it was a pretty long chapter anyway. stay tuned!