Memory Lapse
part 7~

"Damn. Damn!" Daisuke swore, angrily returning Fladramon's power to his Digivice. "I've got to go after him. I can't let this go to waste."

Enjoy the Digital World....Daisuke.

He called me Daisuke. The cinnamon-eyed boy's lips hardened into a thin line. "I"ve got to try. V-mon! Dejimentaru...up!"*

"V-mon--Armour Shinka!"

"Daisuke!" Miyako shouted.

"I'm going after him," Dai replied simply. "Don't wait up."

"Raidramon!"

"Let's go!" The goggle boy mounted his armoured Digimon and dashed out of the canyon, leaving a confused group of Chosen Children behind.

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

Ken stormed into the base, his face clouded. "Get this thing moving, Wormmon. Get us out of here."

"Yes, Ken-chan." The insect scurried off and Ken strode to his control room and sat down in the straight-backed chair. "I'll finish off those Chosen once and for all, this time."

Even Daisuke? a little voice in his head mocked.

"Even Daisuke," the Kaiser growled out loud. "That stupid kid thought that he could convince me to go back! Ha. Friends. I don't need any whining, babyish..." he was unable to think of an appropriate adjective to describe Daisuke--"...brat. He makes me so mad. Arg..."

Ken continued to talk to himself. "Imagine, thinking that the Digital Kaiser would be friends with a, a, a...weakling like him! I don't need anyone else. I don't need any friends. No allies. Just me!" His voice rang out shakily in the enclosed room, cracking slightly on the last syallable. "Just me..."

The Kaiser stared, downcast, at the polished stone floor. Even if he saved your life?

"I don't feel any loyalty to you."

Even if he did what he did because he liked you you were, not who you pretended to be?

"Shut up!" Ken's straining voice broke into dry sobs. He wasn't even sure who he was talking to anymore--Daisuke, or himself.

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

Daisuke checked his D-3 every few moments until the point when the signal disappeared. He already knew that the Black D-3's signal could be cloaked; but it had been so close to the Kaiser's base before it winked out that there was no doubt where Ken had gone. Raidramon's fast footing had allowed them to close most of the distance between them and Ken as well.

The base continued to rest where it had been when Daisuke last visited, although the footprints left behind in the sand had long ago vanished. Daisuke hopped off his devolving Digimon's back and ran to the bottom-level entrance that he and Ken had used. Congratulating himself on a job well done--even if it might get his killed eventually--the Chosen of Courage and Friendship programmed in Ken's code and stepped inside the base, determined to prove that the power of his Crest could sway even the most hard-hearted of Kaisers.

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

Wormmon's heart stopped in his chest as he passed Ken's door and heard angry sobs coming from behind it. It hadn't been that long ago before their positions had been reversed--Wormmon crying on Ken's empty bed, and Ken stopping to listen outside the cool metal door.

Deciding to brave the Kaiser's wrath rather than let his Ken go on bawling, Wormmon slid the door aside and slowly entered. "Ken-chan?"

The boy genius lifted his head from his arms look regard his partner pitifully. "Am I really a monster, like they say?"

Wormmon wavered, taken aback by the question. "Of course not. You're just...confused...sometimes. And confusing."

"I'm sorry," Ken whispered hoarsely. "I screwed it all up, didn't I?"

"The Digital World?"

"Everything," came the broken reply. "Me, you, Daisuke...all of us."

~to be concluded...

people are going to kill me for the length of this chapter. well then, why don't you go and review chapter 6, and I'll see how fast I can get part 8 out?