aiko's otter den

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wreaths of pine and flame - Digimon partners come back. People do not. Imagine Aguero’s surprise when Bam does.

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Chapter 2

Khun had told Rachel that that information wasn’t leaving this room. That was true. He simply put on the group voice chat and told her to repeat it.

“What?”

“You really think it’ll stop and end with just you and me,” he asked her, thoroughly unsympathetic. “It’ll be everyone else, and then it’ll be the rest of the regular Chosen. If he’s willing to hunt people who can get Perfects and kill them with his bare hands, do you really think he’ll stop because he hurt you?”

Do you really think he’ll stop if he hurts me?

Not that Khun believed Bam would. Even the niggling doubt that Rachel had always mattered more than Bam, meant more, been more, did not stop the steady belief that Bam would never hurt him on purpose and would do the exact opposite at any given time.

Rachel bristled. But he just looked at her, unimpressed, impassive. Cobalt blue sneered down at burning hazel. “Why me…?” she muttered before doing it. He had never proven she had killed Bam, never gotten her stripped of her power, her right, her partner. And now it didn’t seem like he’d ever have to. It almost felt good. Not quite enough for him, but still, fairly good.

But still, it had been seven years, why had Bam appeared now?

“She’s lying you know that,” said Endorsi the second Rachel had finished.

Yura bristled and Khun decided to prevent the travesty that was a Jahad princess and a Ha descendant rising into an unholy war on satellite call, at least not without a better shield than Rak. “She’s not. I saw the footage and the egg is here. Digimon can’t hide for shit under hospital beds of any kind. So, no, it’s real, I’ll send you the footage. We need to put some plans in place.”

“When did you get the footage off of my satellite?” Rachel asked in outrage.

“When you started to play it earlier.”

Rachel looked torn between grudging respect and utter disgust. The feeling was quite mutual.

“Are we hunting the black turtle?” Rak asked with something that could be glee or could be fear. It was hard to tell with the dinosaur maniac.

“Anaak will if we let her.”

“I’m right here you fucking prick.” The half-princess sounded more amused than sick of his crap, which was basically how they survived each other.

“Good to know.” Khun shook his head. ‘We’re better off tracing the pattern he left. If there is one.’ He glanced at Rachel. “You’re sure you weren’t hinted at that he was alive?”

“Yes,” she grit out. “I’d have been not here if I’d known.”

“Cool. I’ll leave you to sulk then.”

“Good to know you haven’t changed.”

Khun didn’t deign that with a response. Because he had. He was worse now than he had been seven years ago. And it was all because of her.

As he walked down the hall with Rak, who was muttering about ripping off a banana or something, he didn’t see the figure standing quietly in shadow, staring at the window out into the sky.

Jue Viole Grace pressed the object in his hand against the wall and said softly. “Message received.”

Two minutes later, that floor of the hospital exploded.

---

No one died. That was the biggest deal of the whole thing.

No one had died from the mysterious explosion. Yura had gotten a concussion, many of the patients were indefinitely bound to bed rest, and Rachel’s satellite had been shredded into so much binary it would be a miracle she could reset it and get half her crap back. They were trying to pick up what could have been an inventory.

But no one had died.

Instead, the entire network had shut down, been hacked, and downloaded at a speed that would be considered superhuman even by the standards of the digital world.

Khun, for the record, was suspicious.

“We were right there, why didn’t he knock us out of commission?” Khun, having been a witness, was able to sneak in and access the footage. And no one can nor should stop him. He saw the same figure, right to the right of them, staring off into the distance. He and Rak had been right there and neither of them had done shit.

“The black turtle is getting smarter in his age,” Rak offered, but the man looked uncomfortable.

Khun didn’t want to disagree with that because that was an insult to Bam. “What if he wants us to know? Like a cry for help or something?”

“Turtles do prefer to group with other turtles,” Rak replied, but his heart wasn’t in it. This was a bit much.

Which was great because if he meant it that way, Khun was going to kill him. There was nothing in that sentence that he liked.

Unless…

“He wanted us to hear what Rachel said,” he said slowly. “All of us. For what though?” There had to be something else. Something they were missing. His fingers pulsed in pain and he grimaced. Kudamon squirmed against his skin, having been patiently listening.

“I didn’t know he was there,” Kudamon said suddenly. “Until we walked past, I hadn’t noticed him. It was like he didn’t exist. Like there was only the wall there, no him.”

Khun turned this over. Bam had always had that kind of presence, one that didn’t say much until he did something. And then he made everyone turn and look just by existing, just by acting. “Could be a technique.”

“We just need to find him,” grunted Rak through chocolate bar number twelve. “Hurry up with that.”

“You want to change places, croc head?”

“I am not a crocodile!”

“Might as well be.”

The door to their resting area slammed open and Rachel was wheeled in with Yura glowering at them like a hawk. “What?” he grumbled, irritated. Seeing her once in a year was enough for him.

Rachel only made a noise of annoyance. “I can leave.”

“I didn’t ask you to show up.”

“Well, I did because this is important. I know why Bam went after me.”

Khun raised an eyebrow. He wanted to say that he knew Bam better than she did considering neither of them expected him to become violent like this. “What’s your theory?” God he hated this woman.

Rachel simply bared her neck instead. It was bare but for the indent that comes from having twin tags at your throat for years. Khun reflexively found himself reaching for his because —

Hers are gone.

“Oh fuck,” Khun said.

Not that they knew what to do with that information but, Crests. Bam and by extension F.U.G were hunting crests.

A long time ago, when the ten great families and whoever followed them had decided to adventure (colonize said a bitter part of him, colonizers and murderers) through the Digital World, they had come across things called Crests. Relics from a long gone age, so it had been said. But they had power, they made it easier to evolve digimon, provided that the wielder could actually use their traits properly in themselves. They were in some other form now, Digmentals or eggs or something, but occasionally people received the original relic or another piece of said relic.

Khun, rather rare for even members of the ten great families, had two. So did Rak. So did Anaak. So had Rachel.

Bam, as far as they had all known, had had none. You didn’t need them to evolve your partners but it sure as hell was easier to have a conduit.

Not that Khun particularly knew how to use his. He hadn’t needed to in years.

The other thing that made two crests or more important was: you could have two partners.

Most people who did have two, few as they were, often had jogresses, or fusions. It was much less of a drain.

Khun tried to pretend that he wasn’t now terrified for everyone’s lives. “Thanks for that.”

Rachel looked like she wanted to laugh but her eyes were full of terror. He wanted to scream at her, to tell her it was her own damn fault she was in this situation, that Bam was now killing people, friends, that she’d lost the thing that had connected her to the digital world, everything.

But the idea of doing it felt like a waste of time.

So Khun went back to hacking instead.

---

Crashing with Shibisu was the best and worst mistake of his life but going to his apartment with the knowledge of Bam being alive and likely with a screw loose made his bed sound like the worst idea ever. He’ll take eggplant’s couch.

Anaak thankfully never tried to kick him when he took her spot, just snatched his soda. (He always carried extra food on him because of this.)

“He’s after Crests.” Her voice was fierce, not angry, yet.

Khun nodded.

Anaak wrapped her fingers around the two at her neck. “I’ll kill him if he tries to take mine.”

Khun felt a horrible impulse to break Anaak’s entire face but resisted it. She was a half-princess of Jahad and he was a member of the ten great families (exiled but still). This would end with them both in the currently half-closed hospital. (But most of all he understood how she felt which was why they didn’t kill each other at all, generally.) “Why did he need to take them in the first place?”

“More like why didn’t he kill the traitor bitch when he was there?” Anaak grumbled.

“No gendered slurs,” Shibisu said, flopping on Khun’s legs. Khun threw his straw at him. “But yeah seriously, why would he leave her alive? None of us would.”

The lack of vitriol is why he told Shibisu the truth in the first place. “He’s Bam, he can’t kill Rachel. That’s like asking Rak to stop eating chocolate.”

“Would the Crests even work if she was dead?” Shibisu asked the room.

They all looked at each other. Khun had honestly not thought about that.

“This is getting complicated,” Anaak grumbled. “Let’s catch the idiot and interrogate him. I have a whip now, I can do it.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said a voice, soft as gossamer.

Suddenly, all of their digimon reacted at once to the long haired young man standing in the doorway. They all moved to their feet, a creeping sense of dread in Khun’s stomach. His hair was the same shade of chestnut brown, eyes hooded behind his bangs. He leaned against the doorway with crossed arms, a gesture the Bam they all knew could never pull off, and just regarded them.

“How did I miss him again?” Kudamon spat, leaping from Khun’s shoulders before he could tell him not to. The other’s digimon weren’t much better, attacks forming at the edges of their control.

Bam looked at them through hooded eyes, the same empty expression from the video on his face. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said simply. “I would rather this be peaceful.”

“You’re not taking these,” Anaak snarled, already over the sofa. “They’re mine.”

Bam’s eyes flicked to her and he nodded. “I don’t want to. I’d rather you help me.”

Simple, flat. Hollow as an empty bowl. But — “What?” Shibisu asked dumbly, which saved Khun the trouble of being upset by his own ignorance.

Bam simply held out the two tags on one fist. “She can’t use these,” he said. “There was no point in leaving them with her. But you all can use yours. Help me with this and I’ll be dead to you again.”

Despite the fact that his friend was now a mass murderer, something in Khun’s stomach recoiled at the idea of him being dead again. “Help you with what, exactly?”

“Completing the circle.” Bam pocketed Rachel’s crests and looked at Khun. Something flickered in his eyes. “To open the path forward. Now, decide. Help me, or I hurt you.”

It was the matter of factness that hurt the most. Khun thumbed his digivice in his pocket.

Anaak simply lunged, all of their digimon right on her heels.

Bam sighed and his eyes, cold and like holes in his face, turned a thick, viscous, bloody red.

Everything went promptly to shit after that.

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