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 3

Khun woke up freezing cold.

Not the cold of his father’s house, mind, but the cold of a harsh floor all the same. Something rumbled above him. Like thunderheads or an annoyed Ran. He jerked his arms reflexively and then hissed. He was tied up. He could still move but his hands were tied so he couldn’t reach his Digivice, let alone Kudamon, which scared him. Much as Kudamon was a little bastard, Kudamon was his little bastard and he didn’t want the guy hurt even when he deserved it.

There was a low humming sound feet from his head and Khun made himself open his eyes. It took him a moment, but his hazy vision cleared into a single platform. It thrummed a soft rose pink under his cheek.

“You’re awake,” someone rasped.

Khun lifted his head to see Bam, knelt in front of him. His golden eyes were empty and glassy, like a translucent stone. “Bam,” he said softly, throat aching from pain and even a bit of despair. He’d always thought Bam would be…

Bam shook his head. “Not anymore. He did die in that sea. That child who couldn’t protect anyone, who saved only his skin alone, who fell into the sea, he doesn’t deserve to be alive.”

Something in Khun curdled at those words. “What… what are you doing?”

“Awakening my Miracle,” he said simply. “Closing the circle. So I can stop Herissmon from killing everyone. To do that I need to open an Ancient Gate. To do that I need as many crest bearers in position as possible. To do that I…” He shrugged a bit, and Khun could see the dark circles thick under his eyes. “I had to do as I was told.”

Herissmon. Bam’s supposed partner Digimon, a happy-go-lucky, bouncy little hedgehog who trailed after everyone and cheered at anything even when she didn’t understand it. They fell into the sea together. They both died together. Or…

“She protected you,” he realized.

For a moment, he thought that he saw tears glisten at the edges of those blank eyes. “No,” Bam finally sad said. He took a hand and unzipped the sweater that hung over his body, past his hips, followed by a steady one-handed unbuttoning of his shirt. “She gave me life.”

Bam’s chest was an ugly mass of scar tissue, spiraling up from where the heart would be all the way over to the edges of his ribcage, nearly down the stomach, mixing with lines of zeroes and ones between the gaps in the spiral.

All Khun could do was stare. His arms, behind his back, tried to move to touch it, but it only succeeded in wrenching his elbows.

“Bam…” he started.

Bam shook his head. “That child is dead. That child is dead and a failure. I… I will make this right. I won’t let her do this to you, to anyone. I’ll take responsibility for her mistake.” The glassy look in his eyes seemed to only grow worse, like his eyes were almost turning silver.

He buttoned himself up and zipped up the sweater. “Don’t worry, Mr. Khun. So long as you stay there, you’ll be alright. This ritual isn’t designed to kill anyone. Ryun will let you go when it’s over.” He paused. “Maybe. If it’s something beyond the path I’m in she hasn’t told me.”

This didn’t seem to perturb him in the slightest. He seemed used to it.

“Why didn’t you bring Rachel?” Khun finally asked. “Why go to all the trouble of keeping her alive and not just kidnapping her along for the ride?”

Bam straightened up slowly. “She can’t activate her own crests anymore so bringing her here to make them would just waste time. Ryun can do it.”

“I can’t help but feel like you’ve traded one bad woman for another Bam,” he said before he could stop himself.

Something red flashed in Bam’s eyes, but it sputtered and died too quickly to really register. “Maybe. But that’s fine. Yggdrasil isn’t shining on me anyhow.” He turned away and walked to the center of the platform.

Khun strained his neck. Rak was to his left, Anaak at his upper right, a man with blonde hair his direct opposite. They were all unconscious, except Rak, who was squirming, his eyes flashing between red and gold as he and guilmon argued over what to do next.

Kudamon wiggled his digivice in his pocket. Okay that was good. He’d left them armed. Was he that confident? Or did he just not care if they tried to escape?

Khun watched Bam kneel in the middle, pulling out the ribbon in his hair and tying it around his neck. His chestnut brown hair spilled over the ground, even with his head bowed. “Set, Ryun?” he asked softly.

“Yes, Viole.” Khun craned his neck and saw a woman with beautiful red hair and one side of her face hidden by an eyepatch.

He racked his memory, until —

“The Ranker Game,” he whispered in sudden realization. The first time he’d seen Bam snap on anyone was at the sight of Rachel defenseless on the ground and had struck out with something, along with his weapon. It’d cost them a lot but it had happened. She was from that time? She’d been disqualified!

She didn’t look at him, but she didn’t need to. Something sparkled in her remaining red eye. “It’s almost time, Viole. You may want to get started.”

All Bam did was nod, and close his golden eyes.

Khun had a very sudden terrible feeling that he’d never see them open again.

He glanced towards the others again. Rak was staring at him. He’d been gagged, which was the smartest move anyone here had ever considered. But Rak didn’t look away from him, barring a simple jerk of his head. Khun followed his gaze and managed to smirk.

It was no ultimate combination but he and Rak could work together sometimes.

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Viole breathed out.

Breathing was so easy now. It was so easy to lose it, and yet right now it was back to being instinctive, automatic, necessary. He didn’t have to concentrate on it. He just had to do it. At least for a bit longer. None of them could confirm what would happen next, after all. It would have been exciting if it wasn’t so sad.

Still. He was ready. The dam in his heart had not burst. He could do this.

“Oh light,” he said, staring up at the rumbling clouds, the darkest night. The old one’s namesake. “Oh light that breaks up my night. The time has come to grant the wishes cast to you in the guise of stars.”

The words didn’t mean anything, the texts had made it clear that it was never about words, spoken promises or any of that. It was the intent of the soul, the meaning behind the power. And he had been revived through the light of a miracle.

Viole was going to make the worlds themselves pay up on those promises.

“Oh light,” he repeated. “The time has come for the sun to set. For the night to blanket the earth. The time has come to sleep. Please now, entreat yourself to me. I give you my light. I give you my miracle of life. I offer to you the children who once danced in the stars. I offer to you their hopes and dreams to borrow. I offer myself to take. Please hear me… Homeostasis.”

The air and earth groaned and everyone began to let out horrible moans of pain. Viole’s eyes found Hwa Ryun’s gaze. She was the only one silent, smiling at him like he was the stars themselves. She had a single hand over her heart, clutching Rachel’s crests. The ones Rachel had stolen, knowing or not.

I’ll grant your wish now, he wanted to say, but then his own tags started to burn. His skin started to burn and his nose ached as it dripped blood. And yet he could close his eyes without fear. Because she was here. The fallen god. The abandoned child was settling into his skin.

Homeostasis smiled behind his eyelids. “Hello, Bam.”

Viole wanted to cry. It was like being home. The home with Rachel in it and the warmth of a light he’d never been able to word.

“You’ve done so well. And it’s only just begun.” She sounded proud anyway. “But no need for that now. Let me grant that friend’s wish and then I’ll grant your own.”

Viole didn’t make a sound, his arm lifting quite without his desire. He gestured towards Ryun, who opened her arms. The egg landed neatly in them, a brilliant pitch black with silver rings. Ryun breathed out gently and closed her eyes.

He felt himself rising to his feet, looking up at the roiling clouds. His eyes caught a glimpse of the symbols of the crests glowing over their wielders, each of them groaning. Even Rak’s eyes were squeezed shut, panting with the exertion of holding the power steady with nothing to give it to.

The only one looking at him now was Khun. Staring with something Viole couldn’t hope to parse, filling him with something sickly, worse than guilt. The dam held.

The god turned his head away, upwards. “Now,” they whispered together. “Gate, open.”

The clouds scattered, leaving a single ray of golden light shining down on his skin. His body flickered blue.

“Are you ready?” asked the god.

Viole nodded at once, willing the dam to stay. At the gesture his body floated up and up and up, the others growing smaller, the circle starting to break. Everything was fading away. He exhaled and closed his eyes.

His destination was a place beyond the Digital Sea, beyond this plane. The place where he and Herissmon had reformed in, where Herissmon had succumbed to madness. He could… he would heal her now. After that, it was just finding a new way out. If there was one.

That or dying together, Viole couldn’t really say he minded. Someone else would take his place. Rachel’s legs would heal. It’d be fine.

The world below faded away and it was almost like being in a tube slide that was going upwards.

Then something caught a grip on his leg.

Viole looked down. Khun had a very firm grip on his pant leg, and a small smirk on his face.

“Finally,” he gasped out, body burning gold. “I finally got you. I’m not letting you run this time, Bam.”

Viole swallowed. “Mr. Khun… please let go.”

“No.”

“Let go please!”

“No,” Khun repeated, utterly calm in the face of the breaking dam, of the tears he’d been choking himself with for years. “I’m fine right where I am thanks. Could stand a slightly better view if I move up.”

Viole shook his head. “You have to go before you can’t come back.”

“Oh so it’s fine if you can’t?” Khun’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve just found you not dead. I’d like to appreciate it when you’re not trying to murder everyone and this seems like a great place to start.”

Viole didn’t flinch. He hadn’t flinched in a long time. But the dam was about to burst and he didn’t know what would happen.

Khun took his silence and pushed himself up until he was able to reach Viole’s wrists and grab them, loose enough that he could be escaped, but tight enough to make his point clear, he thought.

“You’re not running away this time.” Khun’s smile had a darker tinge than Viole had ever remembered seeing as Bam. “This time, I’m keeping you with me. You…” Khun paused and Viole felt his throat close. “You mean more to me than you seem to understand. So. Fill me in. What’s going on?”

Viole’s fingers twitched. He opened and closed his mouth. Then behind him, he saw the brown and red projectile before it crashed into the two of them. “An adventure without Rak is an adventure not worth having,” grunted the older man. “You turtles won’t escape me that easily.”

Viole didn’t hear what Khun’s retort was. instead, he felt the dam crumble and silently wept with something like relief.

They noticed, of course, but it was fine. This was their Bam and he wasn’t dying on them a second time.

Homeostasis hummed in Viole’s head. “It’s okay to be greedy and ask for two wishes. Your mother forgot her last one. Now, let’s go, Bam. The dead world awaits.”

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