~Reflection~ Disclaimer: You know the drill: I write a fanfic, I say that Digimon's not mine in some amusing way, and nobody sues me. (I hope.) *** Chapter 10 "Armadillomon," Ken commanded secretly while Davis went to retrieve the soccer ball, "start tunneling under the field right now and make sure you surface exactly two meters in front of T. K." The confused yellow digimon looked up at the tall boy with a quizzical expression on his pointy face. "But I thought it was against the rules to leave this position until the ball was kicked in the face-off," Armadillomon stated. He was almost positive that's what Cody had told him beforehand. "This game is supposed to be for fun, remember? Trivialities like that shouldn't matter. Now hurry up and get going!" harshly ordered the team's captain. Armadillomon shrank back at the cold glare Ken gave him, but he meekly obeyed. "Y-you're the boss." The hard-shelled digimon immediately began burrowing under the ground in the direction of the blond goalie. This done, Ken smugly strode to the center of the field, a calculating smile etched on his pale face. Unbeknownst to Ken, however, not too far away, a small boy with observant emerald eyes had been silently watching the entire scene between his partner digimon and the team captain. 'What's Ken up to?' Cody wondered. "Okay, that caught me a little off guard, but this time I'm ready to kick your butt, Ken." Davis's challenge interrupted the thoughts of the Digidestined of Knowledge and Reliability and forced him to bring his attention back to the game. "Is that so? Well, then you'd better be on guard now because I'm through warming up," snidely contested the indigo-haired boy. "That's good, 'cuz I'm, er, done warming up, too," said Davis, putting the ball down between them. That really wasn't true, but he couldn't let Ken know how intimidated he was by that first goal. "Ready?" "Your call." "GO!" Despite the effort he put into the kick, before Davis could make his foot come in contact with the ball, Ken had already shot it well out of his reach straight towards…. …Cody. This took everyone by surprise, especially Cody. "Pass me the ball!" yelled Ken, who was already halfway to the goal. The young boy snapped to attention, kicking the ball as hard as he could in Ken's general direction. After having to jump over Gatomon and duck Patamon's dive bomb, Ken managed to receive the wide pass. He then dribbled the ball down the rest of the way, Davis hot on his heels. When he was in range, the swift team captain fired the ball, apparently straight at T. K. Seeing this, Davis slowed down to conserve his energy. 'Ha! That was a smart move,' he thought sarcastically. 'Even T. G. can block that shot.' Watching the ball intently as it rapidly approached him, T. K. planted his feet firmly into the soft grass and tensely waited for it to come nearer so he could catch it. Just as the soccer ball rolled closer and closer to the fair-haired goalie, something small and yellow burrowed out of the ground in front of him. "I guess this is the--oh boy!" As soon as Armadillomon had seen the black and white sphere headed his way at a dangerous speed, he curled up into a tight ball, plated shell ready to protect him. Before everyone's eyes, the soccer ball bounced off the digimon's hard armor, ricocheted against the inside of the left goal post, and flew into the net. It would be an understatement to say that Davis's entire team was speechless. On the other side of the field, though, Yolei was cheering her head off at the sight of another goal. "GO KEN!!! You were great! You, too, Cody and Armadillomon!" "Um, Yolei, could you please turn down the volume on those lungs," pleaded Hawkmon, his wings covering his throbbing ears. ~~~ The rest of the game transpired in much the same manner. Ken would either dribble the ball and shoot it into the goal at impossible speeds or strategically pass the ball to the most unexpected players--even the other team's players--and then have it sent back to him to score. Either way, the young genius was always three steps ahead of his rivals' team captain. That is, until the last ten minutes of their game. At that time, Davis got so frustrated with all of Ken's goals that at the face-off, he simply tackled the other boy and used his entire body to pin Ken down. While the two captains struggled, Veemon took the ball, dribbled it past Ken's defense, and passed it to Kari, who scored a goal off a startled Yolei. Despite this mishap, the dark-haired captain didn't blow up in Davis's face over the illegal, not to mention humiliating, tackle; instead, he got his revenge by scoring goals even more rapidly than he had before. At the end of their hour-long game, the score was 27-1, in Ken's favor, of course. When Davis decided to call it quits, everyone gathered in the center of the field to rest. "Dude, Ken," panted a sweaty Davis, falling back into the soft grass out of sheer exhaustion. "Have you been practicing in the off season or what?" Not even out of breath, Ken merely shrugged and remained standing next to him. "Actually, no, though you have to admit, both of us may have played better had we been wearing the proper gear." With that, Ken reached down and tapped his uncleated shoes to back up his words. Davis sweatdropped. "Yeah, that must have been what was wrong with me," he laughed nervously, "or else I would have totally pulverized you." "Humph, not as much as I pulverized you just now," commented Ken coolly. "Ooo, sounds like fighting words to me," said T. K. quietly to the rest of the Digidestined and digimon. Everyone else had sat down in a circle together a few meters away from the two boys. "Great, not another fight," Yolei groaned. Ever since their last battle with Malomyotismon, the two co-leaders of the Digidestined had become even closer comrades. As such, they often had friendly little bouts of bickering like this between them. "Let's just hope that it doesn't last more than two hours this time," stated Kari, lying back into the grass. "Yeah," agreed Gatomon, curling up beside her, "I'm about ready for a catnap." As the argument between the two boys grew louder, everyone couldn't help but stop talking and listen in. "What?! Hey, it's like you said; I didn't have the proper gear on, that's all," defended Davis. "Oh, come on, Motomiya, even Kari scored more points than you did," taunted Ken leaning over to leer at him. "That's only because I was too busy trying to keep you down!" "'Trying' being the operative word, Goggle-head." Davis sat up and opened his mouth to speak. However, no sound came out because he couldn’t think of anything to say. After a few seconds of thinking, though, he shot back, "Well, at least I have goggles!" Beaming, he pointed to the eyewear he adorned on his head. "And these, I might add, I got from the former leader of the Digidestined himself." Ken snorted. "Tai only gave you those because you were careless enough to break your own." "Well, I wouldn't have broken them in the first place if some wannabe tyrant with his cape on too tight hadn't sent his stupid controlled digimon after me!" Ken straightened, his eyes narrowing and shooting daggers at the boy lying in the grass. When the others didn't hear Ken argue back immediately, they all turned around to see what was going on--and stared in shock at the frosty glare the dark-haired boy was giving to the startled boy below him. He almost looked like…no, it couldn't be. "I think I should start heading home now," Ken seethed in a barely contained voice. "Come on, Wormmon. We're leaving." The little, green digimon hesitantly left the circle of friends and obeyed his partner. Seeing his digimon scurrying after him, Ken picked up his bag and silently walked away. "Grrrr, Davis!" growled Yolei and stood up. Davis blinked innocently at her. "What did I say?" "Argh! Sometimes I think you have a looser tongue than I do." Noticing that Ken was getting farther and farther away, she decided to spare Davis for now and run after the grim boy, Hawkmon not too far behind. "Um, now that Ken's gone," spoke up a grave voice once those four were out of earshot, "I'd like to talk to you guys about he way he's been acting." All eyes turned to the short, flat-haired child who sat at the far end of the group. "About the way he's been acting? Like how, Cody?" inquired Kari, raising an eyebrow. "Well, first of all, I noticed earlier that he was forcing Armadillomon to break the rules so that he could score that second point." "But he told me that it shouldn't matter," gasped the bewildered yellow digimon. "I knew he must have been cheating!" Davis shouted and jumped up. "Settle down, Davis. It's not like you were following the rule book either with that tackle of yours," said T. K. The goggle-wearing boy blushed and quieted down. "Hmmm…but according to Armadillomon, Ken does have a point. I mean, we're all friends, right? And things like that shouldn't get to us," soothed Kari. "If we're such good friends, then why did he cheat?" asked Gatomon. "He could have just wanted to show off," offered Patamon. Cody continued, "And did you guys see that cold look in his eyes? If I didn't know any better, I would have thought he was the Digimon Emperor again." "That's insane!" exclaimed Davis, now defending his best friend. Soccer was one thing, but this was a completely different matter, one he took very seriously. "Ken's been over that for some time now. Just because he wasn't playing fair, for once, and he's in a bad mood doesn't mean he's turned on us." "Yeah, he's probably having a bad day. Someone should give him some candy to cheer him up," Veemon tried to help. Everyone sweatdropped at that last statement. "If it makes you feel any better, Cody, we'll talk to him tomorrow about it, okay?" suggested Kari. "Fine," reluctantly conceded the small boy, "Tomorrow we'll find out the truth, then." ~~~ Meanwhile, Yolei had managed to catch up to Ken in no time. "Hey, Ken, wait up," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder to stop him. In return, she received an icy look from the indigo-eyed boy that nearly made her take a step back. "What do you want, Inuoe?" Yolei's mouth opened in indignation. 'Again on a last name basis? Ooooh no, he isn't going to get away with it this time.' "What's the matter with you?" she snapped. "You know as well as I do that Davis didn't mean what he said; he was just acting like a moron, as usual. It's nothing you should get so ticked off about. And why have you suddenly started calling me by my last name? Was it because of how I acted last night? Well, if it is, I'm sorry, okay? You don't have to become a big jerk over it." Ken's expression darkened. How dare she speak to him like that? He was about to sneer some spiteful remark at her when he checked himself, 'No, I can't loose my temper at her now. It's not time yet for them to discover that their precious Digidestined of Kindness is no longer in control of his body.' Instead, the indigo-haired boy bowed his head and mumbled lowly, "Don't be sorry; I'm the one who should apologize. I haven't been feeling like myself lately." This time, Yolei was taken aback. With the way he had been looking at her, she was expecting him to explode or something. Internally, Ken's dark side smirked. Gazing at the seemingly humbled boy, Yolei started to calm down. "No, it's okay; you don't have to apologize. I completely forgot that you haven't been feeling well." Unwilling to look her in the eye, Ken reached down to pick up a distressed Wormmon and turned to leave. "I guess I'll see you later then," he said in a hollow voice. "Yeah, you too," Yolei replied guiltily. She watched as he slowly marched out of the park and headed for the train station. "My, that went over well," said the bird digimon who had been hovering right behind her the whole time. The Digidestined of Love and Sincerity let out an exasperated sigh. "I don't know what to do Hawkmon. He's never acted like this before. Why does he change so suddenly like that? It's as if I'm talking to two different people every time I meet him now." Her partner digimon shook his head. "I'm afraid I don't have an answer for that, Yolei. How about we get some rest and ask him about it tomorrow?" "I suppose that's the only thing we can do." Yolei tiredly let out another sigh. "Come on, Hawkmon, let's get back to the others." *** Gaia: *comes in and slams the door* G: So, how was school today? Gaia: (shouting) FINE! G: Geez, who put sandpaper on your toilet seat? Gaia: *glares at G, pauses to think, and then smiles* You know, I've been thinking… G: For once. Gaia: Be quiet! I'm trying to reveal an evil plan here. G: Oh, sorry, go ahead. Gaia: Thank you. As I was saying, I've been thinking, and I realized that while Gwen's out there trying to bring Ken back to sanity, you've been sitting around here doing nothing all this time…*grins wickedly* G: Hey, wait! That doesn't sound like an evil plan to me! Gaia: Funny, it does to me. *grins wider* So, I thought that maybe I should give you another job as well. G: O_O!!! I don't like the sound of this…