Palm of My Hand / Part 3 / Fear and Folly Summary: A obsessive devotion blacker then Hell...A beauty unconquered, even by imprisonment and devestation... A love that could break the chains of darkness, and save the world... In a twisted tale of Faith and Falling, the Kaizer will follow the lead of his angel to take the last step into the light... @--\----- The room is lit by sun and warmth when she awakens. Was she dead? Yolei pushed her aching body up off the soft, white bed covers before her. Dear God, she was sore! "H-hawkmon?" She glanced nervously around the room, her panic rising. She had been on a cold granite surface...Then there had been bouncing... A dark silence, shattered by a shout of "Stop!" A hazy fog of bouncing, then...This... She swallowed, her chest constricting as fear set in. She was completely alone. "Miss?" she jerked forward, falling like limp paper in an attempt to hunch herself as small as she could. But the pain was unforgiving. "Miss Yolei?" A paniced glance to te floor and she understood her earlier assumption of solitude to hasty. 'Wormon??" It was the tiny insectoid dgimon that blindly followed Ken Ichijouji through the pits of inner self-hate and despair. "How are you feeling?" Like she thought, blind. "Why do you care!" She placed a hand on her tender midsection. "Go back to Ken! I want to go home!" Despite her best intentions, tears sprung up in her eyes. "I want Hawkmon..." She curled herself in a ball, the green digimon hopping onto the soft bed timidly. "Master...He s-saved you...today..." The girl whimpered, shaking her head. "That monster saves no one..." Wornmon hesistated, wary of the camaras positioned around the room. "Ken, he stopped the e-executioner earlier..." Yolei's eyes widened in terror, she clutched her stomach. "Executioner!" She began to wail, the terror and hopelessnes of her situation sinking in."I'm going to die! I don't want to die!" The Digimon, unaccostomed to such emotional upheavel tilting to the side of pain, trembled. "Please don't cry miss! Master will come!" "So? I-I-I'm so scared I just want to disappear!" Edgy, the green friend nudged her arm. Surprisingly, she threw her arms around him, sobbing onto the green shell of his back. "I don't want to die! Please don't let me die!" The Wormon cringed, but sought to comfort the stricken human. "Ken wouldn't...He won't..." "Stay with me here, please!" The desperation in her voice goaded him, and he felt sadness take over the guilt. "If you need a friend...Well, I need one to..." He stayed with her. "What's 'that' doing with her!" I growl, territorial, low in my throat. That snivelling coward has the gall to touch her! The audacity to-to- -Be near her. I am instantly jealous, as I watch the girl sob into the olive shell of Wormon. "Traitor..." He is, he is...I clench my whip, snapping it edgily along the floor. "Betrayor..." It is inconceivable to me, as to how she has accepted my lacky as a friend in the darkness. I am the darkness in her now. I leave the room, intent on my Lolita. She is not far from the skies, and my heart longs to free her... But I long to cage her within my arms. And save us both... "Master!" The cowardly Wormon jumps upon the floor at my entrance, while the girl lets out a wail and shoves herself backwards, as far from me as possible. It does not hurt. What was I to expect? "Leave us." My growl causes the green creature to stutter needlessly, and my anger rises further. "Leave us! You shall be delt with later!" This brings the frightened girl to her knees, and a flare of her love of life sparks. "No! He hasn't done anything wrong!" Ignoring her, I watch the digimon clatter reluctantly to the portal. This astounds me. That the worthless creature would actually rebel, even so slightly, to carry out my orders/ Witch... Angel... The girl draws in a deep breath, and for a second I believe she will scream. Suddenly and surprisingly, she sobs. This is almost unexpected. That girl from the water would never cry in front of her worst enemy. The girl I've fought in a thousand needless battles would not let me, the digimon kaizer, see this weakness. So she is human after all... I feel...Sadness...churning within my chest, that she would be this frightened of me. I have done nothing to sway her opinion, but I must surely be a monster for her spirit to cower so... "I am not here to hurt you, Yolei Inoue." The words I hear are not my own. They come from an aching, stirring, cave within my soul known to all as a heart. "Then what are y-you here f-for?! W-why am I h-here?!" She is bordering on hysterics, and I notice her amber eyes never leave the strip of leather in my hand. Cursing, I throw the stupid whip to the floor. She raises startled gaze to me, and I see a flicker of hope and longing sparkle in their depth. "I am here t-to...talk to you..." The words are hard to get out. It is as if Ken is flowing through my blood. Reaching for the hands that want to smooth the blue hair, remove the glasses...Regain control of his heart, soul, body and mind... She watches me. Once again wary. "No you're not...You're the Kaizer." I am hurt by this statement. "I am perfection." She looks at me blankly, Silence Reigning. At the blank look upon her face, I begin to feel awkward. She blinks, silence reigns, then giggles. Despite the danger to herself. Despite the hopeless situation before her. Depsite the Kaizer standing in front of her... She giggles. "No-nobody is perfect!" I am astounded that she can laugh at me. Nobody laughs at me. I go to flick my whip, a gesture used almost in self-preservation of the Kaizer...Only to find it gone. So, instead I do what Ken Ichijouji would. I join her in a smile "I-I-I must be mad..." She quiets herself, wary as I slide onto the bed beside her. I want to ease that fear. "Who are you?" The throbbing suffering in my voice reaches her, and she stares at me for a moment, foolishly and beautifully relaxing. "You know who I am! We've met before!" She does not understand me. "Have we?" She tilts her beautiful face, in a gesture she makes her own, pushes her glasses back on her face, and looks 'inside' me. "No...I guess we haven't..." In this room, with her with me...I just want to be Ken again. I just want to be 'me' again... "Why did you kidnap me?" Her question was obviously going to come, and I look away. "Because I wanted you. And I can have anything I want." My ego does not faze her, instead she nods and moves to sit beside me. "But I am not a digimon...Uh, Sorry, I don't know what to call you..." She blushes, refusing to look at me, and I feel odd. My blue eyes search the room, the sunny, laughter filled room for what it should be. I am safe here. I am...allowed...here. "Call me...Ken..." She is surprised, pleasently so, and I am suddenly awestruck by the obvious and resurfacing memory that she once had a crush on me. She wants to believe that I can change...I want to believe that as well. "Okay...I'm not a digimon, Ken...I'm a person, a girl...a person just like you." I think back to the execution, the fear of losing the light she breathes and lives. But I want to be a god. A step above mankind... "Why did 'you' kidnap me." I turn and look at her. She is serious, her honey colored eyes focused solely on my face. It is unnerving and welcome and so much more... "Becaue I-I..." Shaking my head to clear it, I frown. I stand. 'You were standing there!" I gesture with my hands, lost within the memories. "You looked so ethereal and awe inspiring! Not even human! The light and the water! It was like something was tricking my eyes into beleiving the moonlight had been personified! then the others came and I was jealous...So jealous..." My tirade ends and I look at her. She is confused, stunned, and disbeleiving. "I had to have you...Before someone else took you..." I bend, grasping my whip, and she is once again terrified. We stare at one another, both froghtened, before I turn and leave the room. I surprise myself by seeking atonment from the worm. He cowers at my entrance, timid by my feet. It angers me to know I put that fear there. I will not, can not, let this weakness grow! I'm going to lose everything! "Wormon!" My bark rouses him to action, and he jumps across the floor. "Yes, master?" I look down at him, unsure of my footing and afraid of that. "Why did you...Um..." I think back and try to galvanize my thoughts. Why am I angry at this sniviling worm? Because he comforted the prisoner? Because he dared to speak to the girl when I did not? "We need to-I must- I mean..." Spinning on the balls of my feet. I flee his prescence, desperate to escape from everything. My control room is no haven, my conciounce in the form of Wormon sits there. My Bedroom is no safe place, for 'I' am there. My halls are no comfort, for my guilt echos through them. There is no place for me. And so I escape on the back of an Airdramon. Where am I going? Yolei sat staring at the doorway when Ken left. Ken... Why was he doing this? She curled into a ball, totally broken inside. The Kaizer, cruel, demeaning angry, a tormentor, a villan, a manipulator and now a human in her eyes. Ken Ichijouji was in there after all... She absently twirled a strand of purple hair, comforting herself in the silence of the room. Poor Wormon. He must be alright! He hadn't done anything! Biting her lip, she swallowed tears. Had the fight come down to this? Kidnapping team members?? Her head fell forward, and she clutched her knees. She had never wanted this! She had never wanted to be a Digidestined! Just a normal, teenage girl! Her eyes watered, and she spoke to no one. "All I wanted was a normal life! And Here I am with the fate of the world on my shoulders!" Her crying over came her, and she sank to the floor.