Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Digimon Adventure 02
Title: Captive: Chapter 20: Friends
Characters: Ken, Daisuke
Word Count: chapter: 2,130||story: 43,369
Genre: Drama, Friendship||Rated: PG
Notes: This takes place during the Digimon Kaiser arc, after everyone has their second Digimental. This was also written for three what-if challenges: what if the Evil Rings/Spirals could be used to control humans, what if Daisuke were captured by the Digimon Kaiser, and what if Daisuke got lost in the Digital World during one of their trips? It's also my entry for the Summer/Autumn Event 2014 at the Digimon Fanfiction Challenge forum.
Summary: Daisuke knows fun. Being lost in the Digital World and found by his mortal enemy? That is not fun. At all.

A smooth gloved hand going through his hair.

A far too smooth, smug voice whispering words that he did not want to hear.

Himself, staring at the other Chosen, refusing to listen to anything they said. The only voice he wanted to hear the one that gave him orders that he ached to obey, if only because he knew it would please the one who gave them.

Startled eyes, shocked voices, people, his friends, falling backwards as he struck, not caring about how the pain hurt them, but caring far too much about how good it felt to do this in the first place.

The Kaiser's voice, his Master's voice, rising above all, praising him, approving of him, and how good that praise felt, how good Daisuke felt because he'd obeyed those orders, because he'd hurt other people at the Kaiser's command.

What he'd never wanted and what he'd wanted all of his life and never admitted to.

Daisuke's eyes flew open and in the darkness of his bedroom, one hand flew to where the Spiral had rested only a few days earlier. He didn't relax at all until he touched bare skin, and didn't relax completely until he'd checked his entire body.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

He sagged back against the pillows and let out a long sigh. Three days since they'd broken the Spiral on him and every single night, he'd had the same kind of nightmare. The details changed every time, but the point of it was the same thing: he was back with Ken, only the Spiral had complete and utter control of him, and he defeated everyone with abandon, happy to make Ken happy.

Chibimon still rested on his personal pillow, sound asleep. To Daisuke, that at least meant he hadn't been thrashing around. Not like he had the first night, when he'd all but thrown his partner on the floor, and had had to tell some creative lies to keep Jun off his back. The way she stared at him after he'd come back home made him wonder what she knew, or thought she knew. He wasn't going to tell her anything, though. She'd likely find a way to go to the Digital World and read Ken the riot act for what he'd done.

Which wasn't such a bad thing, really, but he didn't want her to go there without some kind of backup, and he hadn't yet gotten himself together enough to face Ken personally.

He knew that he would. He just needed time.

At least Ken seemed kind of inclined to give them that time. He hadn't done much that they'd noticed since their last encounter. He probably was doing things, just things that they couldn't detect right now.

Daisuke kind of wished that Ken had done a little more gloating about his future plans and not so much about how Daisuke was such a good hand rest. At least then what he'd gone through would've been useful instead of just annoying.

He sighed and slipped out of bed, going over to the window. The sights and sounds of the city below hadn't changed. He hadn't expected them to. Two days and a night had made a difference to him, not them.

He picked up his D-Terminal and stared at it for a while. Koushirou and Miyako had both checked it out and as far as they could tell, Ken hadn't done anything to either it or his D-3. Daisuke had no intentions of complaining about that. He knew Ken would've done anything he could to stop them from armor evolving if he could. That had kind of worried him from his early days in the Digital World anyway, once he realized that Ken had taken his D-Terminal and D-3 from him while he'd been unconscious.

Why does he keep bothering me? Was it being the leader? Ken didn't seem quite as eager to send dark looks and make plans for anyone else. He'd do something if they crossed his path, like sending some of his slaves after Hikari-chan when she'd been caught in Andromon's city. But Daisuke? Daisuke he made plans for. Daisuke he watched for.

He shook his head. Ken would probably chalk it up to just Daisuke being annoying. He probably wasn't the only one. Daisuke didn't deny that he was annoying and he would keep on being so. He hadn't yet seen any reason for him to stop.

Right now he just needed the time to recharge his annoying batteries. His lips twitched just a bit at the thought of that. I wonder what I would do to recharge them. Taking a small break seemed to be the only thing he could think of. If it worked, he wouldn't argue about it.

School hadn't changed at all. With help from the others, he'd made certain he had his assignments done, at least as much as he usually did them. Thankfully he hadn't missed practice. That would've been impossible to try to explain, what with being team captain and everything.

He leaned his head back some, eyes half-closed, only somewhat looking at the D-Terminal now. It was too late for anyone to be awake, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to talk to anyone anyway. At least not any of his teammates.

Yeah, who else would I talk to?

Images from his dream flickered into his mind and he shook his head as hard as he could. No. Under no circumstances would he talk to Ken about this. What would he even say? 'Hey, I'm having some nightmares about what you did to me. Got any advice?'

He knew what Ken would say. Maybe you should come back and be my hand rest again. You seemed to enjoy it well enough.

Daisuke's stomach churned, but after the last couple of days, he had enough practice to clamp down on it before anything happened. That's not gonna happen. He wasn't sure if he meant just talking to Ken or going back there, but either way, it wouldn't happen at all.

Stubborn determination in every line of himself, he headed back to his bed and curled up. No matter what, he wasn't going to let Ken get to him. He'd fought as hard as he could while he'd had that Ring and Spiral on. He wasn't going to stop fighting Ken's influence just because he wasn't wearing one anymore. He was going to do what he wanted, which meant right now? He was going to sleep.

And Ken could just deal with it.

Another day, another trip to the Digital World, taking down more of those towers. Daisuke didn't think he could ever get enough of doing that. The more they destroyed, the less rule Ken had over the Digital World. The less rule that he had, the more he would be annoyed, and then he'd come out and they could do something more permanent about him.

Exactly what they could do when even Daisuke didn't have any idea of where his base was, no one had yet figured out. All Daisuke himself could remember was that it was big, dark, crisply metallic, and filled with way more Digimon than he'd ever seen before. As hard as he tried, he couldn't remember every detail of what happened to him, and he had to admit he was kind of glad about that.

"How many more are we getting rid of?" Hikari asked. "That was the fifth one today, wasn't it?"

Daisuke nodded fiercely. With every tower they destroyed, he could feel just a little bit more satisfaction in his life. "I think we can get in two more if we try?" It was getting a little close to time to go home, but he liked the idea of blowing up seven towers in one day.

Takeru and Pegasumon landed a short distance away. "What do you say we try for three?" There was a definite gleam of challenge in his eyes and Daisuke returned it.

"Just you watch, we'll get another four in!" If Takeru wanted to up the ante, then Daisuke would be more than willing to go along with it.

A low, dark laugh echoed around without warning. Daisuke's breath caught in his throat and he shifted toward FlaDramon, whose head came up, searching until he spied the source of it.

A row of Tyrannomon stood far too close, and seated on the one in the lead stood the Digimon Kaiser himself.

"You are all becoming too much of a nuisance. I would think you'd learned better not to challenge me, knowing how easily I can take any of you down."

For the last few days, the very thought of the Kaiser made Daisuke's heart clench with anger and the cold sweat of rage sprang up down his spine. Seeing him here and now, however, Daisuke jerked himself forward.

"Funny, I don't feel all that 'taken down'. More like wanting to take you down!"

The Kaiser waved one hand. "That won't happen. You can rest assured, however, that I have no interest in putting a Spiral on any of you again. I don't think any of you are worth the trouble. But I do think you'd understand that I could if I wanted to, so that means you're only playing this game because I let you. That means I've already won."

Daisuke still didn't understand what Ken meant by 'game', because this wasn't one. He kind of wished at times that he'd been able to talk to him about that when he'd been in the fortress, but he'd been more worried about everything else than about Ken's personal fantasies.

"Not a chance," Daisuke said with a quick shake of his head. "We're still here, we're still fighting you, and we'd do it no matter what. You haven't done a thing to make us stop and you never will."

Between Ken's fingers there suddenly gleamed an Evil Spiral. Just looking at it spiked the rage in Daisuke even higher and he took a step forward.

He might've kept on going, if Takeru's hand hadn't landed on his shoulder. He threw a quick glance behind him in time to see the blond shake his own head.

Daisuke really, really wanted to throw Takeru's hand off and go charging up there toward Ken. He'd taken him down once before and he knew he could do it again.

"He's just trying to mess with your head," Takeru told him, keeping his voice pitched low so Ken couldn't hear him. "That's the real game."

Daisuke dragged in air and turned back toward Ken. He still wanted to punch the other's face in. Maybe a couple of times if he got lucky. But he wasn't going to play Ken's games. He'd had enough of that already.

Before he could say a word, Ken spoke up again. "I'd think that you'd at least want some revenge for what I did to you. Did you tell them how good of a hand rest you make? I think you liked it, didn't you?" Ken's lips curved into that familiar sly smile of his. "In fact, why don't we get their opinion on the matter?"

Images suddenly burst into life in between Ken and the Chosen, images of the interior of his fortress. Daisuke recognized it as the main control room, where Ken spent most of his time staring at all of those monitors. And in this image, Daisuke knelt next to him, eyes blank, providing a place for Ken to rest his free hand.

"Doesn't he look as if he's having such a good time? I know I was."

The images faded away, but not before everyone had a very good look at them. Daisuke's shoulders tensed. He could almost feel the way Miyako and Iori stared at him, the sympathy in Hikari's gaze, he didn't even know what to call it for Takeru…

"Come on. We've got about half an hour left. Want to see who can destroy more spires first?" Takeru spoke up. "I'm not all that interested in Ken's home movies, are any of you?"

Iori answered first. "Not really. They look kind of dull. He's just sitting there."

"Yeah, he doesn't even have any good movies!" Miyako joined in. Hikari nodded her own agreement.

"I think we can all find something better to watch," she added. "Who wants to come over for movies at my place after we're done here?"

Daisuke glanced from one of them to the other and began to smile. "Sounds like a good idea to me." He turned his back on the Kaiser and started off with his friends, ignoring the gnashing of teeth that came from behind them. "Sorry, Ken," he said, not even looking back. "You're not invited."

The End

Note: Wow, I actually finished this. It's going to be strange not updating this on alternating Fridays, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I hope that you enjoyed reading it. Before anyone asks, I have no sequels in mind at the moment. But I do have plenty of other fanfics I will be writing. So I hope you like those!