Mortusmon's Beggining

Matt was talking to Gabumon as they walked down the path.

"So, where exactly are we headed?," Gabumon asked.

"I'm not sure. But we shouldn't ask Tai - he looks tired."

"Good idea."

Matt shut his eyes. He could clearly remember the incidents back at the temple. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the black rose that he had taken from the snake's mouth and looked at it.

It seemed to glitter as he walked down the path.....

Sleep had engulfed all sixteen of the children and Digimon. They lay fast asleep.....

"All the better to catch them.......but.........nah. I STILL think that catching them, one by one while they're walking is so much more of a good deal."

"Yes, sir."

"Indeed, sir."

A large, red lizard with more human-shaped arms was gripping onto a branch tightly. On either side of him, there were two black lizards, exactly like him, only they were a tiny bit smaller, and one of them had spikes going from the back of his head to his tailtip. He looked closer at the children.

"Which one to start out with......what's your opinions?"

"Well, sir, my opinion is that you capture the one with the brown hair first. The little one, I mean."

"My opinion is better, Tonitrusmon. I think that you should take the larger one with the red hair. The girl."

"How can you even say that?! Haven't you seen the power of the little ones, Fulmenmon?" The two continued to quarrel, quietly though, so as to not wake the children.

"Shut up, you two." Tonitrusmon and Fulmenmon stopped talking in a nanosecond. "I am going to take the one with the blonde hair first. The larger male." All three looked at Matt.

"Sir! Obscurusmon! Why do you want that one?! Surely one of the others would be better!," Obscurusmon's two henchmen said in shock. However, the leader had his desicion made.

"I'm going to take that one. He's strong, powerful, works well with his crest, can get his Digimon to Mega level, and has the personality and attitude of a block of ice. I'm going to use him. Master would be so very pleased......"

Tonitrusmon and Fulmenmon looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.

When Matt was awakened by Biyomon's shrill calling. He opened his eyes slowly and groaned as he got up.

"Come on, Biyomon, I'm still hurting from that lousy snake!" A startled crunching in the trees above them made him jump.

"What was that?," Patamon asked.

"I'll go check it out," Tentomon said. He didn't see anything, though.

After eating their shares of fish and fruit, the kids and their Digimon headed off down the sturdy pathway.

.....or was it sturdy?

One hour...exactly one hour into walking down the road, Matt felt two hands with claws for fingers wrap around his mouth and drag him backwards. Another claw-hand grabbed one arm, and another grabbed his other arm. He yelled. Muffled, though, but enough to make Gabumon and the others turn around.

"Matt!," yelled Tai as he ran toward his being-captured companion. Suddenly, a black lizard-like creature jumped in front of Matt.

"Stay back!," it cried, breaing it's sharp, pointed teeth.

Agumon warp-Digivolved into WarGreymon and used Terra Force on the lizard.

It dodged it.

And suddenly, Matt found himself being dragged into the forest. Followed by the black lizard.

Five minutes later, Matt was thrown into a tiny cell inside of a building by three lizards - one red and two black. The door slammed shut and locked. Matt threw himelf against the door and pounded on it with all his might, but it did not open. He slid down the door and onto the cold, hard, steel floor. He let a few tears roll silently down his cheeks and fell into a dazed sleep.

"Wake up!" Matt opened his eyes quickly. He saw the clawed feet of one of the lizard creatures that had captured him. He slowly pulled himself up and was kicked in the stomach.

"Hurry it up. Obscurusmon's patentince is growing thin, and so is the master's." Two black lizards, who later introduced themselves to be Tonitrusmon and Fulmenmon, dragged Matt down the hall and into a small room. A labrotory. How could Matt tell that? Well...

There was machinery and stuff that you would normally find in a lab was sitting and standing on tables and other platforms. Matt walked in a little ways and looked at some of the stuff that was lying around. Then he saw a very large tube that was connected to the floor and the ceiling. It was big enough to hold him.

It was perfectly round and had no ends until it flatly reached the ceiling and the floor. And those little pads on the ceiling and floor had square holes in them.

As he was examining the open door to the tube, he suddenly felt two clawed hands push him into the tube and lock the door behind him. He whipped around and saw a red lizard like the black ones who had waken him up standing on the other side of the door. Matt glared at it and slammed on the door, but it wouldn't crack. The lizard laughed.

"You won't be getting out of there anytime soon," it said, smiling a toothy smile. "This is unbreakable. And now, let me get master.....oh yes. I'm Obscurusmon, if you didn't already know." The Obscurusmon trekked out of the room with Matt punching the walls.

Dang it!! Why'd this have to happen to me?! I didn't do anything wrong...did I? But now I'm trapped in a lab with a bunch of deranged lizards....

"Well, are you sure that this is one is worth testing on, my Digimon?," said an unfamiliar voice.

"That's him, Mortusmon. I'm sure of it. It's only one of eight, though sir."

"Oh well. It's fine, just as long as he's strong."

"He is, he is!" Obscurusmon came into the room, followed by a figure about Matt's size. Also rather human. In fact, he was human.

Mortusmon was a human just from the way he looked. He had regular human skin and body format. He had black hair that was aimed straight back and gelled in place. His eyes were the same blue as Matt's and ice cold. He was wearing a rather torn up t-shirt that was plain green and blue jeans with holes in the knees. His shoes were beaten, browned sneakers. When he saw Matt, he smiled.

Matt glared at Mortusmon.

"You're not a Digimon." Mortusmon glanced at Obscurusmon and the red lizard scattered out of the room rather quickly. Mortusmon sighed as soon as the creature left.

"You're right - I'm no Digimon. But in order to take the place I did, I had to say that I was a Digimon, seeing as I have........powers. Known as Mortusmon, I can easily take the minds of the Digimon I have under my command and make them fear me."

"You're sick." Mortusmon raised his eyebrows and smiled.

"So maybe I am. But..."

"But what?"

"I was searching out humans - you and the other Digidestined, in obvious - to test on. To see what changes have been made on you." Matt was horrified.

"What? Changes?" Mortusmon shut his eyes.

"I've been here 3,000 years, Matt. In the Digiworld, you get older, but you never look older. I came with four..........friends, but they're all dead. And I want to see what changes they made on you guys. I see that the tag, crest, and Digivice are a change."

"What kind of tests do you plan to run?," Matt asked with caution as he pressed his hands against the walls of the tube. Mortusmon smiled darkly.

"Like this." He pressed a button on one of the control panels.

Matt's tube-cage began to fill with a strange liquid. He looked at it, suprised. The liquid started to get higher, but he didn't feel like he was getting wet.

The liquid made it's way up to Matt's waist. He started to get nervous then.

"What is this stuff?," he asked Mortusmon.

"I'm not totally sure, but for all I know, it's a perservation liquid." The cold human watched Matt with malicious glee as the liquid came up to his shoulders. Matt tried to lift himself up to continue getting air, but the liquid made it's way up his neck.

He lifted his head for one last breath.......and held it.

The liquid reached the top of the tube.

Mortusmon laughed.

"You see? You can't breath now, can you." Matt glared at the kid. But Mortusmon was right - soon, he would need to let go of his breath.

And that happened two seconds later.

Matt let go of his breath and couldn't take another one. He gasped for the air, but none came. He was dying - drowning.

His vision faded, and he fell into unconciousness.......

Matt woke.

At first, all that he could see was the clear green liquid that enveloped him. And then he saw the thin tube that led from his breathing mask to the top of the tube-cage he was in.

I'm...........alive.

"How did you -"

"I told you, Matt, I have powers," Mortusmon said before Matt could finish. "I was able to do that to you before you drowned. Of course I can't experiment on a dead specimen......" Matt shut his eyes and leaned backwards. He was floating more in the water now than standing on the bottom. He sighed.

"Is any of this going to hurt?" Mortusmon raised an eyebrow.

"Of course it will, you idiot. What else did you think?" Matt gulped as a needle came out from the side. It sort of formed from the glass, very quickly, very strangly. Matt backed up, but the needle came out and found it's way into the vein of his right wrist. It dug in and took a blood sample quite painfully. Matt yelped.

"Geeze!!"

"I told you it was going to hurt." Mortusmon took the sample of blood that he had drawn from Matt and called in a few of his lizard henchmen to start to work on that sample. Meanwhile, he turned to Matt.

"How many tests are you going to run?," Matt asked.

"I'm not sure. But alot." Matt sighed and shut his eyes.

I don't want to go through with this...

Three days.

As come from his thoughts, Matt had been locked in the lab for three days. Test beyond test had been run on him by Mortusmon and now he was covered in bruises from head to toe. He had a few cuts, but the preservation liquid he was in healed them faster than most blood cells. He wondered where the other kids were. Dead? Locked up in another part of the lab? Searching for him? Who knew? Mortusmon walked in the door at that time.

"Pondering the meaning of your existence?," the boy said with a hint of laughter in his voice. Matt narrowed his eyes and did not answer. Mortusmon smiled. "Well, I think that you'll be happy to hear that in exactly one day, you will be joined by your friends."

"What?!"

"I'm not going to capture them. They know where I am. They just have to take a day to get here. And as soon as they do, I trap them. Easily....."

"Don't trail off. Tell me what you have to say, sicko." Mortusmon glared coldly at Matt, about the equal strength of the cage walls.

"Better weaken the strong with greif. However, I'd rather go for the whole deal first, instead of what some want to do." Matt punched the wall.

"And what tests are you going to run on me today?"

"Only one."

"That's a relief."

"One mortifying, excruciatingly painful test."

"Oh." Matt gulped and sank to the bottom of the tube.

Unknown to him, as he rose, a set of 15 needles was coming from the back of the tube and headed for him.....

Something - no, many things - suddenly pricked into his back. At first, he thought nothing of them. That was, until he found out that it was the needles wedging their way into his spine rather quickly........and excruciatingly painfully.

Matt yelled out and tried to yank the needles out of his back, but they were firmly in there. He was going numb. His vision blurred. His arms and legs became immoble. And he felt rather tired.........but he didn't fall asleep. But he felt the pain.

And yet, he couldn't scream.

From the other side of the cage, Mortusmon watched Matt with a sly smile set on his face.

The injections that came from the needles made their way throughout Matt's whole body. They made his blood go cold, his brain call back memories from his past, painful memories....

"I'm saying it now, Nancy, we need a divorce."

"You?," Matt asked Mortusmon as he opened his eyes quite suddenly. The kid jumped.

".....Yes. That last memory was mine.......that was part of the test. Seeing how well I could transfer my own painful past into your mind......" Matt saw the sun was rising in the window across the room. His back was a bit stiff, but that was it.

Soon, real soon, the others will come to save me...or at least try.

The door to the lab burst open. And when the kids saw Matt locked up in the third tube from the right, they all ran to the cage and tried to get in but failed.

"Matt!! Are you ok, buddy?," asked Tai and Gabumon at the exact same time.

"I'm fine....just get me out of here! But be careful. Watch out for -"

"Mortusmon," said Mortusmon as he blasted open the door. All fifteen of the visitors turned around and prepared to fight the human-Digimon thing. But he only smiled, and with a quick movement of his hand, eight lizards had swiftly snatched the Digimon away from the room. And seven others had appeared.

"Lock them up."

With Mortusmon's simple command, the lizards darted forward and each grabbed one of the children and threw them into a test tube, which soon filled with the preservation liquid, only they got their breathing masks ahead of time.

Matt shut his eyes to keep out the tears, but they still streaked down his face.

I failed them......