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Chapter 14 - I Need You Do Me A[n Evil] Favor

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It was grinning at her. Its teeth are sharp, jagged like a shark. Like a zipper. A single red eye poked out. The unnatural and uncanny movement caused Patamon to squirm. It isn't how mouths work. They didn't work that way. Just a mouth, the rest obscured through the darkness of the mirror.

"MMMmmmmmmmmmmmmm" The creature said, the very humm of the voice causing her to tremble.

She'd braced herself, and managed to steel herself, by grabbing tighter onto the digivice in her hand. Maddie was strong enough.

"You again," It said.

"I've never met you!" She'd said.

"I guess not," the creature said. "I have a hard time remembering each and every chosen one."

It smiled.

"Can't… Breathe" Patamon gasped when she loosened her grip.

"Yeah yeah yeah" the monster said. "Beggars can't be choosers, it seems."

The creature's head swung side to side, as if the eye and teeth were attached to cloth blowing in the wind.

"You're…" Maddie let out, her voice trailing off.

"Mmmm" The voice responded. "You would be welcome to my generous hospitality," the monster in the mirror said, ominously. "The overstrung restive, hungry, tired in the mirror world fair not well, you find no solace with me."

"What did you do to Maddie! She's not herself!"

"Hmmm… farbeit from me to find one so many times that one lacks in the most basic bits of introspection. Suspect that the little angel child knows what is wrong with his partner."

"You did something! I know you did! I can feel your evil, lonely vibes coming from the mirror!"

The creature stepped forward, the figure coming more into focus. A black and red paper doll, more teeth, closed eyes adorning it stepped closer.

"Eternal consumption cares not for corruption. Desires of destruction, yes. Corruption matters not."

Maddie clenched her fist, finally getting her composure. What she didn't do was defend herself from Patamon's side accusation.

"So what? You're saying I did THIS to myself? I worked myself up into delusion to look into the mirror? For what? You're a liar!" She said, accusing him, though her voice faltered on the last word.

"What I say is no lie. Lie? I lie not. The truth. The truth is what I hold. The truth, with no barriers. The truth in a flat plane with no shadows. The deep truths that everyone sees but notices not. The truth that one day, every being dies. The truths that Everyone knows but cannot internalize. The truth that comes only from a hunger that cannot be sated. The truth that comes with desperation and isolation. Truths that eat at the foundations of your realities."

"Then you are evil!" Maddie said.

The creature paused for a split second. It wasn't long, but it was just barely enough that she noticed its unnatural gait. Invisible hips. The gait of a doll made of cloth.

"The overstrung one speaks the ancient truths."

"And because you're evil, you can't tell the truth." She was getting more confident in her assertion. Evil and darkness. They're lies, liars. They exist in the dark where you can't see. They do their evil under the cover of darkness.

"The cover of darkness hides many things, however, you seem to be smart enough to realize the truths on your own. The patamon below you already knows, and yet you heed not his thoughts. MMmmmmm" her bones rattled again, the world turning into a momentary artifacted sepia before returning to the more banal greys and blacks of the castle and the fog of the mirror before her.

"It doesn't matter anyway, is what you were about to say," Maddie said.

"Perceptive. The starving one is more impressive than her many first impressions suggest."

"Because Nullrenamon is going to destroy the world."

"Harmony, Homeostasis. Yggdrasil, the great tree, the server of balance. The Reaper sitting under the digital world. Barely held at bay. My Chosen. Will she end the world? Does your world even wish to continue its own existence?"

"Of course it does!" she said, zero hesitation.

The voice in the mirror just laughed.

Madelyn frowned.

It laughed more.

Then, she started feeling a little silly.

And laughed.

And she let out a single laugh.

The creature, the single eye-turned-vertical, narrowed, turning serious.

"You know who I am, you know what I do," it said.

"I've… never met you," she said.

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"Mmmm…" it said again, as if in thought. But she felt it, both her and patamon knew it wasn't really considering what it was going to say or do next. And yet she waited anyway, a feeling, a gut reaction in her heart, held her in place. Was it this creature's power? The power of the mirror?

"All who look into the mirror go mad," it stated, as if considering its thought. "And yet…"

"And yet what?" She demanded "I know you're just acting," she said, finding enough courage in her own ideals, the keystone of her armor as the one on the team partnered with the angel.

The creature shrugged again. "And yet I perform no lie, no deception, take no force, nor any other means of exerting my will on you."

"You made her look at the mirror! You're a liar!" Patamon said.

"The ever-loyal Patamon. Predictable. I care not for those who are not my chosen one." It was smirking.

She did this? Madelyn did this? She was responsible for her own actions? That was silly.

No, she was responsible for her actions. She had chosen to look at the mirror. She had known, felt that there was some key bit of information that was important for the sake of the future of the world, here.

She was responsible for her own actions, She knew the risks, and she took it. Like a responsible, sensible—

"Hungry, Stressed, Tired. Carrying the world on your shoulders. Trying to mitigate damage from those you decided were diverging from the True path. Unaware of how much stress you have lashed upon your back from the metaphysic. Then your server, your senses and experience exhibit a series of faults, and now, here you are."

"Why don't you stop being cryptic! Speak clearly! Like a normal person!"

"Fine," the creature said. "I will deliver a series of plain truths."

"How will we know if you're not lying! You're clearly evil!"

"It's okay, Patamon." Maddie said, coming to herself. "They're partially right—I am hungry, tired, and stressed. But the rest of that comes with being a chosen child. When we paired up together, we didn't know that, but I'm happy we're together." She smiled at him, holding him up to face her. "But truth can't be evil. Light is truth, Truth is light, and only lies sit in darkness, warping and obscuring the truth."

The creature's facial expressions hadn't changed or shifted from what she had said.

"Truth Number One: You and your compatriots are the backup of the backup plan. Afterthoughts. You were never supposed to have been chosen."

Madelyn frowned. They all got along with their partners. They'd all taken down enemies that were stronger than them at one point or another. Everyone had done it. They were never supposed to have met their partner digimon?

More than that, the trembling effect, whatever the creature had been causing on her, had disappeared. So there was something that was happening that it was doing.

"Truth Number Two: The Digital World is half the size it should be, with even less living digimon within. The ones who came before you all failed."

"Truth Number Three: The Others watching your world are not planning for your success, and have ordered a Full Reboot of both worlds"

She waved her hands, dismissing its points. "Let's say I find out that even one of those points were true. Then what? What am I—" Patamon's ear twitched in annoyance " —we supposed to do for you? I'm not just going to sit around and do nothing, and we'll never stop fighting for what's right."

"You already know what I said was true. You've heard it all before. Your ears were not open, your eyes did not see. Forgotten time, and time again. You know what I want. You know I do not lie."

Could she trust it? No, obviously not. But the truth was light. And light illuminated. It expanded knowledge and lit new paths forward. But still. It was speaking in riddles again. And her own thoughts were clear now. Doing nothing? Obviously, it was doing something before.

What, exactly, she didn't know.

"I offer another, yet deeper truth and reward. A truth and reward in exchange for a small favor. And—" it said "—in reward," the creature said, drawing out the last word, as the obscuring mist and even the dark void beyond shifted. Ever-so-slightly, a misshapen, wrong hand, also made up of teeth, almost like a zipper, with a myriad of eyes adorning the arm.

In its hand—

In its hand—

Was a cookie.

…

…

"Uhm,"

Patamon was the first to break the silence.

"That's just a cookie."

Madelyn cackled.

And cackled for a minute straight she laughed and laughed and laughed. Tears came out of the corner of her eyes.

The figure held its position.

"You know what?" She said.

"Maddie no—"

"Maddie yes!" She said, "that's just the exact thing I needed." All that stress, all that trepidation for a dang cookie! "Fine, we'll do your stupid little errand, but I want the cookie first."

The creature smiled, and a portal opened above them, and a cookie fell out. Maddie caught it in her hand. Generic chocolate chip.

Patamon huffed. He was being sidelined yet again, but he turned to the positive side for a moment. The cookie smelled pretty good to him.

Maddie sniffed the cookie, then inspected it. It smelled all right. She broke a crumb off. Seemed fine. She took a bite. Yeah, regular chocolate chip, and by the time she finished the cookie, the extra sugar was starting to hit and she was already feeling a bit better.

Hm.

It was probably a good idea to eat more than one meal a day.

Patamon was just glad the entire interaction was going to be over really soon, at least.

"Take the hooded cloak in the closet and give it to Nullrenamon. Do not lose it."

"What, is it some designer cloak?" Madelyn said.

"Maddie!" Patamon whined.

"It doesn't matter," the many-toothed doll-looking creature said. "The cloak will find its way to her of its own accord, however if you wish to know a truth that will further your own journey, then deliver it."

She agreed, and the conversation ended and they both breathed a sigh of relief when the being in the mirror faded out.

"Yeah Patamon, it's probably evil but I promised," she told him.

He was not happy, but did not leave her side. "We're a team, Maddie! We need to do things together!" he complained. And, he was right. She shouldn't have overrode him. They hadn't had these issues in the past, so why then?

"I'm sorry, Patamon, I don't know what came over me…"

"Well, eat the food I brought! I found a kitchen and they had a fridge and a bunch of fruits and veggies!"

She walked over to the door with him and pulled up the little bag he'd used. It wasn't a lot of food, but with a couple apples and a banana in her, she was already feeling better.

"So," she said. She fully planned on keeping her word.

"The mirror?"

"The mirror." But giving her word didn't mean she was going to let a monster like that have a free window into their world.

"Break it?"

She nodded, and Patamon became Angemon, and the mirror was ground to dust and turned into data.

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