EPISODE 49 - CONTRIBUTE TO THE CHAOS
The city was lonely when there was nothing to break the silence.
Most cities always had something going on, even in the middle of the night; cars rushing past, people walking by, businesses with their neon signs advertising their wares, lights in the distance indicating that some people were still awake, even in the late hour. Cities never really felt quiet, or if they did they certainly didn’t feel dead.
But that was how this city felt right now, and it unnerved Ezra in a way he couldn’t place.
Well. He could place it. Place it on the world-ending angel that floated out over the ocean, doing nothing and saying nothing yet still casting the world - especially the city - in a dark stillness. That angel was the reason the city felt so lonely and empty. That angel was the reason Ezra currently stood in the middle of a road, staring out at it, making sure it wasn’t going to come any closer or do anything else.
Ezra hated that damn angel.
He and Ember were standing watch at the moment, having taken over the most recent shift from Harmony and Ren. It was a good few blocks away from the mini encampment they’d made for themselves after the most recent battle; far enough away that there was nobody else around except for each other, and that if Ezra wanted to talk to anybody he’d have to call them on his digivice, which wasn’t really the same as talking to them in person.
Ember wasn’t in much of a mood to speak at the moment. He was sort of standing off on his own, keeping his own watch over Ordinemon and occasionally pacing back and forth, fiery tail lashing behind him as he furrowed his brow and muttered to himself. Every so often he’d glance over at Ezra, and if Ezra was looking at him they’d make eye contact and nod and maybe wave to each other, but they weren’t talking.
Because what was there to say?
At the very least, Ordinemon wasn’t really… doing anything. That was both relieving and worrying. It was a good sign(…? Hopefully?) that he was still out there and hadn’t tried to come back and kill them all (yet), but… what was he doing out there? Ezra really doubted he was admiring the scenery of the ocean, and he also doubted that his miasma was doing anything to the water. Didn’t he want to destroy the world? How could he do that if the ocean was just absorbing his feathers rather than dissipating?
Yes, Azure’s theory that he wasn’t yet powerful enough to destroy the world held merit, but he’d been really intent on trying to kill them or fight them or whatever all the way up until they’d driven him out over the water. Why was he only now doing nothing?
Was he waiting for something? And if so… what?
Not to mention everything with Elijah…
They had known for weeks now that Ordinemon once had a partner. Ezra had had a feeling that said partner was still alive, because if they weren’t that was a whole other can of worms he didn’t really want to open, but he hadn’t expected that partner to actually show up. Much less want anything to do with what was going on.
If Quinn was to be believed, then Macy - whoever she was - seemed vehemently opposed to dealing with Digimon anymore. So why wasn’t Elijah?
Was it because of his digivice?
He still hadn’t told anyone what had happened to it, or if it had anything to do with why Ordinemon was who he was now. He’d been dodging their questions whenever he could, and whenever he couldn’t, he’d only give vague answers, just enough to satisfy them but not really provide any helpful information. He was obviously avoiding the topic, and it was kind of driving Ezra mad. He couldn’t hide forever. They were going to find out sooner or later. It would be better if they could find it out directly from Elijah himself.
He’d tried to kill Ordinemon - that was what he’d told them, when they’d all been gathered together on the beach, watching the fight with Ordinemon over the ocean. That was all he’d said. That he had killed his partner and now his partner was going to kill him. Quinn had immediately shot it down, saying they weren’t going to let Ordinemon hurt him, but Elijah had seemed… unsure. Unconvinced, maybe.
Had Elijah destroyed his digivice? Is that how Ordinemon - or, Pallas, back then - had been killed? They still didn’t know what, exactly, would happen if a digivice was to be destroyed or even just damaged; their digivices were seemingly indestructible, but Elijah’s proved that they hadn’t always been.
The image of Astamon bringing his foot down on Ezra’s digivice flashed in his mind, and he suddenly felt nauseous. Was that why he’d…?
…What would have happened if he’d succeeded?
(Yet another thing Ezra didn’t want to think about.)
Elijah had said he wanted to do something to help. Ezra still didn’t know what he meant, or what he was thinking of doing. How could he possibly help them without a partner that wasn’t the Digimon they were fighting against?
Or… did he mean he wanted to help Ordinemon?
But there was no way he’d be able to change Ordinemon’s mind. Not with how much the angel seemed to hate - no, loathe him. As soon as they’d asked about his partner when they’d first met him, he’d snapped, and that had been the inciting moment of the fight. He’d told them not to speak of him.
And now he was here, and Ordinemon had tried to kill him, and would likely try again if he saw him with the group.
Even if Elijah could talk Ordinemon out of it and change his mind, it wouldn’t undo any of the hurt that he had done or any of the damage he had dealt.
“Any movement yet?”
It probably said something about Ezra’s state of mind that Alex’s wonderfully abrupt greeting didn’t even achieve its intention of startling him. He just shook his head in response and turned to face his boyfriend as he approached, limping slightly as he walked. He’d said that his leg was feeling fine, but… he was struggling quite obviously. If it was any other situation, any other Digimon that had given him the injury, Ezra might have laughed and poked fun at him for trying to act all macho and cool about it while he was hobbling around like that, but he didn’t.
He reached out to grab Alex’s shoulders when he came to a stop, supporting him as Alex lifted his leg to rub at his wound. He immediately set it back on the ground, putting all his weight into it, and Ezra frowned.
Alex caught his expression and cracked a small smile. “Gotta keep the pressure on it. Won’t get any better if I let it weaken entirely. And it does feel fine. Trust me.”
“Take it easy,” Ezra said anyway, and Alex rolled his eyes as he placed his head on Ezra’s shoulder. Ezra huffed in disapproval but reached a hand up to ruffle through his hair.
They stood there for a couple minutes, staring out at the thin strip of shoreline they could see through the buildings up ahead. Ezra couldn’t deny that he immediately felt a lot better about, well, literally everything. Maybe because it was Alex in particular. Maybe it was just that familiar comfort of having someone next to him, leaning on him, looking to him for support.
He hoped Anna was sleeping well.
“I talked to Elijah a bit ago.”
Ezra hummed in response, twirling a finger around a strand of Alex’s hair. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. With Castor. Trying to figure out what the fuck’s been going on with him.” He sighed and kicked his (non-injured) foot against the ground, sending a couple pebbles flying. “Big surprise: evasive as always. Still hasn’t told us why his digivice is broken or how he killed Ordinemon or literally anything of use. I think he’s the most frustrating person I’ve ever spoken to.”
“Wow, that’s saying a lot,” Ezra said, “because you’ve spoken to Damien a bunch over the past few months.”
Alex snorted a laugh. “I feel like you haven’t really had a proper conversation with him, though. Or at least, tried to. Ours didn’t really go very well. Obviously. Which is why I am now here to complain at you.”
“Please, go on.”
“I mean, that’s sort of the extent of what he told me. Which is to say, whole lotta nothing. Talked a lot about how he was really proud of us for fighting, which like, okay, flattery isn’t going to get you off the hook, but whatever. I think Castor did a better job at getting info out of him, but again, it wasn’t much. Found out more from Miguel afterwards than from Elijah himself.”
Ezra raised an eyebrow. “Miguel?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, scratching his cheek. “He came up to us after we walked away and said they talked with Elijah earlier, too. He - Flip - thinks Elijah destroyed his digivice intentionally. Because he was scared. And that maybe that’s what killed Ordinemon.”
“Scared of what?”
“Fuck if I know. He mentioned someone called Cherubimon, but Miguel isn’t sure if that’s who he was scared of. It might be a what rather than a who.” Alex groaned and finally took his head off Ezra’s shoulder, but kept some of his weight leaning on his body. “And then Quinn came up to me and was like, ‘hey yeah Elijah’s being really annoying but I think I know a little bit and I have a theory but nothing really solid yet so just hold tight while I figure it out.’ So now she’s being annoying too.”
“A little less annoying than Elijah, though,” Ezra mumbled.
“Still annoying. Everyone’s being annoying.” Alex sighed again and shook his head out, giving Ezra a very strained and exhausted look. “Been having a really great night tonight, if you can’t tell.”
“Mm,” Ezra said noncommittally, half in sympathy and half in agreement. Alex went silent for a couple moments, enough that Ezra thought he was done speaking, until he finally stood up on his own and turned to face Ezra head-on.
He raised one eyebrow and tilted his head slightly at him. “What about you?”
Ezra blinked, a bit confused (and also still exhausted, to be honest). “Huh?”
“What’s been going on with you tonight. Or over the past few days altogether. We haven’t really had the chance to chat.”
Yeah, and no prizes for guessing why. Ezra bit his lip and averted his gaze, giving a halfhearted shrug. He opened his mouth, about to brush Alex off with an “I don’t know” or “it’s no big deal” or something similar, but instead he heaved a long, labored sigh and let his shoulders slump slightly as tension settled over them.
“…Kind of a lot,” he said, actually giving a truthful answer to the question for quite possibly the first time in his life. He raised a hand to his mouth to bite at his knuckle, and Alex reached over to gently take it within his own, holding it while he patiently awaited elaboration.
There wasn’t really any backing out now.
“…You know that Anna and I had a big talk the other day,” he started slowly, cautiously. Alex nodded, concern overtaking his gaze, and Ezra tried to ignore it. “Um. I don’t really want to go into details. But it was… a lot. A lot of stuff that we’re going to have to talk to our parents about. Which I’m really not looking forward to. But… I finally know a little bit more about… why she is the way she is.”
Even if he’d been willing to tell Alex about what Anna had told him - about their older sister Mabel, who had lived for no longer than a year before passing - he wouldn’t really know where to begin. He wasn’t even sure how he himself felt about it. It was a big missing jigsaw piece he’d been struggling over for years - what had happened to Anna all those years ago, and why their parents were so weird about certain things in regards to the both of them. But… he didn’t really know where it fit into the puzzle.
He sort of had a feeling there was more that Anna wasn’t telling him, and he didn’t even know where to start with that.
“So I guess that’s just what’s been going on.” He didn’t look at Alex as he spoke; he very pointedly avoided his stare, not wanting to see whatever it was that he was feeling showcased so blatantly on his face, because if it was pity he would kill himself, and if it was distress he would kill himself. “But it doesn’t really matter yet. We still need to deal with Ordinemon. I just… I hope we can finish this without anyone getting too hurt.”
“Well,” Alex said gently, but at least not overtly emotionally, “him being out over the ocean’s a good start, yeah? That was the point of it. To prevent him from hurting anyone else. He can’t hurt anyone now.”
Ezra’s mouth pulled back in a grimace and he was unable to stop himself from turning to glance down at Alex’s leg, pants and shin alike torn to shreds and stained with blood. Alex caught him looking and frowned.
“…That’s different,” he said. “I meant that he won’t be able to hurt civilians.”
“I think we deserve to not get hurt, too,” Ezra said, and Alex smiled faintly.
“Of course. But we still have to fight. No matter what.”
“I wish we didn’t.”
He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. It was intended as a thought for just himself. If he said it out loud, then it would solidify itself in the air between him and Alex, and he couldn’t let that happen. Because Alex had been so determined to fight, throughout all of this, despite all his hurt and exhaustion, and Ezra couldn’t bring himself to feel the same, and if that was acknowledged, he would have failed.
But he’d said it, and now it was real.
Alex looked at him carefully, his mouth closed tight and eyebrows knitted together in worry. Ezra met his gaze, unsteady, for a couple seconds, then tore it away, unable to match it any longer.
“I’m just… tired,” he murmured, placing a hand over his face. “I’m so tired of it all. I’m tired of seeing everyone get hurt. Of having to fight. Of having to save the world. I just… want it all to be over. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“Hey,” Alex said, his voice a gentle comfort in the front and back of Ezra’s mind, cutting clean through the forming spiral of his thoughts. He took a step closer and held Ezra’s hands with his own, smiling at him with a mix of reassurance and understanding. “It’s alright. I feel it, too. Of course I do. But we’ll make it through this together. Just like we always have. It’ll all be over before we know it, and then everything will go back to normal.”
Ezra sniffed a laugh, unable to ignore the humor in that statement. “Nothing will ever be normal again, and you know it.”
Alex closed his eyes and his grin widened. “Well. At least we’ll be able to breathe again.” When Ezra didn’t respond, he squeezed his hands, drawing his gaze fully back to him. “I mean it. It’ll be over soon. And then we can live our lives again. We won’t have to worry about saving the world anymore. We’ll… see our families again. Go back to school. Do normal teenager things.”
Ezra’s lip curled in disgust. “I don’t want to go back to school.”
Alex laughed, loud and sharp and so, so warm, and Ezra felt his own face and chest and body heating up in response to just being next to him and talking to him and having him. His boyfriend smirked, tilting his head slightly. “The other things should hopefully outweigh that.”
Ezra kept it up for a couple more seconds before he had to let go, his mouth morphing back into a smile. “…They do.”
Again, Alex laughed, and this time Ezra joined in, snickering quietly with his forehead coming to rest on Alex’s shoulder. For a few seconds they just stood there, letting the humor subside slowly, and then Alex took Ezra’s face in his hands and kissed him.
And Ezra melted into it, because he always did when it came to Alex, even with everything else going on around them.
“Oh -”
They broke apart at the sound of someone’s voice from behind them, Ezra’s heart skipping a beat. Elijah stood further down the street, one hand half-raised as if he had been waving at them, but the surprise and uncertainty on his face made it clear he wasn’t sure what his next move should be.
“Oh my fucking god,” Alex said, taking several steps away from Ezra while Ezra buried his face in his hands. “I am so sorry.”
“No, no, it’s okay, that’s my fault,” Elijah said, sounding very uncomfortable himself. He was quiet for a couple seconds, in which Ezra was able to lower his hands, cheeks still red from embarrassment, and cautiously glance over at him.
Elijah bit his lip and sighed, then finally spoke again. “I just… Quinn sent me to come get you. Well, no she didn’t.” He smiled sardonically. “I… want to talk to you all.”
Alex tilted his head, taking the lead while Ezra was still mortified. “…All of us?”
Elijah nodded. “It’s… well. I think it’d be better if I explained it to all of you at once.”
Ezra glanced over at Ember, who’d drawn closer upon Elijah’s arrival, and their eyes met. The expression on Ember’s face was extremely similar to how Ezra himself was feeling - confused, concerned, unsure, slightly worried. Ember lifted his paws in a shrug and Ezra breathed out slowly, crossing his arms as he looked back to Elijah.
“Alright,” Alex said, and Ezra nodded his agreement, though he couldn’t keep it from being somewhat hesitant. Elijah dipped his own head, then turned to lead the way back to camp.
The other three lagged a bit behind Elijah as they went, letting him walk a good couple yards ahead. Ezra had to resist the urge to scoop Ember into his arms and carry him around, like they’d gotten so accustomed to doing when out in the city over the past two weeks. The little lion cub still hadn’t said anything, but his tail lashing back and forth betrayed him, clearly agitated and deep in thought. Ezra understood it.
He, too, had a feeling that something big was about to happen.
“I have a favor to ask.”
The group had reunited in the center of their camp, all together again at last. Elijah had gathered them all together while they’d had nothing to do; there were no emergents on their radars, all of the ones from earlier having been taken care of, and Ordinemon still had not moved. If there was any time for them to have a meeting like this, it would be now.
And yet Elijah still seemed nervous.
Ezra stood between Alex and Anna, with Ember and Castor down at their feet while Anna clutched Bunny in her arms. Around them, the other humans and their partners formed a rough semicircle around Elijah, standing closest to Quinn and Alpha, glancing over at them every so often.
Whatever the favor he wanted was, something told Ezra it wasn’t going to go over very well, even as Quinn nodded at Elijah to tell him to continue.
He rubbed a hand around his wrist; for possibly the first time since they’d met him, he wasn’t holding his digivice. “I’m… not entirely sure how much it’ll do, if anything. I know it’s not a good idea. But…”
He trailed off, looking around at the rest of the group in turn, before he spoke again. “I want - need - to speak to Pallas.”
“What?”
There wasn’t even a moment of silence for them to take in what Elijah had said - Quinn cut straight to the chase, eyes widening and brows furrowing and metaphorical hackles raising. The one hand visible from where she had her arms crossed tightened, digging nails deep into the leather of her jacket.
Elijah held his own hands up to calm her. “Even if I can’t change anything, I need to talk to him. Some… some sense of closure. Surely -”
“Absolutely not,” Quinn said, once again cutting him off, not a shred of leniency in her voice. Elijah lifted his head to look over at her, his expression darkening.
“…Are you -”
“You’re just going to get yourself killed,” she shot back. “You already almost did when Harmony first met you. Those attacks were aimed at you. He wants you dead. If he gets a clear shot at you - hell, if he even figures out you’re still alive - he is going to kill you. Trying to go talk to him is just going to make it all the easier for him.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Harmony shifted, likely startled by the sudden mention of her name - but when Ezra turned to look at her, she looked more worried than called out. He frowned, but didn’t get the chance to ponder it before the conversation continued.
“…But…” Miguel started, raising one finger weakly, and all eyes were on him instantly. He chewed on his lip, stroking Flip’s mane in his arms for a couple seconds, then breathed out. “Ordinemon… I mean, he was… willing to hear us out when we spoke to him in the ocean. Like… he didn’t cut me off when I was talking. He could’ve attacked us, but… he didn’t. I think… I mean, if Elijah makes it clear that we’re not going to fight him… then maybe…?”
Elijah’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly, his eyes lighting up, but Quinn shook her head again.
“No. He is not going to go have a friendly chat with the Digimon who’s managed to destroy half the city and nearly incapacitate our entire team. That would be a suicide mission, and we need all of us alive if we want to even have a chance at defeating him.”
This time, Ezra definitely noticed the way Harmony winced and how Ren averted her gaze to stare down at the ground.
But Quinn was right. Ordinemon clearly wanted Elijah dead, if the way he’d spoken about him in the past was any indication, and he certainly didn’t want to talk to him.
Whether they liked it or not, Elijah was part of their team now, and they had to keep him safe. No matter what.
Elijah sighed through his nose, his head hanging low as he stared down at the ground. For a couple seconds nobody spoke; Quinn stood resolute and Alpha watched Elijah carefully as they waited.
Clearly, this was not what he’d been hoping for, even if it was what he’d expected, and Ezra had a feeling it had been.
“…I’m sorry,” Elijah finally said, smiling sadly but still avoiding everyone’s gaze. “I knew it was a bad idea. I just…”
“What if I went with him?”
Ezra barely realized he’d spoken until, as one, the rest of the group turned to face him, Elijah included. He blinked once, then reached a hand up to place on his temples and lifted the opposite shoulder in a shrug.
“Like. I know sending him off on his own to talk to Ordinemon is a real bad idea. But what if Ember and I were with him? Just as a failsafe in case Ordinemon attacks and we need to get out of there. It’s… better than nothing, right?”
He didn’t know why he was suggesting this. He still wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about Elijah; he was clearly hiding a lot from the group, and he wasn’t exactly the easiest to talk to even when the topic was something else. There was a very high chance that things would be a lot easier for them if he wasn’t here, and they’d never met him, and Ordinemon had never recognized him.
But he was Ordinemon’s partner. And even if talking to him couldn’t change anything, even if it would be a massive waste of time that they’d be better off spending elsewhere… didn’t he still deserve to talk to his partner one last time? Didn’t they at least need to try?
“Hey, yeah,” Ember said with a nod, clenching one fist. “I can be there as protection! If Ordinemon attacks he at least won’t be able to hurt them while we call for backup. And I think Elijah should get the chance to talk to his partner! Wouldn’t you guys want to if it was one of us up there?”
“Okay, that’s not a great argument,” Quinn said, pointing down at him, at the same time as Miguel made a prolonged noise of discomfort and fear.
“You really don’t have to do that,” Elijah said, scratching his cheek, but Ember shook his head vigorously.
“It’s the least we can do for you! I think we owe you this much. Maybe something good will come of it! I mean, Ordinemon’s talked to us before, and I know it hasn’t seemed like it’s changed his mind, but if it’s you, maybe he’ll feel different about it!”
“…It’s not really about changing his mind,” Elijah said cautiously. “I just… there’s some things I want to talk to him about. I know it won’t do anything. But I need to say it.”
Quinn rubbed her face with a hand, eyes squeezed tightly shut and mouth drawn into a thin line. Down at her feet, Alpha looked up at her, his own brows furrowed with concern, then glanced at Elijah. Ezra, too, was watching the older man. He still seemed a bit nervous, somewhat remorseful for the favor he’d asked for, but… clearly, he wanted it a lot more than he was letting on, and he was already letting on plenty of want for it.
“I think -” Quinn started, letting her hand fall from her face, but the instant it did, a series of synchronized beeps, coming from ten different locations, sounded off all at once, just as a white light in the distant sky flashed bright.
More emergents.
Like everyone else, Ezra pulled his digivice out and opened the map, panning out to reveal dozens of white dots flowing onto the screen, close by and almost countless.
So this was what Ordinemon had been waiting for.
Quinn lifted her head to fix her eyes on Ezra’s, gaze hardening. “You’ve got one shot at this,” she said, and instantly Ezra’s heart kicked into overdrive. “Do your best to protect him if it comes down to it.”
She looked over at Elijah here, whose attention was firmly fixed on the sky, in the direction of the ocean. She breathed out quietly and closed her eyes.
“Just… don’t do anything stupid, please.”
With that, she was done. She instantly set to organizing the others into teams to take care of the emergents, dividing them up and sending them off. Ezra watched Anna go, heading out with Damien and Bumble and Bunny, then turned to Elijah and beckoned him to follow as he and Ember set off in the opposite way. Toward the ocean.
Toward Ordinemon.
When they were a few blocks away from camp, far enough that they couldn’t hear anyone behind them anymore, Ember evolved to champion with a flash of orange light. “I’m going to carry us there,” he said, tilting his head at Elijah. “It’ll be the fastest way to get there. And will probably offer slightly better protection if he does decide to attack us.”
Elijah visibly paled, but nodded anyway. At some point during the discussion, he must have pulled his digivice out of wherever he’d been keeping it; now, he held it close to his chest, as if it were some sort of protective talisman that would grant him safety, even though that was likely the furthest description from the truth.
Ember nodded back and stretched his front legs out, lowering himself to the ground. With a flick of his tail he motioned for Elijah to take a seat, and he did, holding tight to the mane in front of him. He seemed unperturbed; Ezra presumed he must have ridden a Digimon at some point during his own adventure. Perhaps not Pallas - he didn’t seem that familiar with the experience - but another partner, maybe.
Ezra took a step forward, preparing to settle in behind Elijah, but his attention was stolen by the sound of rushing footsteps from behind them. He turned around just in time to see Alex heading toward them, running as fast as he could with his injured leg, while Castor - in his own champion form - followed.
Alex came to a stop just next to Ezra, practically crashing into his arms and knocking him backward into Ember’s haunches, where they wobbled together for a couple terrifying seconds before Ezra managed to steady them both. He was still breathing heavily, as if he’d been running for quite a while; when Castor reached them, he too seemed winded.
Ezra had a feeling that Alex had derailed whatever plan they were supposed to be following, if the slightly guilty expression on his face and the unamused one on Castor’s face was any suggestion.
“Hey,” Alex gasped, still out of breath, but he was smiling anyway. He lifted his leg and shook it out, then - without warning - flung both his arms around Ezra. He squeezed tightly and Ezra hacked a cough, trapped within his embrace, enough for Alex to let go and take a step back.
“I,” Alex said between gulps of air, “didn't, want you to leave, before I could, say, goodbye.”
“Oh,” Ezra said. He was suddenly very aware of Elijah and Ember behind him, and of Castor looming over Alex’s shoulder, but when Alex grabbed his hands, all of that melted into the background. “Um. Well. Now you have?”
“I know,” Alex said. His grin widened, then faltered for a second. “Just… be safe, yeah?”
“I’ve always been safe,” Ezra said, unable to ignore the sickening pit forming in his stomach. “I’ve got Ember.”
“I just…” Alex trailed off, placing a hand over his mouth and staring down at the ground. He didn’t speak for a few seconds, until Castor ever-so-subtly nudged him from behind and he released a sigh. He looked back up at Ezra, brows pinched together and eyes hiding something sad within.
“I don’t like the idea of you going to talk to Ordinemon. I know -” he held both his hands up just as Ezra opened his mouth to argue “- that you’re not the one talking to him. But you’re going to be there. Like, really close to him. And I don’t like that.”
“Someone has to do it,” Ezra argued, but Alex shook his head, glancing inconspicuously at Elijah. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to a mumble.
“I mean… do they?”
…Ezra turned his head down to the side and bit back a sigh.
“I know you think we owe him something,” Alex continued, and Ezra closed his eyes. “But… he hasn’t really done - …I mean, he shouldn’t - ugh. Just… this doesn’t need to happen.”
“I know it doesn’t need to,” Ezra murmured. “But… if it was one of us…”
“…Oh,” Alex said.
Because that was what had been weighing on his mind the whole time.
God knew that if it was Ember up there - just like he’d said - then Ezra would want the chance to talk to him. Even if he’d done everything Ordinemon had done - controlled and tormented hundreds of Digimon, hunted down a group of children and tried to kill them, destroyed half the city, tried to kill Ezra himself - he’d still want to talk to him. Even if it was just to find out what had happened and why he was doing it all and if he himself could have done anything to prevent it… he’d want to know.
And he had a feeling that was exactly what was going through Elijah’s mind right now, too.
Ezra took a deep breath and finally met Alex’s gaze again, trying not to let it get to him. “I need to do this,” he said. “I’m… we’re going to be okay. I’ll call if anything happens, I promise. But… we’ll be safe. That’s why we’ve got Ember with us.”
Alex breathed out and ran a hand through his hair. “I’d feel so much better if you had more than one Digimon with you,” he muttered, and Ezra snickered faintly. “But… alright. I trust you.”
“You better,” Ezra said, and Alex laughed.
“When have I ever not had trust in you?”
“Too many times to count.”
“That was a rhetorical question.”
“Can you hurry it up,” Castor cut in before Ezra could retort, nudging Alex again. He tilted his head at Ezra, eyes narrowing, but neither his voice nor expression held any malice. “We have our own task. We weren’t even supposed to come out here.”
Alex’s face darkened. “Quinn’s gonna be so mad.” He heaved a sigh, waving Castor off with one hand. “Alright, alright, we’re going. Just quick before we do.”
He reached out to grab Ezra’s face and kiss him, and Ezra smiled into it. When they pulled apart - much quicker than they had last time, and this time of their own accord - Alex was grinning too, cheeks flushed.
“I love you,” he said, and Ezra’s eyelids fluttered shut. “Be safe. Please come back in one piece.”
“I will,” Ezra said. “But only if you do, too.”
Alex laughed, and he placed his forehead against Ezra’s. “I’ll try my best,” he said, and that would have to do.
Ezra still hated flying.
They probably could’ve just run there, sure, but by the time it occurred to him to tell Ember to do that, he’d already kicked off into the air, and then Ezra was too focused on squeezing his eyes shut as tight as possible to ask Ember to land again and stay on the ground. Not to mention he didn’t really want Elijah to know how scared he was, even though the tight grip on his jacket from his seat behind the older man probably gave that away in spades.
It was just different to admit it aloud rather than tough it out, you know?
They landed not soon enough, Ember’s paws touching down on the beach as his wings flung sand everywhere. Around them, small pockmarks had been burnt into the shoreline from Ordinemon’s feathers, still eating away at everything they touched despite their distance from him, out over the water.
Because he was still hovering over the ocean. He hadn’t moved from when they’d last seen him; if anything, he was even further away now than he’d been earlier, about a mile or two out, only faintly visible through the low light and Pacific fog. Did he think he was safe out there?
The two humans dismounted from Ember; Ezra wobbled on his legs slightly as he regained his balance, still uneasy from the flight, but he steadied himself quickly enough. Ember cocked his head at them, then turned to face Ordinemon. He walked forward until his paws splashed in the water; Ezra followed him, coming to a stop far enough where his own feet wouldn’t get wet.
“I’m going to get his attention,” Ember said, the fire on his tail flaring up. “Hopefully he won’t think we’re going to attack him. But I think me being the only Digimon here, and in my champion form, will be enough to convince him of that.”
Ezra nodded, feeling kind of numb. Up until now he hadn’t really had to contend with the fact that they were about to do quite possibly the stupidest fucking thing in the entire world, but now that they were here, at the beach, within eyesight of Ordinemon, about to call him over so they could basically have a fucking tea party with him, except they didn’t have any tea and it wouldn’t really be a party, it was barreling down the tracks toward him head-on with no signs of stopping, and boy, did he not enjoy that.
“
Ezra jumped, startled back into the present by Ember’s cry, and for a second he began to panic, thinking that Ember actually was going to attack - but he didn’t. His paw ignited in flames and he tossed it upward, as if he were pitching a baseball; instead of a baseball, however, the flames on his paws shot into the air, forming into a soaring fireball, bright against the dark sky and large enough to look almost like a real flare signal.
It burst apart into a shower of, fittingly, embers, floating down around the three figures on the beach and sizzling out when they struck the water. Ezra reached out, sleeve draped over his hand, and caught one in the center of his palm; it glowed brightly for a second, then dissipated without so much as singing the fabric, just like Ordinemon’s feathers.
“If that doesn’t work, I’ll fly out to talk to him,” Ember said, looking over his shoulder at Ezra and Elijah. “But I think it will.”
Elijah nodded once, raising a hand to point out at Ordinemon. “It did.”
Ezra followed his gesture to see that, in the near distance, the fog covering the surface of the ocean was swirling - because, above it, Ordinemon was drifting closer to them. It wasn’t very quick, as if he was more curious than anything else, but it was better than nothing. Ember launched another fireball into the air, and - against all his better judgements - Ezra lifted an arm to wave him down.
That did the trick. Ordinemon seemed to understand what they wanted, or maybe he was just taking his sweet time before killing them all, but regardless, his approach quickened somewhat and his wings remained still, making no moves to attack as, slowly but surely, he drew closer.
Ember moved to stand in front of the humans, his entire body tensing. “If he attacks us,” he said quietly, even though the angel couldn’t hear them across the distance, “call for Quinn and run back to the city. I’ll evolve and hold him off, but I’ll need backup for an actual fight.”
Ezra nodded again, instinctively reaching a hand into his pocket to wrap around his digivice. Next to him, Elijah, too, was holding his digivice, staring out at Ordinemon with a mix of what Ezra assumed was fear and anticipation in his gaze.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and Elijah blinked a few times before his head swiveled around to look at him.
“…Yes,” he said, not very convincingly, as he pushed his glasses further up his nose. “Just… uneasy.” He glanced back at Ordinemon for a couple seconds, then sighed and closed his eyes, fingers tightening on his digivice. “I haven’t spoken to him in years. Haven’t seen him, either. I… didn’t really expect to ever see him again. Certainly not like this.” He smiled thinly. “…The last time I saw him… was not the last time I spoke to him.”
Ezra frowned, unsure of what to make of that. Had they communicated across worlds after Elijah had returned home? Or had he seen Pallas somewhere and been unable to speak to him?
Elijah continued before Ezra could think of what to say. “The last time we spoke, I… couldn’t bring myself to look at him. He stood behind me as we talked. He left before I turned around.” His smile wavered. “I returned home the next day. I never got to see him as Patamon one last time.”
“What did you see him as last?” Ezra asked.
For a few moments, Elijah did not speak. The only sounds surrounding them were the lapping waves at their feet and Ezra’s own heartbeat. When he did respond, the smile on his face was gone, replaced by a haunting sadness and something like long-hidden fear.
“An Archangel,” Elijah said.
Ezra’s blood ran cold.
“What?”
He swallowed the lump growing in his throat, his mouth opening and closing as he scrambled for words, for something to say, something to ask, but then a shadow fell over him and the world around him darkened and he looked up and Ordinemon was there.
Well, this was officially the most horrifying day of his life.
He had never been this close to Ordinemon before. The last time he’d actually even been somewhat near him was during their first encounter with him, all the way back in the park, and even then, he’d been far enough away where there was at least some semblance of safety, even if that was only because of the Digimon standing between him and the angel. Right now, though? When he had just Ember and Elijah with him, and the former was only in his champion form?
He was going to die out here, wasn’t he?
Despite the lack of eyes on his face, Ezra could tell that Ordinemon recognized Elijah. His lips curled back in a snarl, revealing all those rows of shark teeth, each one probably the size of Ezra himself.
And yet, despite his apparent anger, he did not move to attack.
Instead, he spoke.
“Why have you come here?”
Elijah lifted his head, staring upwards at his partner. Ordinemon’s wings fluttered behind him, scattering feathers everywhere; they drifted down onto the sand, leaving the three figures on the ground to sidestep every so often to avoid them. Ezra looked to Elijah, waiting for his response, but none came. He simply stared at his partner, unspeaking, unmoving.
Ordinemon did not like this. He hissed, the tendrils at the ends of his arms flexing, as if to imitate the clenching of a fist. “Answer me. Have you not had enough of everything? Why have you shown yourself before me? Why would you appear now?”
“He just wants to talk,” Ezra said, taking the lead, because it didn’t seem like Elijah was going to say anything, and he didn’t want Ordinemon to take their silence as a sign of defeat or that they would attack. He had to raise his voice to be heard, over the rough lapping of waves against the shoreline and Ordinemon’s distance and his own small frame compared to the angel. Though Ordinemon was closer than he ever had been to them, a mere twenty or thirty meters stretching from Ezra’s feet to his own hovering legs, he was over a hundred feet tall and nowhere near eye level - or ear level, more accurately - to them.
Ordinemon scoffed, tilting his head in a way that seemed like a stand-in for rolling his eyes. “He has nothing of worth to say to me.”
Ezra winced, grasping the collar of his shirt. He looked to Ember, still standing in front of them, and met his partner’s eye, revealing he was feeling much the same about the situation.
So much for changing Ordinemon’s mind.
But then Elijah took a step forward, let loose one last sigh, and said, “Please.”
Ordinemon regarded him carefully for a few seconds. He did not move or attack, but, likewise, he did not speak. He and Elijah had traded places, it seemed. Perhaps in more ways than one.
“I don’t know what you could possibly have to say,” Ordinemon said, and Elijah smiled sadly.
“I just want to talk to you. It’s been so long.”
“And whose fault is that?”
Again, Ezra winced. He stepped back, away from Elijah, but kept a careful eye on him and Ordinemon. This was, he presumed, going to be a difficult conversation. He didn’t really want to have to eavesdrop, but… he couldn’t leave Elijah on his own, even if he still had Ember, and wasn’t half of the point of this so that they could maybe find out more about what had transpired between him and Pallas? What had led to his partner - an Archangel, Ezra realized, his gut lurching unpleasantly - becoming the end of the world?
Elijah had not taken Ordinemon’s words well, either. He glanced down at his feet, the smile slipping off his face as quickly as it had just a minute ago, while Ordinemon watched him with nothing but disgust and resentment visible on what little they could see of his face.
“I just want some sense of closure,” Elijah said; he did not lift his head. “I’ll leave once we’re done talking. You can go right back to destroying the world afterwards, but right now…”
He looked up at his once-partner, eyes seeming to glow even in the darkness of night.
“I think there’s a lot to talk about.”
The resulting silence was loud enough to deafen Ezra, and not just because the roaring of the ocean had long since faded into blood pounding in his ears. It seemed as if nobody wanted to be the next one to speak. Ember was still focused mainly on Ordinemon, but he’d relaxed somewhat, seemingly content with the idea that he wasn’t going to attack them, and one of his ears kept flicking back toward Elijah. Elijah was waiting for Ordinemon’s answer. Ordinemon didn’t have one.
And Ezra really, really wished he were anywhere else in the world right now.
But - just as Ezra started to wonder if they should just bail while they could - Ordinemon slowly began to lower himself down, his wings dipping into the water below as he curled his legs up slightly, so that he was closer to eye level with them. At first, Ezra feared he was going attack, or smack them aside with an arm or wing, or bite their heads off, or swallow them whole, or something, and he felt panic begin to engulf him - but then Ordinemon ceased his movements, hovering just in front of them, watching them with his ever-eyeless face, and spoke.
“Then let’s talk.”
(Was it really that easy…?)
But if he was willing to hear them - or, more specifically, Elijah - out, then they better take that chance while they could. Elijah glanced back at Ezra, eyebrows raised slightly, and Ezra gave the most reassuring nod he could amidst the yet-fading panic. Elijah looked back up at his partner, finally not having to crane his neck so far back, and he took a deep breath in.
“Well. First off, I… I suppose I’d like to know what happened. Why you’re here. What turned you into this. You… looked a bit different, the last time I saw you.”
When he was an Archangel, Ezra presumed, and once again, the dread that flooded his body upon remembering that was near immeasurable. All this time, Ordinemon - Pallas - had been one of the Archangels? The Digimon that had led Elijah’s group through the war? One of them had been a partner Digimon?
In hindsight, it made sense, now, why Ordinemon had always hated it when they’d called him that.
“You already know the answer,” Ordinemon said, dipping his head toward Elijah. “You. You did this to me.”
Ezra frowned, subconsciously glancing toward where Elijah still held his digivice, broken and cracked. Similarly, Elijah’s grip on it tightened as he lifted his chin a fraction of an inch.
“Oh, I’m well aware of that. I know that I’m the one who started this. But what turned you into… this?” His gaze sharpened as his eyes scanned Ordinemon, trailing over his jet-black wings and ghostly pale skin and writhing tendrils of hair and limbs. “The very thing you swore you’d vanquish? A vengeful being wishing to destroy the world?”
Ordinemon pulled back slightly, the corner of his mouth twitching, but he didn’t get to respond before Elijah continued.
“You don’t have to tell me. I already know. I’ve seen the eyes of the Digimon that have been running rampant here.” He grinned, no humor to be found within it. “Using the Demon Lord’s Code Keys… truly an interesting change of heart.”
So Elijah was familiar with manic Digimon, then.
“They were the ones who rescued me,” Ordinemon said. “The only ones to reach out when I fell into the Dark Area. When you tried to kill me.” He spit those two words out like they were poison in his mouth, not even bothering to hide the snarl in his voice. “They promised me a second chance at life. They didn’t want anything from me. They just wanted me to live again.”
He looked out into the sky, his wings ruffling. “Resetting the worlds was my own idea. Something that is only logical, given the situation. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Ezra grit his teeth. Logical? Ordinemon thought that destroying two worlds was the right punishment for him dying? That wasn’t an eye for an eye. That was an eye for a genocide.
“Why,” he muttered, unable to keep the words from escaping his mouth. Ordinemon and Elijah both turned to look at him, and he clenched his fists, but kept them firmly at his sides. “Why is that logical? Destroying the worlds as revenge for your death? How did you even -”
He cut himself off before he could say anything too accusatory. He wasn’t even supposed to be in this conversation - he’d wanted to let Elijah fully take the reins - but Ordinemon was already driving him mad, and it didn’t seem like Elijah was going to question his motives.
Ordinemon tilted his head, as if had forgotten Ezra was even there. “My world and your world have experienced enough pain and suffering. It’s not just about my death. With both worlds knowing about the other, they will continue to take from each other until there is nothing left to give. More humans will come to the Digital World. The cycle will continue, of humans meeting Digimon, and having their fun with them, and then discarding them like toys once they return home.” A feather drifted down in front of Ezra, and he took a step back to avoid it; when he looked back up at the angel, his attention was once more focused on his partner, his words more potent and pointed. “The universe needs to begin anew. I will ensure it happens.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility for one Digimon to take on,” Elijah said, as if Ordinemon hadn’t just given the most batshit insane reasoning behind his mass murders and citywide destruction.
“I am the only one with the power to do it,” Ordinemon hissed. “Nobody else seemed to recognize the need for it, anyways. The Demon Lords saw enough potential in me to want to save me. I will do them proud.”
“Those are some choice words, there,” Elijah said. “The Demon Lords were once your enemies. Why are you now trying to help them?”
“And you were once my friend,” Ordinemon shot back, his wings curling inward. “Look what you did with that. Times change. People change. The worlds, then, must also change.”
Elijah - bafflingly - smiled at that. “So this is my fault?”
Ordinemon regarded him carefully, as did Ezra. Elijah seemed wholly unperturbed by Ordinemon’s ire and the retort he had flung; if anything, he had welcomed it with open arms.
It seemed as if he already knew the answer to his question.
“Of course it is,” Ordinemon said. “You knew what would happen if you went through with it. You did it anyway. Such a shame that you didn’t actually accomplish what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Elijah nodded, still smiling. “I suppose it is. If it had worked as intended, you wouldn’t be here right now, and none of these children would have ever been dragged into this mess. You would have died. I never would have seen you again.”
“And the worlds,” Ordinemon said, “would not be reset.”
Elijah’s eyes narrowed. “You keep calling it a reset.”
“Is that an inaccurate word?”
“I don’t know. You haven’t told us how, exactly, you plan to destroy - or reset - the worlds. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this isn’t a destruction, or a genocide, or anything like that. But I get the impression that it won’t be as pretty as you imply it is.”
“I don’t think it matters,” Ordinemon murmured. “Beautiful or ugly, violent or peaceful, destruction or reset, it will happen anyway. Because it must. It is for the good of both worlds.”
In a flash, the smile disappeared from Elijah’s face.
“Of course you’d say that,” he said, and for the first time since meeting him, Ezra recognized nothing but vitriol in his tone.
In a stark contrast, Ordinemon smiled faintly. “There’s that anger I once knew. Is this how you felt when you tried to kill me?”
Elijah didn’t speak. His eyes were burning with anger, an emotion that Ezra had never seen from him before. Until now, he’d been quiet and distant, haunted by a sadness and fear and twisted sense of humor that Ezra knew was a remnant from his journey in the Digital World. He hadn’t been the most positive member of their group; he’d despaired just as much as they all had. But he’d always been gentle with his words, even when he’d doubted the rest of them, even when his voice was laced with regret and guilt.
And yet, right now, rage was the only thing that surrounded him.
“Of course it is,” Ordinemon continued, sounding almost as if he were mocking Elijah. “I remember how angry you were at me for everything I did. It only makes sense that your decision to kill me was motivated by that anger.”
He lowered himself down, leaning in closer to Elijah. “Tell me, did it ever go away? Or have you simply been hiding it, all this time, and now that you are face to face with your failure, it has finally resurfaced?”
“Of course it didn’t go away,” Elijah said, voice choking, and, for some reason, Ordinemon flinched.
Elijah lifted his head, his gaze still furious, but his eyes were shining with unshed tears; whether held back by pride or resolve or something else, Ezra couldn’t tell. But they did not fall, and Elijah did not let his voice waver again.
“I know I was angry. You think I wasn’t aware of that even in the moment?” He laughed, running a hand through his hair and almost knocking his glasses off his nose with the motion. “I was still so mad at you. And scared. I was terrified. I didn’t want to go back. I couldn’t go through it again. If something else happened in the Digital World, the Archangels - you - would have been the ones to call us back.” He pointed up at Ordinemon, his hand frighteningly still. “Not just me. All of us. Macy. Daiji. Nicole. Tyler. I couldn’t let them go through it again, either.”
He turned his hand around and opened it, revealing his digivice - what remained of it - laying in the center of his palm. “So I killed you. It was selfish. I know that. But it was the only way to ensure we would be safe from you.” He retracted his hand, pressing the digivice against his chest, and smiled up at Ordinemon.
“But I just ended up dooming more children to the very same fate.”
He glanced over at Ezra here, his eyes darkening, but his smile held firm. When he looked back up at Ordinemon, it had solidified, outshining the sadness and regret on his face as if they weren’t there at all.
“I’m sorry I did it. Truly, I am. If there is one thing you are to believe of me, let it be this. That I am sorry for killing you. Not because I regret protecting myself, but because I endangered ten other lives with my actions.”
Ordinemon’s lips pulled back, as if to snarl or speak, but he made no sound. Elijah watched him for a few more seconds, waiting for a response that did not come. He closed his eyes and shook his head out slowly. “If I had known this would happen to them, I never would have done it. I would have gone through it all over again if it meant everyone else would be safe. Even if I had to die.”
With one last long, quiet sigh, Elijah took a step back, falling into line beside Ezra. One single tear, hanging onto the corner of his eye, finally let go, trailing down his cheek and landing on the sand below.
A second later, a feather landed on the beach and covered it completely, melting it and the ground below into blackened ash.
Elijah huffed a laugh and raised one hand to wipe at his face.
“I’m sorry, Pallas.”
The beach fell silent, no voices to be heard amidst the white noise of the ocean and Ordinemon’s burning feathers. Elijah did not look up at his partner, keeping his gaze firmly locked on the ground below. Ezra’s own eyes wandered between him and Ordinemon, waiting for one of them to make the next move.
His throat felt tight, even as he swallowed to try to work some feeling back into it. The whole time during Elijah and Ordinemon’s exchange, he’d felt… numb, mostly. Like he shouldn’t have been there, listening to all that, decades of unresolved feelings finally manifesting into spoken words. The anger in Elijah’s voice, and the venom in Ordinemon’s - clearly, even after so much time apart, they still resented each other.
And for good reason, it seemed.
Elijah was not sorry for the pain he had caused Ordinemon. He felt no real guilt for killing him. He hadn’t apologized for that at all. He only regretted that his decision had backfired and rebounded onto a group of strangers - a group of children, just like himself, destined to fight a war that he himself had started.
Because his partner had been the one to call the first humans to the Digital World.
But Pallas had not been the one to summon this new group. The Archangels, as they had learned, were long gone. Whatever had happened to them - and Ezra had a feeling even Elijah did not know - they were no longer in charge of that duty. Something else had brought Ezra’s group to the Digital World.
If Pallas had not died, perhaps the Archangels would still be around - and perhaps Ezra and his friends would never have been flung into the Digital World.
He didn’t think he would like it very much if that was how things had really turned out.
But Elijah felt the opposite, presumably. Whatever had happened during his own journey had been enough to engulf him in rage and fear, enough that once he returned home, he destroyed his digivice in order to kill his partner. Because if Pallas was gone, nobody could bring Elijah back to the Digital World.
The existence of Ezra’s own group stood as a solid counter to that argument.
But Elijah hadn’t killed Pallas. He’d thought he had - he’d had no way of confirming otherwise. For whatever reason, he’d known that destroying his digivice would kill his partner, and he’d assumed it would work.
Supposedly, Pallas - Ordinemon - also knew it. That was why Astamon had been so intent on breaking Ezra’s. That was why Lucemon had tried to bargain for Moxie and Damien’s. That was why Ordinemon had been fixated so heavily on them.
(And yet, somehow, they were indestructible - perhaps a failsafe to prevent this very thing from happening again.)
Elijah had failed to kill his partner. Pallas had survived. He’d been resurrected, and risen to power, vowing to destroy both worlds in order to end their suffering.
There was something else at play here that neither Elijah nor Ordinemon wanted to admit.
Ordinemon lifted his head, his hair rippling with the movement, and stared down at Elijah with no emotion present on what little there was of his face.
“You will never be able to atone for what you have done.”
Again, Elijah was silent. He gave no reaction to Ordinemon’s words - nothing physical or visible, at least. Ezra frowned, resisting the urge to step toward him; in front of them, Ember - still on guard, throughout this entire conversation - ruffled his wings, his eyes never leaving Ordinemon, even despite the hatred that danced within them.
And then Elijah smiled again, and - without looking up at Ordinemon - said, “Will you?”
Ordinemon recoiled, baring his teeth as his wings flexed involuntarily. “Excuse me?” he hissed, disdain creeping into his tone, shattering his perfectly composed and unfeeling facade.
“I’m not the only killer in this situation,” Elijah said, unfettered by Ordinemon’s reaction. “You’ve controlled hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent Digimon, forcing them to do your bidding and leaving most of them to die when you decided they weren’t of any use to you anymore. You’ve killed god knows how many more in your rise to power. You have actively tried to murder human children and their partners, simply because they had the courage to stand up against you. All so you can destroy the worlds in their entirety.” He lifted his head to meet Ordinemon’s glare. “You don’t see anything wrong with that?”
Ordinemon, even without eyes, appeared to frown, but it wasn’t out of anger. It seemed to be… contemplation, like he was actually considering Elijah’s words.
His next words were gentle ones.
“I never claimed to be free of sin,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, but it wasn’t patronizing or taunting. “When the worlds are reset and everything fades to black, I will go with them. I will die knowing I set the rebirth in motion, but I will not escape it. This genesis will come for me also.”
Elijah raised his eyebrows, amused. “Genesis,” he echoed, like he was saying it for the first time. “Wow. Even Cherubimon never used that word.”
“Cherubimon was a fool,” Ordinemon shot back, finally sounding like himself again. “He held no love for the world.”
“Maybe not. But he still tried to save it.”
“Are you defending your tormentor?”
Elijah laughed once, loud and sharp. “Of course not. Never in a million years. His heart was in the right place, but he was so wrong about everything. As are you.” He paused, his lips twitching into a smile. “Well, the latter part, at least. I’m not so sure about your heart.”
Ordinemon tilted his head. “I don’t have one.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” he shot back. “Because it seems to me as if you’re trying to appeal to it.”
Elijah shrugged, still smiling. “Maybe I am. Or maybe I’m just saying what I wish I could’ve told you back then. What I never got the chance to say.”
“That was your own fault.” Ordinemon paused, scrutinizing Elijah for a couple moments; Ezra subconsciously shrank away from his gaze, despite knowing the angel wasn’t focused on him. Then, Ordinemon scoffed, recoiling somewhat. “You’re as scared now as you were back then.”
One of Elijah’s brows lifted on his forehead. “Can you tell?”
“Of course I can. We’re -”
Ordinemon cut himself off instantly, turning his head to the side as if to avoid Elijah’s stare. His mouth was twisted into a frown, teeth clenched and bared for all three of his audience members to see.
His wings curled inward slightly, but that was the only further movement he made.
Ezra breathed out, watching him carefully.
“I caught that,” Elijah said gently, after a few more painful moments had passed. The grin on his face had widened somewhat, though it seemed a bit more pained. “You still can’t ignore it, even now, can you?”
Ah. The connection between them, Ezra assumed, was still there. Maybe tattered, hanging on by a thread, but still present. Elijah’s failure to kill his partner had also resulted in the failure to separate them fully.
Ordinemon knew exactly what was going through Elijah’s mind. In the same way Ezra always had an innate sense of how Ember was feeling, and their shared pain when Ember was in his mega form… that connection was binding them now just as much as it had twenty years ago.
And neither of them were happy about it.
“That’s irrelevant,” Ordinemon said, after a couple more seconds of pause. He still wasn’t looking at Elijah, though his words were aimed like knives at him. “Soon you will be dead, as will the children and their partners, and then this world will go with them, and then the Digital World. A new world is under way. A world that won’t need to be saved. A world without betrayal.”
He turned back to face Elijah here, his face as cold and uncaring as ever. “A world without pain and suffering, and a world that will judge fairly and never hurt those who only seek to do right.”
Elijah’s response came as quick as ever - “What right is there to do without pain and suffering?”
- as did Ordinemon’s. “I’m getting tired of your questions.”
Ezra swallowed, feeling a chill overtake him. This was the first time Ordinemon had expressed disinterest and annoyance with them. Things had been mostly smooth up until now, in terms of Ordinemon’s non-murderous streak, at least, but now…
If this kept up… how long would it take until he decided to attack?
Elijah didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t care. “Answer me,” he said, taking a bold step forward. “If there is no wrong in the world, then what is right? What’s up from down? Black from white?”
“You still don’t understand.” Ordinemon pulled back, his legs barely dragging across the surface of the water below, and he looked out at the sky beyond the city. Then, he shook his head. “…It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you can do about it now. The children and their partners are no match against me, especially now, and you…”
He tipped his head down to stare at Elijah, face contorting with disgust, and huffed in disapproval. Elijah remained silent, meeting his eyeless gaze calmly, until Ordinemon spoke again.
“…I have no more words for you. Go be with them, for the short while you have left.”
It was clear who he meant: the rest of the group. It was a thinly veiled threat, hidden behind the permission to leave alive that he was granting them. He’d already made his true intentions clear. Though he was allowing them to live, it didn’t mean much when it would only be for a little bit longer.
Elijah disagreed.
“Don’t you want to kill me?”
What?
“What are you -” Ezra started, reaching out for Elijah completely ineffectually, because he brushed him off immediately. Once more he stepped toward Ordinemon, appearing much more confident than he was likely feeling on the inside - or maybe he was just stupid, or ignorant, or suicidal.
Regardless, Ordinemon was looking at him with much more interest now, enough that it leaked into his voice.
“Of course I do. I have waited decades for this. But it’s not time yet.”
“You don’t need to wait,” Elijah said, as more panic overtook Ezra. “You could kill me right now.”
“Elijah -!” he tried again, this time actually managing to grab his shoulders and shake him a little. It didn’t do much - Elijah paid him no mind whatsoever, even as he tensed under Ezra’s grip - and so he shook him again. “What are you doing? You can’t -”
Elijah lifted one hand, holding it up to silence Ezra, and for some reason, he obeyed.
The interest on Ordinemon’s face had not gone away. “…Are you begging for your own death?”
Ember’s tail flared up and he spread his wings, as if to hide Elijah from Ordinemon’s sight. Similarly, Ezra tugged at Ellijah, trying to lead him further away from Ordinemon, but once more, it was fruitless. Elijah pulled away, Ezra’s hands falling off of him as if he was water in his grasp.
“Not exactly,” he told his partner. “But I did wrong by you, didn’t I? Even if it was all those years ago, I’m the one who started this. You still need to make it up to me. Eye for an eye.”
When he smiled next, for the first time that night, it felt real, like he was actually happy about something, instead of putting on a facade.
“After all, that’s what justice is, isn’t it?”
For far too long, Ordinemon was still and silent. Ezra tried desperately to lead Elijah away, to pull him back from the ledge he was standing on, arms wide and ready for the fall. But he did not budge, and Ezra could not move him no matter how hard he tried, and the world around them grew colder and colder.
And Ordinemon smiled when he spoke next.
“You are a peculiar human.”
Ezra didn’t like that smile. He wasn’t sure what it meant - what Ordinemon was feeling that had led to it. It slipped off his face as soon as the words were out of his mouth, as if it had been unintentional, but he knew that Ordinemon was smarter and more composed than that.
He’d let it happen on purpose. Ezra didn’t know why, but Ordinemon had wanted Elijah to see him smile.
Elijah nodded. “That sounds awfully familiar.” He shook his head, lifting a hand to look down at his digivice. “…It’s alright. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.”
His voice was lilting, teasing in a way it hadn’t ever been beforehand, and though he did not look at his partner, Ezra recognized the glimmer in his eyes.
He was taunting him. For whatever reason, Elijah was goading Ordinemon on, unwilling and unable to let this go - unable to let Ordinemon let him live.
“Don’t mock me,” Ordinemon said, snarling faintly, but he didn’t seem all that offended.
“I’m not. I’m stating a fact. We’re still connected.” Elijah gestured between him and Ordinemon, as if the space between them was something real and tangible. “As long as one of us is alive, we always will be. I failed at killing you, all those years ago. Don’t you want to show me what it’s like to succeed?”
That was all Ezra needed to hear.
“We need to go,” he said, looking more at Ember in this moment. Whatever was going on with Elijah, Ordinemon was no doubt going to take it as permission - no, as a request, a desire to be struck down. With what Elijah was saying, how he was pleading for it, even when there was no desperation in his tone or on his face…
Ordinemon was not stupid. He was still linked to Elijah, that thread of fate connecting them still present even if tattered.
And he knew, just as much as Ezra knew, that Elijah was serious.
Ember nodded, backing up so he could get closer to Elijah as he lowered his wings. Ezra grabbed Elijah’s arm with more force than he’d ever grabbed anything before, and yanked as hard as he could, not even caring when Elijah fumbled with his hands from the shock.
His digivice slipped from one hand to the other, and he couldn’t wrap his fingers around it in time, and Ordinemon did not say anything as he reached one arm out and drove the helixed end into Elijah’s chest.
Elijah stumbled backward, his digivice falling from his hands onto the ground below, landing with a soft shifting of sand. Ordinemon pulled his arm back, and then everything was red as Elijah sank to his knees and pressed his now-empty hands to his sternum.
He coughed once, eyes wide with fear and pain and relief.
“NO -!”
White light flashed in Ezra’s vision, consuming the world around him as he lunged for Elijah. He paid it no mind, focusing instead on laying Elijah down fully and pressing hard against the wound, trying the best he could to stem the blood flow. Elijah coughed again, and Ezra bit back a sob, blinking away the tears already forming in his eyes and trying not to look at his rapidly-reddening hands.
“
Distantly, Ezra heard Ordinemon call out an attack in response, and he instinctively squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself for the force of it. The air around them shook as it struck Ember, and only once it faded did Ezra realize Elijah was speaking.
“He missed my heart,” Elijah said, voice no more than a whisper and gaze distant.
…He had.
“You’re going to be okay,” Ezra lied, ignoring Elijah’s words, because if he focused on them he didn’t know if he’d be able to do anything else. He had to lie. He couldn’t tell Elijah just how bad it looked, how fast the blood was spreading across his chest and the sand around them and Ezra’s hands, how deep the wound was. Deep enough that the blood just kept coming, unrelenting, covering Ezra’s fingers and palms and vision and mind.
He didn’t know if Elijah would even survive.
Ezra shook his head and removed one hand to pull out his digivice and call Quinn. It took a couple seconds longer than it should have, his fingers struggling to obey him or move as quickly as they should, but he managed eventually, and she picked up almost immediately.
“We need help, please, please,” he babbled, giving her no time to say anything. “Elijah got hurt really bad, Ordinemon attacked him - please -”
“Fucking Christ,” Quinn swore, audibly distressed from just the little information Elijah had given her. “Everyone’s out right now - there’s more emergents than ever before - fuck, I can’t - I’ll send some of them over but it’ll take a while, okay? Jesus Christ -”
Ezra nodded numbly, unsure of what he could even say in response that wouldn’t make him sound more pathetic than he already had. He knew that right now, sounding pathetic was the least of his concerns, but he was already on the verge of tears and saying anything at all might push him over that edge.
Quinn didn’t need confirmation from him anyways, it turned out. “Just - hold on as long as you can, okay? We’ll be there soon, I promise - just a little while longer - I…”
She didn’t finish her sentence before hanging up.
He couldn’t help but notice that she hadn’t said anything to Elijah at all, having focused instead entirely on Ezra. He wasn’t sure what that meant, or if it meant anything at all.
Not important.
Elijah inhaled shallowly, the breath rattling in his chest, and Ezra lessened the pressure on his wound only slightly. He was alive - he was still breathing. That was all they could ask for at this moment.
Elijah rolled his head to the side, looking up at Ezra. His expression was blank, a stark contrast to the range of emotions that had been present during his talk with Ordinemon. Whether it was the pain or something else that had sapped them away, now, when Ezra met his eyes, he couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
And then he spoke. “Can you feel his pain?”
Ezra blinked, a bit surprised that he was even able to talk in this situation, a bit confused about the question. Behind them, further out over the ocean, Ordinemon launched another attack, and the world around them darkened for a split second - and then it hit him. Two things, really.
The meaning of Elijah’s question, and the sharp, searing agony that shot up all over his body.
“Ember’s?”
Elijah smiled faintly. “Whose else?”
He hesitated, then nodded, and Elijah closed his eyes.
“I can feel his.” He inclined his head toward Ordinemon, ignoring Ezra’s attempt to get him to stay still. “Strange, really. I suppose since he didn’t really die, the bond wasn’t fully severed.”
Ezra shook his head. “Don’t move, you’re just going to hurt yourself.”
“I’m alright. I’ve had far worse.”
It was hard to tell if he was exaggerating or not, whether he was telling the truth or trying to lighten the mood or just saying it to reassure Ezra. He didn’t doubt that Elijah had received his fair share of Digimon-induced injuries during his adventure in the Digital World, but… worse than this? Being impaled through the gut by his own partner? Spilling blood everywhere, staining Ezra’s conscience as dark as the sea behind them?
He bit his lip and averted his gaze, the deep red growing sickening to look at. “…Why did you do it?” he mumbled. “Why did you taunt him? Everything could’ve been fine. You would’ve been able to… you wouldn’t have been…”
Elijah breathed out slowly through his nose, eyes still shut gently.
“…When I first saw him on the news, when he first came to this world, I knew it was him. I didn’t know how. I had no idea how he was even still alive. I’d killed him, twenty years ago - or so I thought.” His lips twitched here. “I knew it was him, but I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t believe it, really; not fully at least. The Pallas I knew… he would never do anything like this. That’s what I kept telling myself. And I guess in a sense it’s true.”
The air around them shook with another of Ordinemon’s attacks, and Ezra hissed quietly as pain wracked his body once more. Elijah gave him a sympathetic look, but did not say anything; Ezra was glad for it.
He continued after a couple more seconds. “But even talking with him, hearing his voice, the voice that’s his but not his, and hearing him say just how much he hates me… it still wasn’t enough. I had to prove to myself that this wasn’t him. So I forced him to do something he never would have done. I made him hurt me. All the days I knew him, even with everything with Jenny and Cherubimon and the Demon Lords… He never took it out on me. He never once hurt me. I had to make him do it here. It was the only thing that could convince me this isn’t him.”
Ezra frowned. “But it is him, isn’t it? He was your partner.”
“Was,” Elijah emphasized, eyes darkening. “A long time ago. He’s not the same as he once was. He’s gone. And whatever he's turned into… there’s nothing left to do to help him.”
Something dark crept its way into Ezra’s own chest. “What do you -”
“You have to kill him,” Elijah said, plain and simple. “I know you already know that. Don’t try to convince yourself you don’t. But I need to say it anyway.”
Ezra didn’t argue.
He knew - he’d always known - that they had to kill Ordinemon. Before they’d met him or knew his name or face, they’d known it. When they’d confronted him as Plutomon, they’d known it. When he had appeared in the sky, just two days ago, pale white as the moon with wings dark as night, they had known it.
It didn’t really make any difference to hear Elijah say it out loud. Maybe it felt a little more real, a little more imminent, but it didn’t change that Ezra knew they had to kill him.
What hurt the most was Elijah’s acceptance of it.
So Ezra changed the subject. They didn’t need to talk about how Elijah’s partner was going to die, that they would have to strike him down and end his life the way Elijah had failed to do so. Right now, with Elijah bleeding out, barely holding on, dancing on the cusp of death, that was the last thing they needed to talk about.
“What happened between you two?”
Elijah grinned, some light finally coming back into his eyes. “Ah, that. I… suppose now is as good a time as any to finally tell you. It’s… not something I’ve ever really told anyone before. But right now…” He looked pointedly down at his chest. “I think it’s time.”
Ezra just nodded.
“He was an Archangel once,” Elijah said. Ezra was only able to mask his wince at hearing that word by the fact that, at the same time, another jolt of pain shot through his body, echoed by Ember’s roar in the distance a second later. Elijah tilted his head. “You… seemed to react strongly to that when I said it earlier.”
Ezra nodded, clenching his hands into fists; then, he relaxed them, aware that he may be hurting Elijah. “We… we’ve called him an Archangel for months now. We didn’t know what they were until recently. …I didn’t think he was one of them. I thought he was your partner.”
“Well, that’s been discussed already,” Elijah said flatly, and Ezra couldn’t resist a small smile, even despite everything. Elijah swallowed thickly, eyes flickering over to where Ordinemon likely was visible in the sky behind Ezra. “He… was originally the leader of the Archangels. One of the three holy protectors of File Island. He was the one who conceived the idea of calling humans to the Digital World.” His voice grew cold here, something hidden under its icy surface. “One of the other Archangels, Cherubimon, realized that an Archangel being a partner Digimon would grant them the edge they needed in the war. Pallas’ power was unmatched even by Cherubimon and Ophanimon themselves, but Cherubimon knew they could not have a true Archangel fighting on the frontlines against the Demon Lords. If they got their hands on him…”
He shook his head out, sand shifting into his hair as he moved. “So Cherubimon killed him. He lost all his memories when he was reborn. By pure chance, he managed to go down a similar enough evolution route that, as my partner, his mega form was still Seraphimon. When he evolved to that form for the first time, we finally realized where the elusive Seraphimon had been all along. With me.”
“He didn’t even know he was an Archangel?” Ezra asked.
Elijah gave him a sad smile. “That’s why Cherubimon killed him. So that the Demon Lords couldn’t get any information out of him. We both found out at the same time. That he had been the one to call us all there. To condemn us to those fates.”
“…So that’s why you killed him,” Ezra mumbled, and Elijah nodded.
“After the war, when we went home. Liam had killed his partner that way.” The way he said that name - Liam - it was clear that there were many emotions and memories surrounding whoever he had been.
Elijah had not said his name when he had spoken about trying to protect the others from Ordinemon.
(Perhaps there was a plaque in File City with his name on it.)
Ezra breathed out quietly as Elijah continued. “It was selfish, but I didn’t care. I just couldn’t let any of us go through it again.” He laughed, then hacked out a cough, and Ezra reached down to gently press him back into the ground. Fresh blood began to leak from the hole in his chest, and Ezra adjusted his hands. Elijah sniffed, laying still for a while as he recovered.
“Ironic, isn’t it,” he said eventually, “that by doing so, I ended up dooming not just myself, but ten more children, to that very same fate.”
“You didn’t know,” Ezra said, trying to console him, but Elijah shook his head again.
“Whether I knew or not doesn’t matter. Pallas didn’t know about his past, but he still did it. It was still him. Still his fault. Just like this is mine.”
“That’s not -” Ezra started, but Elijah was quick to cut him off, reaching a hand up to touch his arm.
“Ezra, whatever you say, you and I both know very well that everything that has happened over the past few days has been because of me.”
Ezra didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t be a lie, and he didn’t have it in him to lie to Elijah about anything other than how he would be okay.
Behind them, Ember had managed to push Ordinemon a bit further out over the water, surprisingly. He was just one Digimon; it had taken ten to get him to the beach in the first place. Ordinemon was clearly angry, and he wasn’t going easy on Ember, if the pain that rang throughout Ezra’s body every couple seconds was any indication, but…
He and Elijah watched the fight for a while. Every time one of the Digimon was hit, their partner would wince or squeeze their eyes shut, but it faded into background noise before long. They were lucky enough that Ordinemon’s repositioning, however minor, resulted in less feathers falling down around them; Ezra had to bat a couple away every now and then, not willing to risk testing if Elijah was also immune, but for the most part they were safe, laying there on the open beach, waiting for salvation.
Ezra wondered if Ordinemon could feel the gaping chasm that he had opened in Elijah’s chest.
“Are you angry at me?” Elijah said eventually.
Ezra glanced down at him. “For what?”
“For all of this.” Elijah waved a hand around, gesturing out towards the ocean. “For bringing about the end of the world.”
Ezra started to protest, shifting where he knelt but keeping the pressure on Elijah’s wound. “That’s not -”
“Ezra.”
Ezra deflated, and looked down at Elijah again, who now matched his gaze. His glasses were slipping down his nose, and he reached a hand up to push them back into place, but his stern expression never faltered.
Ezra sighed, lightening the weight of his hands for a split second before pressing back down. The blood flow had mostly ceased by now, but the stains on Elijah’s shirt and Ezra’s hands were proof enough that the damage had already been done.
He had no idea how much longer Elijah had left.
“…I don’t think I’m angry,” he said. He spoke slowly, trying to articulate his words carefully, but it was hard to focus. “I’m upset, for sure, and confused, and… scared. And I feel bad for you. Both of you.”
Elijah nodded the best he could, inhaling softly. “Ah, pity. That’s a new one.”
“Not pity,” Ezra mumbled with a shake of his head. “Sympathy, I think. I understand both of you.” He paused, raising his head slightly to look out towards his partner, still battling with all his might. “But…”
“But?”
“But you were both wrong in what you did.”
He didn’t feel all that bad about saying it. Even with Elijah laid out below him, his sins and blood bare for all the world to see, Ezra felt like it was okay to condemn him.
Maybe it wasn’t his fault for any of this. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe Ezra and his group would have been called to the Digital World even if Ordinemon had not been their adversary. Maybe none of it mattered in the grand scheme of things.
But what Elijah had done had been selfish. He was scared and angry and grieving, and it had manifested in the only way possible - revenge.
It had not been justice. It had not been self-defense. It had not been protection for himself or anyone else.
He’d taken revenge on his partner.
And now, his partner would take revenge on the world.
“I’m sorry, Ezra,” Elijah said, and Ezra choked on something stuck in his throat. He blinked rapidly, trying to force away what was threatening to burst forth - tears, regret, guilt, shame, anger, fear. Fear for himself, and for his friends, and for Elijah, and for the world.
With his hands on Elijah’s chest, covered in the consequences of his actions, Ezra felt as if all of their emotions were flowing into each other through their blood. He understood Elijah. If he’d been in the same position, Ezra likely would have done the same thing. He couldn’t pretend he was better than that, because he wasn’t. He knew they were not that different from each other.
It didn't make it any better, but he understood it.
“When all of this is over,” he whispered, pleading with Elijah, begging him to stay alive, “I hope you can breathe easy.”
Elijah’s eyelids fluttered shut as a smile graced his face. “It’ll be the easiest breath I’ve taken in twenty years.”
It was only another minute or two before help arrived, three figures cresting over the buildings in the distance and aiming straight for Ezra and Elijah, even before he’d lifted an arm to wave them down. Alpha and Ko landed further up the beach, letting their passengers off before rushing into battle with Ordinemon; Quinn, Azure, and Harmony broke into a run as soon as their feet hit the sand.
Ren touched down just ahead of them, kneeling down to run a hand over Elijah’s wound. He flinched slightly as her fingers brushed against it, but didn’t seem any worse off than he had before.
“
“Oh, god,” she said, voice cracking, and she clasped her hands in front of her mouth. “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything - it’s too - how are you -”
“He missed my heart,” Elijah said for the second time that night, and Harmony squeezed her eyes shut.
“If you’re still talking it’s probably fine, but that’s a lot of blood -”
“
“
Ren cast her mandala moments before Ordinemon’s attack reverberated around them, and the invisible barrier it granted was enough to nullify even the force of the impact. Ezra took a deep breath in and looked to Quinn, who still hadn’t spoken yet, her hands digging into her hair and eyes flashing about wildly.
“If it didn’t hit your heart or your lungs then it probably didn’t get anything else essential,” Harmony went on, inching forward and hovering her hands just above Elijah’s chest. “Those are the most important in that area, right there - you might’ve broken a rib but that won’t kill you -”
“I feel okay,” Elijah said, somehow more calm than anyone else surrounding him, even though he was the one slowly bleeding to death. Even Azure was looking slightly panicked, their hands balled into fists held at their sides as they stared out at the fight, focused entirely on their partner. “Ezra can vouch for me.”
“Still,” Harmony said, touching her temples lightly. She glanced up at Quinn, uncertainty lighting up her eyes. “I can’t do anything - should we call an ambulance -?”
“Do you really think anyone wants to get near that?!” Quinn snapped, gesturing madly out at Ordinemon, and Ezra and Harmony flinched. She groaned to herself and raked a hand across her face, taking a couple deep breaths before she spoke again. “Sorry, it’s just -”
“I promise, I feel fine,” Elijah said, and though he had to fight back a cough as he said it, Ezra got the feeling he was telling the truth - or at least, the truth as he knew it.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Quinn spat, dragging a hand through her hair. “How did you - this wasn’t -”
“
Ren tightened her grip on her staff, but the mandala did not falter even as the attack washed over them, sending feathers and miasma scattering around them, burning holes in the sand. Quinn’s eyes darted upward as Alpha swooped past, cape billowing behind him, and something on her face changed.
“Alpha!” she shouted, voice nearly ripping apart. “Kill him!”
Whether Alpha heard her or not didn’t matter, because Ezra could tell that he at least felt it. He lunged for Ordinemon, sword forming with a flash of light, and he struck out at the angel with more force than ever before.
“
It wasn’t the first time any of them had said it aloud, the fact that they had to kill Ordinemon. Elijah himself had said it not that long ago. That was how this would end: Ordinemon would die, and the world would be saved. It was the only way to end his reign of destruction. It was the only outcome that wouldn’t result in their own deaths.
But it was still terrifying to hear Quinn not just say it, but ask for it, beg for it, plead with her partner to kill Ordinemon, fury and fear alike mixing in her voice and eyes.
This was not the Quinn that Ezra knew.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” she said, finally speaking to Elijah directly. “You are going to bleed out. I don’t even know what the fuck happened but Jesus Christ, you’re -”
“There’s nobody left in the city,” Elijah responded. “The nearest hospital outside the city is too far away. We can’t take that risk.”
“Letting you die is too much of a risk, too!” Quinn shouted, exploding in rage; Elijah took it on the chin, unfettered, and simply stared at her. She breathed heavily for a few moments, hands clawing at the air and her hair and her arms and anything she could touch, physically or not, until she finally inhaled sharply and closed her eyes. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if it’s your fault or not. But what I do know is that I can’t let you die.”
“I promise, Quinn,” Elijah said softly, reaching a hand out to touch her shin gently, “I feel fine.”
Quinn opened her mouth, about to argue, but Ezra’s eyes were firmly on Elijah’s chest. It was still stained deep red, almost black, with all the blood he’d shed, but - but that was just it. Shed, past tense. He wasn’t bleeding anymore. With each word he spoke, it sounded easier and easier for him to breathe.
Almost unintentionally, Ezra looked up at Ren, still holding her staff tight, and noticed that throughout all this, the mandala had still been active.
It was stabilizing Elijah, numbing his pain and ceasing the blood flow. It wouldn’t heal him; Ren was not a healer, and only a protector by necessity. But if it was able to keep the wound in stasis, help him breathe and speak and live, then that was enough. It was better than nothing.
A rush of air blew past them and Ember landed a few yards away, kicking up sand and feathers all around them. Nothing in the world could have stopped Ezra from picking himself up, wobbly on his legs but miraculously able to stand, and darting to his side, placing a hand on his lowered arm. He’d clearly taken a beating, and Ezra could feel that he was only barely holding onto this form. Ember nodded down at him, exhaustion creeping its way into his eyes, and then he turned to the rest of the group, still in Ren’s mandala.
“He’s too much for us,” he said, one wing flicking back to gesture at Ordinemon, where Ko and Alpha were still battling valiantly. “Three Digimon can’t handle him on their own. Even if Ren joined us -”
“I asked everyone who was free to come help,” Quinn cut in, grasping at her sleeves and looking down at the ground. “These - this is all we have. It’s all we can do.”
“It’s not enough,” Ember said with a shake of his head. “We’re no match against him. Not when he’s this angry. We need to retreat.”
“We can’t just run away!” Quinn argued, head snapping up as she took a step forward. She grit her teeth and slapped a hand on her cheek, eyes burning in the darkness. “That’s - we can’t give up, we have to keep fighting!”
“What’s up with the change of heart?” Azure asked, the first words they’d spoken since arriving, and all eyes were on them, especially Quinn’s. They shrugged, arms crossed across their chest; they seemed more defeated than anything. “We’ve retreated before and it’s been fine. Why’re you so against it now, of all times?”
“That’s -” Quinn started, but Elijah beat her to it.
“She’s scared.”
She whipped her head down to face him, mouth curling into a frown, but he continued anyway. “You’ve seen now what he can do. What he hasn’t been doing until now, but what he’s perfectly capable of. I… I was your last hope of ending things peacefully, and…” He smirked, gesturing at himself. “Well, this speaks for itself.”
Quinn, fists clenched and teeth bared like a frightened dog, was not prepared for when Elijah looked up at her, his eyes piercing straight through her, and she retreated a couple steps, drawing into herself.
“You’re scared. I know you are. You’re worried that if we retreat, Ordinemon might take it as a sign of weakness, and end up hurting more people. Maybe even you. And that terrifies you.”
“I’m not scared,” she grit out, even though everything about her said the opposite. She looked around, meeting everyone’s gazes in turn, even Ezra’s, and then rounded on Elijah once more. “I’m - I’m not. You don’t know what this is like. I just -”
“Believe me, I do,” he said. “Or at least, I have an idea of what you’re going through. I’ve been in your position before.”
He didn’t elaborate, and Quinn didn’t respond, all the fight drained out of her. Ezra’s brow furrowed in concern, but he did not speak, remaining where he stood next to Ember. The area was silent for a while, nothing but the waves and battle behind them making any sort of sound.
Eventually Quinn turned around, facing toward the ocean. “Take him inland,” she said; she didn’t need to clarify for them to know who she was talking about. “Have Ren keep him stabilized until he can get medical attention. We… Alpha and I will stay and fight.”
Ezra’s heart sank. “What?” he said, reaching out toward her, completely uselessly. “No, come with us, it’s not -”
“That’s an order,” she snapped, clearly trying to sound more confident than she really felt, but the shake of her hands and her unsteady breaths gave her away just as much as her refusal to look at him did.
She didn’t wait for their responses or say anything else before she took off, running toward Alpha as he flew by. She called out to him and waved him down, and he landed for only long enough to lift her onto his shoulder before jumping back into the fight, aiming a beam of energy at Ordinemon.
Ezra didn’t realize he’d started toward them until Elijah called out behind him. “Let her go,” he said, and Ezra looked over his shoulder, frustration battling within him. “She’s dealing with a lot.”
“She’s going to get herself killed!” he insisted, gesturing out at her, but Elijah shook his head.
“She’s stronger than she seems. They’ll be fine.”
Ezra bit back the words threatening to spill from his mouth, because if he said them they may hurt him more than the hole in his chest. Instead he sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and nodded, heading back to the other humans.
Ko landed next to Ember a few moments later, and the two of them devolved, quickly regrouping together. They checked each other over, despite knowing it was pointless. There was nothing to check that wasn’t obvious, staring at them from a pool of blood. They managed to avoid looking at Elijah, or Quinn, or the fight behind them as they gathered themselves together and got ready to leave. It was hard, but they didn’t do it.
It would be pointless.
They said nothing as they set out.
Ren carried Elijah in her arms as they walked. Her mandala, a static thing, could not follow them while they went; as such, she had to be careful not to move Elijah in any way that would injure him further, now that his body was no longer in stasis. She led the way through the ruined streets, heading toward somewhere safe to stop and set up camp. Now that they didn’t have to keep an eye on Ordinemon, there wasn’t a need to be close enough to see him, and so they walked deep into the city, getting as far away from him as possible.
Ezra and Ember fell to the back of the group, unable to be near Elijah any longer, guilt and fear and maybe some sense of defeat welling up within them. Quinn was right - this wasn’t supposed to have happened. Ezra and Ember had promised they would keep Elijah safe, and… they hadn’t. That was it.
They had failed.
Even if he was alive, even if Ren would be able to keep him stable - they’d still failed.
“I should have stopped him,” Ember mumbled, eyes trained on his feet, and Ezra felt something in his chest break. “Held him back. Gotten you both out of there sooner. Protected him from Ordinemon. Just… something. That’s… that’s why I was there. And… I couldn’t even do that.”
“It’s not your fault,” Ezra said. It was weak, and couldn’t fully encompass everything they were feeling or thinking, but it was all he could do. He tried again. “He… he wanted Ordinemon to hurt him. He told me. There… I don’t think there was anything you could’ve done.”
Elijah hadn’t fully believed that his partner had changed. That he was not the Pallas he had once known. And for that reason, through that twisted line of logic, he’d needed Ordinemon to hurt him.
And he had.
Elijah saw it now, Ezra could tell. He could see it just as clearly as Ezra himself could. Unless they stopped him, Ordinemon would be the end of the world.
And the only way to stop him was to kill him.
Ember didn’t respond. They walked in silence together for several long minutes, the space between them stretching wider the further they went, both physically and metaphorically. Ezra had to forcibly restrain himself from turning around to look back over his shoulder, at the way they’d come, at Ordinemon, at Quinn and Alpha. They had to keep going. One foot in front of the other.
He hoped this would all be over soon.
“What’s going to happen after this?”
Ember’s words gently brought him back into the present moment, and Ezra closed his eyes.
“I mean… if we can defeat Ordinemon, and save the world, and everything is over… what happens then?”
“I don’t know,” Ezra said, as honest as he could. He had no idea what their future held. He didn’t even know if they’d be able to defeat Ordinemon. Ember sounded so confident, like it was a given, a pre-written destiny, even though he’d said “if”.
If they could defeat him. If they could save the world. If everything could, one day, end.
“…Are you going to forget me?”
The question shot through Ezra’s chest like a knife, an arrow fired from on high, the helixed point of one of Ordinemon’s limbs. He choked, stumbling over his feet and only barely avoiding falling to his knees, but it didn’t matter whether he did or didn’t, because he still felt like he had.
Without thinking, he reached down to scoop Ember into his arms, and for once his partner did not complain. He just nuzzled his face deeper into Ezra’s sleeves, eyes shut tight and ears pinned back.
“No,” Ezra managed to say, resting his chin on Ember’s head. “Of course not. I could never forget you, not in any universe.” His throat felt like it’d been sewn shut, each word needing to force its way past the stitches to make its way out of his mouth, and though it hurt, he made himself do it anyway. “No matter what happens. Even… even if this doesn’t end, even if this is the rest of our lives… we’ll always have each other. And I’ll always love you.”
Over the few months they’d known each other, even though it had seemed so much longer, Ezra had felt like he’d had Ember with him all his life. Maybe he had. Maybe Ember had always been there, intangible yet ever present, and only when Ezra had fallen into the Digital World had that wall of glass between them been shattered.
And now they had each other. And maybe that was why it felt so different right now, now that the possibility of them not having each other was so real and so likely. Anything could happen between now and them defeating Ordinemon.
But until then, and after that, and for the rest of his life and the length of the universe, Ezra would remember Ember, and he would love him, and they would have each other, because -
“You’re my heart.”
Ember laughed, all of his misery and despair washed away, just like that. He grinned up at Ezra, eyes shining with too many things to name. “That means you’re meant to follow me.”
Ezra smiled back, unable to help it.
In a sense, it was true. Ezra had always followed Ember, wherever he went, whatever they were doing. Because Ezra trusted him, and he loved him, and he’d never let Ezra down, even in their darkest hours. Even when Ezra hadn’t known what to do or where to go, Ember had been his flame in the darkness, lighting the way for him and showing him he wasn’t alone.
He didn’t say any of it out loud. He knew Ember would find it too mushy and laugh and make fun of him for it, even if he knew it was true. So he kept it to himself, because it didn’t matter. They still had each other, and they always would.
Ezra didn’t really need to say it aloud for Ember to know it and feel it.
Even with everything around them, Ezra would always have his heart, and he would always follow it. It hadn’t led him astray yet.
It never would.