View source for Fragmented Dream III (Duke)

{{Cutscene Header
|Date of Scene=2015/04/30
|Location=???
|Synopsis=Duke's dreams continue to haunt him as he argues with himself.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=718
|Tinyplot=
}}
The room was solid black, no light but only what surrounds the field of vision of the viewer; vision of Duke. The ground below a dull white and all around a seemingly lifeless void. Until there was a spark, then another that created circuit board patterns for only a moment. Whispers for a moment filled the room, yet sounding so distant.

The words hard to make out, but they were different voices. Cries, laughs, joys, and sadness, so many mixed emotions filled the words that floated the room, only before there was a flicker of light as another circle of light appeared on the ground, then another, then another, before 13 lights lined down the path.

At the end of the path stood a static figure, what looked like some type of shield and the other arm like that of a lance. A cape seeming to flow in the static. Duke spoke out, fear in his voice, "Who are you? What do you want!?" His own voiced echoed around him, thirteen times it felt like.

He could only hear a laugh from the figure, at the first circle he passed, a figure of shadowy Examon appeared, "Who am I? I think the proper question to ask is... who are you?" The static figure asks back as he continues his slow walk forward.

"I know who I am!" Duke replies back, only to observe as another shadowy Royal Knight appears; Jesmon.

"Do you?" The static figure asks, as he easily cants his head. "Then tell me. Tell me /who/ you are. Tell me who /I/ am." As the figure passes another circle another shadowy figure appears in the mirror, this time of Gankoomon. "Well? I am waiting..."

"I am..." Duke tries to say as it feels like the words choked in his mouth, as if he is struggling to say it. "I am... I am not you! That is what I know!"

"I thought you didn't know who I was?" The static figure asks, as he passes by Ulforce V-Dramon.

"You are a Royal Knight and I am /not/ a Royal Knight! I am nothing like you! NONE of you!" Duke yells out as his voice once more echoes around.

The static figure comes to a stop, "Oh... is that so? Is that what you honestly believe? Deep down in your heart?" The static figure seems to vanish, but the rest of the mirrors fill out, one by one, the final image though flashes of Alphamon, which Duke stares at, before he forces himself to turn away and finds the static image down another hall. Only this time there is form to the static, seeable red and chrome armor, with the red cape hanging down and his arms crossed over his chest with no weapons exposed. "That you have no connections to /any/ of this?"

Duke growls, his voice deepening, becoming more aggressive. He has Digivolved it seem, to Growlmon X. "I have none! You are all murderers! Destroyers! Mindless puppets to that damn Yggdrasil!"

The figure shakes his head as he extends out his hands with a shrug, "You believe this? With no doubt in your heart?"

"I..." Duke once more hesitates, he can feel his heart in his throat as he tries to shake it away. "This is all lies! You are a lie! I am not YOU!! I am NOT a Royal Knight!"

"Really?" The figure starts to walk toward him, as the 13 mirrors come out, spinning around, but one mirror is blank, one mirror is missing and as the figure comes closer, the blank spot comes to stop where he is. Where Dukemon should be; for that is who the image fully becomes. "Say that to me." He points at his own face as he walks fully up to the mirror, "Yell it to my face. That you are a Royal Knight, that you are not me... which is curious you said that... don't you think?"

"Shut up!" Duke roars out his voice now more mechanical as he finds himself looking eye to eye with the Dukemon in the mirror. "Shut up!!"

"Then tell me!" Dukemon roars back as the whole area shakes. "Tell it to my face! Right now! COME ON, COWARD!"

Duke goes to open his mouth, but no words can come out, he once more chokes on his own words, as he finds himself staggering back a heavy step. Each of the images fading, all but one... Omegamon as Dukemon talks and Duke's own eyes drawn to it. Drawn to Omegamon.

"You know who else was a coward...?" Dukemon says, "You want to know who else couldn't face /me/, look /me/ in the eyes?"

Duke's eye go wide as he watches Omegamon raise up the Garuru Cannon and watches the beam start to glow. He wants to run, he wants to run. The room flickers of a field. grass below, the sky darkening, he can feel his body floating in the air. Before he sees the beam coming at him. The massive beam that goes to pierce right through him, but the image, the vision, shatters all around like glass, before he finds his body crashing down to the ground, shattering through that floor, then through another, before at last coming to stop in a platform of light, now as Medieval Dukemon.

Dukemon hovers over him, looking down at him. The image flickers from time to time, looking like the old Dukemon to Dukemon X. "Hehe. No... you are better than that... You just have to face the cold reality of it all, because you can't keep hiding."

Duke tsks and quickly gets up to his feet, summoning his halberd to swing it only for it to strike a shadowy figure. The Black Mach Gaogamon, with glowing red eyes, as he hears Dukemon's voice. "Because the past... has away of catching up with us... and if you don't wake up..."

The Black Mach Gaogamon shoves aside the halberd for going to punch him, only for the shadows to flow over him and take the image of Dukemon, but in much darker colors with gold eyes narrowing. "...Then Yggdrasil will finish what he started. His word is absolute. His Judgement finite. I was judged. I was sentenced... but it wasn't finished. You know what this means..."

"But I am not you! I am not this... Royal Knight you /think/ I am. I am not..."

"Not who...?"

"I am... I am not..." Duke goes to say before he finds himself falling to his knees. "I... I can't be..."

"Hehe... why can't you be? You are wasting precious time and you know it. Wake up... wake up and accept the fate! Accept the truth! WAKE UP!"

Then with a loud buzzing as he goes to yell, he finds himself back in reality, falling nearly out of bed with a loud thump, wrapped up in his sheets. Coming to blink his eyes a few times as he looks up at Doran who is looking directly down at him. "...Doran...? ...Am I awake now?"