BACKSTORY, BECAUSE I CAN
Ken is a nice kid with a background that is just about as awful as you can get without breaking the PG limit. You are about to find out how bad that can be.
"Sam was the genius in the family. I was ''so'' proud of him..."
Ken was born with very little fanfare to a couple already preoccupied with their first son, Osamu (hereafter referred to as "Sam" because I am a dub nerd.) By the time he turned four, he was generally familiar with what would be his life for another four years: get up, get dragged around by Mama and Papa to Sam's next science fair, math competition, or chess match, then come back home to play with his wonderful big brother. Ken was a nice little kid, gentle and considerate, if a little sheltered (his only close childhood friend appeared to be Sam, who was a good one, as far as brothers went), but that was all he had going for him. Meanwhile, hordes upon hordes of envious mothers and fathers crowded around the rest of his family, wanting more and more out of Sam's budding genius, leaving his rather nondescript little brother further and further from the glowing circle of attention. Not even Sam's praise of his good qualities could reverse the slow spiral of Ken's self-esteem, and nothing could replace what he really wanted: just a moment of his mother's attention, that's all. He hadn't hit rock bottom before it occurred to him that the source of all of his loneliness stemmed directly from the person he was convinced loved him the most -- Sam.
"I just wanted to look at it. What harm could that do?"
Things take a turn for the worse as we flash forward five years. It's 1999, and a weird little doodad has shot out of Sam's computer and onto the floor. The device, Ken surmised, clearly belonged to Sam -- all the special things tended to happen to him -- and Sam agreed, putting it in a drawer and telling Ken not to touch it under any circumstances. After maybe an hour or so, Ken disobeyed his brother (it wasn't his fault, not really; it was a cool toy and Ken wanted to look at it) and snuck the little toy out of the desk.
The device sucked him into his brother's computer and into the Digital World for the very first time. He spent all of a day there, wandering and looking around at this new world. He even found his way back to the terminal after getting lost, which was a big thing for a kid like him. Ken beamed back to his brother's room, breathless and encouraged by his new adventure, at the very same hour and day the Digivice appeared in his brother's room. He couldn't ''wait'' to tell Sam what happened.
Sam was very angry. He hit Ken, took his Digivice away, yelled at him for a bit, then kicked him out of his room.
Ken did not take this very well. The frustration he felt when it came to his brother reached a boiling point. Why did ''he'' have to be the one that no one paid attention to? Why would he eventually get blamed for Sam's sudden bout of anger when he had only done one little thing wrong? Because he would, and he ''knew'' he would, because Sam was special and could do no wrong. Mama and Papa wouldn't listen to him. They never would. They would never, ever be interested in the fact that their youngest son was a pioneer into a new world because their eldest had been getting high-profile attention for his academics for years and ''years''. Of course there was nothing special about Ken. Sam was the reason that their parents would never, ever love him. Sam was the problem. Sam was ''always'' the problem. Ken wished, not for the first time, but more fervently than he had ever done in his life, that Sam would disappear.
Shortly afterward, as Ken waited at the sidewalk for Sam to cross the road, Sam was hit by a car and died at the scene. Ken's parents were devastated. As a fairly sheltered, still excruciatingly nice nine-year old, having no idea why his brother wouldn't come back after the doctors took him away, Ken had no one to blame for his big brother's sudden disappearance but himself.
"Eh? So this is a Digimon…?"
A year later, he was much better. Sure, he wasn't doing any better at school, and his mother and father were still grieving over Sam, (and the trauma completely wiped his brief stint inside his brother's computer from his memory, and for the next few months, he lived in an oddly lucid sense of guilt), but he was slowly coming to terms with the fact that he hadn't really done anything wrong. He had even made a new friend in Ryo, an outgoing, cheerful boy that Ken admired deeply. It's now the summer of 2000, and Ryo goes over to Ken's house in time to watch two giant monsters fight in the huge network that is the internet for the fate of Tokyo. The next day, while discussing what he thought was a game (and Ryo insisted was reality), a monster suddenly emerged from the computer and begged Ryo to help them. To Ken's great surprise, he was drawn into the computer as well, presumably as a tourist. He had a brief chance to enjoy his stay in this new world before the town he was staying in literally exploded. Waking up in a faraway forest, he met the Digimon Wormmon, who claimed he had been waiting for him for a very long time…
From that point on, he cooperated with Ryo (who had been separated from him in a different instance of reality (long story, but basically the explosion had split the Digital World into two identical dimensions)) and with the help of several Digimon, he tracked down the latest culprit in the Digital World's eternal cycle of woes and helped save the world (hesitantly at first, because Ken never had a hero's temperament; then with a growing sense of confidence and responsibility.) Thanks to Wormmon (and a shit-ton of character development), by the end of the journey when he met up with Ryo at last at the final doors, he was a different person. He had already defeated his reality's Millenniummon, a giant reality-warping monster, with nothing but determination and a few good Digimon at his side. He was much stronger, with faith in his strong points and a good grasp on his weaknesses. But most importantly, he had grown to like Wormmon immensely, whose single-minded devotion to Ken had saved them both over and over again. Ken trusted Wormmon with his life. He believed that all together, they could overcome anything.
Then they entered Moon=Millenniummon's soul. Moon=Millenniummon was psychotic, an entity full of malice. Ken and Ryo traveled through his psyche, audience to every thought and desire of a homicidal psychopath. Moon=Millenniummon treated Ken with contempt, raining insults on him, but lavished Ryo, who had defeated him twice before, with a disturbing fascination. When they defeated Moon=Millenniummon, it was a relief to watch his data disperse into the air, presumably to be recached and reborn without his taint.
However, it wasn't the end. With his final burst of energy, Moon=Millenniummon released a shower of black spores, sending them after Ryo. Ken, seeing no other option, shielded Ryo with his body and took a spore to the back of the neck. The rest of the spores disappeared with Moon=Milleniummon, but Ken's spore buried itself into his neck, making him severely ill. He spent the next three weeks in bed, Wormmon and Ryo caring for him until Ryo was called back to the Digital World for one last adventure. Ken, still weak from his illness, guided his best friend as well as he could from the confines of his bed, communicating with him via computer and D-Terminal. When Ryo's faith in the people he believed in was shattered, Ken could only watch as his best friend closed communications with everyone he trusted and refused to respond to anyone, not even Ken. When Moon=Millenniummon (yes, again) pulled Ryo into another dimension, he didn't get a chance to say goodbye.
Firmly in denial about Ryo's sudden disappearance and with Wormmon at his side, he forged through the last week of his illness. Wormmon returned to the Digital World to wait for Ken again. However, contracting the spore had much more dire consequences than anyone had yet realized…
"This is mine now…! No one can take it away from me… Ha! I'm in control now…"
Stay tuned for: a slow descent into madness, costume wtfery, and really really dark seaside getaways!