A/N: Written for Digimon Bingo – the non-flash Version, #773 – Crusadermon.

The Rebirth of Crusadermon

She died in a manner few knew about, and most that did know are no longer in this world when she is reborn. Instead, everyone around remembers her as a knight disgraced by the blood of innocent digimon on her ribbons and shield – a murderer who'd slaughtered her way through countless villages and towns following a mad fallen angel that had tried to destroy them all.

But she is just a child, reset – reborn. A MetalKoromon for reasons she doesn't quite understand separated from other MetalKoromon; how could they even tell? She doesn't remember any of what they claim she did. She isn't that person, if that person is as horrible as they say. But they remember: those that lived through those times, those that told their younger ones and spread the rumours around. And no-one goes anywhere near her unless to attack – and she's just lucky the champions refrain themselves to glares otherwise she would be dead again by now. The attacks of baby digimon are weak, even to other baby digimon, and by good fortune or some other means, she is an in-training Kapurimon within a few weeks and able to easily withstand those attacks as well. Rookies are the only ones who physically hurt her –

But who cares about physical pain when her heart is in such a dire state, starved for love?

She trains hard, on her own because no-one will train her and sneakily so the adults don't get any more ideas and try to actively drive her out. She trains so she'll be strong enough to survive outside the Village of Beginnings, so she can make her way in life.

And then, one day, she is a Kotemon. And on that day she leaves the Village of Beginnings to never go back.

.

Her new life isn't that different to her old one, except she is always on the move. Everywhere she goes, digimon look at her the same: like she's a murderer who has wormed their way out of hell. And the champions out here have less restraint as well. They have no qualms about attacking a rookie who won't survive a ferocious assault from them.

But she's learnt care from avoiding less brutal assaults in the Village of Beginnings. She's gotten good at sneaking about, avoiding hits, faking pain – and she has to do all that and more to get by. Sometimes she regrets leaving – but it's not so different, in the end. And all rookies leave. Most just aren't as eager to escape as her.

There are other problems though, like working and buying. No-one good will take her. No-one will allow her to build a nice reputation for herself. Shady characters don't either, because she's a Kotemon and looks too much like a good digimon no matter how rotten her heart. She tries to argue it's not rotten, but no-one really cares enough to believe her.

She has to steal her food and oil for her body; there's nothing left for her. She tries to make it up, but it's more a personal justification than anything else, weeding the garden of the Togemon she stole her cabbages from, things like that. She doesn't know if they guess and pretend they don't know, or just wonder what sort of little elf digimon is doing such, but she's gone from the place before she can face the consequences and taking up root somewhere else.

.

At some point, she stumbles across the dirt road where the thieving digimon pass through with their spoils, and she decides to set up a permanent residence there and make her living cloaked and masked and stealing back those goods for their owners. When they can't see her, they are fine: thankful, grateful. She gets all the food she needs from the thieves – a little price they have to pay for the stolen goods, and she returns the goods where she can. She digivolves into Gladimon at some point, but her size doesn't change much so it goes unnoticed in the world.

And she's fine with that: all of that. It's not an ideal life, but it's good. Attacks are justified ones, even if they're from thieves who don't know the meaning of the word. No-one stares at her like she's caked with blood.

But then a book comes into her possession, stolen of a thief that had taken it from a visitor in the next village. And it's a book that tells about children: four children that become five and then six, and about the legendary warriors that are said to be the pillars of their world. But she has never seen them, and she is not fanciful enough to believe they exist.

But that book claims they do, claim the children used those spirits and saved their world. Fought who the world claimed she had been reborn from – fought her but did not kill her, it said. That was the mad fallen angel she'd apparently fought for, after a shed of tears for the fallen comrade killed just seconds before her.

Anger and something else flared in her heart and she stormed to the village, casting off her cloak and mask as she went. No-one recognised her as the robin hood figure in the dust road; they saw Gladimon who they were sure came from the Crusadermon that had once laid waste upon their land. The rage gives her power: more power than battling fools on the dust road, and she has attained new power and height and is a Knightmon with a fierce and powerful sword by the time she finds the owner of the book.

It's an easy task: he'd written his name on the cover along with a little picture of him, and he's the first of his kind she's seen. He quakes when he sees her but she doesn't care. So did the other villagers – and let them quake! She was far more powerful than them now. Let them feel that terror.

She drops the book at his feet and he stares at it, back at her, and at it again as though putting two and two together. She doesn't care about that though. She cares about the contents of that book.

.

She's not quite sure what calms her rage, but something does, and she can see Bokomon is a little different from the other digimon. He knows everything – he claims it to be true – but he doesn't treat her like a murderer in the least. Instead, he invites her to put her sword down and sit with him – and she does though only because she's sure she can crush him with her bare hands if need be, and on rookie can get through her armour.

Not that he tries. He tells her about the children instead, the children she'd read about. And she learns more about Lucemon too – that mad fallen angel that had tricked so many people, even the children that had defeated him and saved them all. And he tells more about her apparent past life as well: how she'd sunk low but not so low to kill innocent humans who couldn't be reborn. How she'd gone to her partner despite it meaning certain death for her. How she'd tried to speak up against Lucemon by the end, how her heart had lost the will to fight.

And she found herself pouring her current life out to him as well, and he is understanding, and pathetically proud. 'I feel like a parent,' he sobs. 'You've suffered so much but are still so good at the end of it.' He claps his hands together then, as though coming up with something. 'I've got it; you'll work for Cherubimon.'

Cherubimon is one of the celestial digimon that rule the Digital World and to work for him is a great honour indeed, but she wonders a moment why he suggests such a thing – before remembering the portion about him in the book.

Cherubimon is like her, but the role he played in the final battle for their world was redeeming enough for its citizens to forget that. So she goes with him, carrying few misgivings but less than she's carried before in her life, and she meets the great ruler and is struck by awe. But he is kind and accepting and loving: none of the things she's imagined anyone being to her before, and just like that her till then satisfactory life in the dust road has become a painful thing in prospect of the future.

She accepts Cherubimon's offer to join his guard immediately and is given her first assignment, and it is a happy one: accompanying Bokomon on his travels to learn more about the digital world. He is wise and good at finding knowledge but is unable to defend himself, and despite her much larger size she is able to still easily sneak around.

So they travel around to various places and news that she works for Cherubimon gets around and the digimon slowly warm up to her. Enough to sell her things, let her sleep at their inns, things like that. That's about it, but that's more than enough for her now that she has Bokomon and Cherubimon and the other inhabitants of that castle who ware likewise warm with her.

Some things bother her though: the children, her old partner who she thinks was in the same circumstance as her as well and deserves the same sort of chance… And then rumours of a Mokumon born in the Village of Beginnings: a Mokumon people claimed to be born from Dynasmon's egg.

They go immediately and the elder at the village is more than willing to give up the Mokumon to them. She happily takes it back to Cherubimon's castle and watches as the inhabitants, and she herself when she can, nurture it into DemiMeramon, then Candlemon, then Wizardmon. And she feels something grow in her each time, until he becomes Mistymon and she achieves her final stage: Crusadermon.

But by then she has a place in the world and people that accept her no matter what she becomes, and she knows that one day Mistymon will become Dynasmon and they'll be partners again – though he's less her partner and more her child now, she thinks. And she can't help but mind her mind up till now, because she's grown into this strong warrior of Cherubimon's who defends the Digital World, and she's managed to spare Dynasmon from suffering the same sort of life.