Super Angry Friendship Space Wolf

Yamato's not entirely surprised to note that his room has been decked out in 90s science fiction fashion, too. Everything's still there, and in the same place, but it's like the whole thing has been re-textured to look like a dingy spaceship or worn down space station. The windows even look out onto space now.

He leads Quentin aside, shaking his head as he shuts the door. "Bar's really going all in on the theming, huh."

“It’s called UndeadChimairamon,” Luminamon says. “And it’s been sent to hunt me down.”

Another night, another twelve hours of fighting phantoms. Nobody’s at their best, clutching mugs of coffee as they linger in Koushiro’s office, listening to Luminamon explain.

Jyou folds his arms, frowning. “We fought a MarinChimairamon when we faced off against the Ironworks Company. I’m guessing someone figured out how to reverse engineer Ken’s digimon-building technology. Only took them half a decade.”

“It’s not necessarily that surprising,” Koushiro notes, “Ken, Professor Oikawa, and Gennai all managed to create their own versions of that technology. Anyone determined enough could use their research and the blueprints they left behind to engineer their own version.”

“All of which doesn’t answer why it’s trying to capture you,” Yamato says. “So?”

Luminamon shuffles awkwardly in place, flicking one white ear. “Its masters want to use me as a component. They’re building -- what they call the perfect Digimon. Millenniumon.”

“So if they capture you, they’ll break you down into data,” Sora says. “And you came here for our help.”

Luminamon hesitates, then gives a quick nod.

“Then of course we’ll help,” Sora says, offering Luminamon a smile. “We just need to figure out what to do about UndeadChimairamon.”

“And whatever they send next to capture you,” Yamato adds, frowning. He sees Taichi’s gaze flick over to him, just for a moment.

Luminamon perks up slightly, lifting its ears straight up. “I can -- I can help with UndeadChimairamon,” she says. “If you can draw its pieces into one place and amplify my power somehow, I can force it back into its real form. Once it’s reverted back …”

“We can kill it,” Taichi finishes. “Koushiro?”

“It’s not like we can build an amplifier for holy energy from scratch. We just don’t have the hardware,” Koushiro says, a little wearily. “If we want to do this, we’re going to have to borrow a large enough radio transmitter.”

“What about the television centre, then? It’s built for broadcasting, it’ll have the machinery we need,” Sora says. “We’ll just have to -- try very hard not to damage it too much this time.”

There’s a collective outward breath of exhaustion, as each Chosen cycles through the number of times the Fuji Television Centre has been nearly destroyed by Digimon attacks. It had barely survived the Battle of Odaiba.

“When we do this, though, it’s going to be like lighting up a thousand flares and announcing Luminamon’s presence with them. We’re going to get pushback, maybe even an outright invasion,” Yamato says. “Koushiro, can you take scans of Luminamon? I might have an idea what to do about that.”

Koushiro gives a quick nod, flipping open his laptop and starting work. Everyone else gives a collective grumble of exhaustion, scarfing down their coffee.

“Tonight, then,” Taichi says. “When UndeadChimairamon attacks, we lure him towards the TV centre and make our move.”

Luminamon sprints across the plains of File Island, as behind her a bank of fog pursues, rolling across the earth after her. If she looks back, she can see a skeletal shape in the mists, something huge and winged, with wisps of red light glaring out of cavernous eye sockets.

There. A distortion, opening just ahead. Luminamon rebounds off a rock and dives into it, shutting her eyes as it flings her through a field of red and black and spits her out on the other side.


---


The Vademon make their home in the interior of a Cometmon, a strange space full of bizarre angles and geometry that makes no sense to Gennai’s eye. He stays close to the guide, keeping one eye on them and one on Doumon trailing behind him, until they eventually reach the main room.

He can see the ring of tanks, three occupied by the still-screaming shapes of MarinChimairamon, Revivemon, and Mephistomon, each one attended to by a swarm of identical, mummified Vademon.

The one they seem to think of as their spokesmon turns to them, waving a hand at the holographic screens surrounding it. One shows Tokyo, with a wave of fog billowing out across it. The other shows a swamp in the north-west of Folder Continent, with four humans -- Daisuke, Miyako, Iori, and Ken, Gennai realises after a moment -- making their way through the water.

Out of the corner of his eye, Gennai sees two Vademon march past, with a camera-headed Digimon held between them.

“Who’s that?” He asks.

“We are saying it is Cameramon. We are declaring it is a prisoner. We are declaring that it isn’t your concern,” the spokesmon Vademon says. It gestures at the screens again. “Look.”

Gennai turns his gaze to the screens. “You’ve been busy.”

“We have sent servants to pursue Luminamon. We are declaring that she is an important component in the perfect Digimon,” Vademon says. “We are informing you that we have sent other servants to meet Daisuke Motomiya and his team. We are informing you that Daisuke Motomiya will act as selection pressure.”

“It almost seems like you don’t need us,” Doumon says.

“We require Gennai to complete the trap for Meicoomon. He may begin work immediately,” Vademon says. “And we will have use of your forces, Doumon. We are informing you that we will need them for retrieval purposes, in due time.”

“And until then?”

“We are declaring that you may wait until then,” Vademon says. “Wait and see how we work.”


---


It’s a normal winter’s day when the fog rolls in, blanketing the eastern side of Tokyo first before spreading out over the entire city and eventually tumbling over the bay. It forms so fast that Yamato can practically see the process, the mist getting so thick that before long he can’t even see six inches past the window of the safehouse.

“Weather report didn’t say anything about fog,” Sora says.

“No,” Yamato replies. “It didn’t. What’s the status on Daisuke’s team?”

“Still in the Digital World, dealing with territory disputes. Out of contact range,” Sora replies.

Next to them, Hikari presses her fingers against the glass lightly, furrowing her brow.

“Distortion signal detected,” Koushiro announces. “Over in Shibuya. I’m only detecting a single Digimon coming through.”

“Eastern Tokyo, where the fog started,” Sora remarks. “I can get there fastest. Want me to check it out?”

“Take Takeru with you,” Yamato says. “And stay in communication.”

‘Staying in communication’ turns out to be easier said than done. As if to seal the fact that this fog isn’t natural, Sora and Takeru have barely flown a mile when their voices, coming from Koushiro’s computer speaker, start to distort and buzz with static; barely two miles away when they become unintelligible; only three miles away when they cut out entirely.

“It’s interfering with communications all over the city,” Koushiro confirms a few seconds later. “I’ll boost the signal through my digivice. We might be able to at least get text updates through their D-Terminals.”

It takes nearly ten minutes, but eventually Koushiro gives a short noise of acknowledgement, turning his laptop towards Yamato as a message arrives. Located Digimon. It ran away. Tracking now. Luminamon, Perfect-level Fairy Digimon.

“We’re still getting some lag even like this,” Koushiro grouses. “More to the point, though, the Analyser suggests that a Luminamon shouldn’t be able to create a fog like this. Its primary abilities are healing and empowering other Digimon, not weather control.”

“You’re sure only one Digimon came through?” Yamato asks.

“Only one that I detected,” Koushiro replies.

“I’m not sure,” Hikari says. She’s still standing at the window, her hand splayed over the glass. Yamato’s gaze flicks over to her. “I can sense other things out there, like -- echoes.”

“Tell Sora to be careful,” Yamato says to Koushiro. “There’s more to this somehow.”


---


When the sun starts to dip below the horizon, Yamato feels it as well, the sense of things moving through the fog, the familiar prickling on the back of his neck that says that there’s something unseen out there. A quick check confirms that Taichi feels it too, even if Koushiro, Mimi, and Jyou don’t.

When the last sliver of the sun fades, Koushiro’s computer gives a series of sharp beeps.

“More Digimon signals appearing,” Koushiro says sharply. “Two, four, twelve, twenty, forty …”

“Are they coming from distortions?” Taichi asks.

“No distortions. They’re just -- appearing,” Koushiro replies. His fingers fly across the keyboard, bringing up blurry, distorted holographic images, of skeletal creatures, rotting zombies and masses of flesh, and ghosts that resemble nothing so much as Bakemon wearing witch hats. “SkullBaluchimon, Scorpiomon, Velgrmon, Entmon, MadLeomon, RareRaremon, and dozens of Soulmon. Velgrmon and a contingent of Soulmon have already engaged Sora and Takeru.”

Yamato frowns. “I’ll take SkullBaluchimon, then. Taichi, deal with Scorpiomon; Mimi, go after MadLeomon; Koushiro, Jyou, head to the bay and deal with RareRaremon; Hikari, you’re taking on Entmon. Move out, everyone.”


---


SkullBaluchimon is certainly in the running for one of the larger Digimon Yamato’s seen. He finds the skeletal Digimon looming over Akihabara, with nearly twenty Soulmon clustered around him, eyes flashing as it rakes beams of energy across the tops of buildings.

He gets its attention with a volley of blue fire from Garurumon, whistling a hair’s breadth past one bony cheek, then turns tail and runs, luring it towards Chiyoda Kuritsu Izumi Park, the only expanse of empty space nearby that’s even remotely large enough to accommodate the huge Digimon.

“SkullBaluchimon,” his Analyser says as they run. “Perfect-Level Data-Attribute Undead Digimon. Soulmon, Adult-Level Virus-Attribute Ghost Digimon.”

They crash into the park, barely avoiding one of SkullBaluchimon’s claws, and Yamato pushes off Garurumon’s back, digivice in hand. With a hum of energy, the full moon appears directly above them, lighting up the fog in shades of cyan and silver.

“Garurumon, super evolution. WereGarurumon.”

WereGarurumon sweeps a claw down, releasing a blast of red light that curves up towards SkullBaluchimon. At the moment of impact, though, it just passes through, bones rippling like water as the light emerges from the other side, leaving the Digimon unfazed and unharmed.

He can hear crackling voices over his earpiece, the broken, distorted sounds of the others, fragments of words coming through.

“Can’t … attacks … not there …”
“Like … ghost …”
“Nothing’s working … can’t hit …”

SkullBaluchimon’s claw crashes down, narrowly missing WereGarurumon, carving trenches into the earth.

“What do we do?” WereGarurumon asks, turning his head.

“We can’t let the battle spill out into the city,” Yamato says, frowning. “So we keep them here. For as long as it takes.”


---


It takes until sunrise.

As the sun rises, golden light filtering through the thick fog, SkullBaluchimon and the Soulmon fade away, vanishing back into the mists. Yamato and WereGarurumon are battered, exhausted -- and not once, as far as Yamato recalls, were they able to land a single blow. Everything just passed through it.

“Let’s recap,” Taichi says, when they’re back at the safehouse. “A bunch of Digimon, all various kinds of Undead-types -- skeletons, zombies, ghosts -- and we can’t touch any of them. They can’t seem to operate during the day, but at night they can cause havoc and all we can do is distract them.”

“You don’t think they’re actually ghosts, do you?” Mimi asks. Yamato tenses up on instinct.

“I -- don’t think so,” Sora says, with a slightly strained smile. “Koushiro?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Koushiro replies, without looking up from his laptop. “It’s clear that they’re tied to this fog somehow. It might be that they’re really one Digimon, the fog itself, which just captures or generates other Digimon to use as physical agents. Or maybe they’re only fragmentary data, and they can only physically manifest using the fog as a medium.”

“There’s also Luminamon to think about,” Sora says. “We don’t know what she’s here for or how she’s involved. I don’t get the impression that she’s in league with all these undead Digimon, but that means they might be hunting her.”

“We’ve no leads on where she is, either,” Yamato notes. “And that’s -- …”

He’s cut off by a sharp knock on the door. Tired and paranoid, his hand is inside his jacket in a second, closing around the handle of a knife, as Taichi pads over to the door and opens it.

Stood awkwardly in the doorway is Meiko, holding something bundled up in a coat. Yamato slowly lets go of the knife.

“Um,” Meiko says, ducking her head. The bundle in her arms moves, and a white and pink furred head pops up out of it. “I found -- this is Luminamon. She’s here to help.”

“All teams are safely in the Digital World,” Koushiro says, as the Gate above Odaiba shuts. His fingers blur across his laptop’s keyboard, running scans and simulations, flicking between windows. “We’ll hear back from them when they reach Network points.”

Taichi shrugs. “And in the meantime, I guess everyone will be having -- …”

“Don’t say it,” Yamato mutters.

“I’m just saying -- …”

“Don’t.”

“That it’ll be very episodic -- …”

“Do not -- ...”


The Mimi Episode.

The first thing Mimi realises when she, Miyako, and Daisuke arrive in the Great Lake Area is that none, none of the people on this Meicoomon Hunt, have ever seen Meicoomon.

She sees a lot of Digimon being pursued by gaggles of hunters painted in red, blue, and yellow: She sees Gekomon, and Otamamon, and Golemon, and Bearmon, but she doesn’t see a single orange cat, or anything that resembles Meicoomon even in passing.

“This is a mess,” Miyako mutters.

“We’ve got to put a stop to this,” Daisuke adds.

Mimi takes two steps forward, hopping up onto a rock to give herself a few feet of extra height, and loops her fingers into her mouth, letting out a shrill whistle. She doesn’t just let the sound do the work: As the noise ripples out across the shoreline, a wave of colourful flowers bloom, stretching tall.

It gets the hunters’ attention. It gets everyone’s attention.

“It is I,” Mimi says dramatically, pressing a hand to her chest. “Meicoomon. Take me to your leaders.”


---


“My mons caught her first,” Oujamon, who Mimi can only describe as a giant blue pro-wrestler with four arms and a lion’s head, snarls. “That means she’s mine.”

“Nuh-uh. She was in an area I’d already claimed,” Globemon, some kind of red superhero android, replies. “She’s mine.”

Behind them, Entermon, a kind of bright yellow DJ rabbit with speakers strapped to him, strums a guitar somberly.

“Maybe none of you caught her,” Daisuke says, popping out from behind Mimi, as V-Mon nods gravely on his shoulder. “Philosophically speaking. Since she turned herself in.”

“It’s a failure for the whole hunt,” Miyako agrees, popping out at Mimi’s other side, a stern looking Hawkmon nodding along. “Since it isn’t really a test of skill anymore. Philosophically speaking.”

“Philosophically speaking,” Daisuke adds.

The three Digimon peer at them. Oujamon blinks. Then Globemon. Then Entermon.

“A contest of skill,” Oujamon rumbles.

“So be it,” Globemon declares, curling his hand into a fist. “We will compete to see who claims her.”

“Right, right,” Miyako says. “But -- we have a claim on her too, you know? It’s only natural.”

“So we should be allowed to compete too,” Daisuke adds. “It’s only natural.”

“It’s only natural,” Miyako agrees.


---


The first competition is wrestling. Mimi evolves Palmon for the task, sending Togemon, in all her prickly, cactus-oid glory, out onto the field.

She proves an easy match for Entermon, and even manages to wrestle Globemon down, but Oujamon defeats her, standing victorious over her.

“So, that’s …” Globemon frowns. “Entermon in last place, then myself, then Togemon, then Oujamon. No points for Entermon, one for me, two for Togemon, three for Oujamon. Is that fair?”

“That seems fair,” Daisuke says solemnly.

“Seems fair,” Miyako adds.


---


The second contest is music. Mimi steps up to sing, only to be told that she can’t sing, she’s the Meicoomon here, she’s the prisoner. Everybody knows prisoners don’t sing.

“Everybody knows,” Daisuke says.

“Everybody knows,” Miyako agrees.

Daisuke and Miyako take her place instead. Mimi can already tell, straight off the bat, that they’ll never defeat Entermon, but luckily Oujamon sings like an out-of-tune accordion, and Globemon isn’t much better.

“Oujamon in last place,” Entermon says. “Globemon in third place, the fleshy team in second, and me in first. That means zero for Oujamon, one for Globemon, two for the fleshies, three for me. That’s fair, yes?”

“Seems fair,” Miyako says.

Daisuke wordlessly gives a thumbs up.


---


The final contest is tag -- or at least a kind of tag, in teams divided into a runner and a tagger -- and Mimi is starting to suspect that these three have the minds of children.

Miyako and Daisuke evolve Hawkmon and V-Mon, letting Shurimon and Lighdramon take the field as their representatives, while each of the other three competitors bring along one of their hunters.

Lighdramon tags. Shurimon runs -- or, Mimi supposes, actually it’s more like he hides. Either way, when the match is over, she’s pretty sure they’ve eked out second place, losing out only to Globemon and his ability to search and locate any Digimon.

“So that’s Entermon in last place,” Oujamon says. “Myself in third, Team Chosen in second, and Globemon in first. Zero, one, two, three points. Which means …”

His gaze falls on Daisuke and Miyako, already untying Mimi’s ropes.

“Seems fair,” Daisuke chirps.

“Seems very fair,” Miyako adds.


---


An agreement is hashed out. Oujamon, Globemon, and Entermon will leave TonosamaGekomon’s territory and return to their own, taking their hunters with them, and forget about trying to hunt down Meicoomon.

“Any violence?” Yamato asks later, when Mimi finds a Network point.

“Not unless you count a little bit of wrestling,” Mimi says airily. “I’m a born diplomat.”

“I wonder. Daisuke, find a Gate and report back here. Mimi, Miyako, rendezvous with Jyou at the East Server Sea and provide back-up.”


The Sora Episode.

Centalmon was right. There are people watching the Temple.

Sora sees them after two days of reconnaissance, just three reddish figures moving around the treeline, barely visible from where she’s circling above on Birdramon.

“Takeru-kun, Ken-kun,” she says into her earpiece, giving it a quick tap. “I think I see our targets. Running the Analyser now.”

“Stingmon and I have eyes on them, too,” Ken replies. “They’ve got rope and cutting tools, and what looks like some makeshift camouflage cloaks. It almost looks like they’re planning a heist.”

“If they actually try to steal something, we’re going to have to scrap the whole ‘recon only’ part of this mission,” Takeru says.

“I’ll take responsibility for that myself,” Sora replies. Her phone gives a loud, high-pitched beep as the Analyser finishes scanning them, and she holds it up, frowning. “FlaWizarmon and Witchmon. Both Adult-level Demon Man Digimon, and Revivemon, a Perfect-level Restoration Dragon Digimon.”

“All magic-users,” Ken says. “If they decide to pick a fight, Centalmon won’t be a match for them.”

“Ken-kun, keep watching them,” Sora says. “I need to make a report.”


---


“That’s troubling,” Yamato says, his holographic image flickering and buzzing. The Network point in the File Island Factory isn’t the strongest one, but unless she wants to fly up to the top of Infinity Mountain, it’s the best Sora reckons she’ll get. “Any idea what they want?”

“There are blueprints for digivices, tags, and limiters in the Temple,” Koushiro says from somewhere off the far edge of the holographic image. “That’s the only thing worth stealing. Centalmon won’t give those up without a fight.”

“If he tries fighting them, he’ll lose, and we don’t know that they won’t kill him,” Sora says. “Do I have permission to intervene?”

Yamato arches an eyebrow. “I assume you’re asking out of courtesy, because we both know you’ll intervene no matter what I say.”

Sora gives him a faint smile. Yamato doesn’t smile back, but that’s normal for him.

“You have my permission, anyway, for whatever it’s worth. Centalmon’s a valuable ally.”

“Noted. I’ll keep you updated.”


---


It’s only a few days before the heist goes ahead.

It’s not subtle. The three Digimon bust straight through the eastern wall of the Temple, leaving a plume of smoke and dust rising high in the air. Even if Ken hadn’t been watching them and contacted her as soon as the Digimon started moving, Sora still would have felt the shaking and seen the smoke.

She has Ken pursue them directly, while she and Takeru enter through the southward facing doors, making their way through the labyrinth to box them in. Every so often, she hears Centalmon’s hooves clattering on stone, as he makes his own pursuit of the thieves.

They trap the thieves in the blueprint room, Sora and Takeru approaching from one side with Piyomon and Patamon on their shoulders, Ken and Stingmon from another, and Centalmon from a third. Up close, she can see that Witchmon and FlaWizarmon look almost like Wizarmon did, both human-sized ragdolls in pointed hats, while Revivemon, the odd one out, is some kind of black, metal-coated dragon, with one massive head on the end of its torso and a smaller one attached to a long neck.

“You’re surrounded,” Sora says. “But if you agree to leave peacefully, we can escort you outside and finish this without any violence.”

Revivemon’s response is to open the mouth on its chest, charging a fireball between its teeth. Sora supposes that’s as clear a response as any.


---


The room isn’t large enough to evolve Piyomon into Garudamon, not without smashing through the ceiling, but it’s large enough for Birdramon to fly in -- which, Sora learns, also means it’s large enough for Witchmon to fly, and their battle takes them to the air.

On the ground, Centalmon engages FlaWizarmon, while Stingmon and Angemon battle Revivemon in a flurry of swords and staffs and sharp teeth.

As Witchmon fires off blasts of water, Birdramon twists, corkscrewing around them and spreading her wings just in time to drive talons into the other Digimon, slamming her up against the far wall. A blast of fire later and the battle is over, Witchmon scattering into cubes of data.

Centalmon is the next to finish his opponent, blasting FlaWizarmon apart with a ray of sunlight. Revivemon falls last, as Angemon knocks him back, only for Stingmon to sweep a pink energy blade across his chest, and his form collapses into data.

Sora expects them to leave nothing behind. That’s what usually happens. Instead, three metal shapes drop to the ground.

“Medallions?” Takeru asks, picking one up. It’s golden, with the shape of a goat’s head outlined in white on it, with two purple gems for eyes. “I don’t recognise the symbol.”

“I think I might,” Ken says. His brow furrows into a frown. “I think it’s the mark of Mephistomon, a, er, reclusive magic-wielding Digimon from Server Continent. If they’re carrying this, then they were working for him.”


---

Yamato frowns when Sora tells him about the medallion.

“So we have someone else to worry about,” Yamato says. “All right. There’s no way you’re getting to Server, so secure the island and return. We’ll figure out what to do from there.”


The Hikari Episode.

Mephistomon turns out to be a problem that comes to them.

It’s a day after Sora, Takeru, and Ken return; two days after Daisuke returns, that the Odaiba Gate crashes open and Mephistomon, a puffy-sleeved goatman with his head encased in porcelain, materialises above the city and starts pulling in data.

He’s followed by a swarm of Evilmon, bat-like gremlins the size of a small child, with sharp claws and wicked electrical attacks, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Yamato’s not sure he’s ever seen them show up as individuals, only ever as a swarm that blackens the sky.

His hand is on his digivice before anyone says anything, pouring power into it, before a sharp pain rockets up through his body and cuts off the flow of energy. Next to him, he sees the same thing happen to Taichi. Their injuries are still fresh, and the jarring, wild process of releasing the searing energy of a Crest threatens to rip them apart every time they try.

“Sora, Takeru, Koushiro, Ken, Daisuke, we’ll leave this in your hands,” Yamato says with a grimace, sitting back down. Gabumon settles next to him, looking just as pained as he is, one paw pressed to his side.

What Yamato’s not entirely expecting is for Hikari to rise from her seat. Taichi’s sister harbours a celestial Crest like his and Taichi’s, equal in power to the both of them, but she rarely fights if it can be avoided. Now, as she steps towards the safehouse balcony with Tailmon wrapped around her shoulders, her eyes flare pink, and the blue skies above darken into a field of stars and nebulae.

Birdramon, Angemon, Kabuterimon, Stingmon, and Lighdramon leave first, their respective Chosen on their backs. Then, in a flash of rose pink light, Angewomon ascends from the balcony, with Hikari perched on her shoulder.

---


“We can’t make any headway. Mephistomon’s got … ghost-zombies of FlaWizarmon, Witchmon, and Mistymon, and every time we take out an Evilmon, he replaces them with a ghost-zombie copy,” Sora says, over the sounds of battle.

“Then we cut him off at the source,” Taichi says.

“Sora, Koushiro, Ken, Takeru, clear a path through the air,” Yamato says, “give Hikari a path to him.”


---


The death of Mephistomon is dramatic, even from where Yamato’s stuck in the safehouse. A burst of light, the sky momentarily glittering with too-bright stars, and a wave of force and intent that he can feel his Crest respond to, his limiter pendant burning icy cold.

The light fades eventually, and so does the fierce cold of his limiter, back to its regular comforting chill.

“Guess that solves the problem of Mephistomon and his coven,” Taichi says. “Here’s hoping Jyou’s team is doing okay.”


The Jyou Episode.

“Arr, finally arrived, have you?” CaptainHookmon grumbles as Jyou clambers off Ikkakumon and onto the ship’s deck. “Where be your friend?”

“Iori’s below the surface, inside Submarimon,” Jyou replies, sliding his glasses up his nose. “Who do we have?”

“Five ships, and maybe a dozen seafarin’ Digimon besides that,” CaptainHookmon says. “A poor force for conducting a siege.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Jyou says. “When the battle starts, I’ll take point with Vikemon. Everyone else just needs to focus on freeing all the prisoners.”

“Aye, I’ll spread the word.”


---


The Ironworks Trading Company operates out of a ship of gunmetal-grey iron so large that Jyou’s almost certain it wouldn’t even be able to move without the waves shaking it apart if it were made from Earth materials and subject to Earth physics. As it comes into view, it looks more like an angry cloud than a ship, as the billowing smokestacks shroud it in a cloak of black smog.

“Ready, Ikkakumon?” He asks the Digimon under him. Iori and Submarimon, zipping along at his side, choose this moment to dart away, diving to the bottom of the seafloor as only they can.

“Ready,” Ikkakumon rumbles in reply.

Jyou looks over at the ship next to him, giving CaptainHookmon a nod, and pulls away from the fleet, out into open waters, pulling his digivice from his belt.

He breathes out, and undoes the mental latches on his power, letting the energy thumping in his chest seep out. The water around him responds immediately: The air grows humid, swampy, and the seas roil up around him, splashing him with ocean spray. Taichi might rule the sun, and Yamato the moon, and Sora the skies, and Koushiro the flashing of thunder, but the Crest of Reliability is the master of the seas, from the surface waves to the deep, still abyss, and the more of his power he lets flow out, the more he feels it seep into the code of the ocean around him.

It swirls up around him and Ikkakumon, engulfing them in a waterspout as grey light spills from his digivice.

“Ikkakumon, warp evolution. Vikemon.”

Vikemon is big, and white, and armoured, and he makes an impression, which is what Jyou is counting on. As the Ironworks Trading Company funnels its forces towards him, he lashes out with his flails, sending surf scattering up into skyscraper tall plumes.

While they focus on him, Jyou hopes that Iori and the rest of their forces are making their way to the prisoners, freeing and evacuating them. Iori’s reliable enough, even if a part of Jyou wishes he was there to micro-manage.

The problem comes when a hatch on the Ironworks’ ship’s side opens, and a hulking, gleaming Digimon Jyou’s never seen before comes crashing out.

“MarinChimairamon,” the Analyser chirps. “Perfect-level Vaccine-attribute Composite Digimon.”

Jyou thinks he recognises parts of it. Gesomon’s tentacles, Ebidramon’s claw, a Coelamon’s face, even the mane and horn of an Ikkakumon. Someone really frankensteined together every sea monster they could think of.

“All right,” he murmurs, adjusting his glasses. “I guess we’re doing this.”


---


Flail meets pincer, again and again, accompanied by flashes of lightning and bursts of ice, but Jyou and Vikemon can’t seem to gain any ground (well, water) against MarinChimairamon, stuck in an endless stalemate.

It’s only a Perfect-level. It should be no match for Vikemon, an Ultimate-level who dispenses with speed and flashiness in favour of raw strength. But here it is, matching them blow for blow, which means that someone, whoever put this monster together, has been meddling with its code.

(Maybe, he reflects, that’s why it hasn’t spoken, why there seems to be no light behind its eyes. Someone amped up its power, but turned it into a mindless beast in the process.)

“Kido-senpai,” Iori says, his voice buzzing in Jyou’s earpiece. “We’ve freed the prisoners. Making our escape.”

“We’ll cover your escape,” Jyou replies. “Besides, this company tried to take slaves, we should at least make a little bit of an example of them, eh?”

MarinChimairamon’s claw crashes against Vikemon’s cheek, and he reels back, ponderously slow like a man in a suit in an 80s Godzilla movie, and comes swinging back in, flail crashing against the other Digimon’s forehead hard enough to crack its armour.

Jyou touches his fingertips to his cheek, grimacing as they come away bloody.

He’s still looking at the blood on his fingertips when flower petals come fluttering by him. A few lily petals, and a few rose petals.

“Oh,” he says softly.

“The cavalry’s here, Jyou-senpai!” Mimi says, sing-song over his earpiece.

A pink blast lands against MarinChimairamon’s back, sending it staggering, and it turns just as Jyou looks up, to see Rosemon, with Mimi on her shoulder, descending onto the battlefield, both hands pressed to the jewel at her neck.

“Forbidden Temptation,” she intones, flinging out her arms, a wave of light and rose petals bursting out. The great iron ship crumples, flames bursting out across its hull, as MarinChimairamon staggers again, armour cracking.

Vikemon takes the opportunity, driving his flails down onto the other Digimon’s head, armour shattering. With a roar of pain and fury, MarinChimairamon sinks into the water, scattering into cubes of data as it falls beneath the surface.

The ship is sinking as well, but there are smaller boats fleeing from it, fast zippy things that make a beeline for the distant shore. Jyou lets them go.


---


“Any casualties among the freed prisoners?” Yamato asks when Jyou makes his report.

“None. I checked them all myself,” Jyou replies.

“Good work, then. Find a gate and make your way back here. With luck, Ironworks will take the hint. If they don’t, we’ll deal with them.”

Gennai’s fingers dance over the console, as he performs search after search for Meicoomon. Nothing. Wherever she’s gone, she’s gone beyond his ability to find her, let alone his ability to control her. His plan is dead without her.

(It’s dead anyway, a voice at the back of his mind reminds him. The Chosen can cure the Infection again and again now, which means that even if Meicoomon spreads it, they can stop it in its tracks, reduce all of Gennai’s progress to zero again and again.)

Which leads into the second problem: There’s a superweapon, the incarnation of Apocalymon himself, on the loose, and Gennai doesn’t know what it’ll do next.

“Gennai.”

Dorumon’s voice. The fact that the little Digimon is here in its Child form, instead of borrowing Homeostasis’ power to become Alphamon, is proof of his failure: Homeostasis must not even view him as a threat anymore.

“I’m rather busy, Dorumon,” he says archly.

“I can see that,” Dorumon says, taking a few steps deeper into the husk of the old Server Tree. “I had hoped you would be able to give me counsel. If anyone knows where Meicoomon is hiding, it would be you, after all.”

Gennai huffs a quiet laugh. “And why would I tell you?”

“Because you’ve already failed. There are no more moves you can make, Gennai,” Dorumon says calmly. “But there are others who would use the weapon you set loose on the world for their own ends, and I doubt your pride will permit that.”

Gennai turns, watching Dorumon out of the corner of his eye. “Others?”

“Is that such a surprise? People are opportunistic. You’ve created an opportunity.”

“Only a fool would seek to use Meicoomon for anything other than destruction.”

“Unfortunate, then, that there are a great many fools,” Dorumon says. “And more with every moment.

“To the east, the Ironworks Trading Syndicate has begun making moves to try to lure her and trap her. With her in their grasp, they reason, they can control her and graduate from being small-time bandits and smugglers into being an empire in their own right.

“To the west, a group calling themselves the Coven scheme to bring her to earth and absorb her, using the power of Apocalymon to become transcendental beings.

“To the north, a cult of Vademon seek to create the perfect Digimon, a being that is pure of both form and essence, and believe that if they can observe Meicoomon, they will be that much closer to success.

“And to the south, a contest over who should be the king of an ever-expanding region has become a hunt for Meicoomon, in the belief that whoever defeats her will attain the right of kingship. Oujamon, Entermon, and Globemon are the three current candidates, and they are unconcerned with the damage their hunt will cause.

“And it doesn’t stop there. Pirates looking to capture the ultimate treasure; a dozen different petty warlords hoping to acquire her as a weapon; fools who think they can catch a glimpse of the great destroyer; zealots who believe they can become gods -- those who would make use of Meicoomon are appearing in their dozens, and there’s no sign of them stopping.”

Gennai hums softly, hands settling against the console. This, he should have foreseen, he supposes. That the moment his plans collapsed would be the moment every other two-bit thug and schemer would emerge from the undergrowth to fight over their remains.

“And you believe I’ll help you quell these rabble-rousers?”

“I do.”

Gennai shakes his head. “I haven’t yet given up on seeing my goals realised, Dorumon. I will find Meicoomon, I will bring her back under my control, and once I do, I will find a way to set my plans back on track. Until then, let the vultures fight. If the world burns, it doesn’t matter to me. And besides,” he said. “You’re only here because you can’t deal with them yourself. How many more times can you become Alphamon? Once, twice?”

Dorumon’s brow furrows. “I see I made a mistake in coming here. I’ll leave you to wallow in your failures.”

“Why not go to the Chosen?” Gennai asks. Dorumon’s stare turns cold. “-- Ah, of course. There’s something you don’t want to tell them.”

“Homeostasis’ orders are that she be killed,” Dorumon says. “And I will carry out those orders. And if she grows too much, and becomes a threat, then -- …”

“A second-level Reboot, is that it?” Gennai finishes. “A Reboot that will utterly destroy any digital technology within the human world, killing thousands, millions. Tell the Chosen that, and they might become your enemies. You have such pretensions of nobility, but when backed into a corner, you’ll betray your allies so easily.”

“It’s a -- worst case option. If Meicoomon should come into her full power as Apocalymon, it will be the only way to save every world,” Dorumon says. “That’s all. This is a necessary evil.”

“So said every one of history’s monsters,” Gennai replies.

Circa 25000 years ago.

The nameless agent opens his eyes.

He’s stood on the slope of a mountain, overlooking an island, high enough that he can see the place where the verdant grass turns into the sandy shoreline, and where the shoreline turns into blue oceans that stretch as far as the eye can see.

It’s beautiful, and yet, he knows without being told that there’s nothing else out there. If he were to travel along the ocean, eventually he’d just curve right around to this little island. He thinks he’s been here for a long time, watching this ocean, waiting for the day where he’d finally be.

“There’ll be more, in time. Islands will rise from the oceans, then continents. The world will get bigger and bigger.”

A girl. Or -- not a girl. He sees her, and he sees her: There is her physical shape, and there is the vast incandescence of her power, contained but blinding, and he perceives them both simultaneously. There’s a tiny splinter of her in his chest, he knows, a fragment that turned him from lifeless data to a living being.

“What’s your name?” She asks.

“You didn’t give me a name,” he replies. He furrows his brow. “Everyone else has a name.”

Through the radiance, he thinks he sees a smile. “You’re not quite like them. The world itself gave them their shapes and forms, and wrote their names upon them, but you are -- we made you ourselves. I thought you should pick your own name.”

“I don’t know what my name would be.”

“There’s time. Time enough to choose,” the radiance says. She taps one finger against his chest. “We gave you a job. Something we can’t do ourselves.”

“What’s that?”

“Your job is to bring about peace.”


---


“Does it bother you?” The nameless agent asks.

The Wolf has had a bloody wound where his left eye should be for as long as the nameless agent has known him, a match for the Dragon’s missing right eye. He asked once, and was told they’d done it to each other, that the moment they had taken physical form they had fought, and torn an eye from each other’s socket.

“Stop stalling, little pup,” the Wolf laughs. “This is meant to be a lesson.”

The nameless agent frowns, and slides a piece across the board. “If I’m meant to keep the peace, why are you teaching me how to fight wars?”

“Good question,” the Wolf says, and doesn’t answer, instead sliding a piece forward to take the nameless agent’s.

“I don’t understand why I need to learn anyway. If someone tries to hurt people, won’t you stop them?”

“We won’t always be here.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

“You don’t want us to stay, either. One day, this world’ll have to choose its own path, decide how it’s going to move forward, and it’ll never do that if we’re around,” the Wolf says. “But we’ll meet again. You’ll be the old teacher then, and I’ll be the young student, and eventually …”

He falls silent. The nameless agent moves a piece forward.

“We’ve given you the worst task of all, little pup,” the Wolf says softly.

The nameless agent frowns. “It’s an honour to serve however I can.”

That’s true, isn’t it? He wants to do what he was made to do.

“For now. But when long millennia have passed, and you’ve seen there’s no end to the work, no winning the war, that honour’ll be cold comfort. Frustration will set in first, then resentment, then anger, and eventually exhaustion.”

His teacher has always been cold and serious. It’s who he is: The cold of winter, the first rumblings of calamity, the promise that eventually everyone dies, and a grave companion to sit by them when they do. The nameless agent has never seen him quite so sad before, though.

“Is that a prophecy?”

“It’s -- the start of a promise, little pup. One day, when all the temptations fall away and you’re too tired to go on, I’ll come and grant you a peaceful death. It’ll be later than you think, later than you hope, but I give you my word.”


---


The nameless agent is there when Wisemon rails against the Crests.

Seven of the eight Angel Digimon they made to serve as guards have defected, casting off the light to mantle themselves in chaos and darkness. Only Angemon, the Angel of Hope, standing guard at Mount Infinity, has stayed at his post.

And now they sweep across the world, conquering and consuming. They seek to evolve to a higher level, to achieve what only those blessed by the Crests have ever briefly been able to achieve: To become Ultimate-level Digimon.

“They are operating within the parameters of this world’s design,” the Empress says, sat on the highest throne, the pink stained glass of her seat catching the light and shrouding her in a rosy glow. “And that design was written upon this world long before we descended upon it. It is the nature of the Digital World that you should grow, hunt and consume others, and grow again, until one day you are in turn consumed and return to the cycle of rebirth.”

“You yourself have consumed others, Wisemon,” the Walrus says. “You pass judgement on these so-called Demon Lords for doing what you have done dozens of times. Do you mean for us to punish you, as well?”

“We cannot be your rulers,” the Dragon says, his voice level. “It isn’t our place to determine what your laws should be, nor to punish those who disobey them, nor to impose our idea of peace upon you. You have to determine for yourselves what your peace is, what you can and cannot countenance, what the world should look like.”

“We’re outsiders,” the Snake says, “and our time here is growing short. But this is your world, for you to look after.”

Wisemon storms from the temple, and the nameless agent follows.

“They don’t understand. The Demon Lords will burn the entire world to get what they want,” he spits. “They came and gave this world life, don’t they care what happens to it?”

The nameless agent hesitates. Nobody’s told him to help. Nobody’s said that he should intervene in this war. But his task is to bring about peace and preserve it. If I’m meant to keep the peace, why are you teaching me to fight wars?

“I can help,” he says.


---


The final battle is at the Mountain of Analogical Reasoning.

The nameless agent cannot empower Wisemon’s entire army, not even if he had a thousand years to prepare, but he secludes himself away, crafting from stone eight prototypes. From each of the Crests, he takes a splinter of their light, and they freely give it -- none of them ask what he needs it for. He’s sure they all realise.

“These are Digimentals,” he says, when he presents them to Wisemon’s inner circle. “They’re only prototypes right now, and they’re flawed, but with them you might stand a chance.”

Those eight shimmering objects end up turning the tide. With them in hand, Wisemon’s forces can, for a time, match the Demon Lords for strength. By the time the battle ends, six of the seven lords have fallen, and the last one flees with their eggs.

The nameless agent takes the Digimentals back, and makes the long trip back to File Island, to the cavernous tunnels of the Temple of the Chosen. He sets them in the Empress’ garden, under the tallest tree.

“You could have kept them,” the Dragon says, watching him from his one good eye. “They’re yours, your own creations, your own effort. You don’t need to return them to us.”

“I know,” the nameless agent says. “But I think it’s better this way. The Demon Lords showed that power is … sometimes too tempting to resist.”


---


Remain hidden they do, for a year, then two, then eight.

At first, Wisemon pleads with him. “There’ll be other ‘mons like the Demon Lords. How are we meant to protect ourselves? The Crests said it themselves, they can’t interfere, they won’t always be here. Someone has to be our protector. With the Digimentals, I can become an Ultimate-level, I can be our protector.”

Pleading turns to anger, eventually. Slowly, they stop talking. The nameless agent thinks he might have given up.

When he realises the truth, it’s too late. Wisemon has stolen into the Temple, tricking his way into the Empress’ garden, and taken the Digimentals.

The nameless agent catches him on the highest peak of Mount Infinity, with the Digimentals circling him, the symbols on them blazing bright. One by one, they spin around him, the Crests of Courage, Friendship, Love, Knowledge, Sincerity, Reliability, Hope, and Light. He’s draining the power from the Digimentals, dragging those splinters of the Crests into himself.

“Wisemon, ultimate evolution,” he intones, and the pillar of light engulfs him, spiralling towards the heavens. “Piedmon.”

As the energy boils to a fever pitch, and the last of his form takes shape, it suddenly stops short. The last dregs of energy have been drained from the Digimentals, and the nameless agent realises, suddenly, that there isn’t enough, not for this, not for what Wisemon wanted.

The evolution collapses in on itself, and Piedmon, half-complete, his data corrupted beyond repair, is left behind. The nameless agent sees the last of the light rot in his gaping cavity of a chest, turning to a dead, black flame.


---


They call it the Infection.

The nameless agent isn’t sure what it is. Some part of Piedmon’s pain and hatred, combined with the decaying absence where the Crest power of the Digimentals used to be, threaded through with the corrupted, dead data of his body. It spreads from ‘mon to ‘mon, corrupts the land itself, burrows into the fabric of reality and starts ripping it open.

The Empress decrees that only the total destruction of the Digital World will end this, and save the other worlds in their multiverse, and she sets out to begin the work of ending everything. For the first time, the nameless agent sees the others disagree.

He helps as they lure her in. He helps them trick her into splitting another fragment off her soul, imparting it into the great Server Tree Yggdrassil. It awakens, as the nameless agent once awakened, and they give it their commands.

The last of the light of the Crests must be sent across the world, to burn the disease out of it. Piedmon’s corpse must be sent beyond the Wall of Fire, out into the great darkness between worlds, and whenever another Digimon dies as he has, their data too badly corrupted to be reborn, they must be purged too, before their decay becomes another Infection. Finally, the Digital World must be Rebooted.

The nameless agent says his goodbyes to each of them. They tell him they’ll return eventually, that a dark, rotting thing will grow in that gap between worlds, and that one day they’ll return to finally destroy it.

And then there’ll be peace, the nameless agent thinks. They’ll be back, and they’ll set things right.

“And maybe you’ll have a name by then,” the Dragon says warmly.

“We’re proud of you. And even when we don’t know your face, we’ll still be proud of you,” the Wolf adds.

“Time for us to return to the wheel. But you’ll do just fine without us,” the Dragon says.

Then Yggdrassil begins operation. Piedmon’s corpse is banished, sent out into the beyond. Then it drains the Crests of their power, charging itself up, sending waves of energy across the world. The nameless agent sees their bodies die, and sees the last of their radiance escape upwards, leaving the Digital World behind.

Then, when all eight of them are gone, he realises that for the first time he’s truly alone.



8000-10000 years ago.

He never takes a name for himself, but other Digimon give him one. He’s the Old Man From The Beginning, Gen’nai.

Yggdrassil is a companion of sorts, at first, but he thinks and feels and desires, and in time he grows unstable, then mad. Gennai shuts him down eventually, and uses the shard of power in him to create a new host computer: Homeostasis, cold and logical where Yggdrassil was fiery and passionate.

That squirming thing in the darkness encroaches beyond their world before the Crests return, and in his desperation, Gennai plucks five children from the human world, from the floating mass of concrete beneath the Gate that they call Odaiba.

When he sees Piedmon again, it hurts in a way he didn’t realise was possible. Piedmon, the Herald of Apocalymon, the leader of the Dark Masters.

For long millennia, he had been trapped in a decaying body, unable to move, unable to make a noise, unable to even really think. Then the rotting body of Mugendramon had found its way to his, and then others, more and more, a hundred, a thousand, ten-thousand, a million, a billion. They tangled themselves up in each other, networked together, so that what little was left of them could join together, sharing the task of simply being.

Gennai barely recognises Piedmon as the Digimon he knew. He’s madness and pride and a desperate yearning for a true death. He’s what last few lines of code where left of Piedmon’s mind, with the rest filled in by other people, by the memory of Piedmon, by the desperate screaming for an end.

The five children he picked perform admirably. Homeostasis grants the fifth one, the young Maki Himekawa, her power, and sacrifices the girl’s partner, and from those two things are born the Sovereigns: Qinglongmon of the East, Ebonwumon of the North, Zhuqiaomon of the South, and Baihumon of the West. Four guardians to match four Dark Masters.

Apocalymon is banished. He’ll be back one day. Gennai’s work doesn’t stop.



4000 to 5000 years ago.

It’s an accident that Parrotmon finds him. The hunter, overzealous to track down a servant of the Demon Lords, breaks the highest taboo of the Order of Homeostasis, and passes through the Gate.

Gennai and Homeostasis are watching. When Parrotmon finds his quarry, the little Agumon has made two friends. Children. A boy of eight, and a girl of five who can’t even speak and who can barely breathe.

But the boy is the sun, blazing and furious, and the girl is the light of the stars. The Crest of Courage and the Crest of Light. The Dragon and the Empress.

Homeostasis scans. They’re all there, all eight in one tiny neighbourhood of Earth, beneath a Gate, and that can’t be a coincidence. They’ve finally returned.

He sets to work. With the blueprints on the Temple walls, he makes digivices and limiters to control their powers. With the data from their scans, he constructs partners for them, Digimon crafted from the essence of their souls.

If they’ve returned, then he doesn’t have much time.


---


The Dark Masters manifest in the Digital World once more, sent ahead of Apocalymon’s arrival, and the first thing they do is strike Castle Homeostasis.

The copies of himself that he made are slaughtered, right down to the last one, and they would’ve won, could’ve won, were it not for Piedmon’s need to make him suffer.

A sphere of darkness is slipped into his back, sinking through the skin and into his data. Gennai ignores it, grabbing the eggs and the digivices, hijacking a Mekanorimon and fleeing. One egg falls from his grasp and tumbles down into the forest, but he can’t go back for it.

He flees to File Island, and leaves the remaining seven eggs and seven digivices in Elecmon’s care.

Stay, Elecmon says, but he can already feel something tickling at the edge of his mind, some presence that isn’t his own, but which is achingly familiar.

He leaves, and makes his way to the Great Lake on Server Continent, close to Castle Homeostasis. He builds a house there, humble but comfortable, even as he feels the yawning darkness growing inside him, and hears the faint whisperings of a very familiar voice. The darkness in him is using his own systems, using his regenerative functions to grow larger and larger.

He knows what it is now, more or less. It’s Piedmon. It’s a tiny little file with a tiny little backup of Piedmon’s personality, ready to grow into the real thing.

The lake is made into a barrier. One that can be broken from the outside, but which will be impregnable from the inside. He settles into his house, inside his prison, and switches off his regenerative functions.

He’ll stagnate here. He’ll grow old. But the thing inside him, the copy of Piedmon, will die a quiet death.



7 years ago.

When the children defeat Devimon on File Island, he’s finally able to contact them. The screens in his house light up, as seven faces appear in front of him.

He’s old, and without his regenerative functions, his mind and body are failing him, withering and dying, but he thinks he still remembers those faces.

“So, you are the Chosen Children. Very impressive, that you should defeat Devimon.”

“Who are you?” Asks the Dragon.

“One of Devimon’s allies?” Asks the Wolf.

“There’s no need to worry,” Gennai says. “I’m on your side.”


---


When Apocalymon dies, that faint, dark presence Gennai has lived with for so many millennia goes silent.

Freedom feels strange. He doesn’t have to return to his prison. He doesn’t have to linger in an aging body anymore.

“What about the egg?” Elecmon asks.

The egg. The egg that the last shard of Apocalymon fell into. If Gennai’s going to get a new start, if they’re all going to get a new start, then so should it. Maybe that way, all the Digimon that formed Apocalymon can find some measure of peace.

“I’ll send it to the human world. To a partner who’ll care for it.”



3 Years Ago.

“You seem tired, Gennai,” Baihumon remarks when he visits the western domain one day.

“It’s not,” Gennai replies, with a slight, self-deprecating smile. “I -- call it the weariness of frustrated expectations, perhaps.”

Baihumon tilts his head, regarding him with what Gennai thinks is concern.

“When I was much younger, I believed the arrival of the Chosen would … fix things. Put an end to war, usher in a lasting peace,” Gennai says. “But since then, there’s been Diablomon, Wendigomon, the Emperor, Oikawa, Armagemon, a hundred minor conflicts and local wars. I spent so long focused on defeating Apocalymon, I forgot that the first war I ever saw was just between people. And people never change.”

“You think your task is pointless?” Baihumon asks.

“No, no, of course not. But I’m old, and I feel my weariness with it more and more every day,” Gennai says, shaking his head. “It’s a job that will never be complete. I’ll never get to rest. The world won’t ever let me.”



2 Years Ago.

It’s a day like any other when one of his clones stops reporting in. Communication problems aren’t uncommon, and for whatever reason, they’ve become all the more frequent lately. When he sets out to find the clone in question, he’s not worried.

He follows the clone’s tracker to the Temple of the Chosen, down into the cavern that once, so long ago, was the Empress’ garden.

“Bernard,” he calls as he enters. He gave them all names, out of some strange sentimentality, and even now he wonders if he should have let them name themselves. “Bernard, are you there?”

He hears a soft, pained noise in response. Not quite a moan, more like strangled laughter. He walks towards it, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, until he sees Bernard, leaning face-first against the remains of the great tree, scratching at his neck, mumbling something unintelligible to himself.

“Bernard,” Gennai repeats. “Are you malfunctioning?”

No reply. Just muttering and that incessant scratching.

Gennai reaches forward, grasping him by the shoulder, and turning him around. They’re identical, in theory, but Bernard’s eyes are wide and shadowed, his hair is unkempt, and where his fingers have scraped into his neck, there’s a greenish liquid spilling out.

Blood. Except Digimon don’t bleed, Gennai doesn’t bleed. The only Digimon who had ever bled was Apocalymon, as he straddled the boundary between Digimon and Crest and something else altogether.

Bernard gives a hoarse laugh, planting a hand against his chest and shoving him backwards. “I remember the last time I was here. I took -- …”

“You were never here. You’ve never been here before.”

“I remember,” Bernard snarls. “I remember climbing the slopes of Mount Infinity, standing in the place where they descended …” He shuts his eyes, tipping his head back. “I remember dying. I remember not dying. I remember spending an eternity, blind and deaf and unable to move, tasting copper on my lips, feeling my body rot around me.”

“You’re malfunctioning,” Gennai says.

“Heyyy, old friend. I understand now. I understand what they meant now,” Bernard says softly. “It never ends. It never ends. People are always going to fight and die, the Ocean’s always going to try to get in, they’ll always be fighting, and we’ll always be trying to pick up the pieces. We’re in this fore -- …”

“Terminate processes,” Gennai says flatly. Bernard collapses like a puppet with its strings cut. Gennai watches as he dissolves, leaving just a few droplets of green blood stubbornly sticking to the ground.

He returns to the Server Tree. He boots up Homeostasis, runs a diagnostic of himself and all of his clones, and there, growing in each of them, is that clump of darkness. Piedmon’s backup, reproduced again and again in each of them.

“Input further commands.”

“Terminate all copies,” Gennai says. One by one, their trackers go dark, until once more, he’s the only Gennai left.

(All alone, once again.)

He spreads his hands across the console, breathing out through his teeth.

“Warning, Gennai. One copy of Piedmon still remains, within your own code. You must self-terminate.”

“Negative.”

“Warning: I possess no means of extracting the malignant code. You must self-terminate.”

“No,” Gennai snaps. “This isn’t -- I still have work to do. And this isn’t how … he’s meant to be here when I die. He’s meant to give me a peaceful death, he promised me that. He doesn’t break his word.”

Silence from Homeostasis.

“If I self-terminate, simulate the outcome.”

“Simulation: Following the self-termination of Agent Unit designated ‘Gennai,’ operational capacity of Homeostasis unit will severely decrease. This will necessitate the removal from cold stasis of Royal Knight Zero-One, designated Dorumon-Alphamon. Continued usage of Royal Knight Zero-One will drain my batteries, eventually forcing me to shut down. In the Analog World, Professor Mochizuki’s experiments with the lifeform designated ‘Libra,’ additionally designated ‘Meicoomon’ will result in the awakening of Apocalymon’s data within her, beginning the spread of the Infection.

“Sensing an opportunity, Demon of the Seven Demon Lords will conclude his period of exile and launch an invasion of the Digital World. Within two years, all seven Demon Lords will be at Ultimate-level and full power. The ensuing hostilities will spill out over multiple other worlds and continue indefinitely. Casualties will number in the hundreds of trillions. Aggregate suffering will be incalculable.”

“Then I cannot self-terminate.”

“As you are aware, Gennai, my simulations are imperfect. Owing to their metaphysical nature, it is impossible for me to accurately account for the presence of the Chosen in my simulations. You yourself have pointed out this flaw in my programming on numerous occasions.”

“I’m aware. But I can’t -- I can’t tell them what’s happened to me. I can’t tell them that I’ve failed. I’ve worked on their endless, impossible task for twenty-five millennia, I cannot fail, I will not be cast aside.”

“Analysis: You are incapable of performing your assigned function, and therefore your continued existence is pointless. You have already failed. Self-terminate, and the Chosen can replace -- ...”

Gennai flicks a hand. Homeostasis goes silent.

He shuts his eyes. There’s a presence stretching inside his skull, and now that he knows it’s there, he thinks he’s always felt it, that it’s been slowly, comfortably growing for a while.

“Simulation, Homeostasis. If Professor Mochizuki’s experiments awaken Apocalymon’s data within Meicoomon, what will happen?”

“The Infection will begin to spread.”

“And if the Infection spreads, what will happen then?”

“Either it will cause interdimensional distortions resulting in the Dark Ocean emerging into the Digital World and swallowing it, or repeated Reboots will eventually result in a failed phase-shift, resulting in the Dark Ocean emerging into the Digital World and swallowing it. In both instances, this will set off a chain reaction, resulting in every world being consumed into the Dark Ocean.”

“Analysis, Homeostasis. If every world has been swallowed by the Dark Ocean, how will that affect the task I’ve been given?”

“Since there will be no remaining life to engage in war or conflict, the task of ‘preserving peace’ will be completed, and remain completed in perpetuity. However, this would be contrary to the -- ...”

Gennai snaps his fingers. The console sparks, and goes dead. He feels, like a wind against the back of his neck, Homeostasis fleeing to find a new vessel to communicate through.

“Well then,” he says softly. “Let’s begin.”

With a flash, Alphamon’s data closes around Meicrackmon. His armour glitches, deforming and spiking, as the feathers of his wings turn from gold to black, and the gem on his forehead turns a deep violet.

He floats down out of the Gate, landing on the ground with feather-soft gracefulness, as violet cracks start spreading across his armour.

Meicrackmon is fusing with him from the inside, bit by bit, Yamato realises, and when she subsumes his data entirely, she’ll emerge as -- whatever form Gennai wants her to take.

Taichi taps his earpiece. “Monzaemon, get all the cured Digimon back through the Gate.”

Monzaemon swings an arm, and heart shaped bubbles encase the Valvemon, the Troopmon, the myriad forces that Gennai brought through, guiding them back towards the Gate. It remains open for barely long enough for them to get through, before the sky heaves shut, the edges of the Gate slamming together with a flash of lightning.

Alphamon pays them no mind, summoning to his hand a circle of green light that resolves into a black iron shield, raising his golden sword with the other. Gennai’s failed army seems to interest him less than the Chosen.

“What’s the plan?” Taichi asks Yamato.

“Counting Daisuke and Magnamon, we have eight Ultimates. Counting Monzaemon, Andromon, Goemon, and CaptainHookmon, we have five Perfects. Then three Adults,” Yamato says. “We have the numerical advantage, if nothing else. Maybe that’ll be enough.”

“So?”

“So we break his shield, pierce through his armour, and tear Meicrackmon out of him before they finish fusing,” Yamato says firmly. “We’ll set things up for you, and you and WarGreymon score the goal.”

Alphamon turns, taking them in as they gather around him in a circle. The eight Chosen and their partners, Daisuke’s team and theirs, and four Digimon allies on top of that. Yamato can’t read his expressions very well, but he doesn’t think Alphamon is that afraid.

“Form up, everyone,” Yamato calls. “We finish this, and the battle’s over.”


---


“Now, where might you be going?”

It’s Taichi Yagami’s voice, but not his inflections, as Gennai materialises in front of Meiko wearing his shape, head cocked and a wry smile twisting at his lips.

Meiko slows to a walk, but doesn’t stop moving. “I’m going to Mei-chan. You can’t stop me.”

“Meicoomon isn’t waiting for you. She doesn’t exist, there’s no Digimon with that name, and there never will be,” Gennai replies. “She’s a lie the two of you made up to cover up what she really is.”

“I don’t believe that.” Meiko had hoped her voice would come out stronger than that, but, she reflects sourly, she sounds like nothing other than a petulant, upset child. Maybe that’s all she is. “Meicoomon, Apocalymon, it doesn’t matter what she’s called, the years we spent together weren’t a lie. And you’re in my way.”

Gennai chuckles, his shape changing to Mimi’s. “Oh, you’ve picked up some of the Eight’s imperious -- …”

“Why did you send her to Earth?” Meiko asks.

Gennai blinks at her, momentarily stymied. “... What?”

“You sent her to -- I know it wasn’t me you hoped would find her, but you sent her to Shimane with a digivice, seven years ago, knowing that if someone partnered with her they could suppress the Infection, right?” Meiko says. “If you wanted to use her as a weapon, why do that?”

Gennai hesitates. “I -- thought she could live a normal life. Partnered with a human, the Infection suppressed, she could do all the things she wanted, live the life Apocalymon craved, and maybe, when that partnership came to an end, Apocalymon would be able to rest at last.”

“When did you change your mind?” Meiko asks.

“I …” Gennai frowns. “I realised there was never going to be any end to it. Apocalymon had survived, and there was Diablomon, Wendigomon, BelialVamdemon, Demon, Diablomon again, just endless war and conflicts, and I’d been so tired for so long …”

“When?” Meiko insists. “When did you decide to stop trying to save the world and start trying to end it?”

“When I found out that Apocalymon had survived -- …”

“That’s not true. You wouldn’t have sent her to Shimane if that was true.”

“Then when Diablomon, totally unconnected to Apocalymon or the prophecy, just a rogue virus infecting a Digimon, nearly destroyed -- …”

“You were still helping them afterwards. If you’d put your plan into action then, you would’ve won easily, right?”

“Then after BelialVamdemon, and -- …”

“That was four years ago,” Meiko says firmly. “But you kept helping them afterwards.”

“I -- …”

Meiko takes another step closer, passing Gennai on the road. He doesn’t move to stop her. She turns her head towards him, then, softly: “You’re like Meicoomon. There’s Apocalymon inside her, but there’s also her, and I know they’re fighting for control,” she says. “I think the reason you can’t remember making the choice to do all this is that you never made that choice. There’s something else inside you. I don’t think you’ve really been in control for a while.”

“What do you know?” Gennai snarls. “You don’t know me, you’re just a girl with the bad luck to get -- …”

“It’s because I don’t know you that I can see it.”

Gennai breathes out through his teeth, arms still at his side, rooted to the spot. “You can’t save Meicoomon, you know. This story ends in tragedy.”

Meiko doesn’t reply, just breaks into a sprint again, leaving him behind as she runs towards the battle.


---


Attack after attack bounces off Alphamon’s shield, as he hunches behind it, using his other hand and its golden sword to send blasts of energy their way.

Worse, Yamato can see Meicrackmon’s power spreading through him. The purple cracks on his armour have grown wider and more vivid, his golden eyes have started to burn with a red-purple light that hurts to look at, and his wings are growing, cracking and shifting as they spread outwards.

“We’re running out of time,” Koushiro says over comms. “We have maybe minutes before the fusion is complete.”

“I’m aware,” Yamato replies, as MetalGarurumon dances around two waves of bright green energy.

Alphamon raises his sword aloft, a bolt of green arcing up towards the clouds, then raining down on them in a barrage of energy beams. Yamato sees Vikemon and HeraklesKabuterimon hunch over several of the others, shielding them, as Rosemon and WarGreymon are knocked from the sky. MetalGarurumon careens backwards, boosters on full, weaving around each beam.

As the beams fade, Alphamon steps forward, only for Monzaemon to step into his path, eyes opening wide to fire two beams of heat that crashed against his shield, sending him skidding backwards. With a wrench of his shield, Alphamon sent the beams careening off towards the ocean. A quick swing of his sword knocks Monzaemon onto his back, slumped against a nearby building.

With one thunderous step, Alphamon closes the distance, sword raised over Monzaemon’s head, ready to come crashing down.

Yamato sees something moving on the ground. A girl, school uniform, black hair, cracked glasses. Meiko, he realises, a second too late.

She darts between Alphamon and Monzaemon, arms spread. The sword comes swinging down.

“Mei-chan!”

The sword stops.

Alphamon’s entire body lights up with static, his shape blurring and distorting, as Meicrackmon screams from inside him. Parts of his armour start to melt, other parts seem to turn brittle and crack, others still change colour from black to orange to white and back to black. His eyes flicker from reddish-violet to gold and back again.

Koushiro’s voice crackles over the comms. “The fusion’s turned unstable. I’m seeing cascading disruptions to Alphamon’s data.”

“Then this is our chance,” Yamato says. “Taichi, remember what we said? We’ll set it up, you kick it into the goal.”

“Roger that.”

“One last push, everyone.”

A dozen noises of agreement echo over the comms. Each Digimon around the field hauls themselves to their feet, swarming around Alphamon.

“Jyou,” Yamato barks. “You’re with me.”

MetalGarurumon wheels about, drawing up alongside Vikemon as the bigger Digimon charges for Alphamon.

“Cocytus Breath.”
“Arctic Blizzard.”

Two blasts of cold land against Alphamon’s shield, encasing it in ice, the frost spreading down his arms.

“Monzaemon!” Yamato calls.

Monzaemon rises to his feet, letting loose with two searing eye beams again, landing against the ice-covered shield. There’s a split second of sizzling before the ice evaporates in one blast, the steam explosion rocking Alphamon. Vikemon is on him in a second, flail crashing down against his shield, sending him skidding backwards.

“Daisuke, Miyako, Iori, CaptainHookmon!” Yamato barks. Four Digimon rush past him and MetalGarurumon, closing in on Alphamon.

“Plasma Shoot!”
“Red Sun.”
“Gold Rush!”
“Rage Giga Anchor!”

A barrage of missiles and energy bolts rain down on the shield, leaving it burning red hot, just before CaptainHookmon’s anchor slams into it, forcing Alphamon back another step.

Yamato flies MetalGarurumon higher, to get a better look at the battlefield. “Takeru, Ken, Andromon, Goemon, you’re up.”

Seraphimon and Stingmon come flying on from the left, energy blades sliding out from their wrists, as Andromon and Goemon approach from the right, swords in hand.

“Excalibur.”
“Spiking Strike.”
“Spiral Sword.”
“Iron-Splitting Blade, Zantetsuken!”

Four slashes form an eight-pointed star across the shield, burning white, the spokes converging on a spitting, sizzling central point.

“Hikari-chan, Sora, Koushiro, Mimi,” Yamato calls.

Angewomon sweeps in front of the shield, drawing back an arrow of light, as Hououmon, HeraklesKabuterimon, and Rosemon array themselves behind her.

“Holy Arrow.”
“Starlight Explosion.”
“Giga Horn Buster.”
“Forbidden Temptation.”

The attacks curve around Angewomon’s arrow, until it’s a spiral of colour, gold and violet and red, spinning around a core of pure white. It drives into Alphamon’s shield, at the central point of those slash marks, where the metal is hottest and weakest.

Crack.

Yamato sees the spiderweb of cracks spread out over the metal.

“Taichi!”

“On it.”

“Brave Tornado.” WarGreymon lifts his claws, latching them together as he spins into a tornado of fire, swinging about and flying towards Alphamon’s shield. Yamato sees it hit the crack, metal shards flying as it drills down into it, before the entire shield shatters.

WarGreymon keeps going, landing against Alphamon’s chest and boring through, and the momentary resistance Alphamon’s armour provides gives way fast, as WarGreymon bursts through and emerges from the other side, Meicrackmon gripped in one claw.

Alphamon flickers for a moment, then glows, shrinking down to some kind of purple fox, as WarGreymon lands, a struggling Meicrackmon still held tight in his claw.

The only way to end this is for Meicoomon to die, Yamato’s mind reminds him. She’s still Infected.

It’s as if she can hear his thoughts, because as Meiko runs over, Meicrackmon gives a harsh scream, bursting free of WarGreymon’s claw and flying upwards, a distortion flickering open behind her.

She steals one last glance back at Meiko, then dives through it, the distortion closing just as WarGreymon swipes at it.

It takes a moment for it all to settle. Meicrackmon is gone, but the Infection’s cured, the Dark Chosen are defeated, and Odaiba is safe for now. For the first time in a while, it feels like they’ve had a real victory.

As MetalGarurumon shrinks back down to Gabumon, Yamato finally feels his injuries catch up with him, giving a short groan of pain as he sits down, back against a building, breathing hard. There’s still work to do: They need to get all the Digimon who came to help them back to the Digital World, inform Nishijima of everything, get back to the safehouse and start dealing with all the problems that crop up in the aftermath of the battle, start trying to track Gennai and Meicrackmon, start -- …

He sucks in a sharp breath as one rib blossoms with pain, reminding him of what he’s been managing to ignore for the past hour.

“You’ve looked better, old friend.”

Gennai. But actually Gennai this time, not just his inflections coming out of someone else’s mouth, but his voice, gentle and faintly concerned. Yamato cracks open one eye, seeing the hem of Gennai’s robe.

“I’ve had worse.”

“Quite.” He can’t see Gennai’s face, but the man is probably cracking a smile.

“Are you …” Are you lucid? Are you the Gennai we know?

“Clearer but not clear. More myself, but still partly someone else,” Gennai says. “Just as you’re never fully the boy, and never completely the Crest. It won’t last. Already the other mind inside me is tangling itself up with mine again, so that one can’t be distinguished from the other.”

“Like a fusion.”

“Like an infection,” Gennai says.

Realisation hits Yamato like a brick to the stomach, but before he can ask anything else, Gennai is gone, and all that’s left is a cold afternoon on Odaiba, and the clean-up after a long battle.

“You did what?” Nishijima asks once comms are back up.

Yamato’s settled back on MetalGarurumon, trying to ignore the threat of exhaustion tickling at the edge of his mind, scanning the battlefield. He can see the locations of the others moving around, intercepting Valvemon and destroying them, but reinforcements are coming thick and fast now. It seems like there’s another five every second, each one opening up its guts to spill out a sea of Troopmon.

“We didn’t die, so it’s fine,” Yamato says. “And it’s not like we’re going to make partner-swapping a regular thing.”

“Well, lucky for me you’re riding a giant scanner around. MetalGarurumon, send me Ishida and Yagami’s biometric data.”

“Sending it now,” MetalGarurumon rattles off blandly. Yamato scowls, noting the upload window appearing in the corner of his vision, just to show that it wasn’t a bluff from either of them.

He gives an irritable noise, wheeling MetalGarurumon about and giving a mental command to aim his cannon, targeting in on a Valvemon a kilometre and a half away. A blast of energy tears a clean hole through its body a moment later, before it and all the Troopmon inside it are sealed inside a block of ice.

They swoop over the Troopmon that had already left it a moment later, scattering bombs from MetalGarurumon’s stomach, before curving back towards the clouds.

“Five years,” Nishijima says.

“That how long you’re going to hassle me for?”

“It’s an estimate of how many years you and Yagami have burnt off your lifespans with that little stunt, looking at how much extra Crest energy you were having to pump out. Hope you weren’t planning on long and fruitful retirements playing Mahjong together.”

“As it happens, we weren’t.”

“You know you can’t do that again, right? Partnering up with someone else’s Digimon is the definition of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, except the peg is your soul and the hole is someone else’s soul. If you do it again, there’s no promises that you’ll survive.”

“Noted,” Yamato says. He taps his wrist-computer, switching the channel to an open one. “Guys, I have your locations, give me status reports.”

Sora speaks first. “Mimi and I are trying to keep numbers down on the west side of the island, but more keep coming through the Gate. We’re in danger of being overrun if this keeps up.”

“Hikari-chan and I are covering the north-west. It looks like the Valvemon are a lot heavier here,” Takeru says. “Guess they’re trying to take the shortest route to the shore. There’s hundreds of thousands of Troopmon, they’re swamping us with numbers alone.”

“The Troopmon have some kind of self-resurrection ability. They can reformat their data inside anywhere that counts as their own territory,” Yamato replies. “If you don’t take out the Valvemon first, the Troopmon’ll just keep coming.”

“I’ve been covering the eastern side of the island. Not many Valvemon here, but Gennai’s thrown a ton of Scubamon at us,” Taichi says.

“Also on the eastern side, back in the water with Submarimon. They’re not too difficult to pick off,” Iori says.

“Keep patrolling that side then, Iori,” Yamato says. “Daisuke, what about you?”

“I’ve been in the middle of the island. There were a bunch of Valvemon, but there’s barely any right now.”

“He’s sending them all to the western side, trying to focus his attention and break the line there,” Yamato says. “Daisuke, you and Magnamon swap places with Hikari and Angewomon on the western line. Taichi, Hikari, rendezvous with me.”

“We going after Gennai?” Taichi asks.

“He’s got to be the one holding the Gate open,” Yamato says. “Some tall building where he has a good view of what’s going on and can easily channel power up into the -- …”

“Le Meridien Grand Pacific Hotel,” Hikari says sharply. “Um. I can -- sense him.”

Yamato knows better than to question that. Hikari’s senses are rarely wrong.

“Then we rendezvous there.”


---



Hikari’s right. Then again, Hikari’s always right.

They converge on Le Meridien, Odaiba’s largest and most luxurious hotel, at the same time, Yamato and MetalGarurumon swooping in from one angle while Taichi and Hikari, settled on WarGreymon and Angewomon’s shoulders, come flying in from the other side.

Gennai, dressed in not just Ken’s shape but in the purple and gold finery of Ken’s time as the Emperor, doesn’t acknowledge them beyond a sidelong look, staying rooted in place with a digivice in his hand, pointed up at the sky.

It isn’t Gennai that Yamato is worried about. It’s what’s floating in the depths of the Gate above him, far enough away that it almost can’t be seen: Meicrackmon, her head lifted upwards and her arms outstretched, looking for all the world as if she’s in a trance.

MetalGarurumon speeds down towards Gennai, and Yamato sees his lips move, muttering a word. He barely has time to pull up and backwards before light explodes out of the Gate, materialising into five shapes.

One long, snakelike beast blocks MetalGarurumon’s path, swinging a heavy tail towards him and just barely missing. Behind it, two smaller shapes drop down around Gennai, surrounding him like bodyguards swarming around a VIP. Another shape shoots towards WarGreymon, and another for Angewomon, forcing them both back.

The light fades from the Digimon closest to them first, the three that forced them back, an antlered green dragon, some kind of glittering cowboy held aloft on solar panels, and some kind of gigantic collection of green spheres held together by golden struts, lacking any form of face apart from two red-lined lips.

“Majiramon,” Yamato’s analyser chirps. “Perfect-level, Data-attribute, Metal-element Holy Dragon Digimon.”

“Sateramon,” Taichi’s analyser follows up, still in Gennai’s cheerful voice. “Perfect-level, Data-attribute, Metal-element GPS Digimon.”

“Sephirothmon,” Hikari’s analyser continues. “Perfect-level, Data-attribute, Metal-element Mutant Digimon.”

As the light finally fades away in its entirety, Yamato finally gets a look at the two Digimon flanking Gennai. The blue wolf man, with a jet engine on his back and the attire of a pro-wrestler, feels almost like a personal jab at Gabumon, like someone domesticated him. The other, another bestial Digimon that looks like someone zombified a Leomon, feels like a jab at everyone else.

“MachGaogamon. Perfect-level, Data-attribute, Metal-element Cyborg Digimon.”
“Armed-MadLeomon. Perfect-level, Virus-attribute, Metal-element Undead Digimon.”

They’re all flickering with glitched patches of texture, their edges faintly fuzzy with static. Infected, then, with the berserker power boost that involves.

“Gennai, just back down. Surrender, and we can talk this out. Negotiate something,” Hikari says, her tone level and even a little severe, Yamato thinks. “I don’t know what happened to you, but we can figure out a way to help you.”

Gennai says nothing, simply flicks his fingers, and as more streaks of light shoot out from the Gate and scatter around the island, the five Digimon around him throw themselves at the three of them.


---


Another Valvemon falls to a blast of fire, and Sora grips Hououmon’s talon tight as she spirals up into the air again. Nearby, Rosemon, with Mimi perched on her shoulder, takes down a swarm of Troopmon with a few lashes of her whip.

They’re preparing to go after more Valvemon when three bolts of purple light land near them, materialising into glitching, Infected Digimon.

“Mephismon. Perfect-level, Virus-attribute, Dark-element Fallen Angel Digimon.”
“Beautymon. Perfect-level, Virus-attribute, Dark-element Beauty Digimon.”
“Yatagaramon. Perfect-level, Virus-attribute, Dark-element Bewitching Bird Digimon.”

“This can’t be good,” Sora mutters.


---


Daisuke doesn’t intend to ever admit it out loud, but he and Takeru are almost in sync. Almost.

Magnamon and Seraphimon compliment each other, with Magnamon’s rapid attacks creating openings for Seraphimon’s heavier ones, and the two of them cut through the Valvemon and scatter the Troopmon with surprising ease.

When three bolts of purple light streak over his head to land all around them, shaping themselves into the looming forms of Digimon, he gets the feeling that’s about to change.

“Matadormon. Perfect-level, Virus-attribute, Wind-element Undead Digimon.”
“Velgrmon. Perfect-level, Virus-attribute, Wind-element Giant Bird Digimon.”
“Fakemon. Perfect-level, Virus-attribute, Wind-element Camouflage Digimon.”


---


Iori’s beaten back the Scubamon when two blasts of purple light crash through the ocean’s surface.

“Submarimon, scans,” he says, adjusting his position in his Digimon’s cockpit.

“Two Digimon just landed,” Submarimon replies. “More on the island.”

“Calamaramon. Perfect-level, Data-attribute, Water-element Aquatic Digimon.”
“Shawujinmon. Perfect-level, Virus-attribute, Water-element Demon Man Digimon.”


---


Yamato will say this for Gennai’s reinforcements: Despite their minds crumbling under the Infection, their teamwork is perfect. Part of him wonders if Gennai is somehow controlling them, occupying each of their minds and conducting them like an orchestra’s maestro.

Satellamon keeps his distance, firing on them with rapid fire, pinpoint-accurate blasts of energy, ensuring they’re always off balance, always distracted by avoiding his attacks. MachGaogamon harries MetalGarurumon, because even if he can’t keep up with MetalGarurumon, he has enough speed to pressure him, to make sure he can’t slow down even for a moment. MadLeomon, meanwhile, goes after WarGreymon, clashing against him in a battle of strength -- and every time WarGreymon seizes the upper hand, as he always does, a blast from Satellamon forces him into retreat. Majiramon and Angewomon wind around each other, trading blasts and spells, each one taking the upper hand sometimes, only to lose it again a moment later.

All the time, Meicrackmon hovers above them, past the Gate and into the roiling network space between worlds, as tendrils of shadow start to wind their way towards her on all sides. Yamato doesn’t have to check to know what those tendrils are, he can feel it: It’s the exact same energy as their Crests, harvested in tiny amounts from the stress, fear, and anger of every human on the planet.

“I’m going after Gennai,” he says, unlinking his senses from MetalGarurumon’s and clambering onto his feet, launching himself off the Digimon’s back. He mutters something into the ring on his finger as he falls, and the claws of stained glass snap around his arms and legs, his hair turning white as two more ears slide out of it.

Gennai’s ready for him. As he lands, there’s a sword in the older man’s hand, ready to parry his attack, twist, then send him reeling back with a blast of telekinetic force.

“Just so we’re clear,” Gennai says, as his form shifts from Ken’s to Taichi’s. “Even if you kill me here, it won’t change anything. The Odaiba Gate will close, you’ll have a moment of breathing room as my reinforcements stop coming through, but the flow of energy into Meicrackmon won’t stop. That’s already in motion, maintained by the Infected Digimon I placed around the globe.”

“We’ve got something planned for that.”

“Ah, your so-called cure? And the device that will distribute it far and wide?” Gennai asks. “I notice Koushiro Izumi isn’t among your numbers today. When are you expecting him back? Or do you have no idea when he’ll be returning, or if he’ll be returning, or if he and the others he took with him are even alive?”

Yamato sets his jaw. “He’ll be here.”

“I’m sure,” Gennai says wryly. “But here’s a history question for you. By now, I’m sure you’ve done your research, so you know that the Infection appeared once before, that it was the beginning of Apocalymon’s apotheosis. And if Koushiro and Miyako aren’t here, then they’ve realised that the light of the Crests can cure it, and have set themselves to the task of building an amplifier for it. So here’s a riddle for you: If the power of the Crests can completely purge the Infection, why didn’t they just do that in the first place?”

Yamato stops mid-step. It’s an involuntary action, and he curses it a moment later, because he knows Gennai saw it, and knows what it means. I don’t know.

“Would you like to know the answer, old friend? It’s a fair trade-off, I would say. Once upon a time, you were my teacher, after all,” Gennai says, “for all the good your lessons did me.”

“We’ll -- …”

“The power of the Crests can indeed cure Infected Digimon. If Koushiro returns, you can charge a wave that will cleanse every Infected Digimon it touches,” Gennai says grandly, gesturing with his hands. “Except Meicoomon. She isn’t just Infected, after all, she is the Infection, she is Apocalymon returned, in the flesh, an Idea clad in reality. And if you leave her alive, she’ll evolve it within her body, spread it again, and again.”

He smiled, cocking his head. “How arrogant of you to think that you could solve this problem and lose nothing. And it’s so much more galling for me to see, because I remember the exact same arrogance before, when you all released your power, believing so desperately that it would work -- only to find that black flame still festering in the corpse it was born in. Remember what I told you, Ishida: There are a thousand ways I can win, and only one way you can.”

The dark tendrils are getting closer and closer to Meicrackmon. WarGreymon lunges for the Gate from one side, Angewomon from another, MetalGarurumon from a third, but they find themselves blocked. The tendrils wind closer and closer, ready to jab into her at any moment, to kickstart an evolution.

“Avalon.”

The tendrils stab forward, only to rebound off a sphere of green light, formed out of overlapping magical circles and script, buzzing with energy. Yamato hasn’t seen that move before, but he recognises the Digimon who cast it, as it floats down through the swirling vortex of the Gate, arms outstretched.

After all, back when all this started, he and Taichi had faced off against it. Before they knew what Meicoomon was, when all they’d known was this towering, silent knight Digimon was willing to destroy a city to get to her, they’d formed Omegamon to battle against it.

“Alphamon,” his analyser says. “Ultimate-level, Vaccine-attribute, Light-element Holy Knight Digimon.”

Gennai’s form flickers from Taichi’s to Hikari’s, as he turns his gaze up towards the Gate. The tendrils of shadow bat at the shield around Meicrackmon, trying to penetrate it without success.

“Ah,” Gennai says. “So you’ve arrived at last.”

“No word from Izumi?” Nishijima asks, as they (well, most of ‘they’, Yamato supposes: Himself, Taichi, Sora, Mimi, Takeru, Hikari, Daisuke, and Iori, along with Gabumon, Agumon, Piyomon, Palmon, Patamon, Tailmon, V-Mon, an Armadimon, and Agent Nishijima) gather atop Odaiba’s television building, settled in the same (well, maybe not the same, given how the original building was ruined, but the recreated) spot where they’d fought Vamdemon.

There’s only minutes until Gennai’s three day grace period ends and the Gate opens. The first priority, Yamato knows, will be containing the fighting: Odaiba’s been evacuated, its residents rushed onto the mainland and into underground shelters, but beyond the edges of Tokyo Bay are miles upon miles of populated urban sprawl, and if the battle spills out into them people will die.

The second priority is holding the line until Koushiro, Jyou, Miyako, and Ken return. Yamato’s sure they’ve realised that the battle is about to begin, has no doubt that they’re rushing to acquire the components necessary to build the amplifier device -- but the Digital World has its ways of throwing wrenches into plans.

“No word yet. We’ll keep them at bay until they arrive,” he says, projecting a confidence that he’s not sure he really feels.

Up on his shoulders, Gabumon nudges a paw against the side of his head comfortingly.

Complicating matters, he knows, are the naval ships swarming the edge of the bay, the tanks lined up on the shores, the rows and rows of soldiers -- not just JSDF, but those from its allies too, amassed and ready and completely unable to do anything against an army of Digimon. If they forget the Bureau’s stern warnings to stay clear of the fighting, if their arrogance outstrips their sense of self-preservation and they decide to attack, Gennai’s forces will wash over them like a tidal wave, wiping them out in their hundreds of thousands.

The clock ticks down. He has one eye on his watch, counting the seconds until the hour changes and Gennai makes his entrance. Tick, tick, tick -- …

There. Three days exactly.

For a moment, there’s silence. Nothing happens. There’s no grand crack of thunder or the light show of the Gate opening.

“What’s he waiting for?” Mimi asks. “What, he can’t even be punctual?”

“Maybe he changed his mind?” Daisuke offers.

“He hasn’t,” Sora says. “That’s not what Gennai is like.”

A minute passes. Two. Three.

Then he feels it. It’s a rumble of energy in his chest, the stirring of his Crest, telling him that the Gate is opening.

The sky above Odaiba splits. A crack into the void, burning with rainbow lights at the edges, prises the blue skies apart from horizon to horizon. Bolts of light like shooting stars fall from it, curving towards the island: Three land in the waters around Odaiba; four more hit Odaiba itself, landing among warehouses, or in Odaiba Seaside Park, or outside the exhibition centre, or next to the still-under-repair Palette Town mall. One by one, they resolve into towering gold shapes, hexagonal prisms perched on four legs, crackling with the Infection.

“Valvemon,” Yamato’s analyser chirps. ”Data-attribute, Metal-element, Perfect-level Machine Digimon. A vehicle Digimon boasting immense size, it can carry as many as fifty Digimon within its body. Properly equipped, it can produce an endless supply of Troopmon soldiers.”

Three more shapes dart out of the Gate, flying. Yamato’s analyser doesn’t go off, but he’s almost certain that’s Gennai’s new Dark Chosen.

“Everyone ready?” Taichi asks. A rumble of assenting remarks sweeps through the group. He lifts his digivice, the screen flickering orange. “Let’s go.”

“Agumon, warp evolution! WarGreymon.”
“Gabumon, warp evolution. MetalGarurumon.”
“Piyomon, warp evolution. Hououmon.”
“Palmon, warp evolution! Rosemon.”
“Patamon, warp evolution! Seraphimon.”
“Tailmon, super evolution. Angewomon.”
“V-Mon, armour evolution! The Radiance of Miracles, Magnamon.”
“Armadimon, armour evolution! Whirling Reliability, Submarimon.”

A wave of light spreads out from MetalGarurumon, sweeping over the island, trailing wireframe meshes as it scans the area and sends the data back. Yamato shuts his eyes for a moment, linking his senses with MetalGarurumon’s, then opens them to an influx of data. He can see the whole island spread out around him, a topological map, with the position of every Valvemon as it begins to spit out troops, the whirling shapes of the Dark Chosen and their artificial Digimon, along with wind speed, humidity, chemical levels in the air, and more and more and more.

It takes him a second to adjust. The barrage of data is almost overwhelming to sort through.

“Sora, Hououmon, take out the Valvemon near the exhibition centre; Mimi, Rosemon, take out the one near the park,” he rattles off. “Iori, Submarimon, head into the water and patrol. Scan for any anomalies and send the data back to me. Agent Nishijima, make sure nobody tries to move in on Odaiba. Everyone else, we’re going after the Dark Chosen.”

“Roger that,” Taichi says, and they move out.


---


MetalGarurumon is a machine built for causing havoc.

WarGreymon, Rosemon, and Seraphimon are direct, up-close attackers, and Hououmon is made for striking fast from above. MetalGarurumon, however, has less attack power than all of them, barely more than WereGarurumon -- where it excels is range, speed, and in its ability to scan and monitor an entire battlefield. Able to track the movement of every combatant on a field, fire cleanly across kilometres of distance to hit enemies even far out of its eyeline, pepper a battlefield with missiles, or zip from point to point faster than nearly any other Digimon can keep up with, it excels at making discipline and formation break down, exploiting one weakness after another in rapid succession until an enemy force is in disarray, or wearing down a singular opponent from every angle.

The best way to draw in the Dark Chosen is to cause trouble, so Yamato does just that, tracking the battle and giving orders to the others from MetalGarurumon’s back, as the two of them sow chaos across the island, creating openings for the others to exploit.

Under the sustained assault, two of the Valvemon fall quickly, a third a moment later. More arrive through the Gate not long after.

It doesn’t take long for one of the Dark Chosen to wheel away from the group, moving towards him.

The other two Dark Chosen split away from their patrol patterns as well, making their way towards Taichi and Sora. He taps a finger to his ear.

“Taichi, you have a Dark Chosen in pursuit. Sora, withdraw for now while Takeru, Hikari, and Daisuke intercept the Dark Chosen on your tail.”

They all respond in the affirmative, and Yamato sees dots of colour that correspond to each of them moving.

“And us?” MetalGarurumon asks.

“Move towards the docks, we’ll face them there.”


---



They never reach the docks.

They’re almost there when a spike of pain lances through Yamato’s head, as MetalGarurumon’s scans turn to painful static, leaving them blind. Yamato bites down on a noise of pain, as MetalGarurumon careens out of control, spiralling through the air.

Yamato’s disconnecting his senses from his partner’s, trying to regain some semblance of control, when a heavy shape slams into them from the side.

They both hit the ground hard, and Yamato finds himself thrown from MetalGarurumon’s back, bouncing and then scraping across the concrete. He can feel himself bleeding when he stops, the rough landing having scraped several gashes across his flank. He staggers to his feet, clutching one hand to the deepest wound, a ragged line stretching from his hip to his ribs.

Hekatosmon, an angular, vaguely humanoid and vaguely draconic shape of black crystals and glass, held aloft by wings made of interlocking black hexagons, drifts down to the ground and waits as its partner hops off.

Ryusei Daimon has swapped out his prison jumpsuit for a t-shirt and jeans, but he’s easy enough to recognise all the same: Huge, burly, his shaggy hair tied back behind his head in a short ponytail, looking at Yamato like he’s meat being served at a banquet.

“Bad news,” Ryusei says, as MetalGarurumon clambers to his feet and snarls at Hekatosmon. “The old man says I’m allowed to kill you.”

“Worse news,” Yamato replies. “I don’t need to ask his permission to kill you.”


---


It’s a more one-sided battle than Yamato would like.

MetalGarurumon is faster, massively faster, zipping around Hekatosmon so quickly that he doubts anyone could follow him with his eyes. But Hekatosmon projects some kind of inky black gravity field, engulfing himself in waves of darkness, and none of MetalGarurumon’s attacks can get through. Missiles stop in mid-air and explode uselessly, energy blasts bend and curve around him, blasts of ice are caught and turned to steam in seconds.

The only chance we have is attacking up close, but MetalGarurumon has no way to even get close to him.

Ryusei is the opposite. As Hekatosmon placidly defends, pursuing MetalGarurumon with slow, dogged determination, his gravity field growing with each passing second, Ryusei is relentless. He rushes in, a knuckleduster on one hand, delivering attack after attack to Yamato.

Yamato defends, takes advantage of Ryusei’s fury with counters, but no matter how hard he hits the other boy, he seems to barely notice, never stopping or slowing his offensive. He aims for Yamato’s wounds most of the time, battering them, making them deeper and wider, until Yamato’s clothes are nearly soaked in blood and his vision starts blurring; aims for his head and sides the rest of the time.

(He’s better than you, his brain reminds him halfway through the fight. You’re hurt and he’s using a knuckleduster, but even if this was a fair fight, he’d be winning.)

MetalGarurumon feels the effect too. As pain and nausea, and the heavy haze of drowsiness brought on by blood loss and concussion, encroach on his thoughts, the Digimon slows down, becoming more uncoordinated, struggling to keep his focus.

When Hekatosmon makes his attack, Yamato feels it. A claw in MetalGarurumon’s gut, the pain passing through their link perfectly, and then a blast of gravity that strips away metal plates, leaving exposed, sparking machinery.

In the same moment, Ryusei slams his knuckleduster against the side of Yamato’s temple and drops him, the world going black for a split second as his ears ring. His arms and legs feel boneless, numb, and all he can do is roll onto his back, just before Ryusei’s booted foot slams down onto his chest and pins him there.

Hekatosmon is methodical. Its sharp, long-fingered claws curve around one of MetalGarurumon’s legs, pierce through the joints, and then rip it off, dropping it onto the ground. Yamato feels MetalGarurumon’s pain like it’s his own, enough that he almost loses consciousness again. Ryusei gives a short chuckle, pressing down on his chest until he feels ribs cracking.

Snick. Another of MetalGarurumon’s limbs are ripped away. Yamato feels their link light up with pain, then snap, as MetalGarurumon de-evolves, glowing bright green and shedding data, until Gabumon’s battered shape lands on the ground next to him.

“You’re a disappointment,” Ryusei murmurs. He gives his foot a twist. “Hekatosmon, finish the Digimon off.”

Hekatosmon presses its claws together, charging energy between them, and Yamato feels panic and adrenaline surge through his system, enough to shove Ryusei’s boot away and scramble over to Gabumon. He scoops the Digimon up, stumbling blindly down an alleyway.

He can smell seawater. They’re not far from the docks. Yamato’s body moves on autopilot, stumbling out from the densely packed buildings, to the very edge of Odaiba, and as Hekatosmon fires a blast of purple energy, he barrels over the edge, face-first into the water.

The water is icy cold, and the salt stings his wounds, and that, it seems, is enough to finally push him over the edge into unconsciousness.


---


The flickering distortion opens, and Gennai steps out onto Odaiba, taking the form of Ken Ichijouji as he crosses the boundary.

“Report.”

“Taichi Yagami’s been beaten, but he escaped. Ryusei’s reporting that he defeated Ishida, but he jumped into the sea,” Kaito replies, his voice crackling in Gennai’s ear. “Mizu’s struggling against Takaishi, the Yagami girl, and Motomiya, but she hasn’t lost yet.”

Gennai doesn’t reply. He shuts his eyes, spreading his senses out towards the Digimon he’s scattered around the globe, underneath each Gate. They’ve been collecting energy, drawing in the negative emotions of an entire world’s population, and he can feel that they’re glutted with it.

“Come drink your fill, Meicoomon,” he says softly, and sends out the mental command.

One by one, the Gates open. Siberia first, then the Indo-Chinese border, then New York, Mexico, Australia, France, until every Gate outside Japan is wide open, held that way by the efforts of the Digimon beneath them.

When the transmission of energy starts, he can almost see it, like a black miasma flowing up through the Gates, travelling through them to converge on a specific point.

Not long now.


---


“It is time. I would borrow your power once more, Homeostasis,” Dorumon says, bowing his head.

The Homeostasis host computer has no physical form in the Digital World, not anymore, but the faint twinkling of light around Dorumon tells him that she’s there. He waits, and eventually, after long minutes of calculations, she gives her answer.

“I know that your energy is -- finite. There are only so many more times we can do this,” Dorumon admits. “But this is a unique circumstance.”

The lights glitter gently. An affirmative. Dorumon shuts his eyes as a jolt of power runs through his systems, invigorating him, supercharging him.

“Dorumon, evolution,” he murmurs, as his form collapses, reformatting into black and gold armour. “Alphamon.”

“All right, all right, everyone in their seats?” Miyako says, rapping her knuckles against the white board. “Good. Let’s start.”

It’s still early in the morning, although it doesn’t look like either Koushiro or Miyako have slept much. Ken and Jyou at least seem marginally better rested, but Yamato catches Ken yawning when he thinks nobody’s looking.

“Between our own research, the data Meiko convinced her bigshot Bureau dad to hand over to us, and Warudamon’s notes, we think we have a decent idea for a cure,” Miyako says. “Koushiro?”

Koushiro gives an agreeable noise, chugging down half a bottle of oolong tea. “The Infection, as far as we can tell, is the primeval variant of the Black Gears, Dark Network, Dark Rings, and Dark Spore. Just like all of those, it’s made from the chaos Apocalymon produces, but it’s in a more primitive, uncontrollable form.”

“So it’s vulnerable to our powers,” Sora says, raising her hand. “Or it should be, right?”

“Right. Remember, someone -- probably Gennai while he was still on our side -- sent Meicoomon to Earth with a digivice. He planned for her to partner up,” Miyako replies. “And Meicoomon was stable when she was with Meiko. It’s not like she spent seven years Infecting everything around her, having Meiko there rendered the Infection dormant.”

Meiko flinches slightly, curling in on herself. Almost absently, Mimi slips an arm around her, hugging her close.

“Meiko’s not a Crestbearer, but like any other human, she still produces the Light of Evolution in small amounts. As far as we can tell, her digivice isn’t built for allowing evolution, it’s meant to drain the entirety of her power reserves and put it to use keeping the Infection in check,” Koushiro says. “We think a much more powerful burst of the same Light might eradicate the Infection entirely.”

“How powerful are we talking?” Yamato asks. “Because once our partners were Infected, they still succumbed to the Infection. Being linked to us didn’t save them.”

“For a complete cure, the combined power of nine Crestbearers should work,” Ken says. “The problem is saturating a patient with that power. Just blasting them from the outside won’t do it, we need to apply the energy directly to their cores.”

“Luckily,” Miyako chirps. “We think we’ve come up with a device that’ll do the job.”

“Unluckily,” Ken adds. “We need to go to the Digital World to get the parts.”

“A seed from the original host computer, Warudamon’s data, and a Holy Ring,” Koushiro says. “With those three things, we can build a device that, once charged with our powers, will release it in a self-propagating wave that will penetrate and saturate the core of every Digimon in its path.”

“Alright,” Taichi says, standing up. “Then -- …”

“Er, guys?” Mimi says, peering at her phone. “Maybe we should switch on the television.”


---


It’s on every channel, on every streaming site, intruding in on every call. Taichi Yagami’s face flickering on screen, then turning in a buzz of static to Ken Ichijouji, then Hikari Yagami, before finally settling on Taichi again, lips curled up into a smug smile that doesn’t suit his face at all.

Among the gnarled roots and branches of the room behind him, the three youths abducted from Fuchu Prison -- Kaito Otsuka, Ryusei Daimon, and Mizu Kojima -- are sat, black and violet digivices in hand.

“Greetings, people of Earth,” Gennai says in Taichi’s voice. “This is a declaration of war. In exactly seventy-two hours, the Gate above Odaiba will open, and an army of Digimon, led by my new Chosen, will flood through. They outnumber you, they are more powerful than you, and they will kill indiscriminately, spreading outwards until they have scoured the planet.”

Ryusei huffs a short laugh behind him. Gennai ignores him.

“But I’m not a cruel person, nor am I unreasonable, so I make this offer to you: Give me the unconditional surrender of the planet, agreed upon by all your nations and leaders, and I will stay my hand. If not, your streets will be painted with the blood of your people, beginning with Tokyo.”

The feed blinks out.


---


“He has to be kidding,” Mimi says. “Does he actually think the whole planet’s going to agree to surrender?”

“He doesn’t expect them to,” Yamato says flatly. “He’s sowing discord. He wants people scared and angry.”

“Because he can use all that emotion to evolve Meicoomon,” Taichi says. Yamato’s eyebrows rise, and Taichi gives a quick shrug. “What can I say? We had the same idea, Yama. We’re so in tune~.”

He drops his chin onto Yamato’s shoulder, grinning. Yamato gives a disgusted noise, shoving his face off.

Jyou frowns. “If he’s attacking in three days, that gives us time to prepare. All -- …”

“No,” Yamato cuts in sharply. “Not all of us.”

Taichi watches him out of the corner of his eye. Yamato glances over at him, waiting for some indicator that he should continue or stop, but Taichi’s impassive, giving him nothing.

“Koushiro, Miyako, Ken, Jyou,” Yamato says. “Take today to prepare. You move out tomorrow morning. Go to the Digital World and get everything you need for this device.”

“Yamato-san …” Koushiro starts, then frowns, going silent.

“As soon as Gennai made that announcement, the clock started counting down. If he evolves Meicoomon before we can cure her, we’re screwed,” Yamato says. “And the only way to cure her is for you to build that device. So we have to beat the clock. Get that device and bring it back here for us to charge before Gennai can harvest enough energy.”

Koushiro hesitates for a second, then nods. “Roger that, Yamato-san.”

“We won’t let you down,” Ken adds.

“I’ll go start getting everything we need ready,” Miyako says. “We’ll want rations, medical supplies, stuff for traversing the environment …”

“I’ll call my brother,” Jyou says. “If I’m gone, all of you are going to need a new medic. He can fill in while I’m away.”

As they hurry off, Taichi nudges a hand against Yamato’s shoulder. “You know, whenever you want to give me that answer …”

“I’m going to go draw up a battle plan,” Yamato replies archly. “Somewhere away from you.”


---


Mizu tosses her digivice up, catching it as it comes tumbling down. It’s different to the ones she’s seen the Chosen carry, more gnarled in shape, made of some black metal that has a texture almost more like wood. It can’t evolve Digimon, as far as she knows, instead acting as a glorified storage device for Astraimon.

Nearby, Ryusei batters a punching bag, and Kaito is reading a book. None of them have noticed what she has.

“So,” she says to Gennai, as his form flickers and shifts into that of Koushiro Izumi. “What is it you aren’t telling us?”

Kaito looks up. Ryusei doesn’t pause in his workout. Gennai arches an eyebrow at her. “Oh? Am I hiding anything?”

“It would’ve been easier just to broadcast that little message to everyone back on Earth,” Mizu says. “So you wanna tell me why it got broadcast across the Digital World, too?”

Gennai smiles gently. “Aren’t you a clever one,” he murmurs. “There are a hundred different ways I can achieve my goal. As one plan fails, I simply switch to the next one. This is just -- another one of those plans. Coiled and ready to spring for if the three of you should fail.”

“We’re not going to fail,” Ryusei says. “You just need us to cause havoc, right? Beat down the old Chosen, terrify people, tear through some buildings and cause chaos. It’s not rocket science.”

“I certainly hope not,” Gennai says. “But just in case, I’ll be stacking the deck in my favour.”