With both worlds saved, the chosen children looked towards the sun – its slowly shrinking eclipse reflecting the closing digital gate. And then they looked back to Gennai, who had come to warn them of the danger they faced and show them the way home. "This world may view your data as anomalies and erase you."
"May? So it may not?" Yamato asked.
"Indeed, the possibility does exist that the rebuilding digital world will treat your data as local – or as something far stranger," Gennai answered. "Still, children, I would strongly suggest you return home."
"We've faced danger before! We're not afraid," Yamato shot back.
"It's one thing to risk your life when the world needs you, but quite another to risk it for no reason at all," Gennai said.
"No reason at all? What about our digimon? Are they in danger too?" a worried Mimi cried. "Is any data safe in this world? And even if it is, who's going to be in charge? Are we just giving them back to someone like Devimon or Etemon?"
"Of course not," an exasperated Gennai responded. "The evil digimon you faced were created by Apocalymon, and now that he's been defeated, there's nothing left to fear. This world will rebuild, with or without you."
"Well I'm staying," Takeru declared. "This world's a lot more fun, and the digital world's gone through a lot of trouble. I think they still need us."
"You may be right about that," Hikari added. "Don't worry about us, Gennai-san. We've survived far worse challenges."
"I'm sorry, Gennai-san," Koushirou said, "but I'm staying too. What I can learn from a rebuilding digital world is far more interesting than what I can discover in my own."
Gennai turned first to Hikari, then to Kentarumon, and at the old temple guardian's nod he relented. "The digital world may not need you anymore – but perhaps it still does, and it's clear that none of you are ready for your adventure to conclude. I suppose we owe it to you to allow you to remain, and I sincerely hope that your decision will not backfire."
"Then it's settled," Taichi said with a smile. "Onto the next phase of our adventure!"
The digital world, as it so happened, did not erase the Chosen Children; it could not do something so cruel to the heroes who had rescued it from Apocalymon. Together with their partners and most of the world's surviving digimon, they worked day after day to rebuild the cities and homes that years of wars and deletions had wrecked.
Although the digimon had far greater knowledge of the world's architecture in the era before Spiral Mountain, the Chosen Children had unwittingly taken something of a leading role in organizing the project. In part, this was because human children, despite their best efforts, were still physically weaker than Child digimon, let alone Adult or Perfect ones, so they sought to make themselves useful by organizing them. And in part it was simply because virtually every digimon would listen.
The Dark Masters they defeated had been the world's only masters; now that they had been defeated, many digimon had come to look to their liberators for guidance. Yet all the children were surprised when a letter arrived from the wilderness of File Island, one which requested that they arbitrate a territorial dispute between two Monochromon.
"We've only figured out how to fight and build things before. We're not qualified to do this," a reluctant Yamato said, worry clear in his voice. "Compared to them, we're still newcomers. How can we be sure we'll make the right decision?"
"But they came to us, and someone has to decide," Sora responded. "We should at least hear them out."
"I do wonder how this would be settled this in our absence." Koushirou noted curiously. "When we first entered the digital world, a fight between two Monochromon almost killed us."
"Let's do it, then," Taichi declared, and sat down to pen a reply to their letter answering the request in the affirmative.
The two digimon did not have to travel far to reach the Chosen Children's improptu 'court' – a wide, expansive structure which had been built to house a few human children from the elements, but which digimon kept making bigger and bigger until it had all the splendor of TonosamaGeckomon's castle, complete with an audience hall at the entrance. Word of the judgment had led Mimi to propose creating opposing bars and a bench 'like a real court', and although the digimon who built it had a very alien conception of a courtroom, it did serve the purpose of physically separating the two disputants from one another as they slowly rumbled into the building.
"State your case," Taichi said, looking closely at the Monochromon on the left.
"You may notice that the topography of the digital world isn't the same as it was in the old days," that Monochromon began, his voice booming throughout the court. "A small forest has materialized on our mountain, to the west of the cliff that has long marked the eastern barrier of my territory."
"But it's to the east of the ledge that marks the western barrier of mine," the other Monochromon replied. "We tried to settle it in the traditional manner, but our battle ended in stalemate."
"Couldn't you just divide the land?" Taichi asked curiously.
"We could, but there are no clear boundaries within the forest, and it contains portions of what used to be my terrain."
"And portions of what were once mine. There's a part which has an incline exactly the same angle as a missing portion of my hill."
"But it also has that weird round clump of boulders I keep tripping over."
As the two Monochromon continued to argue, Taichi grew no closer to understanding the case – let alone to dispensing an equitable form of justice that would antagonize neither party. He was inclined to declare it simply their shared territory, when Hikari suddenly bolted from the court and out the front door, claiming she heard an injured digimon dragging itself to the court's steps.
Although the digimon in question was quite small, Hikari and Tailmon lacked the strength to lift his heavy, stone body. After some calls for help, the Gotsumon enter the court riding Ikkakumon, with his misshapen legs covered in dirt and grass and his hands heavily calloused. And then he loudly declared that he had been injured in the fight between the pair of Monochromon.
"The forest divides your territory entirely, correct?" Taichi asked, seeking clarification as he pondered a solution. "You don't have another border?"
"That's correct," both Monochromon agreed, answering simultaneously; Taichi struggled to recognize where the voices where coming from.
"And one of you did do this to him, right?" Taichi asked.
"It was the other one who stepped on him!"
"But you're the one who suggested having the battle there!"
"Then as payment for the injuries both of you inflicted, this territory now belongs to Gotsumon!" Taichi shouted, banged the "gavel" (in truth a combination of a large stick and a stone, collected by a fairly confused Agumon) then turned to the wounded, bipedal rock monster. "I want you to keep them apart and make sure they don't fight, okay?"
Elated and surprised, his arduous journey a success, the wounded Gotsumon gladly accepted his new task. "But give me some time at the hospital here to get some DigiMedicine and heal up first."
"Sure."
The two Monochromon, disappointed but understanding, returned to their respective sides of the mountain, each wishing for their own share of the forest but relieved not to border one another anymore.
As the weeks turned to months, more and more digimon came to the Chosen Children to settle their disputes, prevent violence, and organize whatever grand projects needed to be organized; untold power was slowly and unwittingly assembled in their fingers. Every now and then, they would set out alongside their digimon to fight someone who fancied themselves a successor of Devimon or Etemon, or even just a local boss or lord. Nearly all of their foes surrendered the moment the chosen children arrived, and those few who resisted were easily subdued by WarGreymon, MetalGarurumon, Garudamon, AtlurKabuterimon, Zudomon, Lilymon, HolyAngemon, or Angewomon.
But this report was different. Both because of the identity of their leader, and because he had assembled followers – not just a few henchmen, but an army numbering in the hundreds if not thousands.
"It's Ogremon. We can't fight Ogremon," Mimi said, shaking her head.
"Complaints are coming in from some of the villages his forces have taken over," Koushirou responded, scanning one of said letters; he was of half a mind to read it aloud were the conversation not moving so quickly.
"And if we don't prevent him from resisting our rulings, why would any digimon would accept them in the future?" Yamato added. "Sorry, Mimi-chan, but we have to do something. Otherwise it'd just be chaos."
"But he's one of us! He fought beside us against the Dark Masters! Yamato-san, Koushirou-kun, you aren't seriously thinking about fighting him, are you?" Mimi pleaded desperately, trying to hold back tears.
"Back at the start of our adventure, when we were on File Island, he was willing to attack baby digimon on behalf of Devimon," Taichi noted. "Maybe he's reverted to his old ways."
"He attacked me back then as well, Taichi. But you didn't see how eager he was to protect us from MetalEtemon. He's a changed digimon, and if he's fighting us, there must be a good reason for it," Jou said, thinking back to their fights together; would they really have to make an enemy of Ogremon again?
"But we have a good reason as well," Koushirou responded, shaking his head sadly. "His army is getting bigger with every settlement he conquers, and if we don't confront him now, we may ultimately have to fight him here."
"Or worse, other digimon might lead their own armies, knowing that we were unwilling to crush him. Maybe he won't rule the digital world. Maybe it'll just be chaos," a shuddering Hikari added.
"Do what you want. I'm not fighting," Mimi said, turning her back to the other Chosen Children and crossing her arms.
"Mimi-chan, I'm sorry," Taichi said, then paused. "Everyone who's willing to go with me to fight Ogremon, let's head out. And if you're not coming, I totally understand."
With a heavy heart – and without a Lilymon beside them – seven children ventured out to the far western reaches of the digital world. They approached Ogremon's forces from the air, thirteen of them held in Garudamon's enormous hands, and landed once they spotted his banner in the shape of their foe's green, horned face. The army which Ogremon had assembled was thousands strong, mobilized in square columns, but it was rare to spot even an adult-level digimon among its ranks; most of the soldiers were Goblimon, with a few Kunemon, Mushmon, and other virus types thrown in.
Taichi approached Ogremon's forces under a flag of truce, and their leader – whether out of respect or simply anger – walked out to meet him. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because you guys are incompetent. I know you mean well, but you're just a bunch of kids who don't know a thing about the digital world. We're all tired of taking orders from you!" Ogremon shouted, and his army cheered his every word.
"Didn't we fight side by side against the Dark Masters?" Taichi pleaded.
"Yeah, and look what happened after. I didn't stop those guys from taking over the world just so you could ride in and rule it in their absence."
"We did the best we could. No one wants to see everyone just go back to fighting all the time again."
"You guys are basically the human world equivalent of child level, right? I wouldn't let this guy boss me around, no offense," Ogremon said, gesturing with his club to one of the many Goblimon in his army. "You don't know what you're doing, you're in over your heads, and when you try to rule without a clue you just end up breaking things. Most of my gang is here because one of your rulings or decrees screwed them over and they wanted to fight back."
"And what about you? Do you have a clue? You're taking over villages, one after another," Taichi replied, but his voice seemed more sad than angry. "We've got a lot of letters back in File Island complaining about your troops. They're saying that you're glorified gangsters, no better than Devimon. You take their homes and food and if they complain you just whack them with clubs."
"Devimon was a good lord. A lot better than the Dark Masters, and honestly a lot better than what we have now. It's not like what you're doing is any different – you just use different weapons!"
"You really want a battle?" Taichi asked, but the loud roar and stamped feet of Ogremon's vast army answered the question more clearly than any reply from their leader ever could – and none of them would be dissuaded by Taichi's statement, meant as a warning but taken as a boast, that they couldn't possibly win. Nor were they at all bothered by the sound in the background of six digimon evolving to their highest achieved forms – two to Ultimate, four to Perfect – to join Garudamon in the fight.
"So he thinks we're pushovers, huh? Let's show him what we can do!" The shout came from a Goblimon somewhere in the crowd, and at that signal, the army began to swarm and envelop Taichi. Ogremon's army hurled a barrage of spiked, wooden clubs at the head of the Chosen Children's leader, along with a few electrified nets, poisonous spores, and other attacks he struggled to even recognize. As Taichi tried to duck out of the way, he heard the clubs clang harmlessly off of WarGreymon's chrome digizoid armor.
"Gaia Force!" WarGreymon raised his claws to summon an enormous ball of golden light, which he slammed into the ground in front of him, dispersing those of his foes who did not disintegrate instantly on contact. The army Ogremon had assembled ran in every direction, including towards the chosen children; most had run for their lives, but more than a few were still willing to risk them (or simply throw them away) to bring the chosen children down.
"Saint Air!" Or at least, they had been running. Angewomon lifted her arms to create a ring of rainbow light in midair, which froze the weaker digimon – both those fleeing and those charging – in place.
"Stop that! Ogremon's hurt! They're running away!" Jou shouted, and Zudomon ignored the charging Blossomon and Deramon to restrain the female angel who was his nominal ally.
"Can't you see we've won this fight?" Yamato asked, watching as Garudamon sent a Shadow Wing into the two plant digimon. "Taichi, we need to call off the battle. Don't let it turn into a slaughter."
"Heaven's Gate!" HolyAngemon waved his purple sword in a circle, and another charging horde of Goblimon were absorbed into another dimension, outside this one – or perhaps simply slain.
"They haven't surrendered." Hikari responded, as an egg from the Deramon whizzed past her face. "We're doing what we must."
MetalGarurumon knocked HolyAngemon from the sky – prompting a furious Takeru to shout "How could you!" at his older brother. Garudamon stayed out of the battle, while AtlurKabuterimon flew high above most of Ogremon's army and tried carefully to snipe only the higher-level foes from the air.
"Don't you see what your digimon was doing? Better to lose one battle than win like this..." Yamato answered, as his younger brother cried.
As Angewomon broke free of Zudomon's grip and began firing again, Jou rushed over to Ogremon, carrying a first aid kit, and threw himself in front of his foe as Angewomon notched an arrow – and as Taichi watched with WarGreymon, paralyzed by indecision.
"Stop this! I give up!"
In the end, it was Ogremon who blinked first.
"That's why I told you to stay home if you weren't comfortable with the mission! Forget not slaughtering them – with two defectors we could've lost the battle outright!" It was not the first time in his adventure that Taichi had felt a strong desire to punch Yamato – but it was the first time he had thrown the first punch.
And the first time that Yamato didn't punch back. He reeled from the blow, which left a bruise on his cheek, and yet he didn't seem the slightest bit angry – not at Taichi, anyway. "I didn't know anything about Ogremon's army. Most of them were children. They didn't stand a chance," he said remorsefully. "I deserved that. Takeru hit me too, but he was too small for it to hurt."
"I have no idea what we're doing," Taichi said, with no more confidence than his rival and best friend. "Why was Ogremon fighting us to begin with? Jou hasn't said a word to me – I don't blame him, Angewomon could've killed him if Ogremon wasn't faster – and I keep putting off reporting this to Mimi because of how I'm sure she'll react. Maybe it's time for us to go home."
"But we can't go home. The gate's still closed. And I think the digital world still needs us." Yamato answered, casting a glance to the sun; maybe they had made a mistake in staying here.
"It may need us, once we figure this out. But I don't think it needs me to be the leader." And with that, Yagami Taichi walked away.
Taichi had been prepared to take a slap, a punch, or even a Flow Cannon whenever he next encountered Tachikawa Mimi. But when she caught sight of him in the hallway, on his way back from his meeting with Yamato, the only thing she did was cry.
However great the discord among the Chosen Children, the digital world would not stop for them, and neither did the business of ruling it cease. The day after seven children returned from the battle with Ogremon, a bitter dispute between the Geckomon and the Numemon came before all eight.
Although only one Numemon and one Geckomon were allowed into the front of the court to argue the case, both had arrived with significant entourages who constantly traded barbs with each other. When the Chosen Children began to question the two representatives, for they sought to ascertain the basic facts of the dispute, the answers were drowned out by cries from the gallery of "Liar!"
"The next digimon in the audience to shout will lose their case for their side!" Taichi didn't want to give that order – if nothing else, it was a patently unfair way to decide what was clearly a serious dispute – but the threat at least worked for now to quiet the crowd.
After a great deal of insults and minor factual disputes, it had become apparent to the Chosen Children that the sewers where the Numemon had long lived had been relocated by the rebuilding Digital World to the ground beneath Gecko Castle. The Geckomon representative insisted that they understood the need for sanitation and did not begrudge the Numemon their homes, which the Numemon disputed. The Numemon representative insisted that the boundaries between sewer and castle were unclear, and that any Numemon encroachments into bedrooms, vending machines, and palaces were wholly unintentional.
"But you have desecrated the palace halls with poop, correct?" Mimi asked from one of the eight judge boxes.
"We Numemon rely on poop to defend ourselves, and no offense was intended," the Numemon representative explained, his stalk eyes peering over his notes. "We've even apologized for those incidents when some of our number threw poop to prank you, and worked tirelessly to clean up your castle in the aftermath."
"But when we tried to wall off the sewers, you protested! And that was the worst the poop problem ever got!" the Geckomon representatives shouted – and although the Geckomon in the gallery were forbidden from shouting, they soon realized the text of Taichi's statement did not forbid them from loudly honking their horns, and the Numemon were the first to rise their voices in protest.
"But those walls would have trapped them underground," Hikari said sadly, her quiet voice almost a whisper; if not for the hall's acoustics none of the Numemon would have heard her defend them.
"So what? Numemon belong underground! Their bodies can't even handle direct sunlight!" Mimi shouted, recalling the many times she had answered their romantic requests with a punch. "The Geckomon have done nothing wrong to those creepy digimon!"
"Even Numemon want to go outside sometimes, if only at night," Hikari answered, standing up and leaning to the edge of her judge's box. "Mugendramon also sealed them in the sewers. This is cruel."
The Geckomon and Numemon in the audience listened to the two quarrel, surprised that the arguments were coming not from the two digimon they had brought to represent them, but from the Chosen Children themselves – and to both sides, it offered further proof of the righteousness of their champion. Shouts of "Hikari-sama!" and "Princess Mimi" echoed through the raucous crowd.
Taichi had given up on any attempts to enforce silence and was forced to wait for them to quiet down; it was impossible, despite his earlier threat, to successfully assign blame – at least to either party in the crowd.
The actual dispute was another matter.
The two advocates eventually finished presenting their cases – not their arguing, admittedly, but at least the facts on which they argued. The evidence in favor of their respective positions had become clear to the court, and the trial had devolved into the Geckomon advocate calling the Numemon a disgusting slug who made the castle smell horrible, while the Numemon responded by calling him a noisy frog whose music made it impossible to sleep at night. The crowd cheered every barb, and Hikari and Mimi's partisanship in the case had not remotely diminished.
It was time for Taichi to call a recess.
Every decision the Chosen Children had made so far they had made as a unit, and it was rare for their conference before the verdict to reveal even differences of opinion, let alone strongly held ones. This was another matter.
It did seem to the majority of the Chosen Children that the Geckomon were more in the wrong, although the Numemon had hardly acted like angels. But Mimi had long viewed the Numemon (with a few exceptions) as disgusting, and was unwilling to countenance their "aggression" in what she had accidentally referred to a couple times as "her palace." Hikari was equally unwilling to accept anything which smacked of a concession; the Numemon, she reminded them, had fought nobly beside them against Mugendramon, and they had suffered enough.
"Maybe we should just make them compromise. Rule for neither party," ." Sora's suggestion would clearly not meet the approval of the other two female Chosen Children, but perhaps it would receive sufficient votes to settle their dispute anyway.
"But what would such a compromise even look like? Do we just do nothing?" Koushirou asked, deep in thought as he tried in vain to answer his own question. "The border incidents aside, these digimon clearly don't like each other's company."
"Maybe we could mess with the borders. Give a small part of the castle to the Numemon, with a door to the outside world, in exchange for some of the sewers..." Jou suggested, but with little confidence; the proposal was half speculation.
"What would Geckomon want with sewers?" Taichi asked, and Mimi nodded furiously at his words. "The Numemon will just treat that as a victory, and the Geckomon will be furious."
"You have any better ideas?" Yamato asked.
"I think we have to pick sides here," Koushirou added, although he clearly sounded like he was wishing otherwise.
"Sora, do you have any ideas for a compromise?" Takeru asked, but she sadly shook her head.
"Okay, time to vote," Taichi said with a heavy heart; Mimi had been glaring at his younger sister (and vice versa) for half the trial, both had a strong connection to one of the parties in the case, and whoever lost could not possibly take it well.
But he couldn't postpone it forever.
Sora refused to vote either way, as did Jou, and Taichi understood too well the logic behind their decision – the fact that they were probably Mimi's closest friends among the chosen children didn't help matters. But Hikari's arguments and those of the Numemon counsel had won the day, and when Taichi read out the votes, the case had been decided 5 to 1 in favor of the Numemon.
And then, with tears in her eyes, Mimi shouted "I hate you!" crossed her arms, and stormed out of the digital world's capitol – and the building the Chosen Children, all the Chosen Children, had for so long called home.
There has long been a legend among the Geckomon, like among many other peoples and digimon species around both world, that their departed monarch will return to them in their hour of greatest need. This legend had long been applied to TonosamaGeckomon in his three long centuries of sleep, but when he finally awakened he proved as unpopular a lord as any of his regents; all he accomplished was to wreck much of their castle, rebury himself in rubble, and then awaken again to be defeated by the Dark Masters.
It is quite understandable in this situation that the subject of the Geckomon legend would be transferred from a tonosama to a princess.
If one looks at the history of the Geckomon, it is hard to consider hordes of Numemon throwing poop through the castle halls to be their hour of greatest need – even if, as the rumors alleged, the Chosen Children had in fact preserved their "right" to do so – but present generations have always understated the struggles of the past. Every night they prayed to their digimon gods that their sweet-voiced human princess, Tachikawa Mimi, the Idol of Purity, would return to them.
The first time that Mimi had arrived in Gecko Castle, she had fully intended to stay there forever, but the other Chosen Children had taken her away. Now, she was furious with her comrades – both for fighting Ogremon and for ruling against the Numemon – and determined to fight back.
The remnants of the army Ogremon had gathered to fight the Chosen Children arrived with her, as did Ogremon himself, Unimon, Meramon, and quite a few other digimon from the army she had led against the Dark Masters. TonosamaGeckomon protested, but he had no support either inside or outside the castle, and surrendered to his new princess without a fight.
Mimi's old princess dress had been preserved by the Geckomon, and the crown she had discarded would return to her head in a coronation ceremony attended by all the castle, at which she pledged to drive out the Numemon and protect the Geckomon and Otamamon from all their foes – human and digimon alike! A new flag – pink, with a green teardrop of Purity – was hung from the castle's roof, and the Geckomon and Otamamon celebrated their princess through the night with a karaoke ball at which Princess Mimi sang louder than anyone.
"When I wish on a star, with my pride riding the wind, I can see a tomorrow that can't be erased by today. I wish..."
And then the castle prepared for war.