Chapter Word Count: 1,488||Story Word Count: 4,692||Chapter Count: 3/3

They ran.

What else could they do? Their partners were the ones attacking them. They didn't have any way to break the control the Kaiser had. Being furious wasn't going to do anything.

So they ran. Ran for their lives, and there wasn't a one of them, burning with rage or not, who didn't wonder if they'd face the same fate that their younger friends had seven years earlier.

Yamato could still hear the Kaiser's raucous laughter, even as he stumbled and searched for a place he could conceal himself until something else could happen. Some way to stop all of this and reset it. His breath caught in his lungs and far too soon a stitch burned in his side and he couldn't hear anything coming after him.

Which made him all the more terrified, because he knew Garurumon and he knew that his partner was a silent hunter.

If he didn't hear him, there was a good chance Garurumon remained right on his track.

We never talked about what could happen if any of them were under Kaiser's control again. We should have. In the days after they'd freed Agumon, they'd all just been too happy that it happened in the first place. They should've thought about what could happen. They should've made plans.

But they hadn't and now Yamato could see how foolish they'd been as children. They'd treated this whole thing like more of a game than the Kaiser had. He at least wanted to win and acted like it. They'd treated it more like an afterschool job, kind of annoying but not really important in the long run, because they were heroes and they'd win, wouldn't they?

They hadn't.

He kept running. He couldn't hear footsteps or pawpaddings or whatever but he could still feel Garurumon. He tried to tell himself that the hot breath pounding down his neck was only his imagination.

Something moved in front of him, too fast for him to react to, and he slammed into a solid wall of fur and muscle with that particular digital scent that he hadn't smelled in so long and didn't especially want to with that Dark Ring wrapped around Garurumon's neck.

Brilliant scarlet eyes stared down at him without a single shred of recognition or emotion. Yamato found he'd someone kept a grip on his Digivice and started to bring it up. Once these things had helped to get rid of the Gears Devimon controlled. They'd never been used against the Kaiser's works, but he thought he could try.

Garurumon growled, the kind of growl that made it plain any funny business would only end up with even more pain. Yamato froze.

I have to get that thing off of him, but I can't do anything if he just eats me now. He had to find a way to do it without those sharp teeth chewing him to pieces. If he moved the wrong way…

"Bandage Slap!" The cry wasn't in any voice that he knew and he had no time to figure out where it came from before something wrapped around his waist and pulled him up out away from Garurumon.

He found himself perched on a tree branch, with what looked like a mummy next to him, reeling his bandages away from Yamato. The blond stared at him in disbelief and confusion.

"Who are you?" Yamato snapped. The other waved him to silence and Yamato glared harder. "Not that I don't appreciate the rescue, but who are you?" He kept his voice down this time and the other didn't argue him talking.

"Mummymon. Now come on. We've got to meet Archnemon and your other friends, before your other friend there finds us."

Unnumbered questions burned on Yamato's lips. There wasn't any chance to ask them, let alone get answers, before Mummymon grabbed him by the shoulders and leaped off into the enclosing shadows of the trees. They stayed that way, bouncing from tree to tree, sometimes not moving for long minutes until Mummymon deemed it safe. At least Yamato thought that was what he was doing. With the twists and turns that he took, he could've been following one of Taichi's old maps for all Yamato knew.

In due course they landed next to a large rock, sheltered by a thick wall of bushes. Yamato had no idea of how long they'd been traveling around or where they were, but Mummymon peered around carefully, then relaxed.

"All right, we'll be safe here, until we can get to the base," he said. "Everyone else should be here soon."

"Who is 'everyone else'?" Yamato wanted to know. He hadn't made up his mind if he trusted this guy or not, but he didn't have a lot of choices. That didn't mean he didn't want answers.

Mummymon tilted his head. "The others. Your friends. My friends."

"They're not your friends or mine," a female voice interrupted, laced think with annoyance. "But we're all on the same side right now."

Yamato didn't read much fantasy, but he remembered having heard of a creature that was part spider and part human, sort of like a centaur, in some stories. He'd never met one before: until now. She skittered over to the two of them, and on her back there rode Taichi, at least until she stopped and tossed him quickly to the ground.

Taichi rolled, a faintly greenish cast to his skin as he fought to get back to his feet, and stared up at Yamato for a few moments before he leaned forward and deposited what Yamato guessed was his breakfast on the ground. He wasn't going to check for details.

"Good to see you're all right," Yamato told him, kicking some grass and dirt over the evidence. The less trail they left behind, the better. "Where's everyone else?"

The spider woman crossed her arms over her chest. "Coming. Unless the Kaiser's slaves got to them first."

"You're very comforting, aren't you?" Taichi groaned, getting himself to his feet at last. He turned to Yamato. "If horseback riding is anything like riding spider back, I'm never going to do it."

Yamato patted him on the back and kept an eye out for the others. The new arrival was, of course, Archnemon, and from the way Mummymon looked at her – well, he'd never seen a Digimon in love before, but there was a first time for everything. Neither of them spoke to the two humans, murmuring to one another, as one by one, the others got there, each with their own Digimon escort. And some of those were very familiar indeed.

"All right, I'm not a dentist, but I'll check your teeth if I can get to a place with some clean water. In the meantime, I think you should try to find a breath freshener. Please!" Jou said as he and Ogremon entered the clearing. Ogremon nodded eagerly.

"I don't have as many ingredients as I'd like," Digitamamon said to Mimi, "but maybe we can try a few things with what we do have?"

Mimi grinned as cheerfully as she could. "Sounds like a good idea to me!"

Koushirou and Andromon were involved in some kind of conversation that Yamato couldn't even begin to follow. But it was Sora who made everyone's jaw drop when she entered with a Digimon none of the humans had met before.

"Everyone," she said as they all turned to look, "this is my new friend Rosemon."

Even with a flower for a head and not much of a face, Rosemon glowed gloriously beautiful. She nodded toward all of them. "I wish we could stand around getting to know one another, but time wastes, and there's too much to do. Archnemon, if you'd please."

Grumbling under her breath, Archnemon turned toward the large boulder in the clearing and struck it hard with one of her feet. Though it didn't seem like a very hard kick, the boulder opened up, revealing a long row of stairs before them.

"Let's go." Rosemon said, and led the way down.

"Just where are we going?" Taichi wanted to know. Rosemon turned back to look at him, a harsh smile on her lips.

"To the last bastion of those who wish the Digimon Kaiser defeated and our world freed. And there are not very many of us, especially compared to his forces."

She turned and started down the stairs again, and with nothing left to do, they followed.

"They're gone." The Kaiser stared into the monitors, searching for any sign of his prey. He didn't like how they vanished. Something wasn't right, and he would find the answers before they tried anything. This was his world, his plaything, and no one took away his toys.

He'd won this war. He didn't care for a rematch and he wouldn't have one. Trying to start the game fresh?

They'd see why he'd won the first time.

The End

Notes: Someday I will write the next part of this. But that day is not today.