Disclaimer: This work was not intended to make a profit off of the works of others or any profit at all. Digimon is not owned by me; please support the actual series.

"Who's going to fight for what's right? Who's goon to help us survive? We're in the fight of our lives and we're not ready to die."- Skillet, "Hero"

"Hey dad." Davis turned toward his son. The media frenzy had not yet begun, but Davis knew that now he should be with his family. Tai and Matt were staying with their partners, who in turn to prove the value of their word were staying with the Tamers. It was also a way to keep the Kimiyas out of their now-Scene-of-the-Crime-house. Sora understood and was taking care of the children. "Where's Veemon?"

"He's staying with an old friend," Davis replied. Technically true, if it was actually Ryo.

"Why?"

'Oh boy, tread carefully Davis, who knows how Mark might accidentally twist your words.' "Well, he made a promise, and that promise means that he has to stay round his friend for now. I would be with him but we found out something recently and we both knew that the best place I could be is right here. Ok?"

"I guess. Can we see him?" 'Dang it! The puppy-dog face! And Demi-Veemon is worse! I swear they practice it when I'm not looking! But, seeing everyone in a holding cell is not going to be a great first impression. Crap. Well I needed to explain about Alex anyway, I just hope I can do it before we get there. Stupid Puppy-face. Did I have one that good as a child?'

"Yeah, but on the way up I'm going to have to explain some stuff. Try not to make a judgment until you've heard everything. Ok?"

"Got it." Demi-Veemon answered.

The Motomiya's met with the Ichijouji's where the Tamers were being held. Ken led them to the outdoor area where it seemed the Tamers were trying to enjoy their afternoon. Henry and Suzie were moving through a set of stances, Ryo had a stick and was moving it like a blade. Jeri was cloud watching. Terriermon and Lopmon were swinging their ears at one another. Gaurdromon was doing a beanbag impression, while internally optimizing his energy. Paildramon, Renamon, WarGreymon, MetalGarurumon, and Cyberdramon were alternating partners in a five mon spar. But what really captivated Mark's attention was the card game. Kazu and Kenta were double-teaming Rika in an attempt to give the Digimon Queen a work out. It was failing.

Both Matt and Tai were trying to pick up what game the three were playing so intensely, but were being subtle about it. Mark being twelve had no interest in subterfuge and saw something that he might be able to do. Demi-Veemon had wanted to talk to the older one about if Armor digimon could evolve; a complex series of theories that was sure to make Mark's head spin.

Games on the other hand he could understand. "Hey! What are you guys playing?" This came after a rather piteous moan from Kazu. Their reactions were varied. Kazu and Kenta looked away from the game, then Kazu turned back in dismay. Kenta gave a short wave before focusing back on the game. Rika never even looked up. The snub was something that was new to Mark. Having direct family that was studied in Recent History tended to mean that he had long since learned to identify these idiots that hung out with him to get a look at his dad. He as well as most every member of the "Third Generation" tended to be mobbed by the younger kids at school. Being ignored was… refreshing. After all didn't his father tell him that friends worth having were the ones you had to earn? He walked over.

"How did you do that?" Kazu asked Rika. "It's a strategy I originally got and upgraded from Gogglehead," she replied. "It was the one time he's ever managed to beat me."

"What, he beat you?"

"Once, so his record against me is one for and three thousand seven hundred twenty-nine against, and two rounds of draw."

Kazu had a Gaurdromon out with a power modification equipped. Kenta to protect him had out a Seadramon with Ocean Love. Rika's counter consisted of Kyubimon, Vaccine Conversion, Low Bandwidth, and New Pass-code. New Passcode was a card that locked the entire field for one full turn. Meanwhile Low Bandwidth allowed one attack at the end phase of the turn in exchange for not having one during the battle-phase regardless of other effects. In her hand was Alias and WarGreymon's Dramon Killers. Kazu had yet to remove his monster from the field. Rika and Kenta's discards were mysteriously empty.

"Wait these are digimon!" Mark exclaimed. Tai and Matt started, they had been just a bit too far to make out what was on the cards, and the Tamers had been making efforts to keep their voices down.

"Mark, it's rude to interrupt other people's games," Monica, Ken and Yolei's first child and only daughter reprimanded.

"I didn't mean to but it was such a shock," he sheepishly replied. Rika sent a glare to her opponents clearly stating who she felt was at fault. "What did I do?" Kazu asked.

Then a guard came and conversed with Ken for a moment before addressing the whole group. "We recently found a tape of the kidnappers from a bank security camera; none of which are in your partners evolution line, also we've been able to positively identify the boy as Ryo Akyimia. As we have no reason to suspect you at this time you are free to leave. Here are your digivices." The guard briefly left and returned with all of their D-Arks.

"So what was the card game?" Mark asked again. He had inherited his father's persistence it seemed.

"In our world most of us first found out about digimon as a kid's show or as a card game. So we sometimes use those cards to have practice battles without either side getting hurt," Ai explained. "Yeah," her twin picked up, "Ryo and Rika were considered so good that people started calling them the Digimon King and Queen."

"Not really fond of that," Ryo said from where he was.

"I hated that title," Rika told the Digi-Destined.

"Only because it made it sound like you were second best," Kazu retorted. "Which you are."

"Remind me why you can speak; you just lost against me… in a two-on-one! Kenta might have been going down next round but he had a revitalize card waiting."

"Could you teach me?" Mark asked.

"There probably wouldn't be much to teach. Like actual digimon fights it's mostly about making Attribute, Level, and Type advantages to boost relative attack, speed, stamina, and defense. The only thing that you'd have to get your head around is tool advantages," Henry explained. Seeing the blank looks he continued, "In the game you can mix and match tools and digimon. For example, Paildramon can use WarGreymon's shield and Angemon's staff to fight a Myotismon with Piedmon's Trump Swords and Infermon's Shell.

"Then there are stat effect cards, these change stats like power or stamina though they can also change attribute and type if the situation calls for it. So you could have a Virus Reptile MetalGarurumon fight a Data Puppet Seraphimon."

"Wait," Yolei said. "How are types important?"

"That question is a bit tricky," Kenta responded. "It seems to creep up least, usually when a digimon has equipment that allows them to decimate forces of a certain type. But type can also be a tip-off that other advantages might not be as important as you'd think. For example Heaven and Hell type aligned digimon tend to have more strength than most other types of the same Level. So a sea dragon type and a fallen angel type battling would give a type advantage to the fallen angel. These advantages can be enough to wreck any other advantage there is."

"Oh and we can also apply attacks too. But doing so has penalties; the more alike to the original user the new user is, the fewer penalties that apply. So an Agumon can use Gomamon's Marching Fishes without Level or Attribute penalty, but would have Type and Family penalties on the attack, weakening it."

"And on that subject," Henry picked up, "if a digimon is using another digimon's tool, say Togemon using Angewomon's Bow, Togemon could fire off a celestial Arrow without paying any of the penalties." WarGreymon whistled in appreciation- dang that was a scary thing to imagine.

"Cool! Can I play?" Mark asked.

"You're like a five-year-old, honestly!" Monica stated.

"We're kind of particular about our decks," Henry said rubbing the back of his head. "And it's not something that we could just run to the corner and get in this world."

"He could use mine," Jeri said.

"You sure?" Ai asked. Jeri nodded before turning to Mark. "My deck has all three attributes with Vaccine being the most common. My partner was a Leomon so it is mostly based around his line."

"The thing about tools is that they are fair game as long as the digimon has the correct autonomy for them. You need hands to wield swords after all," Henry who used tool cards more than anyone else in the group told the boy.

"Right so who gets to break him in?" Kazu asked, looking at the deck like a meal. "It obvious you want to, Kazu so go ahead," Mako said. Then his twin turned to Mark, "Kazu isn't the best when it comes to card battles, in fact he's the worst out of all of us. Then us," she motioned to her twin and Suzie, "then Kenta. After him is Takato, then Henry, Rika and finally Ryo."

"But," Suzie said, "even if Takato isn't the best card player, nobody wants to get in his way during an actual fight. He can get an unconscious sync rate of ninety percent at Rookie; it just gets higher as they evolve."

"That's not even counting Guilmon's stats," Mako brought up.

"Right," Henry continued, "Guilmon has base stats that are closer to Champion than Rookie; add in the fact that every evolution ups those stats and he's gone beyond Mega before he was a yearling, you can understand our caution."

Ryo snapped his fingers, "Speaking of Takato, he's partially the reason we're here."

"You wanted to see if we had information, right?" Yolei asked.

"Not just that, we heard that Takato was traveling with Alex."

"What?" Tai asked.

"It turns out that the same guy who took Takato also took Alex. So that's why we thought you might know something. Anyway, from that we can tell you two things." Ryo looked Tai square in the face with no nonsense in his demeanor. "He's alive and by the time you see him again, he will be baptized in fire."

"He's alive? He's alive! HE'S ALIVE!" Tai grabbed his partner and started to twirl the Mega around in happiness. Mark found this rather frightening. "HE'S ALIVE, WARGREYMON! HE'S ALIVE!"

"So are we going to play or what?" Mark had almost forgotten about the card game and Kazu, though glances from the Tamers showed that they were shocked to Kazu's reaction to Tai hearing the good news as well. He sat down and tried to absorb Jeri mentioning some basic rules for the card game that obviously wouldn't exist in a real fight, most of them were simple, after all they were very much like most other card game starting rules: how to win, how many card to draw for a hand, what a good starting hand looked like, what level you could start at.

Davis watched the first leader and muttered to Ken and Yolei; "You're getting this on tape right? I'd like a copy for Christmas, and then you should probably lose the original. Otherwise Agumon might never live down being rag-dolled by a human while at Mega level, in Chrome Digi-zoid Armor- even if it is his partner on euphoria induced adrenaline high."

"You know he's letting Tai do it."

"Yeah, but I still plan on embarrassing the heck out of them later," Davis responded with a childish grin.

"Two weeks; check your home mail slot; unmarked, unposted," Ken replied with a matching grin.

"I can't believe you two," Yolei huffed. "Honestly, do you realize just how many people manage to sneak through your security to look for exploitable things in your mail? I caught people doing it over twice a week at home, and those are just the ones I've noticed and I've only been able to see them when I get on Maternity leave. They don't really care that it's a Felony; they just want to be able to get the next big scoop on 'the local celebrities.'"

"Good point," Ken conceded. "I'll get it to you the next time we have dinner together."

"Um, excuse me, Mr. Ryo," Ken's eldest said. Ryo looked at the girl in surprise, he was not used to the name, and he didn't particularly like it either. "Just Ryo. No 'Mister.'"

"Er- right, Ryo. I was wondering- um-" Ryo smiled encouragingly. "If you knew about Alex before you got here, why didn't you say anything right away?"

"It's a fair question," Matt said with MetalGarurumon and Paildramon nodding as well.

Ryo rubbed the back of his head, "Well I guess it was because we started out so hostily. I mean, if I came right out and said it when I first saw Tai you'd have thought it was just Milleniummon trying to trick you. If I hinted at knowing where Alex was, you'd have thought he was extorting you. So I guess it was the atmosphere telling me that it was not the time for it."

"Far enough," Paildramon said, that night quickly becoming an incident that neither half was proud of.

"Hey Paildramon," Henry caught the DNA Ultimate's attention. "Back during the Digimon Emperor Days, why didn't you talk to one another?"

Everyone paying attention would swear that if the digimon had a visible mouth it would have been giving off a sheepish grin. "Well first off we never really saw each other much except from afar. It's not like we could just walk up and reminisce about the old times in the middle of a fight, you know? The first time we were actually around each other for an extended period was when the Davis, Yolei, Cody, TK, and Kari were raiding the Emperor's base. The group got split up you see, and our Wormmon half led Davis and our Veemon half to the power core which turned out to be the Digi-egg of Miracles.

"We had a feeling before, but after that we knew. To use a cliché we saw the recognition in the other's eyes. Ken seemed to forget that a Veemon had even been partnered with Ryo, let alone remembered how rare they are supposed to be. And Davis purely didn't know. We didn't have a reason to tell him at the time; it would have just screwed up the dynamic. It was actually refreshing when they synced so we could DNA evolve. We really missed that feeling. After MaloMyotismon Ken asked us up front and Davis was there so we gave him the full run-down.

"Though that makes us have questions for you: how did you know about that? Or about the Emperor at all? Ryo's disappearance was one of the main reasons for Ken taking that persona, so how could you know about something that happened after he left?"

"Remember that show that show that first introduced us to digimon?" Kenta asked. "Guess whom it was about."

"You're kidding," was the reply.

"Nope, though the only recent information on you guys came twenty-five years after MaloMyotismon, and it was that you meet a lot and all of you have had children," Ryo answered moving over to Ken and Yolei, "So what are your kid's names?"

"You have met Monica," Ken said motioning to his daughter. Yolei continued, "We named our first son after you," pulling the boy up front. "And our youngest, Sam, is at home."

"You named him after me?" Ryo repeated. Sam he could understand, but after him!

"You're a hero in this world, Ryo," Ken told him. Then the detective moved in closer to add in private, "Besides, I lost you- one of my first real friends- before I did my brother."

Ryo looked at the child that Ken had bequeathed his name to; it was the same face, the same look in the eyes, the same demeanor that he had first seen in Ken what seemed like an eternity ago. But he also had that need to mask himself in a cloak of confidence the way his mother had, and hopefully grown out of- and her hair color. "People must expect a lot out of you," Ryo remarked offhand.

"It's a big name to live up to," Ryo Ichijouji neutrally replied.

"I know what you mean," Akiyama responded. "People are always comparing me to this Legendary Tamer who's supposed to be the best at absolutely everything. It's annoying." Everyone around laughed. "And they always say that he's one hundred, twenty-two centimeters tall at the hip, two hundred thirteen at the shoulder and fifteen centimeters from shoulder to eye level. Oh and built like a tank."

"Don't forget he arm-wrestles Ultimates in his sleep," Terriermon piped up. "And wins."

"Shouldn't you be with Henry?" Ryo asked semi-serious. "Momenti, I just stopped on my way over to him."

"Momenti?" Ken asked unsure of the meaning.

"'Take it easy.'"

Cyberdramon had a slightly different reaction to the confirmation, not that he needed it but now that it was established that they were working together he pulled WarGreymon and Paildramon to the side. "I'll be honest with you," the Ultimate told them. "In another time and place I'd try and extract my pound of data for what you two have done."

"What are you talking about?" WarGreymon asked unsure of what they both might have done to offend the Cyborg. "If this is about partnering with Ryo, that was under special circumstances and we understand that he's your partner not ours."

"While I am glad that you understand that, my quarrel lies not with you two there. Maybe this fact and question will help you to understand. Millenniummon is not a natural Mega form of the Monodramon line. But I do have it; how is that possible? I would need to have Millenniummon's data to have access to those forms, and he could not be killed and loaded."

The DNA Ultimate and the Mega stiffened. "Good I see you realize how. But my rage at you has its roots even before that. I do not hold you making a temporary partnership with Ryo against you. If anything I put it as a credit to him. What I dislike about you is the hate that I inherited from Millenniummon's DNA parents." Cyberdramon pointed a claw to WarGreymon. "The Machinedramon that YOU cut up and left for dead." His finger shifted to Paildramon. "And the Kimeramon that YOU took down with the energy from both of your halves."

"How is that possible?" Paildramon asked. "Magnamon took down Kimeramon YEARS after Ryo stopped Millenniummon. So how?"

"If I had to guess the Kimeramon from one dimension was shot to the correct point in time of this dimension, and this one's was sent to a different one in a round robin fashion. But the event of Kimeramon's defeat still stands, and it was by your hand that it lost."

"Why are you even telling us this?" WarGreymon asked. "To gloat that you happen to be some of our greatest enemies but are now beyond reach?"

"No," Cyberdramon replied. "It was because my gut told me that this will not be our last excursion with dimensional travel. One day you might well meet a version of me who has that old hate and not had his battle-lust tempered. If you do, watch your back. Besides, better that you hear it from me now, than from an enemy in the middle of a fight." The cyborg began to walk away; the he stopped, and turned his head to make sure his audience understood him. "It would make you hesitate, and that makes you a liability. Liabilities lead to defeat. I will NOT be responsible for a defeat, even by proxy."

While they were stewing over it, Ken addressed the group. "Ah, well how about everyone accompanies me to a briefing room, and we can all review it together," he said.

"Right," the older Ryo said. "But remember, whomever did it is from another Digital World, we could see an alternate version of ourselves or someone we have never met before." That in mind, the combined group made their way to the business part of the station. Ken cut the lights and Paildramon turned on the screen. They seemed to be looking through a bank security camera above the main entrance facing the street. It was time-stamped at 10:04 p.m. There was no one on the street, unusual for any time in a city, but it worked well for the kidnappers. Suddenly, the camera detected movement in the other directing and swiveled toward it. It was an Airdramon, who were supposed to have logged a flight plan ahead of schedule for any low level flying, especially at night. But no one watching believed that they'd find one.

As it flew past the camera both the passengers and one very distinguishable detail could be seen. Four Gotsumon, one sack, and "Alex," Tai breathed. The boy managed to look, fearful and cocky at the same time. However the confident smirk turned to wide eyes that the rest of the room gained as well when they glimpsed the portal that he was taken through. Blacker than midnight.

The distinguishing feature about all the digimon that they could see was the Dark Ring. That defiantly sent a spark though the room. Monica and Ryo looked at their father in shock, while Ken stared open-mouthed at the footage. "How-" he finally said.

"Remember what Ryo said earlier, 'Another Digital World.' That world's Digimon Emperor- or someone else using the same technology- who might or might not be a version of Ken Ichijouji, is the one that ordered this kidnapping," Henry said. The younger Ryo and his older sister breathed a sigh of relief their momentary lapse in faith of their father gone. "But," Henry continued. "What bugs me is the fact that Alex was smiling at one point."

Euphoria was quickly sobered up. Surprisingly to the Tamers, Mark had the reason for his absent friend. "He figured that they wouldn't be able to get away with it. He knew that his mom always checks on him before she goes to bed, at around eleven. She'd call his dad who would call everyone else and since Imperialdramon is not only in the top two most powerful digimon in Japan but the fastest partner digimon that we know of he figured it would be over before the night was through."

"And how do you know that?" his father asked.

"We had to do a report on the World Tour in school."

"I meant about Mrs. Kimyia's nightly habits."

"We'll sometimes brag during lunch about who can finish a video game faster, so when a new one comes out we'd be up until about two a.m." Then he realized who he just said that to, "Oops."

"You're supposed to be asleep," his mother reminded him. "I think I'll be keeping you player with me for a week."

"Aw, no fair," Mark moaned.

"Great," Rika said. "We have an idea of who took Gogglehead, but no ideas on what to do about it or how to get him."

Ai responded, "It really wouldn't have mattered, Rika. Remember what ENIAC said? About them finding a way to travel to different worlds on their own? Even if we could trace the Gate it wouldn't matter. They're gone anyway."

"Ryo?" her twin called. The intern leader of the Tamers hadn't said a word since the video. "You ok?"

Just then Tai's cell phone rang. Caller ID had the number registered as Izzy's personal number. "Izzy, is everything alright?"

"Tai, you're not going to believe this. I know who took Alex!"

"They're from another Digital World right?"

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"We just got a look at some security footage that paints a pretty detailed picture. By the way how did YOU know that Alex was taken to another continuity?"

"A different me just emailed me and said he met two Digimon-Human Hybrids, named Alex Kaimya and Takato Mitsuki. He also emailed me the program that they're using. It's based off Myotismon's Gate!"

"Izzy," Tai commanded. "Get down here as soon as possible."

"On my way."

When Izzy entered the correct room he was assaulted by the shock of what he was seeing. Before he could ask Matt gave him a no nonsense look and mouthed "Later." Izzy nodded and connected his computer to the mainframe. He pulled up a seemingly random string of squiggles. "I got this email about an hour ago, addressed from me to me. Now then, these characters are Digi-code, but if you ran a program translator right now it would make no sense. But, and there's the kicker, Digi-code has actually evolved such that there are two distinct types- in this message both are mashed hodgepodge together. But separate the two types of code and each one reveals a message: the same message. This was a code I invented myself after figuring out the Digi-code language as a form of encryption. I never mentioned it to anyone else.

"While I suppose anyone with a sufficient knowledge of the languages could have made this, and if they did they would likely be able to backscatter to my email, the nature of the email is what convinced me. The very start of the email I won't translate simply because those were messages meant for me to prove the email's validity. The other version of me mentioned things that I am certain to be the only one who knows. Then he went on to pass a message from Alex."

"What was the message Izzy?" Tai asked anxiously.

"Getting there, Tai. The message was basically just what Alex told the other me about what happened to him and what he had done in the other world." Izzy saw the glint in the father's eyes. He couldn't blame his friend, Izzy knew that if the situation were reversed he'd be three times as impatient as Tai was showing, and considering that Diplomacy had schooled Tai's features if he was showing that much emotion he must be barely holding himself back from strangling the answers out of the Knowledge barer. "Ok, here's what I've been able to pick out. Alex is alive. He is relatively safe. He is traveling with a boy named Takato." Izzy didn't not miss the reactions from the mysterious group that was in the room.

"They were both taken by that world's version of the Digimon Emperor. They escaped into that continuity's Human World. In that version of the world, the Digimon Emperor won, and because he did that allowed Deamon to wreak havoc on the Human World killing off that world's Tai, Davis, Kari and TK as well as every partner digimon that was in Odiba during that time. Alex took down the Deamon Corps and Takato took out Deamon himself. They left before the email was sent and are traveling together."

"How did Alex take down three Ultimates by himself, Koromon can only achieve Champion!" Tai exclaimed, though he was happy that Alex could take care of himself he was still a father worried for the well being of his son. If only he knew what a can of worms he just opened…

"That's the part I can't quite figure out. The other me is saying that Alex was forced to reach Mega by the other world's Digimon Emperor turning Alex into something called a Digimon-Human Hybrid. Also Alex apparently can't get out of it without killing himself, he's stuck at Mega." The Tamers' eyes widened. "Though I can't see why it's a bad thing..."

The Tamers could, being permanently stuck in Bio-merge, was one of the things they all secretly feared. They would joke about some of the smaller issues, like never being able to find a desk the right size, or how odd it would look going to class, but they knew a permanent merge meant a loss of connection to everyone around them. The only ones who could understand would be the other Tamers but even that relationship would be strained, because if they became something similar it would only be for a time and after that they would be alone again.

"After that," Izzy said continuing, "the other me says that Alex and Takato have already left and he goes on to describe the program they are using to get around." He clicked on a minimized screen pulling it up. A collective gasp came from around the room. "That's right. He's using the cards that Myotismon seems so fond of."

Rika saw Ryo staring at the cards with vacant eyes. "Hey, Hero-boy. Still with us?" 'Ugh, this is worse than before we tied him down to watch the Digimon marathon. Good thing we got him to de-digivolve Cyberdramon to Monodramon so Guilmon could sit on him before we took his Ark away. I don't think my house could have survived a rampaging Cyberdramon. Thank the Sovereign that we got to the second half of the second season so quickly. Ryo almost had gotten his Ark back.'

Whether he was or not took a back seat when an officer burst through the door, shouting, "It's an emergency!" They ran out to see a screen showing panorama view of an army advancing on the city. At its helm was Daemon. "What's he doing here?" Tai asked.

"The Dark Spore?" Matt suggested.

The elder Ryo's eyes went wide. "No, not the Dark Spore. Why would he take a fraction when he thinks he can get ALL of Milleniummon's power at once! This is my fault, I'm the one he's after and he probably doesn't even know it."