Author's Note: Another longer chapter today! So I won't take too much time here. However, I would like to extend special thanks to Naytin for following this story, Jellysquids for following me (and favoriting me, following Dark Uprising, and favoriting Dark Uprising), and Staria's Light for leaving another review! You'll have to keep reading to see what plans I have for the Red Card and Jeri, but as for Leomon it isn't just the producers that kill them off. I mean, I killed Leo last story and he survived in the manga, and I named a character the equivalent of Lion Man just to kill him off… I'm probably just as guilty. Anyway, hope you enjoy the chapter!
BeoWolfmon grit his teeth in frustration as Sealsdramon landed yet another punch on his left side. The individual hits weren't exactly painful with the level difference, but the nimble Champion had hit him so many times that Koji knew he'd have another nasty bruise as soon as he undid the Spirit Evolution. Of course, it was a small price to pay to get back in fighting shape. Originally, the medical staff was planning on him going through standard physical therapy as both a human and as BeoWolfmon, but their facility didn't exactly scale up to a twelve-foot-tall humanoid. The therapists were still incredibly helpful, but most of the equipment may as well have been made of cardboard to the Legendary Warrior.
However, Koji found a way to put the relative inadequacy of the equipment to his advantage. He spent a little bit of time getting used to the adjusted balance in his BeoWolfmon form by pushing all the equipment out of the center of the track. Once he managed to do that, he had a nice clear arena where he could start practicing his swordsmanship. While he had always used his Trinität with one hand, his fighting style relied on having the Roland 2 on his left arm to keep the pressure on his opponent at any range. Now that he was limited to close range combat, he had to adjust his style a bit to leave fewer openings defensively while keeping up offensive pressure. At first he was only going through his forms alone, but Sealsdramon had quickly taken interest in his practice and was quick to point out a few flaws.
At first, Koji wasn't the most welcoming to the comments, but when Sealsdramon jumped in and exploited those openings with a few punches he quickly realized the benefits of practicing in a more fight-like situation. At first he had held back knowing he was powerful enough to destroy Sealsdramon in a single hit, but as the Champion level easily dodged all of his attacks while ordering him to treat it like a real fight he slowly started putting more and more effort in. By the end of the first day, he had a collection of bruises and hadn't landed a single hit. Still, he had a much better appreciation for Sealsdramon, as the Cyborg Digimon was the only one capable of giving him anything resembling a real fight. Every punch he took from Sealsdramon was one less punch he had to take from Lucemon as he patched up his style, and it would be a lot easier learning how to fight by actually fighting than by standing around and doing everything on his own.
After that disastrous showing his first day, Koji needed Lotusmon to heal him with her Serpent Cure before he could go through physical therapy as a human. Today had been much of the same- a morning of failing to hit Sealsdramon, a quick visit from Lotusmon to undo the bruises, and then some intense physical therapy. Now he was back in the arena, and eager to show Sealsdramon a thing or two. He was starting to read the other Digimon's movements, and was at least managing to lower the frequency of hits he was taking. Now it was time to see if he could start landing hits of his own. He forced Sealsdramon to keep a bit of distance with a steady string of slashes, but made sure to over swing on the last one. He ended up spinning a little bit with his sword held in a reverse grip over his left shoulder. It left a huge opening, but that was exactly what Koji was counting on. When Sealsdramon ducked in to land another hit, Koji suddenly reversed direction and did a quick spin, whipping his sword around in a blur.
Sealsdramon saw the attack coming at the last second, but was just an instant too slow to fully get out of the way and felt the sword clang off of his armor. Only then did the Champion realize Koji had reversed his blade so he wouldn't slice his sparring partner to ribbons. It was a clever move, but Sealsdramon had plenty of experience in close range combat and knew the problems with such a flashy technique. "I'll give you credit for the surprise attack, but you really shouldn't rely on that in a fight. You'll just end up tiring yourself out and making yourself dizzy. The point of this is for you to learn a better fighting style, not one that lets you get a hit in at the cost of weakening yourself for later."
Koji smirked as he went into a crouch. "Yeah, I know, but sometimes it pays to have attacks even a master swordsman wouldn't predict. By the way, I won't be able to avoid hurting you on this one just by turning my sword around. I suggest you watch out." With that little bit of warning, Koji suddenly launched himself forward, leaving a trail of light in his wake. Sealsdramon was capable of moving faster than the eye could detect and had advance warning, and he still barely managed to avoid the sword thrust, coming so close that he got knocked away just by the air displacement. As he dusted himself off, he shot Koji a smile.
"I suppose I should have expected the Warrior of Light to have some impressive speed, but that was some nice acceleration there. If I didn't have that warning, I'd have been impaled." Koji accepted the praise, but wasn't fully satisfied with the result. "Yeah, it worked pretty well, but I noticed a drawback. I ended up going too fast to even react to anything. If you had tried counterattacking, there would have been nothing I could do. Against weaker opponents it wouldn't matter, but Lucemon would be able to take that attack without too much damage and kill me just by sticking out his fist and having me run into it. I need to be less linear with my attacks…"
Koji trailed off as a crazy idea came to him. Normally, he would have dismissed it outright as the perfect combination of impractical, too showy, and just plain stupid. However, after his last couple attacks, he was feeling like he could pull off anything, and if he was ever going to try this out it may as well be now when all it could do to him was earn him a couple more bruises instead of anything more serious. Sealsdramon could tell the Legendary Warrior was up to something, if for no other reason that he was looking more relaxed in his stance than he had been at any time Sealsdramon saw him. However, that small bit of notice didn't prepare him for when BeoWolfmon suddenly vanished. Sealsdramon put up his guard since he wasn't sure where the next attack would come from, but when he glanced upwards he could only go slack-jawed at the sight of BeoWolfmon doing a somersault in midair to build up speed to for a downward slam with his sword.
However, because Sealsdramon was too busy being stunned to dodge Koji's attack, the Legendary Warrior was put in a difficult situation. The momentum from his flip would only make his attack stronger, and he would have been able to destroy Sealsdramon without that advantage. And since he couldn't fly, he couldn't stop himself while in midair. Left with no other option, he added another partial twist and flip to throw his trajectory off a little bit. He ended up landing flat on his back right next to Sealsdramon, knocking all the air out of his lungs, undoing his Spirit Evolution, and sending his D-Tector clattering across the floor.
Sealsdramon held out his hand to help Koji up, but Koji was still just focused on trying to breathe more than getting up off the floor. However, before Koji had recovered enough to take the offered hand, an authoritative voice barked out across the room, "Sealsdramon, report to the front gate. The guard shifts have been adjusted, and you are due to report in two minutes." Sealsdramon snapped to attention at the voice of his partner and commanding officer, barking out "Sir, yes sir!" before sprinting away and leaving Koji on the ground. Fuyutsuki picked up the fallen D-Tector on his way to Koji, but as he stood over the teen he made no effort to return it or help Koji off the ground.
"When I told you I expected you to follow an accelerated schedule for therapy, I thought you were smart enough that you wouldn't push yourself beyond your physical limits. I've seen more than my fair share of soldiers coming in with serious injuries, and while plenty of them have pushed the envelope none of them have ever shown the self-destructive tendencies I've seen from you and Ms. Gotokuji. We had you transferred from the hospital so we could help you heal, not so you could push yourself to the point where you collapse without Lucemon doing anything. You can't bury your problems by retreating into your Digimon form. Until you take that lesson to heart, I'm turning your D-Tector over to Dr. Wataru."
Koji didn't have enough breath to form a proper response, so he settled for glaring at Fuyutsuki. However, once he looked beyond Fuyutsuki's remarks about him, he realized something important- Fuyutsuki had admonished Mari as well as him. Still recovering from his rough landing, he barely managed to wheeze out, "What…happened…to…Mari?" Fuyutsuki had started to turn away, but he stopped as he addressed Koji's question. "Much like you, she seemed to harbor the delusion that she was invincible despite all evidence to the contrary. She kept her partner at the Mega level for too long and passed out from the strain. At the very least, Lotusmon managed to stabilize Mr. Takaishi and Ms. Kamiya is starting to show signs of waking up, but from now on we are relying on our medical staff instead of your Digimon's healing abilities. Now, I've sent for some nurses to help you. It's up to you to actually listen to them."
Rei sighed as she prepared herself for the return trip home. She had only been in this new world for a week, but it had been nice to get to a place of relative safety where she didn't have to worry about getting called into battle at the drop of a hat. Normally she'd feel guilty about leaving her friends and her brother to fight while she was on vacation, but thanks to Wisemon it didn't really matter how long she waited to return. Still, as nice as it was to get away, she knew she had to go back. While that in and of itself made her anxious, it wasn't the only reason she was nervous. A small part of her was worried she had completely ruined the entire purpose for coming her in her last conversation with Ryo.
While the group of adults known as the Monster Makers was working on the programs to attack the D-Reaper and keep in contact between dimensions, the other Tamers- they didn't refer to themselves as DigiDestined- went through their own preparations. Rei wasn't sure what it all entailed, but luckily Jeri- who had unfortunately lost her partner right before the first fight with the D-Reaper- was kind enough to explain everyone else's preparation. In addition to the standard deal- psyching themselves up for battle and going over strategies- they were taking advantage of a rather unique opportunity.
The model of Digivice the Tamers all used were known as D-Powers, and they had a unique functionality that let them read data off of Digimon Trading Cards and alter their partners' abilities in accordance with the card. The fight with the D-Reaper had been broadcast throughout the world, essentially turning the Tamers into national heroes. This resulted in a mutually beneficial relationship between the trading card companies and the Tamers, where the card companies got the publicity of working with the "saviors of the world" while the Tamers got access to cards that wouldn't normally be released. Most of these cards were deemed too powerful for tournament use, but some were made to address problems that wouldn't come up in the game at all. The best example of this was a card that undid Digivolution, which apparently wasn't as quick of a process here as it was back home. Ryo was trying to commission a stronger version of that card now just in case the standard card wasn't enough and ZeedMillenniummon made an appearance.
When Izzy heard this explanation, he was quick to ask if he could examine a D-Power and see if he couldn't copy that functionality as a means of distributing the X-Antibody once he and the others got around to isolating that particular string of code. Between Izzy going into full technology mode and the Tamers all preparing for the upcoming battle and spending some time with their families, Rei felt like she was the only one who didn't really have anything to do. Lucemon had the ability to move within stopped time and travel between dimensions on his own, so most of Wisemon's abilities wouldn't be much use in an actual battle against the Demon Lord. And at the Champion level, Pal and Pul would be best served just hanging back and protecting all the humans from errant attacks instead of getting involved in the fight itself.
Without any real need to prepare herself for the fight, Rei just tried to make herself useful. At first, she had tried answering any of Kazu and Kenta's questions about what "really happened" compared to how the anime had portrayed it, but since the anime ended with the fight against MaloMyotismon and she hadn't even met Tai or the other DigiDestined at that point, she could only relay second-hand accounts that didn't really satisfy the two fans. And with Izzy busy on his project, they had quickly decided to wait until they met the other DigiDestined to ask them. As she was running out of ideas on what to do, she overheard Rika talking to her dad on the phone, and quickly realized there was one thing that she needed to do. Other than Tai, she hadn't told anybody about her conversation with Shinobu Akiyama. This meant she was the only one at the moment who knew the state of Ryo's family back in her world. And while she wasn't sure of a good way to bring up the topic of his mother's death and his father's depression, she was certain that Ryo at least had a right to know, especially considering his history with people from her world keeping important information from him.
However, considering how well that conversation went, Rei almost wished she had kept the information a secret. It was hard enough to track Ryo down, because he seemed to be avoiding everybody when he wasn't directly needed to make an appearance. According to Henry, that was how Ryo usually was, but apparently it was even worse now that he and Rika were fighting. She wasn't proud to admit it, but she let the search frustrate her, and because of that she was nowhere near as gentle as she should have been with the revelation. She didn't exactly blame Cyberdramon for snarling at her when she basically insinuated that Ryo was responsible for his mother's suicide. She hadn't MEANT to say it quite that way, but looking back it was obvious that's how Ryo would take it. It was by far the worst "conversation" she had ever been a part of, and that included the first time Tai met her, thought she was Sora, and asked the girl who had been paralyzed for two years if she was faking it to get out of their soccer match. At least Tai had the excuse that he was drunk at the time.
Between her horrible handling of the situation and Rika's anger at him, Rei wasn't sure if Ryo would even bother showing up anymore. And the whole idea of majority vote had been instituted with the understanding that either all of the Tamers would come to help or none of them would. Takato wasn't looking the most dedicated to helping either, but now that she knew exactly what had happened in this world's battle with the D-Reaper she couldn't say she blamed anybody for not wanting to fight it again. She may have only been involved in this fight for a few months, but she had seen enough to know the whole "saving the world" thing was a lot less glamorous than most kids would believe. She wanted nothing more than for the fighting to be over, so she could imagine exactly what it would feel like to win the fight and think you've earned peace only to get dragged right back into chaos.
Rei snapped out of her musings when Ai and Mako walked into the room, bringing Pal and Pul with them. Perhaps because they were partnered with another small demon like Impmon and had a history of sibling rivalry, the two youngest Tamers had really taken a shine to her partners. Still, the human twins looked sad as Pal and Pul went back to Rei's side. "Suzie says everybody's looking for Ryo but can't find him. If he doesn't come back, does that mean you'll have to say goodbye?" Rei just smiled trying to reassure the twins when she herself doubted if Ryo would show up. "Hey, don't worry. Even if I have to go back home and say goodbye, I can always come visit. After all, Pal and Pul got me here the first time, and it should be even easier to come back now that we know where this is."
The six-year-olds' faces lit up at the thought their new friends could come and visit at any time, at least letting them leave the room much happier than they had been when they entered. However, Rei wasn't sure if she'd be able to keep that promise. If they didn't manage to defeat Lucemon, she wouldn't be able to come back. She didn't exactly see Lucemon as the type to just forgive someone who fought against him. And if this whole plan to get backup ended up falling through, she wasn't sure if the DigiDestined had enough power on their own to win the fight. She may have been here to get the Tamers for the D-Reaper, but defeating the chaos would mean nothing if the being who brought the chaos to their world in the first place wasn't defeated.
Rei sighed as her thoughts again took a dark turn, but this time it was Yamaki who came in and interrupted her. "You needn't worry. While in most cases Akiyama is far from reliable, he always shows up when his friends need him. Judging from his history, he's just waiting to arrive at what he views as the most dramatic moment. You should go join the others- you'll be leaving soon." Rei blinked in shock. Just looking at the words Yamaki used, it sounded like he was trying to reassure her. However, listening to his tone, it sounded more like he was giving her an order than anything else. It was a strange combination, and she found herself just blankly going along with his suggestion/order.
As she wheeled herself back into the main control room, Rei saw most of the Tamers just lounging with their partners. The only absences were Takato, Jeri, and Ryo, but since Guilmon was here Rei knew Takato wouldn't be too far behind. Izzy was lost in a discussion with one of the Monster Makers, most likely looking over all the code one last time. Takato and Jeri eventually came in to the room through the side door, leaving everybody but Ryo present for the mission. Rei could feel the anticipation in the air, but the expectant silence was broken by an unlikely source when Pul cleared his throat and asked, "So, before we go, did anybody think about where we should actually go?"
Pal whacked her brother with her baton. "Could you have asked that question in a worse way? You came this close to having a smart thought, and then you can't even say it clearly! What he means is, we can get back to our world no problem, and we know WHEN we want to get there, but that still leaves the problem of WHERE we should arrive. The world is a big place, after all." Rei raised her eyebrows at her partners. "The whole reason all of our friends and allies are fighting Lucemon is to buy us time to get help. I think it's obvious- we have to go to wherever they are fighting as soon as we can so they know they can retreat." Pal rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "Yeah, about that… I'm not so sure we'll be able to do that… I'm not quite sure how to explain it, but something about Lucemon makes space and time go all wonky around him…"
Izzy nodded. "I was hoping it wouldn't affect Wisemon much, but we've dealt with enemies that distort the fabric of reality before. Can you identify Lucemon's location and have us arrive just at the boundary of the distortion? That should give us time to react if we have another rough landing and time to Digivolve before jumping right into the fight. We just have to make sure we keep Lucemon busy enough that Wisemon can evacuate everyone. I know I'm putting a lot on you, Pal and Pul, but right now you're the best shot we have."
"What are we waiting for? Let's go then." Everyone turned to look as Ryo strode into the room, a deadly serious look on his face. Rei was impressed that Yamaki predicted this so well, but judging from the looks of indifference on the faces of the other Tamers they had been expecting something like this as well. With a destination picked out and everybody finally present, Rei saw no reason to wait around, especially considering the hostility emanating from Ryo at the moment. Pal and Pul Digivolved, and then Rei slammed her fists together to trigger the Jogress Evolution. Everyone gathered in a circle, and Wisemon hovered over them and opened the book. With surprisingly little fanfare, everyone was sucked inside and began their trip back across dimensions.
Lucemon sighed as he used his newly acquired cape to block another blast of Phoenix Fire from Zhuqiaomon. Truthfully, he didn't need to bother, but no matter how many times he did it he always found a small amount of satisfaction at deflecting the Sovereign's attacks with the phoenix's own feathers. However, at this point he was starting to almost feel bad for the treatment he had inflicted on the pitiful creature. And at the very least, he could admire the bird's spirit for defying him in spite of everything. Deciding to honor such nobility with a (from this point on) quick death, Lucemon suddenly warped in front of the guardian of the south and grabbed him by the neck, reducing his call for yet another Phoenix Fire to an undignified squawk.
"See, that's the sound I expected to hear from you long ago. I must say your resistance is quite impressive. After decimating your army in a few hours, I decided to have a little fun with the remainder, but you refused to let your spirit break no matter how much your body did. If Fanglongmon had half of your spirit, he probably could have lasted much longer than 60 hours against me." Zhuqiaomon was already flickering on the verge of deletion and could hardly breathe, but he still tried to twist his head and impale Lucemon with the remaining half of his beak. Lucemon took a deep breath and threw the struggling phoenix back to the ground. The Demon Lord would hate to reflexively kill his squirming opponent before he could finish his speech.
"Look at you. The vaunted Vermillion Bird of the South, defiant to the end. Even with your beak shattered, your talons declawed, your feathers plucked, and your wings ripped off, you've managed to hold on to your pride. And Pride has always had a special place in my heart. I will concede defeat in the battle for your spirit. As a reward for your victory, I shall grant you some last words before I obliterate you." With this, the Demon Lord started chuckling. "Don't worry, I'll make sure to be as flashy as possible. It's only fitting that a phoenix goes out in a blaze of glory."
Zhuqiaomon started chuckling along, bringing a frown to Lucemon's face. "Are you really doing this? I expect my underlings to force themselves to laugh at my jokes, but I was hoping you could at least hold on to your pride until the bitter end." Zhuqiaomon just kept chuckling. "Oh, it isn't your joke I'm laughing at. Though I guess it is related. You could even say the joke's on you." Lucemon summoned an orb of hellfire courtesy of Daemon and prepared to launch it at the laughing Sovereign. "Explain yourself, now."
Zhuqiaomon had managed to chuckle himself into a coughing fit, but he managed to wheeze out his response. "You make it sound like it was so impressive for me to survive your little game for so long, but I had something keeping me going the whole time. You see, we were never supposed to beat you, just buy time. While you were wasting time plucking my feathers, the DigiDestined were getting a weapon to use against you. And judging by that spatial distortion behind you, I'd say they're just getting back now."
Lucemon couldn't help it- he let his attack dissipate and turned to see what Zhuqiaomon was talking about. Sure enough, there was a spatial distortion, and judging by the appearance of a giant book this was the work of that Saiba girl. Lucemon prepared to attack before the DigiDestined would have time to recover, but he found himself knocked to the ground as Zhuqiaomon hopped into him. "And the second thing I was laughing at- you went through all the work to get that cape, but you didn't really think it through. Like you said, phoenixes always go out in a blaze of glory!"
With this, Zhuqiaomon ignited himself at the same time all of his feathers comprising the cape Lucemon was wearing also burst into flames. The Demon Lord spent a few seconds extracting himself from the two layers of incandescent flames, by which point the DigiDestined had all finished crossing dimensions. They had even brought the DigiDestined from the D-Reaper's home universe, so that must have been the identity of the weapon Zhuqiaomon mentioned. As it was, Lucemon could have rendered the whole exercise pointless by destroying them all now- with the exception of a MarineAngemon, their partners had all reverted to the Rookie level in transit- but the whole situation was too interesting to just end so quickly. He did send out a burst of Black Requiem just to stop all but the DigiDestined of Knowledge from Digivolving, but that was just to ensure his opponents would talk before rushing to their own deaths.
However, despite Lucemon's precaution, he was surprised when the Monodramon suddenly Digivolved and rushed at him. Strikedramon snarled and hit the Demon Lord with his Strike Claw, but the attack just bounced off without doing any damage. Lucemon didn't even bother paying attention to the attacking Digimon as he addressed Izzy in particular, viewing him as the leader of this whole operation.
"Hold on, did you put on this whole thing just for me? It doesn't seem like the kind of plan the Sovereign would think up on their own." Izzy gulped as he stared down the Demon Lord and started sending an emergency message behind his back. Under Black Requiem he would only be able to Digivolve to Ultimate, and he had a feeling MetallifeKuwagamon's attacks wouldn't be much more effective than Strikedramon's against Lucemon. Since he couldn't exactly look at what he was writing he couldn't give a detailed message, but he had programmed a general emergency message that would include his current location and the current time. He just had to hope he could stall Lucemon long enough for somebody to actually respond to it. Since Lucemon seemed to want to talk, he might be able to pull it off.
"Well, I can't take full credit for the plan, but I did play a part in making it possible." Lucemon just laughed. "Fine, be modest. But was this at the very least a DigiDestined plan?" Izzy managed to catch himself before he could reveal the truth. BeelStarrmon was the one who started this whole plan, but she had said she had another source within Lucemon's forces. Izzy wasn't about to call out the spies in Lucemon's camp, so he instead went with a partial truth. "We had some help from Digimon, but yes, it was mostly a DigiDestined initiative." Since Hideto and Neo had done most of the work to make sure BeelStarrmon's plan could succeed, it wasn't really a lie. Lucemon didn't seem to find the answer suspicious, but he did lose himself to a fit of maniacal laughter. It took him around thirty seconds to calm down enough to speak.
"So, the great DigiDestined sent hundreds of their underlings to their deaths just for the sole purpose of completing their own agenda? I must say, I'm impressed. I guess I'm starting to rub off on you!" He paused as he felt a strange sensation in his back, only to turn around and see Strikedramon had Digivolved again and hit him with a Desolation Claw attack. The attack worked by deleting data which allowed it to strike through Lucemon's defenses, but the damage was still incredibly minor and the Demon Lord immediately healed himself. Lucemon growled "You're starting to annoy me" before backhanding the Ultimate level. Cyberdramon went flying and crashed into the ground, leaving a thirty-foot furrow in his wake. Ryo ran to check on his partner, but Lucemon ignored him and turned back to Izzy, already feeling his cheerful mood returning at the DigiDestined being forced to copy his methods.
"You know, between this whole spectacle and the stunt Hope and Light pulled, I'm really looking forward to what surprises you'll have in store for me if ALL of you came to fight me. Let's see here- it's been around three days since I absorbed Lilithmon, so I think I'll give you four more days. That should give me enough time to prepare a show for you to return the favor for your lovely little welcoming committee." Rei suddenly spoke up. "When you say four days, do you mean four days in the Digital World? Because with the time difference, that's only four hours on Earth, and if you want to fight ALL the DigiDestined they are going to need a little longer than that to recover."
Lucemon smirked. "Ah, so everyone DID survive their last encounter with me! Excellent- I may have paid back the Legendary Warriors for ONE defeat, but that was towards the spirits themselves. I'll need to defeat the children again just to make sure the message sticks. And I really hope to see more of what Hope and Light are capable of. After all, it's quite annoying being able to see EVERYTHING in history but not be able to see the most important players of the current time. For giving me this information, I'll give you a reward- I'm taking away the time difference between the worlds. After all, it's quite fun bending the fabric of reality to your whim."
As if to accentuate his point, Lucemon suddenly disappeared- he didn't create a portal or flicker out of existence like the usual modes of transportation, but he just vanished instantaneously. Apart from Ryo who was trying to calm an angry Cyberdramon, everyone let out the breath they had unconsciously been holding after being thrust so unexpectedly into the presence of the Demon Lord. However, after letting out that sigh of relief, Kazu confronted Pal and Pul.
"What gives with the whole 'landing right on top of Lucemon' thing? You said you could go anywhere in time and space, and you were supposed to land us far enough away from him that we could actually DO something instead of sit and stare! Besides, it sounded like you missed your landing by three days!" Surprisingly, it was Pul who responded first. "Well, technically, we only mistimed our arrival by two days since we didn't leave when Lilithmon was destroyed…" Upset that her brother had actually beaten her to the punch with a counterargument, Pal decided to go with a more confrontational approach. "Do you even have any idea how difficult it is to navigate through the very fabric of space-time? I could try to describe it to you, but it would make your brain explode. I'm sure you'd be fine if you got in an airplane and hit some turbulence, but suddenly WE hit some turbulence and it's all our fault…"
Kenta interrupted the potential argument by stepping in front of Kazu. "Hey, can we please calm down? It's not like Lucemon tried to kill us anyway. I was expecting him to be the ultimate incarnation of evil or something, but he actually seemed pretty friendly." Kenta then jumped about a foot as he heard a voice from above him. "Really, you expected me to be the ultimate incarnation of evil? I don't know whether to be flattered or hurt."
Everyone looked up to see Lucemon reclining in the air as if resting on an invisible couch, completing the picture of relaxation by drinking what looked to be a glass of red wine. "Honestly, I don't know why people keep calling me a monster, or evil, or a power-hungry traitor… okay, two of those three are definitely true, but I'm not really evil. This world is broken, and the only way to fix it is to destroy it completely and rebuild it in my own image so it can finally be perfect. I'm just the only one willing to take the steps necessary to accomplish that. But I wouldn't expect your imperfect minds to understand what needs to be done. However, it IS rather fun seeing you fight among yourselves, so I think I'll get a little more entertainment out of you."
As he said this, he waved his hand, causing the darkness left behind by Black Requiem to crystalize into tiny flakes and fall to the ground like a black snowfall. As everyone looked down, they saw themselves reflected in what looked like a mirror made of obsidian before Lucemon called out "Dark Reflection!" Suddenly, all the Digimon from the reflection sprang up out of the mirror and faced their counterparts. Lucemon started laughing as he dismissed the crystalized darkness. "Let me know what you think of this little trick- I'm doing a little improvisation with the power of the Legendary Warrior of Steel. Anyway, I'm actually off now. Have fun!"
As Lucemon disappeared, a loud growling sound caught everyone's attention as they turned to see Cyberdramon grappling with his own reflection. The other reflections took this as their cue to attack on their own, all rushing at the original versions. From the looks of the initial clash, each copy was equally matched with the originals, but none of the humans were too worried about their chances of success in this fight. Sure, Lucemon had duplicated their partners- at the Rookie level. But Rookies weren't going to be enough to stop them after everything they had been through.
However, when everybody Digivolved to the Champion level, they were surprised to find their counterparts Digivolving as well. Desite this, Rika just took this as an added challenge. She spoke to Kyubimon's copy that looked more like a Youkomon than a reflection of her partner. "This wouldn't be any fun if you couldn't keep up with that little trick. But I wonder, can you copy this?" She grabbed a card out of her deck holder and swiped it through her D-Power. "Digi-Modify! Hyperspeed Activate!" Kyubimon vanished as she dashed towards her copy at high speed, but her reflection also gained the speed boost to compensate. Rika just smiled at the thought- Kyubimon may be fighting an exact copy that duplicated all changes to her data, but she doubted Lucemon's mirror could reflect a Digimon's skill. Besides, her little trick had another purpose- she was making sure she could still use a Digi-Modify card in this world. This was just a sideshow, but it was important to know exactly what she could use before the main event started.
Takato saw the result of Rika's battle and decided to test a theory of his own. He swiped his De-Digivolution card to revert Growlmon back to Guilmon, and was glad to see Guilmon's black copy revert as well. However, his Guilmon just seemed confused by the turn of events. "Takato, why did you do that?" Takato just smiled. "Don't worry, Guilmon. These things copy all the changes to your data, but Lucemon never copied the humans in our group. Which means they shouldn't be able to copy this! Biomerge Activate!" Gallantmon opened his eyes ready to wipe out all the opposing duplicates, but he wasn't expecting to see a copy of himself with black armor and a blue cape. "Aw, nuts…"
Gallantmon quickly took to the air, hoping to draw his copy away from the others. A fight among Champions could get chaotic enough as it was, but if two Megas fought the collateral damage would be too high. And unfortunately, he didn't know a way to quickly end a Biomerge- it usually just ended when it was no longer needed. He glanced down at the battlefield and was pleased to see his copy flying up to meet him, as well as Impmon fighting in his Rookie form. The others wouldn't Biomerge after seeing the result of his transformation, but if Impmon had become Beelzemon Blast Mode there would be even more firepower in danger of hurting their friends.
As Takato was trying to prevent his duplicate from causing chaos among the group, Rei was trying to think of a quick way to defeat her copies. The easiest way would be for someone to defeat their own copy and then move to team up against the next one in line, but in order for that to happen SOMEONE had to find a way to defeat themselves. Luckily, Rei didn't just have one partner to work with. "Pal, Pul, listen up! The main difficulty here is these things can match everything we can do, but they can only match the Digimon they are reflecting. I'm sure from all your fighting you know each other's strengths and weaknesses as well as your own, but I don't think these reflections will have that experience. So, target the other reflection!"
Pal and Pul nodded as they enacted Rei's plan. Pal sent her Aquary Pressure attack at the Sorcermon clone, while Pul blasted the Witchmon reflection with his Crystal Barrage. Unfortunately, Lucemon's reflections were either smart enough to adjust strategy or such good copies that the also switched the targets of the attacks, and both Pul and his copy were sent flying back when the Aquary Pressure attacks managed to overpower their icy barrages. While her strategy did result in damage to one of the copies, Rei didn't want to have that victory be at the cost of Pul's safety. She tried to channel her brother and come up with the perfect strategy for the occasion, but she wasn't sure if Neo could get a Digimon to beat an exact replica of itself.
Thinking this, Rei was instantly struck with inspiration. She had been coming at the problem all wrong. Sure, beating exact copies of Pal and Pul in a fight was a difficult prospect, but who said she had to fight? If these copies were really as good as they seemed to be, it was safe to say that down at the level of their data the opponents essentially WERE Pal and Pul. And her Digivice 01s were able to store her Digimon, and only her Digimon, within them. She typed in the command to Pul's Digivice, and sure enough when the laser carrying the information hit the copy of Pul it was drawn into the Digivice and stored away. She quickly repeated the process with Pal's Digivice, before turning to see where her help could be used most now that her copies had been temporarily detained.
While Rei was scanning the battle, Izzy finally started focusing his attention on it. Unlike everybody else, he wasn't facing a perfect copy of his partner- Kabuterimon was facing off against a BladeKuwagamon. That had been enough for Izzy to hypothesize that, true to the name of his attack, Lucemon was more reflecting the darkness within each Digimon than anything else. With Kabuterimon hanging back and fighting more defensively than offensively, BladeKuwagamon had fallen into a similar pattern, leaving Izzy plenty of time to try and analyze the data of Lucemon's mirror as well as contact everyone else to follow up on his emergency message he sent earlier.
However, his analysis of Lucemon's attack hadn't turned up anything he could decipher on the spot, so he had turned back to the fight. He was somewhat curious as to which of Tentomon's Champion forms would win in a fight, but he had other more interesting things to test out that didn't involve as much risk to his partner. If Lucemon's attack worked like he thought it did, it was essentially forcing people to face their darkness. Of course, the original eight DigiDestined had all fought this fight and come to terms with their darkness after Lilithmon attacked them months ago. It was time to see what the mirror could do if the original Tentomon embraced his inner darkness.
Kabuterimon Dark Digivolved to MetallifeKuwagamon, and Izzy smirked as the copy of BladeKuwagamon seemed to get absorbed within his partner. However, before he could celebrate his victory, the mirror beneath MetallifeKuwagamon suddenly flashed, and a blue MegaKabuterimon rose from its surface much like all the other reflections had when they joined the battle. Izzy gave Lucemon credit for accounting for this circumstance, but it wasn't a major setback. In terms of brute force, MegaKabuterimon was far stronger than MetallifeKuwagamon, but in a fight MetallifeKuwagamon was far quicker and more balanced. Barring a lucky shot, MegaKabuterimon wouldn't even be able to land a hit on the smaller insect.
Still, despite the clear advantage, this situation offered a unique opportunity that Izzy wasn't going to pass up. Unlike everybody else who had started using Dark Digivolution, he had never reached the Mega level along that evolutionary path. His bout with the flu had knocked him further behind Joe, and then when that started to clear up Minervamon had offered to personally teach him. Since at that point most fights were beyond the point where one Mega level made a lot of difference, Izzy quickly prioritized learning from the Goddess of Wisdom as a more helpful course of action in the war against Lucemon. While focusing on his studies he didn't work on Dark Digivolution, but now he had a unique opportunity to see what Tentomon's Dark Mega form would be.
After quickly sharing his plan with MetallifeKuwagamon to Digivolve for a few seconds and then return to the form where he had such a clear advantage, Izzy focused on switching his Crest from its dark state to its fully active normal state. It took a second or two, but eventually MetallifeKuwagamon started glowing with the bright purple light that accompanied his usual Digivolution to Mega. HerculesKabuterimon called out his name as he finished Digivolving and turned to see what his dark counterpart would be, but instead of seeing a giant insect like he was expecting all he saw was Kenta and MarineAngemon smiling as a black blob dissipated in front of them.
"Great job keeping him busy Digivolving, you two! MarineAngemon's Kahuna Waves attack dissolves these reflections, but the stronger you get the longer it takes to take effect. Since your copy was in mid-Digivolution, it couldn't do anything to defend itself." Izzy almost complained about the situation, but decided he couldn't fault Kenta for taking advantage of such an opening- if their roles were reversed, he would have done the same thing. Izzy looked around at the rest of the battle to see he had actually been one of the last ones Kenta came around to- Ryo and Cyberdramon had been further away from the group so that fight was still going on, and Beelzemon and Takato had just finished off the copy of Gallantmon by working together.
However, just as Izzy was feeling confident that the fight was almost over, a strange shockwave passed over the entire group. Izzy started seeing strange visions: things like Machinedramon's city, the void that had housed the final battle with Apocalymon, himself at age 10 getting captured by Devimon, and an Omnimon fighting what Izzy recognized from Minervamon's lessons as Alphamon. The sudden assault of images from random times and places was disorienting to say the least, but as Izzy glanced around at the others his blood ran cold. He saw where Cyberdramon had been fighting his copy, but the Cyborg Digimon was rapidly growing in size. Bands of fractal code appeared around him and seemed to slow the process down, but Izzy could already see the Ultimate level's form changing into an ethereal mass with two draconic heads.
Izzy knew this could mean only one thing- Ryo's fears were coming to pass, and Cyberdramon was becoming ZeedMillenniummon once again now that he had returned to this world. However, the impending appearance of the Evil God Digimon wasn't the most worrying factor of the situation- Cyberdramon's copy was undergoing the transformation as well. Izzy glanced to Ryo, who was down on the ground searching through all of his scattered cards. Izzy didn't know if Ryo had dropped his cards in shock or if the fight between the two Cyberdramon had sent them flying, but whatever the cause he really hoped Ryo could find what he was looking for. In his base form Millenniummon had been too powerful for the DigiDestined to defeat. And while they had increased in number and strength since then, Izzy was fairly certain they wouldn't be able to handle two copies of ZeedMillenniummon on top of the D-Reaper and Lucemon.
HerculesKabuterimon, Beelzemon, and Gallantmon were all trying to blast the still-forming Evil God Digimon, but the spatial and temporal distortion caused their attacks to wink out of existence before they could even get close to connecting. MarineAngemon was going as fast as he could to get to the scene of the fight and hopefully eliminate the copy if nothing else, but the Pixie Digimon wasn't built for speed. Eventually, Ryo seemed to just give up on his search in frustration and grabbed a card at random. However, Izzy saw a flash of blue light as the card seemed to transform in his hand, and Ryo immediately swiped it while calling out, "Digi-Modify! System Crash activate!"
Reality suddenly popped back to normal at a disorienting pace. As soon as he adjusted to the change, Izzy looked to where the ZeedMillenniummon had been appearing to see two purple slimes that resembled Monodramon's head passed out on the ground. Ryo breathed a sigh of relief as he picked up his Ketomon, but MarineAngemon wasn't going to take any chances and made sure to hit the copy with his Kahuna Waves attack. As Ryo cradled his partner, he turned to the rest of the group and spoke with a weary tone. "Can we please get moving? I don't know how many more near-misses we can handle."
Author's Note: Okay, I know I said every arc ended with DigiDestined going to the hospital, but I guess Mari and Koji needing more serious medical attention after they were ALREADY in a hospital might be stretching things a little bit. However, we are at the end of the Tamers recruitment arc, so we're getting into the home stretch!
After all their effort to try and protect the Digital World, at this point you can pretty much consider the DigiDestined's efforts a failure. After Lucemon's slaughter of every Digimon fighting him, there are only a hundred or so Digimon left in the world. Still, everyone in that battle knew what they were giving up to try and buy hope for the future.
As opposed to that dreary off-screen battle, I had a lot of fun with Lucemon's Dark Reflection trick. I basically thought of all the ways to win a mirror match when you have a group of allies and tried to incorporate each of them- though obviously I couldn't make every approach work. In an earlier draft Rika had Renamon revert back to the baby level and then Rika would defeat Renamon's reflection herself, but it just didn't seem to fit so I cut it out. Still, I really enjoy being able to play off the strategic elements of fights when there are so many diverse characters and rule sets. Hopefully it was as enjoyable to read as it was to write.
Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope to post the next chapter tomorrow!