I couldn't wait so freakishly long to start writing This is Spirit again with all the ideas churning around in my head... I've gotta type this or else I won't be able to focus on my NaNoWriMo story! So, here goes nothing! Oh yeah, and just as a reference for later, DigiXross is pronounced Digi Cross, not Digicksross or something weird like that... Either way;

This is the Real Deal presents:

This is, and forever will be, SPIRIT!

Chapter 25 (I think...): Primary Tactics

While DC and Yami were busy making plans on how to retake the castle, Ikki's group wasn't too far behind them now. For the past twenty minutes, Metabee had been screaming nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall, everybody in the group blocking their ears and groaning for him to shut up. By the time he was at six thousand bottles, everybody had either stepped far away from him or were wearing headphones at maximum volume to drown out the sound. The only people near him were Ikki and Windstorm, Windstorm floating on what looked like a cloud sleeping so she was fine, while Ikki tried desperately to convince him to stop.

"Metabee, will you pleeeaase stop singing?! Its driving us crazy!" Metabee acted like he didn't hear him."

"Five-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, Five-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine bottles of beer, you take one down, pass it around, Five-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall! Five-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall, Five-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-eight..."

"Arrghh! Metabee! I wish that I could just eject your medal like a normal medabot!" He'd already tried that fifty times at least. "That's it, transport Queen Bee!" A flash of blue, then pink, then black light materialised in front of Ikki.

"You rang?" she said sweetly.

"Neutralize Metabee!" Ikki yelled. Queen Bee spotted Metabee singing horribly off tune then narrowed her eyes. She shook her head sadly, then tapped Metabee's shoulder. Metabee turned around confused. His eyes widened in surprise as a needle stabbed through a joint on his arm, then his eyes narrowed sleepily.

"No... I lost... count... have to... start... a... gain... ..." Metabee collapsed on the floor, sleeping like a baby. Queen Bee grabbed Metabee's arm and with no effort at all, hauled him over her shoulder and carried on walking. Everybody let out a sigh of relief as soon as they saw Metabee had stopped singing.

"Well then, I think we've travelled a fair enough distance," Ryuga said, looking at his digivice. A red needle shook on the digivice like a compass needle before steadying itself again in the direction they were walking, set towards Yami's own digivice. "We should be able to rest for a while and still make it there in the next two hours. Right now its time for lunch!"

"I second that motion with enthusiasm!" Leo said, already taking out a packed sandwich from his bag. Ikki collapsed on the floor in contentment, staring up at the drifting clouds. Ikki had never seen green clouds before. Or yellow ones either. He'd never seen purple ones before, and red clouds seemed a bit rare at this time of day to..."

"Hey Hiro," Ikki said. "I know that I should be saying the fresh air is a great change of pace to the constant smell of oil and medaparts..."

"Hey!" Queen Bee, Windstorm, Saikachis and Blackbeetle all said at once.

"Sorry but its true!" Ikki countered back defensively. "But why are the clouds different colours here?"

"To be honest... I don't know," Hiro replied between bites of his own chicken mayonnaise sandwich. He'd just been sitting on a tree stump, using another tree stump as a desk for his laptop. "I've never been to this part of the Digital World before, and even if I had, there are still things about the Digital World that only the Digimon would be able to explain, and sometimes not even then!"

"Exactly!" Veemon cut in. "I bet you'd be confused as to why meat grows on trees, but I'm still wondering why it doesn't in your world!"

"Wait... Meat? On trees?" Ikki asked in shock. "There's no way I can believe that!"

"I'm telling you! There's meat trees! It all made perfect sense when they explained it at the daycare centre, back when I was just a Demi-Veemon, maybe you need to go back to school?" Ikki looked at him with a raised eyebrow, then went back to talking to Hiro.

"So, what's with this place anyway? How can this all be 'digital'? I can touch and feel everything, sometimes even more than I would in the real world! This isn't some kind of giant VR game is it?"

"Of course it's not a VR simulation!" Hiro yelled, slightly offended. "Do you know what kind of massive super computer it would take to run and maintain the whole digital world if it was? There are a lot of VR games that link to the Digital World like Digimon Masters 3D and Digimon World by the Megumi company, but they don't even contain a fraction of the full digital world!"

"So how can I... touch everything if it's just data?"

"Okay, instead of trying to explain it to you, why don't I just show you? Can I borrow Metabee's medal for a second?" Ikki looked at Metabee who looked like he was having a dream about eating cake... He shrugged and ejected the medal which was now loose from being knocked out. The medal popped out of his back and spun through the air before Ikki clumsily caught it. He handed it to Hiro who frowned at it with worry when he saw the silvery green line going through it. Hiro opened up a disk tray on the side of the laptop to reveal it wasn't a disk tray at all, but actually a medal tray. He placed it inside, the blue medalias facing down. He closed it and a window popped up on screen showing Metabee's medal. A series of 0's and 1's appeared on screen in binary code. "Now you see all of this right? This is the data for Metabee in binary code form. This blank section here is some kind of blocked off memory cortex, probably from the original Metabee of the Medarolli people. This smaller blank spot is some of his normal memories. It's not much really, it's more like peoples birthdays and important dates from the look of it so nothing to worry about. What's that about anyway?"

"Yeah, long story short, he got amnesia and forgot a lot of stuff, including how to use the medaforce. He's remembered most of the stuff by now though and he's got the medaforce again so I'm just glad he's okay." Hiro's eyes widened in surprise when Ikki mentioned the medaforce.

"Metabee can use that?" Ikki nodded. "Well, at least that means you have an advantage that no other Digimon has here so that's good!" He scrolled down the screen and there were even more numbers. "This is his battle data. If you convert it a bit, it looks something like this...

Kabuto medal: level 45

Skills:

Strike: 15

Berserk: 17

Defend: 5

Heal: 0

Shoot: 65

Aim Shot: 55

Support: 20

Interrupt: 0

The stats looked a bit low to Ikki, but that was probably since Metabee's medal reset. He was amazed it was still in its pupae stage and not a larvae yet. Ikki's medawatch flashed as it scanned the medal along with Hiro's laptop.

Scan complete: New medaforce ability active. Damage Ball ready for use.

"Whoa! My scan unlocked something! Awesome! Well either way, compare the data on Metabee to the data on Veemon." Hiro made his laptop face Veemon. "Now look at this, and compare it to Metabee." A green line ran through the picture of Veemon and suddenly numbers began to flow through him. All that was left of the picture was his outline, the rest was binary code. He dragged this window to the left and kept Metabee's medal on the right. He scrolled down both of them. "This down here is their genetic coding that decides their habits, strengths, weaknesses, base stats, digivolution routes and medal evolution routes. He clicked and dragged Veemon's binary code on top of Metabee's. To Ikki's surprise, a lot of the numbers matched each other perfectly. "They're not that different from each other. It looks like Medabots have a more violent code than Veemon at least, but Veemon has more freedom to choose his digivolutions. If I went through the trouble of explaining all the similarities and differences then this would take forever. The point is; Medals can exist in a physical form because they have the memories of their past ancestors encoded as data inside a physical object, almost like a soul in a jar. In a sense, they're something digital, or maybe even spiritual stored inside something physical and known elements and particles, metaphysical stuff in physical stuff. In the Digital World, this isn't necessary as a physical case isn't really needed as metaphysical objects, certain electromagnetic waves, and 'spirits' if you'll call it can take on a physical form, probably from reacting with elements that aren't recorded in the periodic table since we haven't discovered them yet. Like what elements fuse together to form Chrome Digizoid, one of the most powerful compounds in existence? That could explain some of the more controversial myths of heroes with swords falling from stars, some of them really are comets with iron and steel but... Anyway, it's like old myths of a spirit realm alongside ours, only that in this day and age we know it's all digital. You could make a whole university thesis on it if you wanted to!"

Ikki who had been following along as best as he could was now completely lost in the sea of words and numbers.

"So... Medabots and Digimon are cousins?"

"Yes, you could say that. And why can we touch data? Well I've just given you a lecture as to how it works, but that is only my theory. I could be wrong."

"My head... it hurts from too much information..." Hiro laughed and ejected Metabee's medal.

"Don't worry too much about it. Just focus on trying to defeat the bad guys!" Akkia got up from her own seat and walked over to the pair.

"I couldn't help overhear that and it worries me. Ikki, back in medaropolis, that kid with the Zorin said that they were looking for a new type of medal right? They also mentioned something about trying to revive the Tochikans and how some medals contain traces of the original monsters the Tochikans were partnered with, right? So what if these super-rare medals were related to Digimon here? Think about it, the only advantage we have is the medaforce, so what happens when we meet a Digimon with medaforce? What're we gonna do then?"

"We'll have to figure it out as we go then," Hiro said. "But right now we still have to find Yami, DC and Chrome right? As soon as everybody's finished with lunch, we'll set off." Just then, Windstorm woke up, the cloud she was hovering on transforming back into her leg and torso medaparts. She stretched out her limbs before looking at Ikki with sleep filled eyes.

"So, are we ready to go or what? Knowing DC he's probably got a whole army on his case..."

"Hey Shoutmon, can you hear me over there?" DC asked. Shoutmon tapped his headphones lightly.

"Yeah, loud and clear. Yami, you can hear to?"

"Everything's clear on me and BlackGatomon's end," she replied. "Chrotojil?"

"Of course everything's ok, everything's going through my medawatch!" Chrotojil replied.

"Alright, let's go over the plan one more time," DC said. "Shoutmon, you're gonna go to the front door. The speakers from the concert are still there so hook your mic into them, you'll be able to blast back anything short of a Robo-Empress. In the meantime, me and Chrome will go through the water duct that they use to transport goods downstream and try to sneak our way in. We'll blast through any resistance."

"Hey, DC, that seems a bit predictable for a tactic, and it splits our forces making us a lot weaker, are you sure about this?"

"Shoutmon, were you paying any attention during the planning?" Yami asked.

"Uh... yeah, sure I was! All I've gotta do is sit here and... wait, engaging the enemy..." Shoutmon was sitting on top of a gigantic black speaker, another one next to him. The front gates of the castle opened up to reveal an army of Robo Emperors and Guardromon marching out to meet him, some Air-Pteras flying out after him.

"I'm back to face you again! I may have lost last time, but with the strength of my friends behind me I have been reborn! Listen to the music of my soul! I am light in the darkness, the one who rocks out louder than the rest! I am-"

"There it is! The Shoutmon that escaped from us last time!" A vein appeared on Shoutmon's forehead in annoyance.

"Seriously... you won't let me finish my introduction... now I know how DC feels... Alright then! Let's go!" Shoutmon extended his right hand out and just like he'd expected, his microphone shot out of it, glowing a radiant yellow. He grabbed the handle of the mic, sparks flying from it from the contact, then spun it around like a martial arts staff before planting it on the speakers. "I'll show you the power that I've gained with all my friends..." Shoutmon growled just below his breath, sparks enveloping his whole body, electric arcs travelling from him into the speakers. Slowly, they turned around till they were facing the approaching armies. The speakers all briefly flared with fire for half a second before the flames doused themselves, revealing that one speaker had turned red while one turned yellow. They began vibrating with energy. "Feel the pride within my soul! Dark Network: Soul Crusher!" Shoutmon screamed into his microphone, the speakers amplifying his voice. Massive visible soundwaves along with a huge inferno erupted, blasting the approaching Digimon back, the sound of multiple ejected medals accompanied by vaporising Digimon and sparks of green and yellow light.

Meanwhile, DC was listening in through his medawatch, hearing nothing but white noise, interference from the speakers blocking out the sounds. He blocked off the connection to Shoutmon's headphones and turned to Chrotojil.

"Well then partner, let's move on with the plan!" DC and Chrotojil were standing by a stream leading into the front of the castle, the plan already in motion. "Let's do this, with guts and determination!" They turned and charged through the tunnels leading underneath the castle, the light around them fading away into the background as they went deeper into the tunnel. Their sprint slowed into a run, then a slow jog, then a walk, and finally a standstill. The tunnel around them was darker than black, then ends of their noses not even visible.

"Hey, DC, you've got a light?" Chrotojil asked.

"How old exactly do you think I am?" DC asked, probably with narrowed eyes. Nobody could really tell with the inky darkness surrounding them.

"Come on, don't all you teenagers have a light on you all the time?"

"Stop using sterotypes man! I'm too awesome to fall into the same class as the others... Oh wait, I've got a match..."

"Aha! Busted! Why would you need one of those?"

"We were told to prepare like we were going camping, of course I've got a match!" DC struck it, the flare of light going up. He blinked rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Yellow eyes all around them lit up in annoyance and turned to face them. They couldn't see clearly what it was that owned these eyes. DC blinked in shock, then turned to Chrome.

"DC... you didn't see anything did you?" Chrome asked, a tremble noticeable in his voice.

"Nope, nothing at all," DC replied, sweat pouring down his face. "It was just our imaginations..." A low pitched screeching sound echoed through the tunnel. "Let's just turn off the lights... we don't need them anyway do we?"

"No we do not..." DC blew out the match, returning the tunnel to its dark state. "Phew! For a moment there the shadows looked a lot like monsters! Well I guess we can..." The low pitched scream sounded again along with an explosion off to DC's right. Instantly, both of them grabbed eachothers hands and sprinted off in the direction they thought the exit was in, crashing into hard and sometimes sharp objects along the way. They both crashed into a wooden section of a wall. Panicked, they banged the wooden wall, screaming to be let out. DC grabbed a round metal object and started pulling with all his might, then his mind sorting through his panic and remembering what a 'door' was, he twisted it and pushed his way through, Chrome tumbling in after him and not a moment too soon, into a supply room full of food. Explosions sounded behind them, splintered bits of wood and shrapnel flying over their heads. DC turned around to see armies of green and black flying medabots pour through.

"Oh thank goodness!" Chrome sighed. "They're only medabots!"

Noctobat: MDC

Medafighter: Legend Army

Specialty: Anti-Air missiles

Medal Type: Bat

Signature: Anti-Air bombard

"Right, Chrome, use your machine gun and contain them!" Chrome sprayed bullets into the assaulting Noctobats, pushing some of them back, exploding the missiles of other in the process. "Don't bother trying to destroy them all, just disorient them. We might need you at full strength later on... Let's try set off a few chain reactions here and there to see what happens!" Chrome shot out four missiles, the first one exploding to the right, then the next one going off within the first one's blast radius, then the next one, then the next, then the next. The confusion blinded the bats, sending all of them to the ground in confusion. The roof above their heads began collapsing on top of them, as if just for good measure. Both Chrome and DC turned and ran through and out of the supply room and took the stairs up to the ground level. DC pushed a button on his medawatch as they ran.

"Transport medaparts," he shouted into them. Chrome jumped into the air, his legs getting replaced with a pair of red legs with rocket thrusters on them. Chrome attached himself to DC's back and lifted off, sending them both skyward. DC pushed another button on the medawatch, a picture of Yami appearing on it. "Yami, we're in. Just as I thought, they were expecting us. I've taken out a lot of airborne medabots and Shoutmon's handling the front gate, your entrance route should be clear of almost everything. I'm going to go through the front door and pincer trap them with Shoutmon, you go straight for Zorin. We'll rendezvous at the top floor."

"Roger that DC, you're actually really good at this! Why weren't you coming up with this stuff when we first entered the village?" DC rubbed the back of his sheepishly.

"Well, I guess it just takes a while to get me going! Either way, contact me again once you're in!" DC closed the communication and looked up, surprised at how much distance they'd covered. Already they had made it to the open front gate, Chrome showing no signs of stopping. A Guardromon turned around, spotting DC coming. "Uh Chrome, if you could... Aw crud..." They were already moving too fast, there was no stopping, so instead DC brought his arms behind him, ready for impact. He thrust both of his palms forwards into the Guardromon, the moment from Chrome boost pushing it forward, knocking over three or four Digimon in the process. Chrome and DC lost balance, crashing into the ground in a burning wreck, flipping over each other before stopping on the ground, dust obscuring them. Everybody stopped and turned around to stare at them, Shoutmon even stopped singing into his mic.

"What is that?" Somebody asked.

"I dunno, I didn't see clearly."

"Well it's got to be somebody!"

"I hope it's not dangerous, this guys is tough enough already!" The smoke stayed for a while more, then began to settle. The first thing anybody saw was a massive stream of missiles erupting from the dust cloud, obliterating everything in its path. The Guardromon tried retaliating, firing missiles back at them, but every missile prematurely detonated before reaching the dust cloud. A Robo-Empress turned back to face Shoutmon, its digital optics widening in shock as he saw it screaming into its microphone again, the pitch so low that only the medabots could detect it. The dust finally cleared revealing DC and Chrome in more-or-less perfect condition. DC gave Shoutmon a thumbs up.

"I knew you could pull it off, Shoutmon!" Shoutmon gave him a thumbs up back.

"It was easy! I just had to match my frequency to their missiles. Their frequencies are a lot different to yours so you could keep firing on! You were the one who thought of the idea in the first place so I don't know why you're thanking me!"

"Yeah, yeah, that's great guys, but can we finish this?" Chrome asked, steam coming out of his horns to relieve pressure. "I'm starting to get a little tired." DC nodded his head.

From yet another position high up on top of a half destroyed house, Yami watched on at the three of them battling down below.

"Looks like those guys are really ripping it up down there," Yami said as she gripped her digivice tighter. "Wanna give them a hand?"

"I thought you'd never ask!" BlackGatomon replied. Light flashed on Yami's digivice.

"We're in the digital world, so you should be able to go mega level here if we Bio-Merge," Yami said.

"Yay! Yay! Mega level!" The whole building flared up in a deep purple light.

"Alright then! Let's go! Bio-Merge activate!" Both Tamer and Digimon rose into the air, their body's pulsing with energy. Yami hovered in front of BlackGatomon, her back facing her Digimon's front. They slowly got closer together until they were literally moving into eachother.

"BlackGatomon, Bio-Merge to..." Again, BlackGatomon stretched out to the full length of a grown woman as soon as she joined with Yami, though this time things were different. The claw on her right hand stretched out even more into a yellow claw with ridges all over it, her left hand forming more elegantly, the finger nails painted blood red. Her skin filled with colour from its former pale grey shade and she donned a traditional black Japanese kimono with the shoulders hanging sloppily off, seemingly on purpose for added attraction. Her raven black hair flowed down to the small of her back, framing her beautiful face perfectly. The only thing wrong with her face at all were the small vampire like fangs that showed over her lips with their purple lipstick. "Lilithmon!"

Yami opened her eyes to find herself in Lilithmon's body, or perhaps you could say that Lilithmon opened her eyes to find herself in Yami's body. Lilithmon looked herself over with a sly smile.

"My my, I truly am a thing of beauty aren't I?" Lilithmon said, admiring her form.

"Yami? Did you and BlackGatomon just fuse together?" DC asked as he'd seen the whole transformation on his medawatch.

"Yes, and it did wonders for me didn't it?" Information on Lilithmon transferred across from Yami's digivice to DC's medawatcch.

Lilithmon: Virus type, Mega Level

Tamer: Merged with Yami

A powerful Virus type Digimon, it is one of the few Digimon at the level of strength of a Demon Lord. It is known as the Demon Lord of Lust. Don't be fooled by its mesmerizing appearance; it's Nazar Nail on its right arm posses a highly volatile acid that corrodes anything it touches. Even without its claw, it iis EXTREMELY dangerous and unpredictable. Regardless of whether you are a friend of foe, you should exercise extreme caution around it.

Oh no, this could be tricky, DC thought to himself. "Ok, but the plan! Don't forget the plan! Now is your cue!"

"I'll only follow the plan if you say that I'm the most beautiful being in the entire galaxy!"

"Wh-what? Are you serious?!" DC yelled into the medawatch as an explosion went off right next to him. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just say it!"

"Ok ok! I'll say it!" DC put his hand to his forehead and tried his very best to hide his blush, though it wasn't very hard considering the tone of his skin. "Um... you're the... uh... you're... the most beautiful being... in the entire galaxy..."

"Oh really? Why thank you DC, that's so sweat of you to say that! I have to admit, I did go on a diet and all..."

"Just go!" Shoutmon yelled, being true to his name.

"Alright I'm going! Sheesh, no need to be so touchy..." Lilithmon bent her knees readily and jumped, shooting straight through a cloud with her height. She hovered in the air momentarily, admiring the clouds, before falling down again, heading straight for the middle of the castle. She extended her right arm outwards and crashed straight through the castle with it. The screams of several Digimon and Medabots were heard before being silenced by what sounded like the roars of some kind of unearthly creature. The data of defeated Digimon and strewn medaparts flew out of the hole in the roof like party streamers. DC and Shoutmon dusted off their hands like it was all in a days work.

"Alright then, let's go inside the castle," DC said. They began running in through the front door, Shoutmon's V furrowed in thought. Suddenly, Shoutmon's eyes widened in shock as he finally understood the plan.

"DC, Chrome, I get it now! A head-on assault wouldn't have worked against so many enemies, and my guerrilla fighting wasn't laying so much as a dent in them, so you decided instead that you would empty the castle and head straight for the leader with our strongest member! You got me to attack at the front since I had the attacks that could defeat multiple enemies at once while you and Chrome went around the side. They would obviously expect and had guards stationed there. You knew that they knew that you knew the front would be attacked by a Digimon and so they set up medabots there. You purposefully fell for that trap so that once they thought they had you, you could isolate them in the tunnel and stores. You could then join me and pincer them from the front with me!"

"Wow, you really thought my thinking through..." DC said.

"Yeah, but that isn't enough for you is it? Now that you'd effectively split their forces and destroyed them individually, you would still have the problem of trying to break through the enemies inside the castle, and then still keep the strength for the bosses inside right? And that's were LadyDevimon comes in, or Lilithmon as she is now. She would then do the one thing they wouldn't expect; attack from above! Nobody bothers to look up in the first place, and they didn't know we had a Digimon that could fly apart from LadyDevimon, and she wouldn't be strong enough to break through the roof of a reinforced Shogunate castle so they wouldn't really defend it that well. So once Gatomon said she could go mega level, you instantly put them to the job of going through the roof and destroying the few remaining elite troops inside that are too strong for us. By this time all the communication lines would've been disrupted from us splitting their forces, the remainder of their troops in the castle and on patrol wouldn't be able to get to us effectively in time. We then regroup in the centre of the castle and kick the bad guy's butts together! Once the leaders down, the rest of the force will then break apart and retreat, hopefully thinking they were defeated by a massive army. That's amazing DC!" DC didn't even try to be humble about it, he grabbed the tip of his cap, a cocky smile on his face.

"I know right? That's some military grade stuff right there. When we come out the victors, remember to thank me for this!" Chrotojil rolled his eyes exasperatedly.

"Don't inflate his head anymore than it already is. We're still practically outnumbered six million to one so we're not out of the water yet."

"Oh yeah, that's true," Shoutmon said dejectedly before brightening up again. "Well it doesn't matter! I've seen what you guys can do first hand! You guys are monsters! Together we can overcome anything!"

"Let's sure hope so," DC said, suddenly getting serious. "I don't want another defeat on my military history..." True to his style, he suddenly bounced back with a dark yet cocky anime expression so serious and out of character that it was comical. "Everything must be pah-fect! There must be no errors! Now go my loyal soldiers and sacrifice your lives for me!"

"Shut up," both Shoutmon and Chrotojil said at once. Before they knew it, they had arrived at the top floor of the castle, destroyed medaparts littering the floor. Lilithmon put her hands on her hips in contentment.

"Well I haven't had a workout that good in a long time," she said. "Let's do that again sometime!" A Guardromon was hiding behind a wall, waiting for a chance to strike. Chrotojil just spotted it as soon as it stepped out to fire. He sprinted away from his group, moving faster than he could think and pushed her out of the way. A missile fired, as usual it was the large bullet blowing a whistle. It impacted, blasting Chrome back into DC's arms.

"Chrome, are you alright?" DC asked.

"Don't take me out coach..." Chrome replied, swirls spinning around in his optics.

Warning, head medapart 48% damage, all other medaparts 50% damage. Medal deficiency active.

"He's okay," DC said. "He just needs a bit of rest, that's all."

"You just wait there darling, I'll get him for you," Lilithmon said before facing the Guardromon with anger. She pushed off with her foot towards the Guardromon, slicing its left arm off. The arm fell to the floor, bubbling up with a green acid. The Guardromon tottered backwards malfunctioning before Lilithmon gave it a roundhouse kick, sending it flying out of the window, data flying off of it as it vanished from sight. Just then, Lilithmon began shaking slightly, digital blocks or pixels enlarging on her. Lilithmon looked at her hands in confusion.

"Heh? What's going on? How come I'm..." before she could get another word out, light shone off of her, then two smaller lights split from her and landed on the ground as Lilithmon disappeared. Yami and BlackGatomon were on their knees on the floor, breathing heavily.

"Yami, how come we split up early?" Gatomon asked.

"I don't know, I haven't done this in a long time, I'm a bit rusty," Yami replied. DC's face went pale with worry. Shoutmon looked at DC with worry.

"Hey general, what's wrong?"

"I didn't take this into account," DC said. "I forgot to ask about how you two hit mega level, so I didn't know it was a fusion. If I'd asked and known, I would have made preparations for something so risky. With our strongest players out of the game, our chances of winning have shrunk drastically! We still have to fight that Andromon, a Zorin, and maybe a Rox and Tyrellbeetle as well. Even worse if they have other Digimon we don't know about..."

"Then we'll just have to beat the odds anyway!" Shoutmon said.

"Yeah, we didn't have much chance of even making it this far in the first place," BlackGatomon pointed out. "But that didn't stop us then and it won't stop us now!"

"Hmm... well, I guess we don't have a choice but to try anyway," DC said shrugging his shoulders. "Let's go then. Onward, to victory!" There was a large sliding panel door separating the room they were in from the Shogun of the castle, so that would have to be where the boy with the Zorin was. As if to demonstrate their rage, Shoutmon tore the sliding panel down with his microphone, the group minus Chrotojil stepping in after him. Sitting in a throne that looked like it was made for a giant was the boy with blue hair, sitting cross legged with his Zorin next to him. On his other side was a slightly oversized Tyrellbeetle without its horns and with a gigantic sword on its back. No, that wasn't a Tyrellbeetle at all.

"Oh come on, how does he even have that?!"

Gigaton (Grand Slam Mark II): Extreme Tech/Medabot Corporation/ Zuru's Workshop

Medafighter: ?

Specialty: Grand Slam attacks

Medal Type: Kuwagata

Signature: Giga Slam

"DC, what is that medabot?" Yami asked.

"That's a Gigaton," he replied. "Slow, but ridiculously powerful. I'd guess it's got the raw power of an Ultimate level, can't really tell. Too used to medabots and the like. Either way, one shot from that thing could kill us." As if the situation wasn't bleak enough already, Andromon stepped out from behind the throne, a force of at least twenty Guardromon and ten more Robo Emperors with him. His blue eyes were filled with rage at the destruction of his troops.

"You shall pay for what you've done to my men!" he screamed at them. "I'll show you! I'll show you all!" His arm started rotating with power, his fingers together like the blade of a sword. He swung down, the blue wave of energy coming off of them. Shoutmon got in the way, stopping the attack dead with his mic before flinging it back. It hit him in the face, knocking him off balance before Gatomon could jump up at him and punch him hard, sending him into his troops. The Guardromon all fired their missiles, the Robo-Emperors joining in with their bombards. Shoutmon screamed into his mic in rage, blowing up all the incoming attacks at once. Zorin didn't seem to care about the noise and charged right through, punching Shoutmon in the gut and sending him back into DC. He then turned around to face Gatomon. Before she even had time to react he was gone and behind her, holding her arms behind her back. Gigaton got up with deliberate slowness. He drew the sword from his back and with a bit more speed than Zuru's Gigaton, he swung the sword, the wind smashing into Gatomon just as soon as Zoring let go and escaped, sending her crashing into a wall.

"Shoutmon, get up!" DC called. "Don't let Gigaton touch you, we have to shut it down immediately! Use that Dark Network attack of yours!" Shoutmon got up dizzily before shaking his head.

"I can't, my power still feels a bit fuzzy. I need to connect to an amp to use it. But I've got a better idea anyway." Gigaton jumped into the air and came crashing down sword first. Shoutmon's eyes began glowing red with rage.

"Give me back my friends you creep! Rowdy Rocker!" He swung his own mic upwards, colliding with Gigaton's blade. The floor beneath him dented inwards in a large crater, almost breaking entirely. Shoutmon pushed up with all his might, sendind Gigaton back into the air. He jumped up after it and smashed down on its head, smashing it back down into the ground and through to the floor below. "If we're too weak to fight you head on, we'll just send you were your can't fight me!"

A huge blue wave crashed into Shoutmon, sending him into a wall. Andromon still looked mad. Yami twirled a card between her fingers and slid it through her digivice. Gatomon wiped the rubble around her off and roared like a lion as her paws lit up with fire. She held her fist behind her.

"Take this you jerk! Fist of the Beast King!" She punched, a massive lion's head coming out of the fist, blasting both Zorin and Andromon onto the ground. Andromon stood up again, panic gripping him.

"I can't believe that these rookies of war are actually beating me... I guess I have no choice but to use that..." Andromon took out what looked like a type of digivice from underneath the metal in his leg. It was black with a dark purple screen, about the size of an old brick phone. There was a circle button with a touchpad around it like you would see on an old ipod. The screen was framed by what looked like a pair of sharp teeth.

"What kind of Digivice is that?" Yami asked. "I've never seen something like that before!"

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Gatomon said. Andromon held up the digivice in the air.

"Come my minions! Come and feed me with your power!" A green Guardromon that looked like the leader let out steam from its chest in panic.

"Um, sir, are you sure about this? Are you certain this is really such a good idea? We've worked hard for you this whole time, you can't possibly be thinking of using..."

"Forced DigiXross!" All the Guardromon began glowing purple, lightning zapping them painfully as they all were dragged towards Andromon. The group looked in horror as Andromon seemingly absorbed them all like common food.

"There's no way... Is he eating them?!" DC asked in horror.

"That's low, even for the Legend Army," Shoutmon spat in disgust. By the time all of the Guardromon had been absorbed, Andromon had turned red, his whole body now completely clad in a red and black metal, no soft spots sticking out anymore but his eyes. He laughed maniacally, completely entoxicated by his newfound power.

"Finally... I've reached a stage beyond Ultimate level! I am Hi-Power Andromon! I cannot be defeated! I am the pinnacle of evolution!" Gatomon charged at him again only to be batted aside with the back of his hand, sent flying through the air while Zorin jumped up and kicked her back to the ground like a soccer ball.

"Yami... he's too strong... I can't win unless we become Lilithmon again!"

"I know, but the digivice isn't responding. It's like it can't handle the flow of power anymore!" Shoutmon just got up silently, rage bubbling up inside of him.

"I can't believe you'd sacrifice the lives of your troops just to make yourself stronger... Those Digimon who would give up their lives just to make you stronger... How is it fair that somebody like you can do something like that and still have comrades while you steal mine away from me? But I'm not just going to take this lying down... I'll stop you... I'll never forgive you for this!" Zorin tried charging at him. DC smiled as if it was him who was powering up instead.

"Shoutmon, show them your pride! They don't know the meaning of true friendship! Use the power of your body, mind and soul together, and project it through your fighting spirit!" Shoutmon charged at Zorin. They clashed in the middle, Zorin's claws against Shoutmon's mic. They traded blows before zorin got sent flying back. Hi-Andromon fired missiles from just about everywhere on his body. "Use your Soul Crusher at the frequency of those missiles, then decrease the pitch!" Shoutmon screamed into his mic, obliterating the missiles before they could touch him, then decreased his pitch, the very floorboards trembling. The already damaged roof above their heads collapsed onto Hi-Andromon's body. He blasted the rubble off of himself in rage and shot off towards Shoutmon. Shoutmon received a punch to the gut, sending him somersaulting through the air and onto the floor. He got up, barely noticing the huge gashes on his arms. He generated a note shaped fireball in his hand.

"Take this! Rock Damashii!" He hurled the fireball at Hi-Andromon, a short guitar riff playing as it travelled through the air. It crashed into him, knocking him almost completely off balance.

"What? A rookie Digimon fighting with the force of an Ultimate? What's wrong with you? Are you a mutation? You still pales by comparison to me though... You'll never be able to defeat me insect!" Right on cue, Gigaton jumped back up to the stage, now more angry than ever. DC chuckled to himself.

"Oh really? You think that I was trying to defeat you? Of course I can't defeat you without Lilithmon at the scene! But was that actually my objective?"

"What're you talking about? Of course it was your objective!"

"Well, you're right. But that doesn't mean I had to do it personally!" Both Hi-Andromon and the blue haired kid looked at DC with confusion. Then, they heard it. A low rumbling at first along with a few dull thuds. Then, it happened.

"V-Breath Arrow!" A massive V-shaped laser smashed through the wall, almost slicing Zorin in half as it ripped through its leg medaparts. He collapsed to the floor, unable to walk. Through the wall came what looked like a pot-bellied dinosaur with surprisingly muscular arms and a white bellt. It had large green eyes and a yellow V tattooed across its forehead and stomach. Riding on its back was Hiro, holding up his D-3 digivice. Another crash sounded at the other wall with what looked like a cyborg wolf Digimon and Greymon, Ryuuga next to them both. The biggest crash then sounded behind them, a huge medaforce beam blasting through the door and going straight through Hi-Andromon, frying his circuits before finally passing, leaving him as a damaged wreck on the floor. Ikki entered the room, Metabee standing next to him, still glowing medaforce green. Next to him was Windstorm, holding her trusty sword, and Queen Bee holding a defeated Totalizer over her shoulder effortlessly. Akkiana and Aokshi both fell through the hole in the ceiling.

"Aokshi, let's do this! Use a full power Yin medaforce, I'll generate the Yang!" Both of them together held their hand together in a shared martial arts stance, generating a swirling yin and yang ball of energy. Zorin rushed over to stop it, but found he had only made it in time to take the attack directly to his face. There was no need to read the 100% damage indicator. Just then, Gigaton sprinted (something that nobody had been expecting) at Aokshi and with a colossal swing of his sword, sent him flying out of the castle again. Blackbeetle and Saikachis appeared from the side the blue dinosaur Digimon appeared, firing machine gun bullets at Gigaton with little effect.

"Leo, bullets don't work on this guy!" Blackbeetle said.

"Keep on firing, maybe if Metabee can recover a bit, he can blast it with a second dose of medaforce." Bright purple flashed from Ikki's direction.

"No need for that!" Windstorm yelled. A dark purple medaforce aura enveloped her, the whole room going dark.

Medaforce type 1: Type Crash unlocked.

Medaforce type 2: Dice Attack unlocked.

Medaforce type 1, Type Crash active.

"It can't be... The medaforce?" Ikki asked in surprise. "Miss Nae was right, you have a rare medal!" Panels that didn't exist before opened up all over Windstorm's body. Missiles, missiles upon missiles, more missiles, rockets, machine guns, chain machine guns, gatling guns, rifles, lasers, high power rifles, positron lasers, grenades, rocket propelled grenades, semtek explosives, c4, every single type of fire arm imaginable was visible on Windstorm, even what looked like a pellet gun all pointed at Gigaton and Hi-Andromon who looked like he was just getting up.

"It's time, to kiss your bot goodbye! Medaforce!" Every gun on her fired, a flash of missiles, bullets, tracers, fireworks, flames and lights of all kind travelling through the air, smashing into the medabot and Digimon in a highly decorative display. Explosions went off everywhere, the very foundations of the castle shaken. Everyone who was in the room got blasted straight back out of it again, and if they were pressed against a wall, that went down too. Dust cleared, Ikki coughing as he tried to stand up again. There was nothing left of Gigaton, and not much of Hi-Andromon either but his digivice which Hiro picked up and stared at inquisitively. As usual, the boy and his Zorin had gotten away somehow. DC popped his head up from beneath a pile of rubble, a toothy grin on his face.

"That, was totally awesome!" he shouted. "Aw man guys, you totally missed the best part, get this, BlackGatomon and Yami fused together and made this super cool Digimon called Lilithmon! And there was just stuff blowing up everywhere! And Shoutmon hooked up his mic to the speakers and blasted a whole battalion to pieces! And, and,"

"Whoa, slow down," Leo said. "Who's BlackGatomon? And what's a Shoutmon anyway? And more importantly, what do you think you were doing fighting those guys with just you guys alone? You could've gotten seriously hurt, or even killed!"

"Wow, you're talking to me like I'm a little kid..."

"That's because you're acting like one! So instead of waiting for us to arrive so we could fight together, you instead attack them head-on simply because you found it more heroic? I might not know what exactly happened here but Yami relayed to us the story in the morning with the distress signal on her digivice. What were you thinking?"

"Hey, this time I wasn't just being my usual bull-headed self!" DC said. "Think about this for a second. What would've happened if I'd waited for all of you to arrive? You would've marched through the streets destroying everything in sight, bad guys mainly but also buildings. Homes! Think about Ikki's fighting style! He uses his surroundings to his advantage right? What would he have done if he had to fight through the army we just took out? The whole city would become his playground! You were there with us when Medaropolis got invaded so you've seen that guy at work yourself!"

"Hey guys," Ikki cut in. "Can we not talk about me like I'm not in the same room?"

"This doesn't concern you, you stay out of this!" both DC and Leo yelled back at the same time before resuming the argument. Ikki just sighed in exhaustion.

"I'll go look for the prisoners..."

The castle was given back to ShogunGeckomon, who pretty much looked like a red overweight Geckomon who was twenty feet tall. He laughed with joy upon seeing his royal subjects free again, his tuba tooting with each guffaw. Shoutmon got back together with the rest of his band, Lilymon included, but sobered quite a bit once he heard from Etemon that Leomon passed away shortly after he got knocked out. Even so, it was time for the troupe to leave. The whole village waved them off at the village gate, but not after stocking up their food supplies and telling them which way the legend spaceship went. Shoutmon stayed really silent during the whole meeting as the group went off to their next destination. Etemon looked at Shoutmon, the sun glinting off of his shades.

"You wanna go with that boy don't you kid?" Etemon asked. Shoutmon looked up at him.

"What? Me go with a human? No way, I wouldn't do that! And besides, we're Dark Network right? We've gotta stick together!"

"We don't even have a drummer kid," Etemon said. "Now you listen now and you listen good, you've gone a long way in the space of a few weeks. I'm sorry about everything I said about Rookie's not being able to protect anybody. You've got what it takes after all. Now go. That kid relit the fire in your heart and that's worth all the approval I can give. Find your family with those two fellows you liked so much. Who knows? Maybe one day you'll become an Ultimate like me, or even a Mega?"

"Is it really okay Etemon? I have to get them for what they did to Leomon."

"Oh just listen to the monkey," Lillymon said. "Beat them all up for me! I tried to, honest I did! But that stupid walking tin opener and his knife got me... Go beat them for me!" Shoutmon nodded his head affirmatively. He ran off after the group.

"Hey! DC! Chrome! Yami! Gatomon! Wait for me! I'm coming with you!" DC turned around and smiled.

"Well it's about time! We were seriously gonna leave you behind!" DC and Chrome ran back to Shoutmon and they met halfway, three-way fist bumping. "Now come on, you have to pull your own weight here. Just a rule you should know, all chocolate goes to me. We clear? Now lets got!"

Two familiar figures stood atop a hill, looking down at the Minstrel Village below them. One of them was the same kid who was heading the invasion in the first place, the other was a girl with violet eyes and dark purple hair, wearing a revealing tank top and ripped jeans.

"Well it looks like I've lost yet again to Ikki's team," he said. "It was a lot of fun taking this place over."

"You find everything fun... Was it really the right thing to do, taking over Minstrel I mean?" the girl asked.

"Don't bother questioning the means, the end shall justify it."

"The means is in the method you know..." The boy turned to her, his eyes obscured as usual.

"Just think about your area, I'll deal with the boss here," he said before walking off. She looked at the village again, sadness in her eyes before turning to walk off herself...