This was it. After everything the girls had been through, after how far they had gone, all five were going to finally come face-to-face with the virus who had threatened both the Digital World and theirs. Needless to say, this would not be easy.

But as the girls entered, they noticed Sealsdramon did not come with them as Akari turned and asked, "Aren't you coming?"

"No," the dinosaur replied with an army salute, "You girls are the only ones here who can stand up to his awesome power! I'll stay behind and make sure no one tries to interfere!"

Akari gave the dinosaur a sweet smile and replied, "Thanks. You're a great help," Sealsdramon blushing lightly as the cat girl turned to Yaamon and said, "You should probably stay behind too. I know you were strong as Beelzemon, but right now, well..."

"Yeah, you're right," Yaamon replied with a sigh, "As much as I'd love to help, it's just like you said. I couldn't even stand up to him alone in my mega form. I don't stand a chance like this."

And with that, the child stayed by the entrance as Sealsdramon closed the door behind him. And as luck would have it, there were no Digimon inside of the palace. All of them were outside fighting the others.

All the while the virus looked out his window with irritation on his face. He could not believe what he was seeing. All of these Digimon never had the guts to even take on his army before and yet here they were fighting off his infected soldiers all so the girls could make it to his lair. And to make matters worse, his only true subjects left were Megadramon and Gigadramon and both were being beaten pretty badly by Princemamemon and his family.

"I guess in order to get the best results, you have to do things yourself," the virus sighed to himself, "My best soldiers are either dead or have turned on me, all except possibly Minervamon and I have no idea where she is."

With that, the spider decided to wait. After all, he knew the girls had already gotten in and were going to reach his chambers soon.

And after a few seconds, the girls were outside of the door as Cho asked, "Alright, everyone, do you feel ready for this?"

"I'd like it better if we were all in our ultimate forms," Hazuki replied, "but we can't back down after all we've been through. Let's just get this over with."

Cho then turned to Chise who once again sported a serious look and nodded, the blue-haired girl giving her a kiss on the cheek. Asami, meanwhile, turned to all of the others and nodded.

"Akari, you know that in the end, we will have to kill him," Cho stated as the cat girl nodded and replied, "Yeah, I know. It's not something I want to do, but Mom once told me that if I have to perform a really important task and there's no other choice, I should do it even if it goes against what I believe in."

With that, the girls nodded one last time to one-another and opened the door. Upon seeing the virus, all five had to admit they were intimidated by his appearance alone. Sure, they had dealt with scary Digimon before, but none looked as menacing as this guy with his lifeless yellow eyes and wires making up the body under his armour.

"So you're Ophanimon's pets," the virus said as Asami remarked, "Excuse me?"

The spider ignored her words and added, "You've been giving me a lot of trouble, but why is it. What makes you girls stand out from the other heroes? Is it the fact that you really are stronger than the rest or is it just that there happens to be more of you?"

Rather than feeling offended or intimidated by these words, the girls remained serious as Asami remarked, "That hardly matters. The important thing is that we put you in your place."

Akari nodded and said, "I don't want to have to do this, but what you're doing is horrible. You can choose not to do this. Just because you're a virus doesn't mean you-"

"Yes, I do!" the virus retorted with a look of irritation, "Look, kid, I know you think you have some power to change everybody's minds, that you can talk your way out of every problem. You honestly believe that talking to me will change my mind."

Akari bit her lower lip, Cho scowling at the spider as he continued, "Let me make one thing perfectly clear. Viruses are designed to infect what they inhabit. Even if I didn't want to, I couldn't stop myself from doing this! Do you honestly believe I ever had any intention of sparing the Digimon who served me!?"

The girls gasped as he added, "That's right, they all followed me because they believed that I would spare them if they did. And even if I wanted to fulfil that promise, I couldn't, and you know why? Because it's my function. Once I reach full power, the entire Digital World along with yours will be infected! There is nothing I or anyone else could do to stop it! It's inevitable!"

The girls stared in stunned silence for quite some time until Hazuki uttered, "You monster. You lied to Beelzemon, Minervamon, Commandramon and all those others. If Petermon had known the truth, he wouldn't have tried to kill us."

"Don't forget Shogungekomon," Asami stated as Cho added, "And poor Asuramon. It's because of your lies that he believed death was the only way to cope with his loss to us. He was afraid to oppose you."

"Yes, their allegiance to me was a result of their own ignorance," the virus stated, "If they knew anything about how viruses worked, they would have known better. A lot of them had the power to resist my control but instead of using it to fight back, they wimped out and joined me instead."

Akari's body twitched as an uncommon look formed on her face, a look of absolute anger. All this time, the virus knew about this and did not tell anyone. She did not care what his reasons for this were. Making such a big promise while knowing he could not keep it was unforgivable.

With that in mind, the girl struck a fighter stance and exclaimed, "Let's end this!" the others nodding and making their own stances.

"One last thing before we start," the virus said, "My name is Infermon. Figured you may as well know the name of your killer."

During this time, things had taken an unexpected turn. It seemed the virus had used is power to summon reinforcements from other locations as they were coming in hoards. Though so far, the Digimon showing up to assist their allies were the ones in the forest. There were more yet to come.

Seeing this, Sealsdramon gulped and said, "Well, time to do my duty," the dragon running off into the line of danger while Yaamon slowly opened the door a tiny bit to see this. He gritted his teeth as he wished he could do something about this, but what could he do?

It was at that moment his body glowed. Suddenly, his head changed to a thinner shape as a small dog-like nose formed on his face. He then sprouted a dark-purple torso underneath while red gloves appeared on his new hands.

"Alright, I'm Impmon," the Digimon said with a grin before sighing, "I wish I was Beelzemon, but at least this is an improvement."

With that, Impmon ran outside and start hurling fireballs at the infected Digimon. Sure, he would not be of the most help in this state, but at least he could put up a decent fight now.

During this time, Infermon had started up the battle by opening up his mouth. A small gun barrel seemed to be inside of it as a big shell fired from it, creating a big explosion. The girls just barely managed to avoid it as the spider wasted no time unleashing more.

With this in mind, Cho took hold of Chise as the blond tucked herself into her shell. The blue-haired girl proceeded to kick her like a soccer ball toward Infermon, his eyes widening as she was lodged into his gaping mouth.

"Alright, now we got him!" Cho exclaimed as Hazuki exclaimed, "DEATH HAND!" and hurled a burst of black energy into Infermon's face.

But before the others could even try to add to the damage, Infermon pointed his head toward Hazuki and used his gun to fire Chise hard into her gut. Asami proceeded to hurl her feather at the spider only for him to tuck himself into the armour, taking the form of a cocoon and blocking the impact.

Before Asami could even try to come up with a countermeasure, the virus launched himself into her like a missile and sent her flying into a wall. Akari lunged at him only to wind up meeting the same fate as he proceeded to revert back to his normal state.

"Now's our chance!" Cho exclaimed as she and Chise prepared to strike. However, Infermon saw this coming as he rose his legs in the air. And just as the girls were close enough, he sent them downward, stomping on their heads and slamming them hard against the floor.

With that, he wrapped his spiky toes around their necks as she both started to gasp for air. The others stared in horror while rushing toward Infermon. However, the spider once again tucked himself into his armour, pulling Cho and Chise's heads up against the openings. And with that, he used his feet to launch them away from him, Chise flying hard into Asami while Cho hit Hazuki.

But of course, Infermon had not hit Akari as the cat girl was close enough to strike his arms while they were still dangling out. With that, she sent her claws downward and shouted, "LIGHTNING PAW!" putting three big scratches on his right leg.

This seemed to deal some damage as small sparks were flying out of that very spot. However, Infermon ignored this as he opened his mouth and sent a hard shot into Akari's chest. The girl's eyes and mouth were wide open as she flew into the wall, coughing up blood.

"These are the heroes whose power is great enough to match mine!?" Infermon exclaimed, "You are pathetic! Not only are your strategies predictable, but both times you've managed to hit me, I didn't feel a thing! I guess Asuramon, Beelzemon and Minervamon were all weaklings."

This struck a nervous as Akari glared and retorted, "Don't say that about Beelzemon! He was one of the strongest Digimon I've ever seen!"

But just as Infermon was about ready to taunt her some more, he noticed plenty of data flying into the air outside. His eyes went wide as he said, "Hold that thought."

With that, the spider opened his mouth as a big gust of wind headed into it. He seemed to be trying to inhale something, but what?

The girls stared in absolute confusion as after a few seconds, the data from outside came into the building and into Infermon's mouth. He then closed his mouth and swallowed before saying, "Sorry for the distraction," his body briefly glowing red.

"What just happened?" Cho asked as Infermon chuckled wickedly and said, "All this time, you girls thought you were doing the infected Digimon a favour by killing them, didn't you?"

"What are you talking about?" Asami asked as Akari uttered, "But they wanted us to."

"Oh, I have no doubt they did," Infermon replied, "After all, I was using them to hurt the innocent, but by killing them, you and all the other heroes in the world have actually been helping me."

The girls were even more confused as he added, "It is true that normally when a Digimon dies, it is reborn in the form of an egg so that it may start life anew, very much like your theory of reincarnation. But I have made a few changes to that. Part of the benefit of being a virus is that I can absorb data, so whenever a Digimon dies, its data is used to give me power and speed up my evolution into the most powerful virus in existence."

"So you mean all this time-" Chise uttered, Infermon nodding and replying, "That's right. You've been helping me achieved my dreams. I'd thank you and everyone else, but I know none of you meant to do it."

"But that's horrible," Akari uttered, "That means none of them came back to life," Infermon replying, "I wouldn't say that. Somehow, there was one who managed to avoid me, Beelzemon, though he's probably still an egg right now."

The girls said nothing in response to this, Asami acting shocked. However, Infermon could tell she was faking that as he asked, "Do you know something about that?"

The girls remained silent as the spider shrugged and replied, "It doesn't matter, anyway. He's no longer a threat. Soon enough, he'll be infected like everyone else anyway."

And while he said this, more and more data was pouring in. Not only were the girls' allies helping out, a few of the Gekomon soldiers had been killed during the battle. And Infermon was soaking up all of their data.

"Someone needs to tell the others to retreat," Asami uttered as Infermon remarked, "I simply can't let you do that," Akari taking a deep breath and smiling wide, the others staring in shock. How could she smile right now?

"Akari, are you alright?" Cho asked as the girl nodded and replied, "Yes. I just know that if we kill Infermon, all of the data he has absorbed will be released."

"That actually makes sense," Hazuki uttered as Infermon blinked and uttered, "Uh, no, it'll be destroyed along with me," Cho narrowing her eyelids and remarking, "Now who's the bad liar?"

Though the blue-haired girl was still surprised by Akari's smile as she asked, "Are you sure you're okay with this?" the cat girl nodding and replying, "You heard what he said. Even if he does change his mind, it wouldn't change anything. He'd eventually get enough power to infect everyone."

"Well, then, I think the situation calls for some extra power," Asami stated as the girls nodded and closed their eyes. And with that, Cho, Chise and and the rich girl all became their champion levels as Infermon shrugged and replied, "So you have a little extra force. That hardly matters."

While this went on, Sealsdramon was feeling useless now. Once more and more reinforcements rolled in, things had gotten far more challenging. They had already lost quite a number of Gekomon soldiers and it seemed like only a matter of time until someone else went down.

However, his train of thought when when Impmon was knocked back by a mantis-like creature with sickles for arms. The dinosaur readied his blades with panic in his eyes when suddenly, a beautiful young woman rushed into the area with a big red sword raised and sliced the bug's head off, causing it to turn into data.

Sealsdramon stared in silence as this woman had long sky-blue hair with pigtails that went down to her ankles. She wore a white snake skull as a helmet with wing bones attached to its sides. He had shoulder pads made from the same material, a red spiked shoulder guard and a white snake for a left arm. She sported a white brassiere to cover the lower parts of her chest and had a black waistband. She wore stockings of the same colour that only covered half of each leg and had shoes with spikes on the ends of them. Finally, she had yellow eyes, purple lipstick and fangs sticking out of the sides of her mouth.

Sealsdramon had no idea who this was, but he was beyond grateful as the woman turned to him and winked, asking, "You okay, Sealsdramon?"

The dinosaur blinked and asked, "Do I know you?" the woman nodding and replying, "Oh yeah, I look different now, don't I? You like it?" before striking a pose like a supermodel.

Sealsdramon's jaw dropped as he shook his head and asked, "Is that you, Minervamon?"

"YAY, YOU RECOGNIZED ME!" the woman squealed before hugging him, the dinosaur blushing bright as she added, "I go by the name Mervamon now."

"But how?" Sealsdramon asked, "You're a mega level Digimon. That means you can't Digivolve."

"I'm not completely sure how it works myself," Mervamon replied, "but, well, after what you told me, I got to thinking and realized you might be right. Once I cleared my mind and realized the correct path, I somehow changed into this."

The dinosaur was still rather confused by this, but he was glad to have the assistance as Mervamon smirked and said, "By the way, there's something really I wanna tell you when this is over."

With that, the woman sprinted toward a group of Digimon that were giving Peckmon a rather hard time. She started to spin with her sword and snake arm pointed outward and whipped up a large tornado that almost instantly tore apart all of the opponents it touched. The ostrich blinked and bowed his head in respect to the woman.

Mervamon proceeded to help out the remaining Gekomon and Shogungekomon by punching one ultimate Digimon with her snake hand. She then proceeded to have the hand open its mouth and bite off the Digimon's head, the woman laughing like a psycho the whole time.

The frogs stared in absolute horror but decided to accept this. Sure, snakes were natural predators of frogs, but clearly this one was on their side and they could not have been more grateful, especially since becoming Mervamon had increased the woman's power exponentially.

But while things were certainly looking up for the others, the same could not be said for the girls. Despite their power having been increased, they were still having trouble with Infermon. Asami fired her ring beams at the virus only for him to easily avoid damage by tucking himself into his armour. Then with that, he proceeded to launch himself toward Cho just as she was setting up for an attack.

Chise saw this coming and exclaimed, "TAIL HAMMER!" ramming her spiked ball hard into the side of the armour. However, this did absolutely nothing as Infermon used one of his feet to shove her into a wall while ramming himself hard into Cho's gut.

However, the blue-haired girl was not going to let herself lose so easily. As such, she ignored the pain and placed a firm grip against his armour thus preventing him from moving.

With that, Infermon spread out his legs in an attempt to free himself when Cho exclaimed, "NOW!" Akari and Hazuki slashing two of his legs while Chise recovered from the blow dealt earlier and rammed her tail hard against another. Asami topped it all off by planting her feet hard into the remaining leg while Cho smirked and lifted Infermon up a little bit, adding to the pressure placed on his legs.

However, despite this, Infermon once again ignored all pain as he shot his head out, planting it into Cho's gut. Thanks to the horn on his head, this put a hole in her as blood trickled down, the virus having now freed himself.

With that taken care of, he proceeded to spin his body around like a fan with two sets of blades. This allowed him to ram his feet into the other four surrounding him as they flew into the wall, Cho falling to her knees and breathing heavily.

"I have to admit, that was actually pretty clever," Infermon said after regaining composure, "but it's still not enough. And to think I was actually afraid of you."

The girls glared in fury as Chise and Akari gave Cho a look of concern. However, the blue-haired girl simply grinned and gave them thumbs up. After all, she once dealt with the bullet to the side. This was nothing in comparison to that.

"Don't look so confident," Infermon said as data flew into the room and entered his mouth. The girls were horrified now as he said, "Either more of my soldiers have died or your allies are doing a horrible job. Whatever the case, it gives me more power."

"We really need to end this quickly!" Cho exclaimed as the girls nodded and closed their eyes. They were unsure of whether or not the situation was dire enough, but they needed their ultimate forms right now, especially since Cho, Chise and Asami had less than a minute until their champion forms wore off.

And as luck would have it, the situation did seem bad enough as their bodies glowed, all five taking on their ultimate forms. The spider's eyes widened as Akari was an angel, Cho had mechanical forearms and legs, Chise was part statue, Hazuki had the form of a vampire and Asami had bigger wings.

"We only got a little over a minute," Hazuki stated, "Let's make this count. He may be strong, but don't forget, he's also an ultimate!"

Akari nodded and formed a ring of light over her head, exclaiming, "HOLY AIR!" the light paralysing Infermon while healing all five girls. And with all, the others unleashed their own techniques at the same time in the hopes that the combined damage would finish him in one hit.

"WING BLADE!" Asami exclaimed as she unleashed a bird-shaped vacuum blade made out of fire toward the virus. Hazuki held her hands forward and shouted, "NIGHTMARE WAVE!" sending a large bolt of electricity into Infermon.

"JUSTICE BEAM!" Chise exclaimed as she shot beams from her eyes, Cho charging toward the virus with her fist ready and barking, "WINNING KNUCKLE!" landing a hard punch to his face.

With all four attacks hitting him fast and hard and Infermon unable to fight back, he cried out in pain. It seemed the girls had finally managed to hurt him, but they would not end with that as they prepared for another attack.

"Should I-?" Akari uttered as Cho replied, "You did enough with that ring of yours. Remember, we promised we'd finish the job."

But just as the girls were ready to attack one more time, Infermon sent four shots at blinding speed toward Cho, Chise, Hazuki and Asami. All of them took in hard hits and flew into the walls, wincing in pain. Despite being in their ultimate levels, this still dealt a great deal of damage to them.

Infermon's head seemed to have been forced sideways as he quickly snapped it back into place, his eyes wide open. The virus then took a deep breath and said, "Well, I really have to hand it to you. That surprised me, but even so, you are no match for me."

However, his eyes went wide as Akari exclaimed, "CELESTIAL ARROW!" the girl sending an arrow straight through his right legs. This caused both to be snapped in half as he fell on his side, Akari saying, "Alright, I've weakened him. You can finish him off now."

However, the others seemed too weak to attack as Akari's eyes widened, Cho grunting, "Sorry, Akari."

The angel then noticed Infermon's legs starting to grow back as she took a deep breath and said, "I guess it has to be done," the girl then forming another arrow and pointing it directly at the virus.

"CELESTIAL ARROW!" she exclaimed as she unleashed an arrow hard into Infermon's chest. Since he was still laying on his side, this was possible, and the timing could not have been better. At that exact second, all five girls reverted to their earlier forms as Infermon's armour shattered, his eyes and mouth wide open.

Akari took a deep breath and said, "I didn't want to be the one to finish you off, but you left me with little choice. I'm sorry."

But just as she had said this, her eyes widened when she noticed data still flying in and entering the virus' mouth. But why? He should have been dead.

Well, it seemed he was not as his body started to glow and change form. His rings became real hands with dark-blue plating over them and his claws were now red. He had actual flesh now, which was a light tan colour. He had messy orange hair coming down the sides of his head and a blue war helmet over his skinny head. He had a dark-blue suit of armour attached to his chest and a green gem on his belly. Finally, he had a pair of shoulder guards and two red spikes coming out of his back.

"No..." Akari uttered as the virus took hold of the arrow and pried it out of his chest, crushing it in half with his new hand as he let out a maniacal laugh and exclaimed, "Yes, I've done it! I've finally reached full power! All hail your new king, Diaboromon!"