- TV Troubles -

Hiroaki Ishida probably could have left the small red and white sphere containing his new monster at home when he went to work, possibly even should have done so, but with the way things had gone so far he felt they would both be a bit safer together than on their own right now. Although, he didn't think Skarmory looked enough like a normal bird to just easily have him out and about instead of stuck in the small sphere. So far that hadn't caused any issues, and the pokemon seemed happy to be on hand too, so that was worth the effort.

"Mr. Ishida, we saw it again," one of the other employees of the TV station said just as he was about to sit down at his desk.

"That vanishing shadow?" he asked dubiously, starting up his computer and sitting down. There was a rumor going around for a while now about strange things happening at the station, in particular a mysterious shadow appearing on the equipment that went away when you looked over the footage again.

"It's happening more often," his coworker confirmed, and then quietly moved closer. "Some of us noticed you were distracted a bit last week and, well, we were wondering if it could have anything to do with, well you know. The monsters. If it was them coming back and..." The other man cringed instead of outright implying that his sons were in danger again.

He shook his head at the fact that they apparently had already made that connection, and then paused as he thought about how there was actually something going on with that. "You're sure it s happening more often?" he asked seriously, and with unease took out the pokeball.

"Yeah, it's only been two weeks since the last time, and it was a couple of weeks for the time before," the man replied looking a mixture of relieved and worried about his response. "What, what can we do?"

"Skarmory, any ideas?" Hiroaki asked letting the bird monster out and hoping it had been paying attention somehow.

"Sounds like a ghost," the metal avian said as it formed from the flash of white energy to perch on his shoulder. "Although if you don't have-" As he finished settling he froze. "Ah. Actually your world not having energy just means that a Ghost's energy stands out a lot more than normal."

"Why did I think asking about this was a good idea?" the coworker said to himself quietly. "So, there is actually a ghost here?"

"Yes, although a weak one, it probably needs help to manifest fully. Important dates, or sympathetic events," Skarmory answered, clearly not helping the man's mood by replying himself. "When I was working with Rodger on cases involving restless spirits we would have to get a Channeler to help the smaller ones explain what they were after, or if needed to get them so we could defeat them before they naturally grow powerful enough to cause problems."


Tai looked unhappily at the phone. "I see. So, just to be clear here, the TV station is willing to call in the Digidestined to help with an issue that you are having with a ghost?" he asked incredulously. His mother had called him over from where he had been working on an attempt to figure out what they would need in order to build a base for the Digidestined in their world.

"I am being officially asked to contact you about this," Matt's father confirmed this from the other end of the line. "Honestly, I'm trying to keep you as the one in charge of things so that we can have someone from our world looking at you like that."

"You do know I'm going to have to just ask a bunch of people from another world to help us too, right? I doubt whatever this is can be handled by Joe and Izzy looking it over," the Digidestined of Courage cautioned as his sisters both spotted him and realized that the conversation was about the team.

"Enough of my coworkers and bosses know that you all are the ones that saved the world that they honestly were considering asking one of you themselves at this point," the older man admitted. "We apparently weren't as careful as we thought about that, or in particular about last week."

"So, you can't ask the people from another world to help directly, but you can ask us?" Tai tried as a different angle. This was not the way he expected to have to deal with being revealed, and he was kind of hoping to put it off a bit longer.

"Well, yeah. Not to mention Skarmory says that the energy feels unusual to him, and well. The only thing I think it could be, given that, is the ghost of a digimon," Mr. Ishida sympathetically noted, and Tai had to force himself to keep his grip on the phone so he didn't drop it. "So in that case the Digidestined are the ones who should deal with this, even if you need to get some more outside help."

Tai looked over at Gatomon, and while she was doing a good job of hiding it she clearly had heard enough of both sides of the conversation to understand the implications. He was less sure about Kari, but ironically that was because his original sister was the one who could better hide that kind of thing from him. "I'll get the team together and see what support we can get from DSS," he finished more seriously, and then sighed. "Did you really show them the giant metal bird you got from the other world?"

"They apparently half expected it," the older man complained. "Let me know when you're coming over, I'll make sure we can cover for you here."

"Alright, I'll call you then," Tai replied and hung up. "Are you two up for that? Worst case..." he trailed off unsure if Gatomon seeing a ghost of her lost friend would be better or worse than Myotismon being back.

"Don't even think I'm not going," the cat digimon harshly responded.

"I didn't ask if you wanted to go, I asked if you were up for it," he said simply. "We can probably put it off a little while if you needed time first-"

"I'm fine!" she insisted, and Tai definitely regretted saying anything.


Davis looked over his teammates as they arrived outside the TV station. Kari and T.K. were notably nervous, as were their older brothers. Yolei seemed more worried about Hawkmon than anything right at the moment, while the bird digimon looked uncertain. Cody and Armadillomon were quiet, which was actually fairly normal. Gatomon looked like she was feeling off, and the other digimon of the original team were staying protectively close to her. Davey was the one he was the most worried about, as his brother was uneasily hiding from any potential passing gazes near his legs.

"So, are we just standing out here, or am I helping you all search for a ghost?" TyranoGazimon asked bluntly and simply continued towards the doors while taking out her scanner. "Because these guys are apparently expecting us, and the people out here in the open aren't."

"Yeah, we probably should hurry inside," Tai sighed, and Davis felt bad about how glad he was that the older kid was taking charge this time. Everyone always compared him to the Digidestined of Courage, and after the past week he was really sure that he hadn't actually learned how to be a real leader from Tai yet. Sure with soccer he'd learned a lot, but this was honestly one of the few times he'd actually seen Tai in charge of a group doing something more important that just playing a sport.

"Oh good they're here," a lady just inside the doorway said as she spotted the digimon. "You don't think it is going to get as bad as last time do you?"

"We're making sure it doesn't mam," Tai replied sounding serious in a way that Davis wished he could pull off. "Is there any location where this 'shadow' is occurring more than anywhere else?"

"I don't know. We weren't really sure it was even a thing," the lady admitted uncertainly.

"If there is anywhere you know death occurred that would be the most likely place to start," the metal bird pokemon, Skarmory, said from out of sight. Matt's father walked in with the monster easily resting on his shoulder. The pokemon then locked his gaze on Gatomon. "Ah, I'm sorry-"

"It's fine, I'm fine," the cat digimon quickly cut him off, and Davis suddenly didn't want to know why she was having problems with this, even if he probably was going to learn anyway.

Matt's dad then led them through the building up to the large ball shaped section. The workers they encountered along the way all seemed uneasy with the presence of the digimon, but nobody actually stopped them, and a couple of them even looked a little relieved to see them. Davis was a bit worried about all of this, and really wished he had worn a mask, or even had been brave enough to have just come as Flamedramon. Once or twice he even ended up jumping at shadows.

"This is the place," Kari said distractedly as they looked out the window onto the roof. "What do we do now?"

"Got two options for you kids," Tyra replied, still focused on her scanner. "The blunt way where I summon at least one god of ghosts, or the time consuming way where I go over this place with this thing for a while."

"Maybe we shouldn't be summoning gods if we don't have to?" Tai asked, and Davis had to agree that bringing that shadow god here wasn't something to joke about.

"Given what I'm expecting to find? I might need to call both of them anyway," the patchwork digimon confusingly replied. Then paused notably and re-checked something, right before a shadow shakily formed out of nowhere.

"Gatomon," a voice said very weakly, then groaned and cut out.

"They don't have anywhere near enough power," Tyra noted while Gatomon froze from the unseen voice. "But, I think their data might actually all be here."

"So what if his data's here? What does that get us?" the cat digimon harshly said. "He's dead and hurting-"

"He's in better shape than I was," TyranoGazimon sharply cut her off. "Which is why I'm calling the digital god who brought me back to life to help us."

"Wait, that wasn't a joke?" Tai had time to ask before a pair of far larger inexplicable shadows appeared on either side of the room, one of them looking oddly blocky and both far too deep.

The massive forms of two different Giratina rose out of the ground, although the one that emerged from the blocky shadow looking sort of like Delta 2. The smaller shadow that had first formed shrank back a bit at their appearance. "Ah, just a moment," the smoother one that Davis had encountered before rumbled, and suddenly the entire room fell into deeper shadows. The original shadow they were apparently here for suddenly turned into a small man shaped digimon in a very tattered wizards outfit. "There you are small one, a safer place to try and manifest."

"Guys. I told the receptionist that this wasn't going to be as bad as last time," Tai complained. "Who are you two?"

"Um, hello. I'm Charlie 13, and this is Giratina," the blocky one said, then frowned at the wizard ghost. "Huh, Tyra this guy's less dead than you were."

"I'm less dead? What did she get killed by?" the digimon asked, then blinked as if he could not believe he could ask. "I can think?"

"To be clear, the Dark Network is the thing that killed and ate me, and if the arm wasn't an indication it didn't exactly leave everything behind," Tyra complained, and Davis suddenly was rather worried about how bad things got for Shawn's group. Her body had not seemed too unusual for a digimon, but if those scale patches were injuries they definitely would have been enough to kill her.

"As for the clearer thoughts, small ghost, that is my power," Giratina noted. "I have moved this room closer to my own realm, where your current form is more usable. You likely would only have the bare basic ability to exist without that, and honestly that's half the reason it is so hard for ghosts to give answers to questions. You're already struggling to just remember the way words work, so you just say associations in the hope that whoever you found is able to understand you enough."

"Wait, stop! Just, just stop!" Gatomon said breathlessly. "What the hell do you mean 'Wizardmon's less dead'?" she raged at Tyra. Davis looked away as he spotted tears in her eyes, instead looking at the now named digimon's ghost. The rather human looking guy was clearly shocked with everything that was happening, and honestly Davis wanted to help the guy somehow.

"I mean I am not going to just stand by and not try and bring someone back that is in the same boat I was," the patchwork digimon calmly but firmly replied. "So can you guys do it?"

"No," Charlie 13 said immediately. "Or at least I can't on my own. This isn't a digital world, and while he is intact now I can't move him to one and keep him that way."

"Yes," Giratina said as soon as his blocky counterpart finished. "Although, all things considered there isn't really anyone I can't bring back to 'life' as long as I can still reach them. One of the perks of helping to make a universe is that you know how to make some rather odd things." He walked closer to the ghost. "The side effect of course is that he stops being a mundane ghost, and instead will be a Ghost typed pokemon." Davis had to blink at the thought of a 'mundane' ghost, and he could fairly easily see that only Skarmory didn't agree with that being an odd thing to say.

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time I ended up a different kind of creature," Wizardmon said sounding a bit uncertain. "What other downsides are you leaving out?"

"Being a pokemon is the downside," Tyra said dully. "Do we have time for me to go over everything with him?" she asked Giratina, who nodded even though Tai was shaking his head. "Right, the biggest issue is that you will want to fight more." She paused to see his reaction, while Davis could see the other Digidestined all shooting a glance at Cody. "After that is a bunch of smaller things, although. Although the biggest of those is you'd still be a ghost. Which means that you'd be a bit of a prankster and have a fairly harsh attitude."

"So, it wouldn't do anything to him?" Gatomon asked quietly, she had just been staring at Wizardmon ever since Tyra had said they were bringing him back to life. "Because that sounds like I remember him." Davis felt she sounded far too sad about remembering the guy.

"That sounds fine. What do I need to do?" Wizardmon asked cutting off the explanation. Suddenly all of the darkness that had formed around the room spiraled into his body, which became less and less transparent as this happened, although the yellow of his outfit did darken a bit into a dull grey. Then the shadows around the room were gone, the air of the place felt noticeably lighter, and Wizardmon landed on the ground with a huff. "That, was a lot better than I expect-" he was cut off by Gatomon tackling him to the ground.

"You're not allowed to die again," she said just barely loud enough for Davis to hear.


Kari was fairly sure she had stopped breathing at some point. This was like something out of a dream, and now she was just waiting for herself to wake up back in a world where the digimon who saved her was dead again. Gatomon was now openly crying, her brother was talking with a number of the TV studio's people about what exactly had happened, the two gods were being confusing, and the others were giving her sister space.

"Here," TyranoGazimon said pressing one of the capture balls the other world used into her hand. The weight of the item helped tell her this was real, but not as much as the patchwork digimon's claws moving roughly enough to scratch her a bit. Kari glared at the digimon for that, because she was fairly sure that was deliberate. "For your new pokemon."

She blinked at that statement, and then looked at her sister and Wizardmon again. "Thank you," Kari quietly admitted and walked over to see the two of them. "How are you feeling?" she asked both of them, unsure of who needed to be asked more.

"Alive," Wizardmon said roughly. "Or, more alive at least. I still feel a bit like I have the past..." He trailed off and looked haunted for a moment. "It's been years, hasn't it?"

"It has," Gatomon croaked. "I'm sorry."

"It has never been your fault, Gatomon," he kindly informed her. "It was Myotis- Myotismon!" He suddenly surged to his feet, with Gatomon actually falling through his body. "Ah, sorry." He quickly picked her up again. "Myotismon's ghost vanished! That's what I've been trying to get the energy to say this entire time."

The world slowed down as Kari processed what he meant by that. Suddenly she wished she had her BlackGatomon claws back and the damn vampire in front of her to shred. "He's trying to come back?" her brother squawked.

"I believe so. I can't recall everything while I was like that clearly," Wizardmon replied. "But, he was definitely stronger than I was like that. If you could do this for me, then I do not doubt that someone could have done the same for him."

"Possession is more likely," Giratina cut in. "That is the most common way that ghosts can interact with the world again, and given what I've heard of that foe, I doubt he would be truly hidden if he was fully restored already."

"So we're looking for someone controlled by Myotismon?" Matt asked darkly. While the new Digidestined all looked concerned by the revelation, they didn't seem to fully appreciate the situation. T.K. was visibly holding himself back from reacting.

"Or an item being inhabited by him," the ghost god clarified. "That could be worse actually, as if it is a person then all you need to do is help the person fight him off. With an item you can far more easily lose track of the spirit."

"I don't know if we can have me out and about searching for someone who s possessed," Skarmory said slowly, looking more frightened by the presence of Giratina than anything else being discussed. "Especially if that might prompt a fight. I'm not really even supposed to fly anymore, let alone trying to get away after spotting whatever it s in."

"We do know someone who might be able to help us with that kind of issue," the other, apparently digital, Giratina said. "Although I'd think if Jack was available we'd already have him working with us on this."

"I might be able to pass Skarmory off as some sort of exotic bird," Matt's father suggested uneasily. "He's a bit big for a bird, but not unthinkably large. The big issue is that he isn't quite shaped normally for a bird."

"Hiroaki, that might not last. Right now I'm a bit less than half my typical size, and the fact that I was steadily shrinking was the first sign we had that I was injured. Apparently my energy couldn't help maintain my physical form at normal Skarmory size," the metal bird admitted. "While I'm not sure that will change anytime soon, I should start growing back to normal at some point if this treatment works."

That fact made Kari pause, and even seemed to shock Gatomon out of her current unease over Wizardmon's revelation. "Wait, that would be about as tall as he is!" Davis noted uneasily.

"Yes? We are able to transport others with proper experience," the pokemon replied in confusion. "Carrying our trainers across the region is fairly common. Although I've heard that over in Galar there is an even larger armored bird that is so commonly trained for that they use them for easy taxi service."

"I don't think I could ride a giant bird around and not get noticed," Matt's father said shaking his head. "Was that all of the ghosts we had here? Because you kids probably want to get home."

"I cannot sense any others, at least close enough to be able to manifest in this building," Giratina answered him. "The new Ghost type should at some point be taken to the pokemon world for some proper training. He will need help to safely adapt to his new capabilities. I sense he also seems to have the Dark type, so perhaps you can try asking the Grim Gym for aid?"

"Davis, get everyone else home," Tai said taking charge. "I'm going to stick around a bit to make sure that we don't have any problems from doing this."

"We can keep a secret Mr. Yagami," the man her older brother had been talking to said, and it was strange to hear that professional tone directed at one of their group. "Especially since your group seems well prepared for this sort of thing. I'm not sure how we could have dealt with it without you, or what it would have cost." The guy looked nervous about something. "Already we had a group that was refusing to come up here because of these disturbances."

"Ah, I'm sorry for causing the issue," Wizardmon said regretfully.


Tai sat down across from the main manager of the TV station in a small conference room. He was drained from the emotional nightmare that had just happened to his sisters, and despite that he had sent Agumon home with them instead of keeping his partner/brother on hand to help with the big issue. Which was figuring out how much trouble he had really gotten them into now in order to get Wizardmon back.

"Young man, I want to start by thanking you and your group for dealing with this issue so quickly," the older man said to start, and to Tai's surprise. "From the sound of things this 'ghost' problem was only going to get worse, and you gave us a controlled resolution with little disruption of operations before the day was out." The guy actually looked shocked. "When I first heard that we might actually have another monster issue I was sure it would be worse than this."

"I'm glad that it was a simple solution too," he admitted carefully, totally unprepared for outright praise. "Although, I have to admit I'm worried about everyone being seen here. We brought a full team just in case the ghost was hostile, so I don't think it was too many to bring, but well. We're not exactly officially a thing."

"You're worried about our reaction," the man more said than asked, but Tai nodded anyway. "Alright then, I'll give our full situation then. Back when the big monster attack happened the government didn't exactly miss the fact that the largest attack started here. We were questioned uphill and downhill about any information we had or any way we could have contained it. Because of course if we were where it started we should know what had happened."

"I'm guessing that Mr. Ishida working here didn't help with that," Tai noted unhappily as the manager paused for a moment.

"We didn't let them know about his involvement, or what little we did know because of him," the older man replied with a bit of a frown. "That didn't stop them from giving us a good chunk of the blame for that whole mess. So, part of the reason I agreed to try this was to try and get a head start on the next time something like that happened. It would be a lot easier to deal with them if we can say right off that we already went to the group that can handle those issues and gave them all the help we could afford to." The manager sighed and pulled over a nearby pad of paper. "So, given that we've basically heard that there is in fact a 'next time' coming up, what can we do to help?"

Tai had not expected that kind of response, and the fact that this confirmed that some of the government was looking into the issue was a problem on its own. Strangely though, he was actually prepared for that question. "Right now we need office space more than anything," he specified. "Not very much, but we're looking into getting something at least temporary setup so we could start working on getting our operations more stable." He sighed and met the older man's eyes. "Knowing that we have Myotismon to deal with again makes that much more important now."

The main manager apparently wasn't expecting an actual response, and Tai could see him shift for a moment as he apparently realized this was a fully serious discussion instead of just offering help to some kids that had helped. "What exactly are you after?" the older man asked. "We might be able to spare a bit of space, but I'd need to look into things to see how much."

"Bare minimum we could go with a place to setup a server and a conference room that we could use on short notice near it," Tai listed keeping his tone professional. "We might be able to teleport into that to avoid coming in your front door, and a bit more space that was just ours to use could help if it could be spared. We might need a cover story for why we are in the building just in case."


Returning to the Kamiya apartment was an odd experience for Wizardmon. He did not want to admit it to Gatomon, but he was never under the impression that he would survive his trip to this world. So a chance to actually be inside the place they lived was already an unthinkable thing. Having a future to look forward to was an unthinkable thing.

"So, you're our daughter's best friend?" Susumu Kamiya asked him as Kari and the two digimon that lived there fixed up a place for him to stay.

"Ah, I'm afraid I don't actually know Kari that well," he admitted to the girl's father. While he had given his life to save her, it quite honestly was more to help Gatomon than any of his other reasons.

"I meant Gatomon actually," Susumu noted with a bit of a laugh. "She has mentioned you, although not very willingly," he then added more somberly.

"I had not realized you were at the point where you considered her a daughter," the former digimon noted. He tried not to sound too uncertain, and to not think too deeply about how much his death had hurt her.

The adult human looked like he had just stepped on a social landmine. "Oh, I guess nobody has had time to explain everything that's been happening to you," he said awkwardly. "It has turned out that Gatomon is some kind of digimon clone of Kari. Well, actually that all of the kids' digimon are copies of them."

"You're sure of that?" Wizardmon had to ask incredulously.

"They both spent a week switched around, Gatomon a human and Kari a digimon," he replied, then sighed. "She started as a 'Salamon', but then did something wrong?" he more asked than said, as if he wasn't sure if that was the right way to put it. "Anyway she ended up a BlackGatomon instead of just a normal one."

That was somehow more confusing than anything that had happened to him, and he had just been brought mostly back to life. Concerned about that he carefully studied the man's face, and it appeared that he was completely honest. "Ah, did Gatomon take that well?" he carefully asked. The last BlackGatomon he had seen was the right hand minion of Piedmon. He was fairly sure a major reason Myotismon had kept Gatomon around was to match the more powerful dark digimon.

"I did actually, and that's all they need to know about that issue," his friend cut in with annoyance that honestly made the mage digimon feel better. He had seen her broken up over things too much in his recent memory. "I have in fact specifically avoided that particular bit of information."

"I don't get why they changed the food," the family's cat then complained as she strode into the room. "Everything has felt off since they started giving me that." She was rather loud about it, and that rather thoroughly interrupted the conversation.

"I didn't realize she could talk," Wizardmon said with a bit of confusion.

"She's being a bit mouthy for some reason," Susumu noted a bit oddly.

"That's an odd way to say it," he replied confused. "She's saying that it is the new food after all." Which simply got everyone, including the pet cat to stare at him.

"How did he know that?" the animal asked as if he couldn't understand her. "Not like I'm actually talking."

"But, you are," he said directly to her, wishing he knew her name. "Right now you just asked how I knew what you said, and it's because you said it."

The cat looked horrified by this. "Wait, I'm talking? Like actually with words like people talking?" she asked with clear worry.

"I can't understand her," Gatomon noted, but with a thoughtful tone. "Wait, the new food? Oh, I really hope it isn't what it might be."

"Wait, what might it be? Am I sick? I know I'm old but," the cat said in a rush.

"The only creatures I've encountered so far that talk but I can't understand are pokemon," his old friend continued clearly not hearing what the other cat was saying. "And the new food is for pokemon..."

The implication was fairly clear, although. "So, what exactly is a pokemon?" Wizardmon asked, and then flinched at the dark glare Gatomon gave him for needing to do so.

"You agreed to become one, and you didn't really understand what they are?" she asked darkly, before with a sigh she began to explain what she knew. From the sounds of things he would now be accompanied to his pending medical checkup by 'Miko', which turned out to be the pet cat's name.