- Sincere Conflict -

"I probably should still be in our actual office, unless you have visitors that can teleport themselves," Aiko said from atop a desk the Digidestined had setup for the receptionist next to the teleportation area.

"That doorway over there is connected to the door of your office," Izzy noted with a nod to the far end of the teleportation platform, where there was in fact a seemingly random door standing away from any walls.

"It apparently takes a bit more power, but it should be in the budget if we only do that during normal business hours," Kurou noted as the tech started to open the stack of crates the pair had just arrived alongside.

"We have a development," HackBiyomon said as she appeared in the Digidestined base suddenly. "The Digimon Emperor is being mind controlled, and has approached Upload to help break that control." The Hackware hybrid digimon then blinked at the sight of a Rock/Flying fossil pokemon she didn't recognize. "Digimon or pokemon?" she asked the other avian tiredly.

"Pokemon," Aiko answered uneasily. "I was here a couple of days ago," she added, and then blinked. "And I just realized that you asking that first question means I'm not actually a human right now, so you shouldn't actually be able to recognize me."

"Okay, do I want to know why you ended up turned into a pokemon just from taking a tour?" HackBiyomon sighed as she looked over the area. It was easy to see that they were in the process of bringing a lot of things into the base, and she could at least tell that these new adults they had found were apparently moving in.

"You probably need to, considering your group is the largest source of typed energy in our world," Izzy said from inside the cluster of boxes of electronics. "We ran into a problem with that and are scrambling to setup a system to find that stuff. I'm glad to finally have some help with that issue." Kurou looked over briefly from the paperwork on the new devices the tech was sorting through. "Now, what is going on with the Emperor?"

"The bad news is that he's personally hit Ultimate," the bird digimon replied sadly to the horror of the Digidestined. "The 'good' news is that he did it using enough Upload code to figure out that he was being controlled by an evil program," she added hatefully. "The worse news is that he ended up fused with that evil program. Better news is he actually left us scans of his new form to capture, so it looks like he is at least willing to work with us to fix that."

"Please tell me we aren't planning a three way fight where everyone is faking it," Izzy sighed to the partial confusion of the members of the MRT.

"I'm not sure he can fake it," HackBiyomon grumbled. "The scans he gave us were almost as bad as I started out, and Datamon custom made me to be just a minion."

"Uh," Izzy said at that uncomfortable statement, setting off the Upload digimon on a rant on that topic.


Mimi looked over the new team critically. Working with a pair of pokemon Coordinators had actually helped a lot with improving her knowledge of how to keep monsters in shape, and while her other friends didn't need as much advice on the fashion aspect of that, Amy and Ann had still known quite a bit about being ready to fight too. Along with her own understanding of digimon, that she knew for a fact were a lot less eager to fight than pokemon, she felt she could judge the effects of this war on the other Digidestined.

Davis and Davey were the most interesting pair. The former human now was another part time blob monster like herself, although his was a bit more permanent than her own situation, while the former digimon was now just as much a human as anyone from what she could see. The two of them seemed fine with how the fights were going, and although Davey seemed uneasy with training he still seemed determined to keep up.

Cody and Armadillomon barely counted among the digimon. Both of them seemed to be Ground typed pokemon more than anything, and pokemon took to combat really easily. Along with the capacity to digivolve the pair of armored brothers were the best adjusted of the group to their current threat, but Mimi was a bit concerned with the two of them finding enough fights afterward to keep up with a pokemon's desire to stay sharp.

Hawkmon sounded like he had more issues with the human side of things, and that made Yolei's odd interaction with fighting worse as she seemed to simultaneously hate not being able to stay human while also going all out with being a digimon. From the training sessions Mimi had watched so far the two Inoues were both throwing themselves into combat to get away from other problems, and the Digidestined of Sincerity did not really know how to stop that before it became another real problem for the pair.

Gatomon, Kari, and Wizardmon all worked well together. The Ghost pokemon was clearly working hard to deal with the sisters' issues on his own, and that helped a lot given how Kari apparently wasn't really a human or a digimon anymore. Mimi felt that wasn't as big of a problem as most of the team seemed to think, Kari included. The Human/BlackGatomon was still herself, and there really wasn't anything wrong with being both.

Which just left T.K., the one Mimi had just walked up to after a training session where he had attempted to work with both Patamon and a Sneasel. "Have you had a lot of time to work with both of them?" she asked casually while she took in the pokemon. Sneasel's coat was really well maintained, which from the response that got out of the judges meant that a pokemon wasn't fighting enough. It was the first thing that Amy and Ann had pointed out as a sign that the owner was likely making an attempt with a pet, and while there were good ones, like the guy who got second place in her first contest, generally it went away when you started seriously training the pokemon. Some marks of actual training couldn't be covered up, and usually you didn't even want to try unless it was to hide a move you wanted kept secret.

"Whenever they have time," the Dark/Ice type said a bit snidely, and Mimi flinched at how T.K. and Patamon both didn't seem to understand what the pokemon actually meant. Sneasel seemed to catch that small movement, and nodded sadly.

"We've been trying to do a little every couple of days," T.K. attempted to counter, with a bit of a dark look directed to the pokemon. "We're a bit busy."

"You know you can send him back, right?" she had to ask, well aware that he had just admitted to only providing a tiny amount of training. She knew better not just from her time in the pokemon world but also from being a pokemon herself. She had taken to working with Grimer at least three times a day to try and get him to the point that he could briefly visit her world without that being a chemical accident.

The question made that dark look focus on her instead. "Mr. Grim thinks I can handle it if I work a bit harder," the Digidestined of Hope complained. On his hat Patamon looked surprised about what she had asked, and the hopeful look Sneasel got was a bit heartbreaking for the Digidestined of Sincerity. "I would hate to prove such a knowledgeable Gym Leader wrong."

Mimi considered that argument, and then let out a loud huff. "A Gym Leader said so, someone who isn't even from our world?" she harshly questioned, and the young man in front of her looked a bit nervous. "Have you considered that maybe he doesn't know how things work in our world?"

"He knows T.K. still has school and has to help with the digital world," Patamon argued, and that might have been a good point before Mimi had to make five attempts just to get that same information across to her friends. She still didn't think she'd fully succeeded.

"He probably thinks T.K. can spend no less than an hour a day on working with Sneasel," she said firmly. "That is barely any time for a Trainer to work with a pokemon. I'm working with Grimer more than that, and I'm not trying to get the little guy combat ready." She then cringed at how easily the words 'combat ready' came out of her mouth, and could see all four of the older team that knew her mouth those same words.

"My mom and grandpa are doing a lot more than that," Cody agreed easily, and she could see the Sandslash was now glaring at T.K. "I had thought you were doing more with him at home." The Ground type seemed to actually be looking closely at the other pokemon now instead of just dismissing a weaker possible opponent. Mimi didn't like that habit some pokemon had because it meant thinking of everyone like they were something to fight, but Ann had claimed the bigger issue was when they ran into pokemon that were really good at looking weak when they actually weren't. Either way that showed that she probably had to point that issue out to the Sandslash, and possibly the rest of his family too.

T.K. looked uneasy now. "Every day?" he asked a touch regretfully, and Sneasel looked a bit surprised that his trainer had not actually realized that.

"Trainers usually end up traveling like we did the first time we ended up in the digimon world," Mimi explained seriously. "They spend all day working on training or walking from place to place." She sighed loudly. "If you can't manage at least a bit every day, then please be kind to Sneasel and let him find somebody who can."


Ken sacrificed a few vines painfully to Dark Tyranomon's charge. They grew back quickly and apparently more quickly than was normal for a Blossomon according to the other digimon, but it still was a loss he felt strongly. That only made him more determined to keep trying to train his combat abilities with the older dinosaur.

"Most digimon don't bother with this, Boss Man," she said as she gave him a moment to recover. "I can tell you now that you're already strong enough to take the average digimon without even noticing."

"The average digimon is a Rookie," he countered. "The Digidestined are able to field their own Ultimates now, and they must have access to fabrication energy as well." The red bug Digidestined showed the same metal-based energy that protected his own combat robots in her claw attacks, and the skull-mole had whipped up entire sandstorms from nothing that scythed through even those defenses. That same power let Dark Tyranomon fight at the level of an Ultimate, and he could even express concern about an Ultimate with that power out loud without his Spore programming complaining.

"Well that's something new to worry about," she complained. "I was already worried enough about whatever the giant snake thing was without that idea." The dinosaur then sized him up again with a deep frown, and glanced at the nearest camera system. "In that case we need you stronger. I'm probably not hitting Ultimate, and the Advisors have said 'no' to getting that upgrade, so if we need to equal that kind of firepower we're down to you." She stepped up to him and looked down to where he had attempted to recreate the snake monster's tripping vines. "I hate to brag about this, but I'm probably your best bet to teach you how to manipulate this stuff. It really likes my little combat touches, and most digimon never even attempt anything like those."

"Oh? You seem like the type to brag to me," Ken replied slyly.

"Heh, yeah, about being able to take digimon on," the digimon replied with a smirk. "But you don't actually tell them how you do it unless you want to lose the element of surprise and let them try too. Now, tell me what stuff you're doing now that is mostly the plant energy, and what ideas you have to use it for. We'll have to see if you can make that stuff do any of my tricks too."


Tai sighed as reviewed his own reports on the three current issues. Unless something had changed in the last half hour the digimon issue was basically stable until they found an excuse to take the Digi-Egg of Sincerity. The Past Life Incident was mostly concluded until he got a chance to go over future work in their world with the MRT lead, which was what he was doing next and why he made these reports. Which only left the pokemon world's digital Corruption issue.

Shawn and Serperior had kept a lid on that problem for years, which sounded fine until you read the recent report that those two were officially recognized as a godlike being by their world's other gods, and also got a lot of help from their own homemade digital gods to handle the majority of the day to day issues with Corruption. In practice the two of them mostly had just fought against creatures that generally didn't get stronger than a Rookie, but if they didn't destroy every last one of the Corruption then they absolutely needed to take victims to Delta 2 to clean out issues.

Tai had his own reports on issues Delta 2 had to deal with, his sister's condition one of the more extreme examples of their own problems that needed the Administrator's help. Corruption definitely looked worse given it was a far less controlled and typically more malicious change to the victim. Although TyranoGazimon had passed along her own report on how she was looking into making exposure safer to handle, or at least how to reduce the need to outright amputate heavily infected body parts. The odd digimon had a lot of details on how exactly the Corruption worked differently from digimon, and how that translated to side effects of being infected by them.

He wanted to have a very good plan for how to deal with exposure before he allowed any of the Digidestined to help directly with Corruption issues, and hopefully he could get Ryuuji to help him convince Jane that they needed to keep his team safer given how few people his world had available for their own problems.

"Is forgetting you're not human a common thing? Because I haven't seen Aiko as a human since she first tried that pendant," the leader of the MRT said as he walked into Tai's office.

"Everyone who was turned by that stone has said that they feel uncomfortable when they use those," Tai explained with a sigh. "We're looking at alternatives, and we have plenty to choose from, but until we find a good one they are just going to be using the pendants when they actually need to." He looked at the government worker sympathetically. "I'm sorry things went that badly."

Ryuuji blinked at that statement and continued to move to sit in the chair across from Tai's desk. "We just successfully took down a madwoman who wanted to turn everyone into rock monsters," the MRT leader said seriously. "I can honestly say that the Monster Response Team has actually handled a monster related incident, the people who were hurt by this are getting actual treatment to fix things, and we got everything handled within days of discovering that the issue existed." The older man had fairly confused look. "I honestly can say this is the best result the MRT expected from this kind of problem."

"A fifth of the MRT was turned into monsters," Tai argued lightly. He could see the point, but it still had been an unexpected and unwelcome complication to an already complicated situation.

"Like having a boss again," Ryuuji muttered just a bit too loudly before properly replying. "We have an update about what the police were able to find in the place. She had the address for our office and a few drafts of what look like speeches to psych up her followers for an attack. From what we've heard from them those probably wouldn't have worked, unless I had decided to send Aiko back on her own. Then they might have thought they had actually been attacked."

Tai stared at that explanation. "We need those scanners up yesterday," he grumbled, and the flinched. "And I do not mean that literally."

"Uh, I didn't think you did?" the MRT leader said nervously.

"We've met the pokemon god of time's brother, I have been rather strongly advised not to ask for help with time travel just in case," Tai gave for his own little horror story. "The Hida family has actually ended up traveling through time a couple of times."

"Please tell me we don't have to worry about Dialga showing up," HackBiyomon suddenly cut in from the doorway. "I have enough bad news to deliver without time travel," the Upload digimon sighed looking far too tired. "The Emperor is being mind controlled, and it's bad."


"So, worst case scenario this is going to be a three way fight where everyone is faking it," Tai said as he gathered most of the Digidestined and MRT around the main digimon world map Izzy used to track events. They were going to move that to a proper control room, but this space was large enough for briefings. "More likely a serious battle against the Emperor's Control Spire constructs while also fending off Hackware." He selected one of the squares, and the various updates to the system caused this to produce a reasonably accurate map of the terrain at the location. "Now, as far as we're actually concerned the only thing that matters is getting the Digi-Egg of Sincerity."

"The Egg is being moved as part of an attempt to reduce the level of mind control Myotismon has over the Digimon Emperor," Sora explained. She had gone over Upload's plan in detail with her sister beforehand, and Tai felt she could better explain their goals. "Upload plans to make a false attempt to trap the Emperor that performs the desired work while we distract both sides enough to justify his escape when we grab the Digi-Egg."

"The Emperor is aware of this plan and preparing for it himself, specifically preparing to get the treatment as he's been in communication with Upload to try and remove the mind control now that he knows it s there," Tai explained to alleviate the general confusion they had accidentally produced so far. "We do not know what forces he's going to be bringing or how they are going to fight, and we do know that there will be other dark forces monitoring the attack so we have to at least make it look real."

"I'm going right?" Mimi asked strongly. The Digidestined of Sincerity had apparently just gotten into a heated discussion with T.K., and clearly wanted to actively help with getting the Digi-Egg matching her Crest. "Joe has agreed to watch Grimer, and he will do a good job," she said with a bit of a glare at the otter monster.

"Yes, I want at least one of the older Digidestined on every mission from now on," Tai noted unhappily. "Yes, T.K., I know you and Kari have Crests too," he added as the already upset Digidestined of Hope appeared ready to complain. "I'm counting on Kari to give us two Ultimates at once, and I'm sorry but you and Patamon have the problem of actually being too dangerous. From what I've heard about MagnaAngemon his big improvement over regular Angemon is an attack that basically kills anything if it hits. Right now we have the major problem of too many enemies we don't want to kill, and I'll admit that's actually a new one for us." Everyone looked at T.K. and Patamon with a bit of unease at that clarification.

"So we're mostly there if things go so bad we do need to kill someone?" Patamon asked while his partner collected himself. T.K. actually looked pale and horrified, and Tai wished that he had phrased that better.

"And so we can always surprise our enemies with a third Ultimate before we need to send reinforcements," Tai agreed. The statement seemed to calm T.K. down a bit, but his pokemon now looked worried. Shawn and Serperior had been outright pulled from anything but reinforcement duty after the discovery that the Corruption problem was not being handled as well as it could be, but Izzy said that punching into the digimon world was still easy enough that they could get the others there without help from DSS.

"When are they planning on moving the Digi-Egg?" Davis asked thoughtfully. "And is the attack right when that happens or after a while?"

"The day after tomorrow, they need some time to get the transport equipment setup and to coordinate with both us and the Emperor," Tai answered, relieved to have the shift in topic. "We have some time to prepare, and I want to get the MRT started on working with us on this."

"That also gives us time just in case there are more of those energy crystals in our world," Kurou Ogawa cut in, and Tai looked at the man seriously for the comment. "We've got the gear here now, and can probably rush out a basic scan today," the new tech continued with a tone that told Tai he mostly wanted to play with new toys, but the leader of the Digidestined had to admit that was a point.

"I want that gear set up properly, not just a rush job," Tai warned the tech. "Jane has already said her team will be available for issues in our world, including some of her police officers with pokemon of their own, so this mission won't impact our ability to respond to any more of those we find. According to the reports it should take weeks for those to form, and that's with assistance from someone connected to pokemon. People like that are hopefully rare."

"We've already found a couple in the city so far out of just a few people," Joe noted unhappily. "It is something we really need to worry about." Everyone still had to take a moment to consider how much more important that sounded given Joe was a pokemon himself as he said it.


Mimi quickly smashed a HackShurimon hard enough to knock the Artificial Sincerity out of the Worm. She shifted an eye to look over at Togemon's attempt to look like they were struggling with getting to the Digi-Egg. Her sister was having a rough time, but was actually doing better at faking the fight than the other Digidestined, who had nearly reached the large crystal container Upload was using more and more forces to protect.

The plan was already going very wrong. The Emperor had decided to travel with his Dark Tyranomon, and unfortunately the two of them were much slower at breaking through Upload's lines than they had expected. So they needed to not take the Digi-Egg until he got there, or the Emperor wouldn't have any reason to still keep coming to attack this group of Hackware, but they also couldn't obviously stop trying either.

Mimi flowed closer to where the Dark forces would be arriving and turned back into a human when she got close to a strange crystal bush-thing that had odd polygonal fruit on it. "This sucks," she complained aloud as she tried to spot the approaching 'enemies'. She was easily able to stay there at the edge of the fight for quite a while, Upload had used their assault as an excuse to halt their progress, and watch as her friends ended up tired and frustrated from the delay. Davis was doing a really good job of ordering the others to places where Upload had sent good sized reinforcements in a way that looked like he was just distracting them from outright succeeding.

When the familiar looking dinosaur and a large collection of vines and flowers finally arrived she was about ready to try and get into the fight a bit herself just for something useful to do. Dark Tyranomon was a sad sight in her opinion, as she could see how this was the sister of the digimon she had failed to save in the human world during Myotismon's invasion. The black scaled digimon caught sight of her, and the deep frown that resulted made Mimi scamper back towards the others. This digimon had clear rage filled eyes, unlike the other Dark Tyranomon she had briefly met who compared to this one she could now very clearly tell had been mind controlled.

"Togemon, I think we need more power!" she shouted to her sister and got the crystal out.

"Now wait a second," Dark Tyranomon rumbled from far too close behind her. "I don't need actual opponents." Mimi was already fluid by the time the large claws attempted to grab her. "Gah! What the hell?" the digimon asked and drew back a claw now splattered with a bit of her toxic and caustic body. "I thought you were the dress girl, not a pile of poison!"

The digital dinosaur roared in pain next, Mimi was quite happy to see that the glob of sludge she had slung in response to that attempted insult managed to hit an eye. "Togemon!" she called out again and cringed a bit at how she didn't have time to keep her trail from being coated with powerful toxic remains. She could just barely see both of the newly arrived foes look at the splatters with a similar reaction to what Upload had apparently had at the sight of Cody's pokemon form.


Ken glared at the battlefield unhappily. They were late, and it was clear to him that the Digidestined were about ready to abandon cooperation in this attempt in favor of securing their objective. The girl at the edge was apparently able to become a toxic monster like a Raremon, only with a stronger lingering poison due to the fabrication energy they were using. Then the massive cactus Champion turned into a smaller flying flower Ultimate, and Ken realized why Dark Tyranomon had been so adamant about trying to stop that particular shape shifter. Dark Tyranomon's first attempts to swat the fairy-flower digimon out of the air failed due to the blob Digidestined continuing to harass her enough to keep her ranged attacks from connecting.

Upload clearly was just as tired of the charade, and from the looks of things his delay might have made them a bit less willing to accept he was after help. They wasted no time in using the Digidestined's new heavy hitter to distract his minion, and then quickly moved to try and capture him at the expense of abandoning control of the large polygonal vehicle they were using to transport the Digi-Egg. The good news was that it looked like they had planned this as a trap for him with sufficient bait, and that the Digidestined had ruined that by finding out themselves. It wasn't quite what they had planned on, but he could definitely report it as that now.

Crystal-like barriers quickly closed around him, and after a couple of attempts to shatter them he realized that they were using something big as a power source. The chatter among the Hackware was informative on what the combat was like outside of his new box, but the two hybrids he could see weren't talking and the Digidestined were just using him as a distraction for their own goals. The barriers were layered, and while he could smash individual pieces easily, even a rapid raking of multiple vines across the shell wasn't quite enough.

"Get ready, this is never pleasant," one of the hybrids suddenly said to him with a tone like it was just a visit to the dentist rather than an attempt to rework his mind. "Hopefully you didn't end up needing something 'experimental'" the hybrid then complained mostly to himself and Ken had to wonder if they actually were used to this sort of problem.

Ken found that the Upload's warning was not actually merited, and that was far more frightening to the Digimon Emperor. The touch to his mind felt light and calm compared to the discomfort just from being aware of his orders while also being their target. "You are quite the mess," a new voice said with a sinister tone. "It is as if your mind's protections from this sort of attack have been reversed, welcoming invasion and attacking willpower. I shall work to correct that first, no need to leave you open to repeat assault."

The voice made good on that promise, and the Blossomon was unhappy to discover that after that "fix" he no longer needed to fake struggling to escape. Whoever was doing this to him continued giving what might have been a helpful explanation of what exactly was happening, but the dull throb made it difficult to concentrate his thoughts on it. He was barely able to confirm that his now more mechanical mind recorded the one sided conversation so he could try and puzzle it out later, but otherwise he simply made a very real attempt to get out of this prison.

He lost track of the battle outside entirely at that point, and it wasn't until Dark Tyranomon's fist came through the other side of the barriers that it became relevant again. "We are not trying this again, Boss Man!" she roared and Ken found himself drug out of the circle and then teleported away.

"Did you get the Egg?" he asked with annoyance as Arukenimon and Mummymon looked the pair of them over at the arrival point of his base.

"Barely got you out of there, Boss Man," she replied tiredly. "It was a trap, they practically let the Digidestined have the thing as soon as you were caught." Now that he had time he could see some light burns from both acid and from a beam weapon of some kind on her hide. "Only good news is we didn't waste any of the disposable minions on that." He managed to glare at her for that sarcastic remark.

They went over things his so called 'advisors' asked about the attack quickly, and he was both relieved and angry that the pair were happy he had failed to get the Digi-Egg so he didn't have another distraction from their own plan. He quickly discovered a prompt inside his mind to help him complete his deception a bit more clearly, and that he could now more easily deceive them despite the few small orders Arukenimon sent to the part of him that was the Dark Spore.

After those two left he made his way to their makeshift medical area alongside his minion, and found Wormmon ready to yell at him there. Ken also discovered that he had not just received an attempt at removing his mind control as he was able to quickly scan this part of his base for active monitoring systems. "It worked, but I have to apologize to Dark Tyranomon," he said before his partner could start.

"So you aren't just being controlled by two groups now?" the insect digimon grumbled and handed him a restoration crystal.

"I think half the reason they wanted to help me is just to have someone new to experiment on," he explained with a frown. "They are definitely not safe to leave loose."

"So you're free then?" Dark Tyranomon asked with a grumble that said she was still angry with him about this entire endeavor. "Because I'd really like to be able to kick those two assholes out of our base."

"No," the Blossomon grumbled and harshly shattered the gemstone for its energy. "I can manipulate the orders a lot more, but I still need to make at least an attempt, and if they decide to start being blunt then I'll have more problems with any attempts."

"You aren't doing that again," both of his actual allies said at once, Wormmon angrily and Dark Tyranomon dryly.

"No, I think I have enough slack now to cut myself free," Ken agreed with multiple smiles. "Then," he said before thinking about it, and paused to realize that he could think of farther ahead again. That his orders weren't so tight that he could only live in the moment, too restricted from confronting just what his 'Empire' was.

"I've been moving our loyal digimon to a fairly well defended area we conquered," the digital dinosaur noted with false idleness. "Made sure there were enough factories and resources there for us to at least hold that area when we fall back."

Ken and Wormmon both stared at her. He slowly realized the implication that she wasn't the only digimon that had willingly sided with him. She had said she was gathering more of them before, but with the idea stuck in his head that it was just a game that had not really seemed different from having enslaved digimon. Now it presented the very real issue that some of those digimon might want him to keep being Emperor despite everything.


"I think I got too into that fight," Mimi noted once they all were back. The Muk was slightly smaller than she started, and Joe had quickly confirmed that it was typical for one of those toxic pokemon that had been in a long battle. "I should be fine with... Actually we might need to get me some things that aren't usually sold as food, and you probably don't need to hear about it," she explained in a tone that grew embarrassed as she realized what she needed.

"Delta 2 said that flammable liquids are something I should try to drink if I wear myself out and stay a Flamedramon," Davis said curiously. Then given he currently was a Flamedramon that had worn himself out he looked over his own mass. "Actually, can you help with that? I think I lost a bit of mass too."

"I don't suppose you know a good metal polish?" Yolei asked, and then blinked at her own question. Hawkmon glared at her a bit. "I could be asking for Mantarou!" the Flybeemon complained to her other brother.

"Momoe asked you to be a digimon for dinner tonight," Hawkmon bluntly replied. "And last I knew was trying to get both Chizuru and our father to see what they would be too," he added, and everyone could see both the Inoues react with a bit of surprise at his use of 'our father'.

"Okay, I didn't know she asked dad," the metal insect said a bit uneasily. She then looked over at Mimi with a bit of desperation. "I know you've been working with pokemon fashion, can you help make sure I look nice for this?" Yolei had several notable scratches in her armored shell, and a few places where dirt had become embedded deeply in rough metal.

"We're testing if you clean up by turning back and forth first," Mimi said as she looked over each member of the team to judge how they fared. Everyone was dirty and tired, and no one had turned back to normal just yet, Lillymon included. None of them were really calmed down enough to change back yet. "If that doesn't help then we can try things, but we're going to be careful. You aren't a pokemon, and I don't have a Steel type."

"Should we test if she's immune to poison first?" Joe grumbled around a Pecha berry from the edge of the group, where he was coated with purple goo from an overeager Grimer that had wanted to play.

"Didn't we already do that when she got the claws?" Gomamon asked from underneath the smallest blob monster present. "I thought Delta 2 was mad that she was."

"Well, that makes it a little easier," Mimi noted to Yolei's growing horror. "Although I might need some more unusual cleaning supplies."