Hello everyone, and welcome back!

So, the chapter today is going to be pretty interesting.

You'll see why soon enough.

I won't say anymore, so enjoy.


A Dangerous Game! Cruel Puppetmon!


The sound of rushing water filled the area as the oceans, once controlled by MetalSeadramon, receded from Spiral Mountain, the Dark Master no longer holding power over it. However, that was the farthest from any of the chosens' minds as they were busy paying respects in front of a pair of makeshift graves they'd set up.

"I hope Piximon and Whamon manage to find peace after we defeat the other three Dark Masters." Gyro said after finishing his prayer.

"They gave their lives to help us. The only thing we can do now is make sure they didn't die in vain," Ruby said with a sad but determined expression.

"We should go soon too. The last thing we want is to be caught out in the open," Jaune said softly, looking at the graves one last time.

"Right," the others nodded as they soon made their way into the forest. Once they reached the woodlands, it wasn't long before it started to become thicker.

"Hm...if the seas were MetalSeadramon's, who controls the forest?" Patamon frowned.

"That would be Puppetmon," Chuumon supplied. "He rules the forests, while Machinedramon rules the city, leaving the wasteland and the powers of Darkness to Piedmon."

"Wonder if we'll ever find a place to rest here," Pierce sighed. "We've been doing well so far, but if we have to keep going non-stop…"

"Yeah...we'll burn ourselves out. MetalSeadramon was tiring enough alone…" Veemon nodded with a sigh.

At that, they continued on, hoping to find some time to rest… before noticing something strange. "Uh… is it just me, or is the scenery moving by really fast?" Nora wondered as she looked at the surrounding area.

Everyone blinked at her question, before looking around as they slowed down, then stopped moving… and the scenery was STILL rolling past them quickly.

"Um… that's not normal, even in our world." Salamon said after a moment.

"Neither is the fact we're standing on some kind of travelator built into the ground!" Gyro added as he had looked down and noticed the ground under their feet moving forward.

"This has got to be Puppetmon's doing!" Weiss shouted, remembering how childish that particular one seemed to be.

"Whatever the case, we shouldn't let him bring us to him! Jump!" Yang shouted, which they did...only for the section they jumped on to start moving as well.

"Okay, that didn't work!" Nora shouted. "Any other ideas?!"

"The trees! Get on the trees!" Blake said quickly, before they all grabbed hold of and climbed into the trees. The ground/travelator continued to move for a while, before finally stopping.

"It...stopped?" Pyrrha said with a frown.

"Either it was weight sensitive, or Puppetmon was controlling that…" Ren sighed. "It's possible he has a different approach compared to MetalSeadramon for how he controls his territory."


At the same time…

"Come on, where are they?" Puppetmon muttered as he stood in front of a TV, pressing the button on the remote and changing channels constantly, though instead of TV shows, it was various shots of the forest.

"Perhaps they aren't on the ground anymore sir?" A Kiwimon suggested, Puppetmon looking over at him, before glancing back at the TV.

"Hmm… that's possible yeah." Puppetmon said, before continuing to change channels, though now they showed high areas. "There they are!" he said, seeing them all in the trees. "Hm...this gives me an idea!" he grinned as he rummaged through a nearby toy box and pulled out a small chest with a set of dolls made in the image of the 10 Chosen and their Digimon. "Let's play a new game!" Puppetmon grinned as he looked to the floor...which was covered in a mat that was styled like the forest area he ruled. With that in mind, he placed the dolls in the spot the chosen in real life were on. Then the 'fun' began.


"Okay, so assuming he knows we're here...how do we counter that?" Salamon asked.

"There's gotta be some kind of blind spot…" Wormmon frowned.

"The question is, how do we fi-" Weiss was in the middle of saying before she suddenly vanished.

"What the?!" Jaune gasped before he suddenly vanished too.

"Okay, who has the b-" Gyro was cut off from his angry shout as he too vanished.

"What's going on?!" Koromon gasped in alarm.

"Its gotta b-" Tentomon started before he too vanished.

"Oh great, us too?!" Veemon said in annoyance before he vanished as well, quickly followed by Pierce.

"...here we go again…" Blake sighed, before she vanished, followed by everyone as well suddenly vanishing and reappearing, to the point it was like someone was shuffling them like a deck of cards.

"Well… this is an odd group." Pierce said as he had landed in a bush, and with him were Blake, Koromon and Salamon.

"Let's just hope we don't have to fight anyone too strong…" Koromon sighed.

"I wonder where everyone else ended up…" Salamon added.

"They should be fine...but this...could be a big problem…" Blake said as she looked around. No sign of the others near here at the moments.

Before anyone else could speak though, Blake was replaced by Ren, who wobbled a bit at his sudden displacement, before Koromon was then replaced with Tentomon.

"Ok, this is a bit silly right now." Tentomon said.

In another area…

"Gyro, evolve me quick!" Koromon said suddenly as he noticed Gyro was hanging from a tree.

One flash of light later and Agumon was standing there before Gyro was replaced by Jaune.

He had time to notice that Veemon was there, before the blue dinosaur was replaced by Biyomon "I found Yang for 5 seconds before she disappeared."

"Similar case here." Agumon said, before Ruby replaced whoever the fourth person was, not having had time to see who exactly they were.


Back at Puppetmon's base…

"You go here! And you go there! And you two go over there!" Puppetmon said in a singing tone as he kept shifting everyone around on his play mat which covered the whole floor.

He'd noticed how the Digimon that were in Baby form had turned back into Child, but didn't pay it much mind, it wasn't like they could hurt him right now after all. "This is so much fun!" he laughed as he started juggling several dolls, which happened to be the dolls for Gyro, Agumon, Yang, Biyomon, Jaune and Gomamon.

"I think I'm gonna be sick!" came Jaune's voice from the television, as the hapless six were being juggled in the air too, Jaune going green from air sickness, much to Puppetmon's amusement.

"Sir? Puppetmon sir?" Kiwimon spoke up.

"Yeah?" Puppetmon asked, abruptly stopping with his juggling...which sent the 6 dolls flying into a corner of the room, sending the six on the TV flying in that direction as well.

"Sorry to bother you, but we just received word that an 'odd disturbance' was picked up near Area R-51," Kiwimon reported.

"Oh? Well, go tell the Woodmon division of the Wind Guardians to check it out. If it's actually interesting, then let me know," Puppetmon said, waving Kiwimon off, who bowed and did as he was told. With him gone, Puppetmon looked at the mat again and realized what had happened to six of the dolls. "Aww...guess I can't play with them anymore," he said before shrugging. "Oh well," and continued toying with the remaining dolls. He switched the feed a few times, before stopping on one of the chosen children. The one with the stoic face. "Why's his face so serious all the time?" Puppetmon muttered with a raised brow, before grinning with an idea "I know, I'll make him smile! And if I do, he could become my friend and we could play stuff like cops and robbers together!" he grinned. "But first…" he quickly shuffled several of the dolls around again first before leaving his house.


"Glad that's over…" Ren sighed, feeling a little dizzy from all the switching. "So...where'd I end up now?" he blinked as he started to look around. So far it seemed whatever was shuffling them around had decided to stop...for now anyway.

He turned to the side as he heard someone hurl, before seeing Nora with her head in the bushes, walking up to her and patting her back "Upside down too many times?"

"Yeah…" Nora said from inside the bush "... I puked on my hands a bit."

Ren simply sighed before fishing out some tissue paper from his pouch, Nora's hand darting out and grabbing it before pulling it back into the bush.

After a few more moments… "Thanks…" Nora sighed.

"No problem," Ren smiled a little, before going back to being serious. "So...I don't suppose you've seen the others…" he frowned.

"Nope. We've been tossed all over the place I don't even know where in the forest we are," Nora shook her head.

"Well...looks like Puppetmon stopped whatever he was doing to cause this. The question is why?"

"Nothing good, probably," Nora nodded in agreement. It wasn't a stretch for them to figure out that Puppetmon had something to do with what had been happening. He DID rule this area after all.

"I found you~" Puppetmon's voice sang out from everywhere around them, the two drawing out their weapons and standing back to back as they looked around warily. The sound seemed to echo around them, forcing them to look all over...before he was suddenly there, having somehow gotten close without them noticing. The moment they saw him, they had their weapons leveled at him.

"Huh, those look pretty cool." Puppetmon said idly as he eyed their weapons "Here's mine!" He said as he pulled his hammer out from… somewhere, and actually swung it towards them.

...Except it was stopped in the air, and he actually recoiled back, when it collided with Nora's hammer "What? How did you do that?"

"Chrome Digizoid, duh." Nora said, rolling her eyes at him.

Puppetmon grumbled under his breath at that "I knew I should have gotten some for my hammer."

"Okay...so what are you here for? Decided to single us out?" Ren frowned deeply.

In response, Puppetmon pointed at Ren "You're going to play with me."

Both hunters blinked at his response, actually checking to see if their ears were clear and if they heard him correctly. "What the hell?" Nora questioned in confusion.

"Shut up, I'm not talking to you." Puppetmon said simply as he threw a ball of red… something at her, which exploded when it hit her and wrapped around her, trying her up, and even covering her mouth.

"Nora!" Ren shouted in alarm, before pointing Storm Flower at the Dark Master. "Let her go now or else…!" he threatened.

Puppetmon tilted his head at him "Or else what? I'm an Ultimate Level you know, you probably can't hurt me," he said, before adding smugly, "And on that note, I can't guarantee her safety if you don't listen to me."

Ren grit his teeth as he glared at the Dark Master, before putting away Storm Flower "Fine." was all he said.

"Great! Come on, let's go to my house and play. Today's game is cops and robbers. You can use your guns, or this one," Puppetmon said, before tossing him a submachine gun.

Ren caught it silently, only being slightly surprised at the actual weight, making him realise he was being given a real gun. "Its real," he said flatly.

"Of course! It's more fun when you might die for real!" Puppetmon laughed.

Ren maintained a straight face with much difficulty. It was clear that Puppetmon was just as, if not more, deranged than MetalSeadramon, though while the sea serpent had a more straightforward vicious side, Puppetmon had a more psychotically childish personality. "I see," he said simply, and when the Dark Master turned to leave, he could only give Nora a reassuring look before he followed after.

Nora tried to say something, anything, but the stuff binding her stopped her from doing that much. However, she knew she couldn't just do nothing. With that in mind, she soon rolled till she was on her belly, then started slowly inchworming to the forest. She had to find the others and tell them what happened.


Ren had been mildly curious as to where he was being taken, and thus he soon got his answer when Puppetmon brought him to a sizeable two story house that somehow reminded him like something out of a children's book. However, he knew it would be anything but. Especially with an owner like Puppetmon.

"So…" Ren started lowly as he followed Puppetmon before they ended up in a living room "Who's the robber?"

"You are, silly! Because cops have these!" Puppetmon explained before pulling a magnum out of somewhere.

"I see." was all Ren said as he gripped the weapon in his hands, a part of him wondering how idiotic Puppetmon was to give him a weapon with more ammunition than his own. Then again, the next question was how effective it would actually be on the Ultimate level Digimon, but he supposed something was better than nothing. Besides, a game like cops and robbers was a game pretty much anyone knew how to play...and that meant he just had to play smart. "Fine then," he said, before he darted off.

"Now we're cooking!" Puppetmon laughed as he soon gave chase, loading his weapon as he ran.

The chase that followed was rather intense. Whenever Puppetmon came close, he didn't hesitate to use the magnum to shoot him. However, when he found a good opening, Ren would counter using the submachine gun. He figured he might as well save his own bullets for now. On one hand he felt like he was holding his own pretty well. On the other hand…. "Hahahahah! This is really fun!" ….it seemed he was making the deranged marionette VERY happy.

Ren kept on running for several minutes more, eventually coming up on a room that was dimly lit, and in it were two Digimon, one shaped like a mushroom, the other like a flower with a row of sharp teeth, the two of them turning to him in surprise as they were playing cards.

Ren blinked in confusion, before shrugging it off as he ran in between a pair of shelves, giving a glare to the two Digimon that made the two look away quickly and understand the message.

Don't talk, or you'll be hurting.

However, a few moments later, Puppetmon came in. "Hey, did you see where my new playmate ran off to?" he asked.

"Oh, that scary guy? He's over by the shelves," the mushroom said.

"Right," Puppetmon grinned.

He walked towards the shelves, the floor creaking beneath him, it was too bad the game was over already, it had been fun while it lasted.

When he was just next to the shelves, he actually giggled a bit, before suddenly stepping in front of the space between, his weapon aimed at… nothing.

Puppetmon blinked several times in confusion.

"Huh?" Puppetmon oh so eloquently said, before turning to the two Digimon "Hey… he's not here."

"That can't be right. We just saw him go in," the flower with teeth said.

"Liars!" Puppetmon glared, before aiming his weapon and pulling the trigger at them, killing them instantly.

Puppetmon grumbled as he watched their data disperse, not even bothering to load it, before stomping out of the room.

A few seconds passed, before Ren stepped back out from the space between the two shelves, letting out a shaky breath, glaring ahead at the doors where he last saw Puppetmon.

He was glad his semblance had, surprisingly, managed to evolve further, leaving him capable of practically hiding in plain sight as it now seemed to affect the sight of others, making it so they didn't notice him, having proven helpful many times in the Digital World before.

But what he just saw right now, it angered him, to see someone kill off their subordinates for simply being wrong. Not just that, the sheer ease that Puppetmon did it at that...not even Myotismon was so bad as to kill his own subordinates for no reason. "I've got to get out of here, AND find a way to stop him from being able to control the forest," he frowned, as he activated his Semblance again, his body actually greying out. If it had evolved thanks to all the dangers he'd been in lately, then this could be his key to finding some information that could help the group.

With that, he started investigating the house, carefully going from room to room. So far the rooms seemed to alternate between the happy dreams of a child...and the happy dreams of a torturer/executioner, what with the rooms full of either toys or weapons. Of course, he soon realized that this was DEFINITELY an executioner's happy dream when he accidentally stepped on a toy that someone left in the hall, only for it to walk away for a bit...then promptly explode.

Unsurprisingly, that drew Puppetmon's attention, but he was quick to find a spot to hide, even with his Semblance on. After a few minutes of Puppetmon's futile searching, the confused Ultimate eventually went away, leaving Ren to be able to continue his little investigation. Another thing he seemed to notice was that there was basically nobody else in the mansion, a part of him getting uncomfortable implications considering what he'd seen so far. He HOPED the empty house was because most of the Digimon were smart enough to stay the hell away, but…

Shaking his head, he continued on, until he found a particular room. It was a room with a window, and what appeared to be another chest of toys.

What really drew his attention though was the play mat on the floor with small figures of all his friends… well, most of them. Gyro, Agumon, Yang, Biyomon, Jaune and Gomamon weren't anywhere from what he could see.

"What's this?" he frowned, looking closer.

"I think they might be how Puppetmon was moving us around," came Wormmon's voice from behind the toybox.

Ren simply blinked in slight surprise as his partner crawled out from behind the box, before offering his arm to climb on "Here, you might want to be in the range of my semblance."

Wormmon nodded, before climbing up to Ren's shoulder, his body becoming grayed out like his partner's own.

While everyone else had a harder time noticing Ren when his semblance was active, Wormmon could still see him clear as day, most likely because of their bond.

"Glad to see you're here, but how did you get here?" Ren asked.

"Well...I kinda saw you following Puppetmon earlier, so I followed. It was lucky that he didn't notice that he'd put me not far from the path you took, so yeah. I crawled into this room, and hid here every time I thought I heard someone get closer, but I at least figured out how he's been messing things up for us," Wormmon said, before gesturing to the mat, the dolls, AND the tv. "He uses that remote to control the various sections of the forest. I managed to trigger it in a way that I brought everyone back together...everyone except Gyro, Agumon, Jaune, Gomamon, Yang, and Biyomon. I couldn't find them anywhere in the forest, and their dolls aren't on the mat either…"

"That's...worrying," Ren admitted. "But more importantly, we can't let him keep using this or we'll never be able to counter attack."

"I thought the same, so I figured we should destroy these things," Wormmon said.

"Yeah, I agree. He should be far away enough that he won't notice so…" Ren turned to the mat, and started ripping out sections of it, while also taking the dolls away for good measure. At the same time, Wormmon picked up the remote and threw it into the tv, smashing the screen while Ren shot it with his weapon a few times for good measure.

"Now let's get out of here," Wormmon said, earning a nod from his partner as they both jumped out the window, and soon ran back into the forest.

Back in the house, Puppetmon was searching for his new playmate for a while...until he noticed one room door ajar. "Aha, there you are," he smirked, before going into the room, gun pointing...only to find that it was his control room with the playmat torn apart, the tv smashed, the remote destroyed, and generally the room had become a mess. "...so that's how it is…" he frowned when he finally realized what had happened, looking at the remains of his stuff. He looked out of the window, no doubt where they had run off with what could only be called cold anger in his eyes.


"We gotta hurry!" Nora said urgently as the rest of the group save the six who had been thrown into the air a while back, ran through the forest. After the group suddenly found themselves reunited due to conveniently moving ground, Nora was quick to tell them of what happened after she was freed, and the group was understandably worried. The idea that one of their own was with one of the Dark Masters….competent or not, that was going to be VERY dangerous.

The chase… barely had time to start "Everyone!" they all heard, making them turn to see Ren running up to them, his semblance long since deactivated.

"Oh thank Oum." Pierce breathed out in relief as they went up to him, Nora tackling him into a hug and almost sending him crashing to the ground.

"I'm glad to see you guys too," Ren couldn't help but chuckle from Nora's tackle hug.

"We managed to get away from Puppetmon, and good news, we destroyed how he was controlling us and the area," Wormmon spoke up from his spot on Ren's back.

"That's good, we've got a bit more freedom now… though…" Ruby frowned as she looked around "We're still missing a few."

"Well, he was using these to control us." Ren said as Wormmon passed him a small figure of himself "But I couldn't see the figures of the others, so it's possible he did something to them that put them further away."

"That's...not good at all. And you don't have any idea where they might be, do you?" Tentomon frowned.

Ren and Wormmon shook their heads.

"Didn't think so…" Palmon sighed.

"...so, what now?" Blake asked, turning to Ruby.

"I… I'm not sure." Ruby admitted with a frown "Maybe… we look for the others first? See if we can't find them?"

"About as good a plan as any right now," Patamon nodded. Search they did, going through the forest, while being careful to avoid being seen as much as possible. Never know who could be working for the Dark Masters after all. However…

"Hey...does anyone feel like we're being watched?" Weiss frowned.

"Yeah...and did anyone see something out of the corner of their eyes?" Salamon asked.

"Now that you mention it…" Ren frowned. I think I did see something in white out of the corner of my eye earlier."

"You too? I thought I was seeing things," Ruby said.

"Hey, I think I saw it too," Blake nodded.

"That...can't be a coincidence," Wormmon said.

"Do...you think it's an enemy?" Nora asked.

"We should be on our guard in case it is." Pyrrha said as she glanced around.

"Uh...guys…?" Gabumon said slowly, before pointing in a direction. Everyone looked at the direction he was pointing...before they saw what appeared to be the ghostly figure of a human woman among the trees. Somehow they could make out a small smile, and a 'come here' gesture before she seemed to float away.

There was silence amongst the group for several moments after that, before it was broken by Veemon "So… we all saw that… right?"

"I… I think we did." Pierce said after a moment.

"So uh….do we...follow it?" Palmon asked.

"...call me crazy, but somehow I think we should. And yes, every fiber of my brain is screaming 'NOOO!' at me right now," Blake sighed. "Anyone else feeling like that?"

Surprisingly...everyone was feeling the same.

"...okay, so either we're all instinctively knowing something...or we're under some kind of trick…" Ren frowned.

"Well...only one way to find out I guess," Ruby said, before slowly walking to where they saw the woman.

They kept following after the woman for several minutes, until eventually, the reached a rather large tree in the forest that was obviously hollow judging by the hole in the middle of it at the bottom, though as soon as the woman went into the hole, it started to glow.

"Ok… that's… something." Ruby said in confusion.

"So… whoever that woman was, she wants us to go in there… and it'll probably take us someplace else." Weiss deduced, honestly, it was pretty obvious if you thought about it a little.

"So...do we go in?" Patamon asked.

"...we might as well I think…" Salamon frowned, sounding unsure.

"...on three?" Veemon said.

"On three," they all nodded.

"One…"

"Two…."

"Three!" At that the group jumped into the portal.

They didn't know what to expect at first when the light faded from their eyes, but a white circular room probably wasn't one of those things.

The room was rather simple in appearance, though standing in the middle was a small pillar with several computer screens jutting out of it, a desk surrounding it with several keyboards on it, holographic screen floating above the keyboards, and slightly behind the group was small blue platform with the word EXIT written on it.

"What… what is this place?" Weiss voiced everyone's thoughts.

"Welcome, Chosen Children, to the Digilab." a woman's voice said as it's owner stepped around the pillar of computer screens.

The woman was decently tall, with short lavender hair that reached her neck, and lavender eyes behind a pair of glasses, wearing a white blouse, the arms and chest of it visible as over it she wore a sort of black dress and a pair of black pants underneath the dress, with lavender colors boots that reached to just underneath her knees, a clipboard in one of her hands.

"Um… who are you?" Ruby asked, not expecting to see another human here, well, what appeared to be a human.

"I go by many names, and in recent years, have come to like the name of Mirei Mikagura… but, I came into being under the designation Homeostasis, a sort of assistant to the great server, Yggdrasil." the woman explained simply, as if she wasn't revealing some shocking information.

"I'm sorry...what?" Pyrrha couldn't help but say.

The woman smiled in amusement. "I go by many names, and-"

"No no, we got that part loud and clear," Pierce said quickly, cutting her off, though she didn't seem the least bit displeased. "We're just trying to wrap our heads around the part where we're standing in front of Yggdrasil's assistant."

"I suppose that is understandable," she chuckled.

"So uh...which do we call you? Mirei or Homeostasis?" Ruby asked after a few moments.

"Hm...Mirei will do. While I don't dislike my original name, I've grown fond of that human-like name," Mirei said.

"Alright...so...you were calling us here. Why?" Wormmon asked.

"I have been trying to contact you ever since you're original arrival on File actually, but at the time, I was not powerful enough to establish a proper connection, nor did it help that Devimon's Black Gears were creating interference, and even on Server, Etemon's Dark Network hindered me. After that, you all returned to your world for several years, and I have been gathering my energy to instill my influence further onto the world, allowing me my own physical body, and while I waited for your return, well… I did have several other things to take care of." Mirei explained, ending it with a mysterious smile, obviously hiding some secret she found amusing.

"What kind of other things?" Palmon asked in curiosity.

"A story for another time." Mirei answered "For now, there are more important matters to discuss."

"Such as?" Ren asked with a raised eyebrow.

Mirei took a moment to adjust her glasses before answering "The reason why you are the Chosen Children."

"Uh...Gennai kinda...explained it to us," Pierce said, scratching the back of his head. "We all saw the fight, and we all had the qualities needed, and not to toot our own horns, but so far I'd say we've been doing good."

Mirei simply smiled at his words "True, but, he wasn't able to explain the full story now was he? After all, he doesn't know that the one that was given the task of choosing you… was me."

"Wait, you?" Pyrrha blinked in surprise, voicing their general thoughts.

Mirei nodded with her usual enigmatic smile. "Indeed. Let me show you," she said, as a number of screens appeared in the air, depicting each of them that night. "As you all know, you were all watching this incident all that time ago," she started. "And as you know, it was the catalysts to find the ones who would be the Chosen Children," she said as the screen showed a number of children, from a young blonde boy with a monkey tail, a black haired kid with hazel colored eyes and freckles, to even a very familiar white haired girl, which caused Weiss's eyes to widen, though she quickly realized it made sense, seeing as her sister had been with her when she saw the fight. Heck, even Azure when he was younger was among the candidates. "You 10 were chosen among all the candidates, as you all had the virtues needed, but not just that. I've been watching you all for some time now. As I saw you all grow, I knew that you all had what was needed to help a Digimon grow down the path that was needed," Mirei explained.

"What do you mean?" Ruby asked.

"Well, let us take you for example Ruby. Had Palmon been partnered to anyone else, her Ultimate Level could have easily been Lotosmon rather than Rosemon, in fact, her Child Level might not even have been Palmon, she could just have easily been an Alraumon." Mirei explained simply.

"A partner can affect even that much?" Ren couldn't help but say in surprise. He could understand the Ultimate levels, but for even the child level to be affected...they never thought the role they played was THAT significant.

"Indeed, the connection was established to your partners before you even entered the Digital World, and you helped shape their future, a prime example of this would be Gyro and Pierce helping Botamon to evolve into Greymon without the need for a Digivice." Mirei explained "It's a bit strange and convoluted, but the best way to put it would be you each had a connection to specific aspect of the Digimon without even knowing it. That aspect was known as 'Family' for the Digimon, though it's more akin to say, it's like the link that two lizards have together in that they are reptiles. For example, Gyro and Pierce both seemed to be linked to Dragon's Roar."

"Which would explain why me and Agumon evolve into that family tree," Veemon nodded.

"Once I had found all of you, preparations were made to confront the oncoming darkness," Mirei said, before she actually frowned. "However, it seemed the forces of darkness were more perceptive than we thought, and they soon took steps to try and prevent our efforts," she said, before the room soon changed.

A few moments later, and the group stood in a somewhat familiar room "This… looks like the gate room in Myotismon's castle." Weiss noticed.

"It isn't. The two rooms are simply similar, this was the first base of operations for Gennai's group, Myotismon's castle being the second." Mirei clarified, earning some nods from them.

As that happened, a group of people in familiar robes and hoods walked by. "I'm guessing these guys were the Order?" Pierce mused, before idly putting a hand through one of them, confirming that yes, it was just a hologram.

"Correct. These were the Order," Mirei said with a small frown.

"Yeah...we kinda got that something...bad...happened to them…" Blake sighed. "We know they died against the Dark Masters...that's what we're going to see, aren't we?"

"I'm afraid so." Mirei said, before snapping her fingers, pausing the hologram "There is something I think you would like to see first though." she said, as she guided them to another area of the room, till they reached a glass casing, and inside of it were Digieggs.

"These… their our partner's eggs, aren't they?" Ren asked as he looked a green egg with a purple leaf pattern on it, seeing a D-Core attached to it, and the Crest of Kindness right next to it.

"That is correct. This memory takes place shortly after you all saw that battle between Greymon and Parrotmon, back before the distortions in the digital world started getting out of hand." Mirei explained, before she snapped her fingers, the memory resuming, as the door into the room was blown open.

"Did the Dark Masters all come themselves?" Nora asked, before seeing various robotic Digimon running in and attacking the members of the Order.

"Yes, however not all into the same sector of the castle thankfully." Mirei said with a sigh. "This is the most important in my opinion," she said, as they saw the Order members being slaughtered. And not long after, Piedmon himself appeared in the room. Smirking, he went over to where the Eggs were kept, and destroyed the glass, before seizing the Crests and Tags.

"Wait, Piedmon's taking the tag and crests… how did Devimon get his hands on the tags? And how were the crests scattered around Server if the Dark Masters were sealed?" Weiss asked in confusion.

"The seal was constantly being attacked from the inside by the Dark Masters, and when an opening was made, they scattered them to the winds." Mirei explained easily.

"Well… I guess we're lucky they picked up the idiot ball and didn't keep hold of them then." Pierce said with a sigh.

"Indeed we are." Mirei agreed with a small laugh. "Now then, keep watching."

At that, they saw Gennai charging at Piedmon with a sword, making him move away, but not before moving behind him, and from the looks of it, was about to do something...had a gunshot not hit his hand, though that caused whatever he'd been holding to react strangely and go through Gennai's leg, causing the man to grit his teeth in pain.

Looking to the source, they saw...

"Mom!" Ruby said in mild alarm, seeing her mom...and a Taomon standing next to her.

"Huh...so Renamon was a Taomon back then...what happened to her?" Blake mused.

"You'll see shortly enough." was all Mirei said, before the group continued to watch, Gennai taking the chance of Piedmon's distraction to rush at a strange Digimon with a glass dome on its head, only to open it and pull a Bakemon from out of it and head towards the Digieggs and D-Cores, pulling all of them into the cockpit with him before closing it, as thankfully, Piedmon was occupied with Summer and Taomon. Despite being out powered, the two were holding rather well against Piedmon. But slowly and surely, they were losing ground. Inevitably, they were forced out of the base, Summer soon riding on another of those odd Digimon, destroying others so that Gennai could get away safely, while Taomon was floating before the base. Flipping through a number of hand seals and drawing a near countless number of characters, they could practically FEEL the power coming off of Taomon as a barrier began to appear around the base. The Dark Masters soon emerged from the now wrecked base, and they weren't going down without a fight. Summer did her best to protect her partner, but she was soon sent crashing to the ground, having been forced to evacuate from her stolen mech, leaving Taomon who had manage to JUST finish the seal in time, right as she was hit with an attack from Piedmon, sending her to the ground, where she degenerated into Renamon, both her and her partner lying unconscious as the seal solidified, trapping the Dark Masters inside the ruined base.

"Woah… that was definitely something." Salamon said after a moment.

"That was how the Dark Masters were sealed, and for all its worth, it performed admirably," Mirei said. "However, knowing that the day would come that evil would arise, we continued with the plan as best as we could. Finding a safe place for the eggs, they were cared for, and eventually…" Mirei said as the screen then showed the Eggs together on File Island, before eventually hatching, revealing the Digimon in their Fresh forms, all of them holding Digivices, and overtime, evolving to their Baby forms, the Digivices bouncing on their heads, before suddenly flying into the sky, and not long after...a group of meteors came down. They didn't need to think hard on what it was.

"Pause here for a second." Pierce requested quickly, Mirei doing so easily enough "Do you have the moment when we lost our weapons?"

"Indeed, though it's somewhat earlier." Mirei said as the hologram seemed to rewind on itself, this time following the group, until eventually she paused it on what they were all looking for…

"So, we were right, it WAS Devimon who took them." Pyrrha said with a frown as she saw their first enemy, managing to get their weapons away from them mere minutes after their arrival in the Digital World.

"Though...that begs the question why he didn't just kill us," Ren mused.

"It's an oddly common trend where evil Digimon are powerful and cunning...but sorely lacking in common sense," Mirei supplied helpfully, and somehow, they felt like she had SEVERAL examples in mind. "I mean, if they HAD any sense, Piedmon would have destroyed the Eggs, Cores, and Crests rather than take them, Etemon would have spent more time maintaining his Network, and Myotismon would have disposed of the theatrics and just end things rather than toying around," Mirei actually snorted in amusement.

"Jeez… when you think about it, it's a good thing none of our enemies have common sense." Nora said, shivering at the thought of how different things could have gone.

"I wouldn't be surprised if we end up eventually fighting enemies that DO have common sense." Wormmon said with a sigh.

"Let's worry about the enemies in front of us first," Tentomon sighed, but didn't refute that likelihood.

"Yeah, you're right," Patamon nodded.

"Now we just need to find the others and let them know about everything." Gabumon said.

"Worry not, I'll handle that part myself." Mirei reassured with a smile.

"But before that...why did you feel you wanted to show us all this really?" Veemon asked. Sure she'd said a lot, but he felt there was something else.

Mirei smiled a gentle and almost motherly smile. "I wanted you all to understand why it is I chose all of you, those who came before you...and so I could tell you all how proud I am of all of you. You have all performed above and beyond my expectations. That is why, no matter what happens next, no matter the hardships. Know that you are, and always will be the Chosen Children. The worthy ones who bear the virtues that will save our world."


And cue all readers who play the games going WTF

Yeahp, Mirei is here, and she lives in the Digilab just like she does in the Cyber Sleuth games.

I decided that since Homeostasis wasn't able to contact them at all, maybe it would try to work out a way of being able to do that, thus, it created an avatar for itself in the form of Mirei Mikagura.

So yeah, and we also have the conformation that Devimon was the one to take their weapons when they first arrived, also, yeah, the villains in the series seemed to lack common sense at times.

There was also a LOT of stuff hinted at in here that you may have missed on your first time reading, so don't be afraid to go back and give it another look and see if you can't figure it out, but DON'T post your findings in a review, PM it to me instead, but for now...

The Adventure Evolves.