Things feel better now, if not completely normal. Some relaxation, falling back into their usual routines, have helped the digidestined. Seth stands by the digiport and examines the group before him, lips twitching up into a faint smile. "Everyone ready to go?"
"Yes!" Asuka cheers ahead of everyone else, and he chuckles a little as Calumon drifts onto her shoulder and stares at him with wide, green eyes.
AJ, Owens, and Zack all seem to agree with her, so he turns and aims his digivice at the portal. "Open!" he commands it and exhales just before his body turns into data and is transported via their devices into this other world that has become so important to all of them.
They're close to Luke's again, but he's not there to greet them, so they square their shoulders and head off, unbothered by much of anything. They'd survived the worst of the worst in the Darkness Ocean, so what could possibly harm them now?
These cheap feelings of immortality fade away as soon as they get their mission and find themselves surrounded once more by a partially destroyed village. Mud huts have collapsed around them, digimon of all strength levels are scattered around, whimpering and crying, and Seth's fists clench at his sides. The others look as angry as he feels, and they slowly walk side by side into the circle of smoke and fires. When they finally find a digimon who seems in well enough condition to talk, Zack kneels by the Elecmon and refrains from brushing his fingers against his spikes. "Hey, bro, we're digidestined, we're here to help. What's been going on?"
Elecmon sniffs and looks up wearily at him. "It- it's been awful," he whispers, trembling at their feet. "A wave of Targetmon- Oh..." All energy fades from him and he passes out at the mere mention of the creatures who've been tormenting and destroying their homes.
"Targetmon," Asuka enunciates, frowning as well. "How do we find these Targetmon?"
"Good question," Seth sighs. "Let's split up and search around the village, I'm going to assume they're not far, wherever they might be." They nod and quietly urge their partners to digivolve to slightly stronger levels before setting off to try Seth's suggestion.
It's a fruitless search for what feels like hours until Zack starts yelling. "Bros! I found them! Bro-" His voice cuts off in a worryingly way and Seth takes off at a run to reach him, not willing to go through another situation where one of them goes missing. Not so soon after everything with Shinsuke.
"Zack?" he demands, skidding to a stop to find Zack surrounded by a flood of creatures with shoes on their hands, looking like some sort of ridiculous monkey.
"Bro, they may not look like much," he mutters, "but they're pretty strong. So watch out."
Seadramon lashes out, swipes his long tail through, and sends a handful of the creatures flying. However, more circle around and fill in the gaps around Darcmon, and Zack grits his teeth.
Seth mulls over what to do, exchanging a glance with Seadramon before nodding, the force of Digivolution flowing through his device once more. Zack follows suit, and MegaSeadramon falls into step alongside HippoGriffomon, the two beasts attacking with thunder and heat attacks, destroying a few of the more weaker digimon. "Now what?" he mutters, the circle only seeming to grow despite the loss of their numbers.
Before he can think up some sort of a strategy, one lunges forward and swipes MegaSeadramon across the face with its shoes. Seth's jaw drops as MegaSeadramon recoils back, roaring out in pain. Zack looks like he wants to say something- do something- when the Targetmon barrels forward, slamming roughly into both MegaSeadramon and HippoGriffomon in kind. They slam into a rocky cliff not far away, tangled up and clearly in agony. "Whoa, shit," Seth mutters, growing more and more frantic the worst this is going. He wonders where the others are. "MegaSeadramon!"
His partner responds, however, and lunges forward, painstakingly untangling himself from Zack's partner. With a yell unlike anything Seth's ever heard from him before, MegaSeadramon whips his tail through the group of Digimon, scattering them and leaving them groaning on the ground this time, some data flowing into the wind as more perish.
HippoGriffomon finds his footing finally and lunges forward, mouth opening wide before he screams out ridiculous sonic waves, shattering even more of the digimon into data. The numbers seem to be getting more manageable, but Seth is still anxious- and then... a bright green blur whips around, slashing through the remaining digimon and deleting even more of them. He turns and his shoulders slump in some relief as he realizes who'd joined them. "AJ!"
"Thought I heard a fight goin' on over here, boys," he says with a vague smirk. "Happy to help."
With Stingmon's added speed and endurance, they make relatively quick work of the handful of Targetmon that remain, and Seth pats Betamon's head once his partner has dedigivolved. "I'm happy you're alright," he whispers to him, the vision of Betamon getting so brutally weakened in the Darkness Ocean still fresh in his mind.
"Me too," Betamon chirps and Seth chuckles, rubbing his hand over the top of his head.
"Well, let's go find the others and try to sort out that village," AJ says after a few moments of quiet recollections and bonding with their partners post-fight.
Always the most difficult, and most rewarding, part of all of this. Seth sighs. "Yep, let's do it."
The three of them walk off side by side, relieved that this mission, technically their first one back since everything, has gone as well as it has.
