Ophanimon X-Antibody looms over them, a vicious look on her face, and Mike holds a restraining arm out towards his best friend, hating himself, hating the situation more and more with each passing second. Sure, they're all pretty vulnerable right now, but John has no partner, no idea what to do in this situation. All he has is this digivice that he has no earthly idea on how to use. Mike grinds his teeth when, sure enough, Ophanimon's eyes sweep over John, her lips curling curiously. "Well, well," she says. "What do we have here? A digidestined without a partner?"

She lands smoothly before him and Mike can hear John swallow hard as he looks up at the winged creature, clearly intimidated. "I..." His words fail him and he glances helplessly at Mike, who smoothly steps in.

Monodramon moves as well, rapidly digivolving to Justimon before standing between Ophanimon and the humans. "What is the purpose of this?" he asks her. "You used to stand for good, now you are attacking digidestined? Fighting against those with the same goals as yourself?"

She doesn't even flinch at the sudden appearance of the mega level digimon, simply lets out a cackle of laughter. "Those goals? Yesterday's news. Have you seen the state of the Digiworld lately? There is no winning against this level of darkness. There is only pain and death, and I have done what is needed to survive." She hums and approaches, laying a smooth hand against Justimon's jaw. "You should join me, we could dominate everything and everyone who tries to get in our way."

Her touch, however, makes him shudder in disgust and he backs away from her chilly fingers. "I'd rather not. I'm already with the winning side."

She sneers at this and backs up a few feet to get distance between them. "Deluded," she informs him coolly. "Ah, well, it's fine. I prefer working alone as it is." She moves so quickly it's hard for them to see clearly as she snaps the pieces of her lance together, swinging it towards them. "You can't say I didn't at least offer to spare you."

Apollomon tries to intercept, as does Rosemon, but they merely get bashed aside with the power of the lance, and Ophanimon turns her focus back onto her true target- Justimon. He braces, tries to counterattack, but there's nothing- everything he tries is either reflected the pure power radiating off of Ophanimon or simply ignored by her as if nothing more than minor brushes of his fingers against her skin.

"JUSTIMON!" Mike yells as his partner goes flying, sent straight into a cliff. He instinctively moves in that direction, but then Ophanimon is there, leering at him, standing very, very still on her wheel, and her lance is pressed against his throat. He gasps and stares up at her, his eyes wide and hands trembling. He swallows, feeling the faint sting of the weapon against his skin, and a small trickle of blood drips down. "Please," he says, closing his eyes.

"Unfortunately for you, I don't care for begging." Ophanimon sneers and shifts the grip she has on the lance. "I hope you have said your goodbyes." She's just moved, shifting her arm back, when there's a flash of ... something to her side and she casts an unbothered glance in that way, just for Mike to get tackled aside, out of the range of her swing. She rages, gritting her teeth. "I see someone else wants some attention," she says, staring coolly down at John. "Such a weak, pathetic soul, you don't even have a partner. What do you truly hope to accomplish here, other than delay the inevitable?"

She approaches John, who remains protectively in front of Mike, and coughs out a frustrated laugh. "Ridiculous fools, the entire lot of you humans are." Her lance now aimed at Morrison, she sighs. "I wanted rid of the Light digidestined first, but I suppose you will have to do."

John's face twists and he exhales hard, glancing over at Mike for a split second before squaring his shoulders and staring her down. "I don't care how weak you think me, or how worthless all of this is because I don't have a tag partner. As long as I'm standing here, you're not touching him."

"John-" Mike croacks out, but he's ignored by both human and digimon.

"Very touching," she tells him coldly. "In any other situation, I suppose it almost would've been sweet, but here, it's mere suicidal ideation!" With that said, she lunges forward, lance aimed right at John's chest, and he closes his eyes, waiting to be impaled straight through-

... but nothing happens. He feels no impact, he feels no pain. "John," Mike gasps from behind him and he slowly opens his eyes. He had thrown his arms out earlier, not realizing his digivice was still gripped tightly in the palm of his hand, and now it is glowing, vibrating with power, shielding them from her lance.

She lets out a scream of frustration, constantly trying to ram the weapon through, but there is no inertia, it just clicks against the shield constantly. "How dare you!" she yells, retreating from the attack. "What is this?!" She takes another running charge, but the shield is still there, she slams into it with all of her strength and it doesn't even quiver. She glares through it at Morrison and hisses, "What are you?"

He's not sure, right now. Can only stare on in wonder as Ophanimon continues to struggle to reach them, finish destroying them. "John," Mike breathes out, and John looks over at him. "You can defeat her."

"How?" John asks, pleading for some clue, some idea of how this is happening. His head is racing with all sorts of thoughts and ideas, things he's almost too scared to attempt because it might make the shield weaker or just disappear outright. But he can't just stand here forever, she'll do something, she'll go after them harder, she'll find a way, he can tell, so he waves his digivice and the shield disappears, sending Ophanimon toppling forward gracelessly. This seems to only make her even angrier and she lunges straight for John, letting out a strangled scream as she does so.

He stands his ground, however, focused on the digivice still thrumming with power in his hand. "I will not let you hurt anyone else," he declares, voice deep and impactful. "Ever again."

She simply ignores this with a toss of her head, holding the lance aloft. "Sefirot Crystal!" She slashes it through the air, and massive circles full of power form in front of her, stopping John short. He stares on, watching in horror, as the ground begins to shake and crack due to the pure power contained by these circles.

"Wha- what is she doing?" Mike demands from behind him, but John has no idea, can't even vocalize what exactly he's seeing.

"You will all DIE!" she screams out, power flooding out of the circles in a massive wave of light. It washes over John, it washes over Mike, and all of the rest. She watches on in satisfaction... until the light fades away and the dust settles, and... the digidestined and their partners are still as she had last seen them. "What?! NO WAY! Why didn't it work? You should all be dead!"

"The attack works fine on truly evil creatures," Shinsuke says from his position near Apollomon. "On us, not so much."

Ophanimon loses it even more at this and lunges forward once more with her lance, purely prepared to cleave all of them upon the sharp point of her lance. "DIE!"

But John is there, once more, his digivice aimed right at her. He focuses everything. His strength, his determination, his protectiveness towards his friends. All of it powers the device and it blasts out with so much power that, upon first contact, her lance cracks from the tip down, slowly corroding into dust in her hands.

"WHAT?!" she cries out, gaping at what remains of her weapon. "How-!?" But the digivice's beam hadn't stopped there, no. It pours forward and slams into her chest, tearing at her skin, boring into her body, and slowly beginning the deletion process. All she can do is stand there and gape, loss coming so suddenly that she's not even sure it's happening. "What... why...? You didn't even have a digimon partner!"

John exhales as she fades more and more. "I know," he says, staring down at his digivice. "I... don't get it either." He forces himself to watch as she slowly dies, nothing more than nonsensical pleas and pain-filled hisses leave her lips until her data drifts away.

Mike has just approached him, resting a hand on his shoulder, when John's digivice vibrates with power once more, and something square shaped and dark brown appears before him. "Oh, shit," Mike mutters, recognizing it immediately.

Morrison stares incredulously as the tag rotates slowly over his hand. "What is this?" he asks, voice sounding weak, shaking as hard as the rest of him. "Mike..."

"It's ok," he says soothingly, holding up his digivice. "We call them crests. They... they reflect an attribute of yours. Hold your digivice out like this." John does so, still hesitant, still worried, and Mike smiles. "Now just wait."

John gasps as the crest and device glow, fluctuating with pulses of strength. "What is even happening?" He falls quiet as the crest suddenly shoots forward and fits smoothly into his tag, vibrating in his grip before falling quiet once more, as if it had always been there. "Wha... what?"

"It'll make evolving to higher levels easier for your partner," Mike says, wishing things weren't so backwards. That John had a partner, instead of a useless digivice and, now, tag. "Trust me, these are good things."

"But who is my partner?" he wonders, a quiet kind of worry on his face. "What do I do to find them?"

"That is a very good question," Mike admits. "Usually the partners are already there, just waiting for you, but... this is happening all out of order." He reaches out and grazes his fingers over the warm surface of his digivice, trying to think.

John shakes his head. "I don't understand any of this. Why am I different? What's going on, that this is happening out of order? Is..." He hesitates. "Is something wrong with my partner?"

Mike scratches his arm and looks helplessly over at Shinsuke, who is nearby, staring up at the sky as he holds a still recovering Coronamon close to his chest. "A long time ago," he says slowly, startling both of them with the abruptness of his speech, "there was a digidestined who was unaware she was one. Her partner had been lost, she had been sickly, and wasn't with the other digidestined when they were brought to this world." He turns to look at them. "Her tag had been stolen, corrupted. The fight to reclaim her destiny is talked about to this day. Sometimes these things happen." He wanders lazily over to them and trails his finger gently over John's tag. "At least you have this. The rest will come." He nods at John, ignoring the perplexed look on his face, and walks away once more.

"He's a very informative man, isn't he?" John asks, sounding oddly strangled and shaky.

Mike barks out a laugh and shakes his head. "Well, he thinks he is. It just takes awhile for the rest of us to figure it out." He looks closer at his best friend, patting his shoulder. "By the way, your crest is of hope."

John blinks a few times, digesting all of this. "Huh. Hope. I like it."

Mike smiles at him.