Seth exhales as he presses his hand to his chest, feeling lingering aches from the last battle there. "Shit," he mumbles. He casts a cool glance over the group of Digidestined before him, his eyes resting, briefly, on the newest member Luke had selected while choosing the new digidestined for the NXT group without asking his opinion, and chose to inform him of as he was recovering. He had wanted Buddy, or perhaps Akam or Razar, but no. Of course not. He gets stuck with Aleister freakin Black, as if that makes sense. Digimon would probably take one look at him and go screaming in the opposite direction, instead of being comforted by him in times of crisis.

But still, beggars can't be choosers, and he's lost a few people as well due to the recent firings and pandemic, so it's fine. He'll survive. He always does. Pulling out his digivice, he checks the numbers of dots, relieved they're somewhat reduced, the NXT group starting to pull their weight in battles. "Let's see what trouble we can get into today," he says with a sigh, turning towards the digiport to head to the first cry for help on the agenda.

Even as they travel through the digiport, the weight of Aleister's stare remains solid against the back of his head, and Seth grits his teeth, wanting so badly to yell at him, remind him of his place in this group. But there's no time to put this man in his place, so Seth squares his shoulders, raises his eyes and marches on, ignoring Aleister's blatant disrespect as they make it further towards the village in need of assistence.

It annoys him that none of this seems to bother Aleister, not even the destruction surrounding them as they approach to find the village completely razed, data choking the air around them. His eyes tense up, slightly, but his countenance remains the same, his footing solid and fixed as he trails after the others, examining what little remains of the village.

"Freak," Seth mumbles under his breath, still yearning to have Buddy by his side. Someone he could trust, and depend on to have his back when he needed it the most.

Aleister barely blinks, just falls in line with the others and pointedly ignores Seth as they go through piles of rubble, searching for any living creatures that could possibly give them insight on what happened here, who or what they're looking for.

Seth hears a groan and his heart skips a beat as he scrambles. "Over here," he yells out, beginning to dig into the rubble. "I heard something over here!"

Asuka joins him and they work together on unearthing as much as they can as fast as they can. She stops as soon as she sees a paw sticking out of the earth, covered in soot and grime. "Here," she says grimly, resuming to dig, much more careful this time around. "We're almost there, just hold on," she calls out to the creature, hoping they can hear her.

It's a soot covered Patamon, wide blue eyes welling with tears as Asuka gently eases her out of the hole it'd fallen into. "I... I..." she sobs, clinging to Asuka's shirt.

"You're ok," Asuka soothes her. "You're fine. We're here now."

"Digidestined," she breathes out. "It's so awful, this monstrous digimon... our elders tried to fight it, but he resisted everything, and he... he tore into them and blew everything apart." She stares up at them. "Why did I survive, out of everyone?"

There's never an easy answer for that, and Seth rests his hand on Patamon's forehead, gently stroking. Asuka murmurs in low Japanese to the creature and he waits until she's done and Patamon has fallen to quiet sniffling, her tears easing slightly. "Patamon, do you know where this evil creature went?"

"I... I think I heard him go north," she hiccuped. "There... there's another village down that way, we trade with them sometimes." She looks up at him, beseeching and desperate. "You have to stop him! Save them, please."

Seth nods, his eyes dark with determination. "Don't worry, we will."

Asuka carries the Patamon to a safer spot outside of the village, and gently settles her on the ground. What exactly they say, Seth isn't sure, but he waits with AJ and Aleister, ignoring the grim gaze still locked on him. Asuka returns to them and Seth nods at her, turning his focus onto his partner. "Sounds like we're in for a hell of a fight, you should probably digivolve."

Betamon nods, and Asuka and AJ instruct their digimon to do the same. Seth stands with a smug feeling as Aleister can do nothing but stand there and watch, his partner unable to digivolve just yet, being too new to everything to find that level of power yet. Not that it's Herissmon's fault, Seth actually kinda finds the little guy adorable- his fur a bright white with yellow and white spikes scattered along his back, and deep blue eyes that light up even brighter whenever he grins, which is often. He's the exact opposite of Aleister, and Seth ponders again why some Digimon are selected to be partners with certain humans.

His train of thought is derailed once MetalSeadramon, Lotusmon and JewelBeemon all loom in front of him. "Great," he says, clapping his hands together briskly. "Let's go."

The path of destruction following the digimon Patamon had told them of isn't too difficult to follow- the grass is razed, trees are uprooted, and there's just generally destruction that almost resembles a tornado or some other horrible act of nature going through the area, so Seth follows it, careful to listen and keep an eye out for any hint that they're approaching him. He's just heard something behind him when he half-turns... just to stop short when MetalSeadramon lets out a horrible squeech of pain and shock, and Seth turns quickly to gape at his partner, freezing when he realizes what's happening.

This horrific creature with a dark red body that's difficult to take in and make sense of has leapt atop him, digging claws deep into the armor plates covering his body, boring further within, and- "MetalSeadramon!" Seth screams, running towards his partner, horrified by the data pouring out of the wounds and how he continues to squeech and writhe around.

"Lotusmon!" Asuka yells at her partner, and Seth stops short as the fairy type creature lunges forward, staff held high in one hand, caduceus in the other. A dark glow forms in the one, and she thrusts it towards Chaosdramon, sending him spinning away from MetalSeadramon. As she flies forward, white energy pouring from her caduceus, coating MetalSeadramon in healing power, JewelBeemon whips forward and attacks desperately with his spear, stabbing and distracting Chaosdramon as MetalSeadramon's armor is knitted back together and his data stops flowing in the wind thanks to Lotusmon.

Chaosdramon roars, suddenly, and gets ahold of JewelBeemon, dragging him closer and staring deep into his eyes, his claws glowing and vibrating, promising horrible things.

"No!" MealSeadramon and Lotusmon both move as one, even though MetalSeadramon is still slow and a little shaky from the lingering sensation of pain. Energy blasting from the cannon on his snout and more energy from Lotusmon's caduceus mixes together and slams into Chaosdramon, once more sending him toppling backwards. MetalSeadramon lunges forward as Lotusmon hesitates to check on JewelBeemon, and he roars viciously.

"Lotusmon!" MetalSeadramon calls out, twisting his serpent like body around Chaosdramon and constricting. "Hurry!"

She looks up quickly and rests a hand on JewelBeemon's arm before flying forward hurriedly, lifting her staff and aiming it at Chaosdramon. "Seven's Fantasia!" The glow that gleams from the rainbow jewels along the top of her staff is beautiful, enthralls the digidestined as it slams towards Chaosdramon.

MetalSeadramon waits until the last second before freeing Chaosdramon and quickly moving away, the powerful beam washing over Chaosdramon and causing him to freeze, a dazed look on his evil countenance.

"What... happened?" Aleister asks, the first thing he's really said since arriving here with the others.

Asuka exhales and looks over at him. "Lotusmon can send you into a world full of fantasy. Where anything you'd wish for could come true." Her smile looks more than a little demented. "It even works on creatures such as Chaosdramon."

Seth strokes MetalSeadramon's cool, razer sharp skin. "Wanna finish this off?" he wonders, thinking they're all better off without leaving Chaosdramon to break free of this other world that Lotusmon had sent him into and cause more destruction.

"Yes," MetalSeadramon says, once more taking to the sky and approaching Chaosdramon. He blasts him down with a powerful wave of water, pleased as the remnants of the attack glistens off of his body. "Lightning Javelin!" The force of the attack is impressive, lightning singeing through Chaosdramon's wet body, blasting through his metal plates and surging throughout until it sizzles to a stop and Chaosdramon lays there, little more than an empty, burnt out shell. Lotusmon hums and once more raises her staff and caduceus, waves of power pouring out and coating what's left of Chaosdramon in black energy.

When it dissipates, he's gone, and Lotusmon lowers her weapons in relief. "There, he is hopefully at peace now," she murmurs, fluttering back over to Asuka.

Asuka bows her head towards her partner. "Arigato."

Seth exhales when MetalSeadramon dedigivolves and Betamon lands squarely in his arms, exhausted and looking forward to a nap. He chuckles softly and strokes his hand down his partner's nose, kissing his forehead. "Rest well, my friend," he whispers to him before looking back up. To find Aleister once more staring at him. He doesn't smirk or look away this time, instead choosing to stare at him head on. "This?" he asks quietly, waving his free hand around at the destruction, the after effects of the battle they'd just raged. "This is what it means to be a digidestined. To fight, to watch as your partners get hurt and maybe even killed. To try to save villages and sometimes just be too late, or fail entirely. But we keep coming back and we keep fighting the best we can to help things, little by little." Now his lips twist into a vague smirk. "Do you think you can manage this too?"

He doesn't bother waiting for an answer, motioning quietly to AJ and Asuka and heading back the way they came to find Patamon, and then go home.