Things have changed so drastically recently. Seth has spiraled even further down his megalomaniac cult stuff, Ziggler is a somewhat compatent brawler, and Aleister...

Aleister is half-blind and spiraling into a sea of his own bitterness. The eyepatch he insists on wearing at all times does nothing to hide the disfigurement of his face caused by Buddy Murphy and it leaves him tremblig in bed at night, clinging to the wide swath of fabric he's selected to cover most of the side of his face in the daylight hours, not wanting anyone to see. Walking through the digiworld is both a blessing and a curse, because none of the creatures they come upon look at him twice, for the most part, and he gets to fight. Or at least help Herissmon to fight.

So for this reason, he finds himself more relaxed than he has been in a long time, standing in the middle of a partially destroyed village, listening to an Agumon going on and on about the large digimon who'd attacked their village, shooting anything that moved and taking a massive lance to anything that didn't. "The only reason it left," the dinosaur type creature explains, "is because we all heard the digiport kick in when you guys arrived." Tears fill his deep green eyes. "Tha- Thank you so much!" He wails and immediately jumps as Asuka, who titters and hugs him tightly, looking up and around at the others.

"What do we do then?"

Aleister doesn't wait for a response from Rollins, merely turns and walks towards the village gates. The path of destruction isn't hard to follow, and he begins to track it, his one good eye locked on the distance as he searches for the nearest village from here. He's about to step forward, look for a fight, when a rough arm grabs him by the shoulder. "Excuse me, where do you think you're going?"

It's Rollins, and Aleister grits his teeth, lunging back and elbowing him hard in the jaw. As he staggers back, the others behind him gasping and muttering amongst themselves, Aleister storms forward and begins his search, Herissmon dutifully by his side. There's a village in the distance, he can just see it- and he can smell the smoke in the air as he approaches, well aware of what's happened. The creature destroying the other village moved here, trying to put distance between himself and the Digidestined, unaware or uncaring that they would come find him. But yes, this village is slowly being destroyed as well and Aleister grits his teeth, flexing his fingers. "Herissmon," he hisses, and his partner nods, digivolving quickly.

Filmon lunges forward, slashing at thin air, rushing towards the digimon just visible past all of the smoke and debris. "Hey ugly!" he calls out, and the creature- Grey Knightsmon, Aleister's digivice patiently supplies- looks up with a snarl, pausing in his shooting at the buildings around him. Filmon tries, he really does, slams towards Grey Knightsmon with a speed that would be impressive for anyone else, but the creature they're facing off against is just a little stronger, a little faster, and all Aleister can do is watch as his partner is shot out of the sky by a series of blasts from his turrets. Filmon does not give up, however, forcing himself up to his feet once more and standing there wavering. "That the best you've got, Grey Knights-"

His words die as suddenly something embeds itself into his side, slashing straight through his body and raining data out around him. He chokes on his own words and looks down, horrified and in awe at what he's seeing. "This... I..."

"FILMON!" Aleister yells, running forward with more speed than he thinks he's ever run before, even in the middle of a match. Grey Knightsmon tears the lance from his partner's body then, and Aleister scrambles forward, scooping up the dying digimon's body in his arms. "No," he mutters. "No, no..." Guilt and horror flood his thoughts, and he grits his teeth against the realization that maybe, just maybe, he should've listened to Rollins. "Hey, hey-"

Filmon is struggling just to last a few more moments in his arms, and it's horrible to watch, the pain obvious on his face as more data flows from his wound. "Aleister, you have to run- find the others... they can't be far. I know you don't like them, but-" he gasps and moans as more data flows into the wind. "Please- I was meant to protect you, you have to... you have to survive, even if I don't-"

"Shh, shh," Aleister hisses, trying to think of something, anything to fix this, to... to do something to help his partner. "Filmon..."

Grey Knightsmon approaches again and Aleister glowers up at him, rage and protectiveness surging within him and he snarls. "You will not touch him again," he declares, gently laying his partner down and standing up to stare Grey Knightsmon in the face. "This is over." He reaches up, tugging slowly at the protective covering over his eye, and swallows as the fabric slowly eases away from his wound.

Grey Knightsmon pauses at this and stares, as Aleister reaches up and presses his hand against where his eye is slowly healing, even if the vision may never return to it, welcoming the pain, the reminder that through it all, he's survived. "I see you," he breathes out and just like that- a sharp glow blasts out of his digivice, cracking through the ground not that far away, and Aleister tilts his head, curious. Following the beam, he ignores Grey Knightsmon as he approaches him, pushing through the dirt to where the glow is centered, immediately freeing the item within.

Aleister swallows and holds his hand out, sighing as a tag forms within it, the crest slowly forming within it. He looks up and locks eyes with Grey Knightsmon before sneering. "You're dead now."

Behind him, Filmon slowly gets to his feet, the matching glow from Aleister's digivice and tag covering his body, and he gasps. "Filmon digivolve to..." Body stripping away, wound disappearing, he reforms taller with a more vicious look on his face, bristles protruding from every inch of his humanoid body. Flowing golden hair sweeps over his back and he roars into the sky as he lands heavily near where Aleister is standing, his dark eyes trained immediately on Grey Knightsmon. "Stiffilmon!"

Grey Knightsmon laughs in his face, preparing his lance for a follow up skewering, but he barely gets it lifted high enough when-

Stiffilmon lunges forward, spiraling through into an attack, immediately embedding his sharpest bristles into the creature's body. He screams out in pain and Stiffilmon sneers. "Doesn't feel good, does it?" he asks, pointedly pulling himself free before clawing him right in the face. Another scream, and data begins pouring out of the various wounds along Grey Knightsmon's body, a slow, torturous death as Stiffilmon picks and chooses more places to claw into, adding to the places data continues to slowly stream from. "I should finish you off, but I feel like enjoying this," he shares, an almost hungry look on his face. "What is that saying, a death by a thousand cuts?"

Grey Knightsmon tries to attack, but his body is in too much shock, in too much agony to even lift his weapons and all he can do is hover there, on the brink of deletion, his data steadily pouring from him. There being no chance of recovery dawns on him and he lifts his head high, screaming into the early afternoon sky. More data pours from him and Stiffilmon shrugs, finally growing bored of this. "Very well, you're just tiresome now." He embeds his claw one last time, deeper this time, almost straight through Grey Knightsmon's abdomen and he shatters right away.

Turning to walk back towards Aleister, Stiffilmon allows his partner to look him over for a few moments, get a feel of his new form, before dedigivolving back to Herissmon.

Aleister hums, curious. His partner's attitude as Stiffilmon was a direct 180 from how he tends to act, and he can't help but wonder if his new perception of things altered his partner's viewpoint somehow as well. Perhaps that is a question I can ask Stiffilmon some point in the future, he thinks, blinking in surprise as Herissmon hands him his eyepatch. "Thank you," he says softly.

"Let's return to the others," Herissmon says with a patient smile, Aleister nodding grimly as they turn back towards the other village to inform them of what transpired here.