The Digiworld feels the same, but also different. Dolph Ziggler turns in a slow circle and takes it in, a frown on his face. Dangerous, but welcoming. He's always felt at home here, despite the stress of battle, of attacks, of always waiting for something unknown ahead. But he's never sure if it's the Digiworld that's bad for him, or him that's bad for the Digiworld. Because of that, it had been easy enough to leave wrestling behind for awhile, focus on his stand up comedy for a few months. But now he's back, and expected to do his duty here in the Digiworld, and he's still not sure if it's a good idea or not, no matter what Seth thinks about his responsibilities to this world.
"I don't know how you expect me to help," Dolph tells him after a few moments. "I've tried in the past, it never really went anywhere."
Seth stares at him, unimpressed. "How hard did you really try?" he wonders. "I remember better than you think, I'm sure. You tried once, then you left, and we didn't see you for months. Now that we've got you back here, you have to honestly try to fix this. I don't know what caused all of this, I'm not even sure Luke knows for certain, but you seem to be the cause of it, and it's time we figure out why."
"His crest," Miz interjects after a few moments. "Friendship, right?"
"Yeah," Seth says. "What about it?"
"We all have some sort of a connection to our crests. I'm Light, you're courage. Moments we've had that show us reflecting the attributes of our crests is when our partners grow stronger and digivolve further, fight harder to save us, save the world. Maybe there's a disconnect with Dolph and his crest. I mean," he shrugs. "Who would ever think Ziggler's strongest attribute is friendship? He's awful to everyone, even Matt Cardona. He's betrayed everyone in wrestling, multiple times even. Maybe that disconnect is leading to what's powering the Dark Ocean."
Seth frowns, tapping his fingers against his hip thoughtfully. "Ziggler, mind letting me look at your crest?"
Ziggler does actually mind, but he's near speechless with what Miz is implying about him, his crest, and everything else. "Yeah, whatever," he mumbles, tugging the chain out from around his neck and tossing it dismissively towards Seth.
Seth huffs at the disrespectful treatment of the crest, snagging it and searching it piercingly. "It looks normal, I guess," he mumbles, rubbing his thumb over it. "I don't see anything out of the ordinary-" He lifts his own crest out, examining the two. "Miz," he calls, and the other man jogs over.
"The others don't have their crests yet," he says quietly, "so it's just us three."
"Yep, compare your crest to his and mine. Tell me if you notice anything. I think his looks normal, but another set of eyes won't hurt, I suppose," Seth mutters back, so Mike pulls his crest out and starts examining the three.
"Yeah," Mike says, shrugging. "I don't see anything too vastly different between the three. I mean, there's no hint of-" He's just reached out to touch Dolph's when there's a flash of- something, and Mike and Seth are both blown backwards, limbs askew, Dolph's crest left floating in midair where Seth had just been holding it.
"What the fuck?" Seth chokes out, forcing himself upwards onto his elbows, trying to look around through suddenly blurry vision. "Miz, you-" He stops short. "MIKE!" Scrambling over, he grips the pale, lifeless man by the shoulders and shakes him, hard. "Fuck! Mike!"
Tamina, Ciampa, and Asuka lunge forward to see what happened, but Seth shakes his head to stop their progress. "Come on, Mike," Ciampa mumbles from where he's frozen, watching how Seth continues to try to revive Mike, tearing his shirt open and compressing his chest, trying to get him to at least breathe again.
Dolph stumbles over and collapses next to where his crest is still floating and gingerly reaches out to it. As soon as his fingers graze it, whatever seems to be holding it up collapses and it hits the ground, hard. Almost instantaneously, Mike sits up with a painful gasp, clawing at his throat.
"Fuck!" Seth gasps, leaping back away from him. "Mike? Are you- are you ok?"
"What- what happened?" he chokes out, reaching up and patting Ciampa on the arm as he scrambles over and grabs at Mike, checking him over desperately. "I... I don't remember-"
Seth leaves Ciampa to try to explain, making his way over to Dolph. "Mike's crest is light," he says needlessly. "Your crest almost exploded as soon as he touched it. Dolph, I Don't know what this is, but I think your crest is contaminated. Whether it's from the Dark Ocean directly, or because your crest isn't compatible with you, I don't know, but we need to figure out a way to fix this. For all of our sake."
Dolph scoops his digivice up from the ground and nods shakily. "I wish I knew how, though," he mumbles helplessly, staring down at the innocent looking tag in his hand.
