"He's still listening to us," Mimi said, arms folded and deeply annoyed, glaring at the behemoth at the other side of the lab.
Matt nodded, glaring daggers. TK was hiding against his side.
"I'm sorry," Ryo said, sitting a few feet in front of Tai, head bowed.
Joe didn't look up from where he was wrapping bandages around Tai's arms. "Thank goodness he didn't take my bag, just my digivice."
Kari sat next to Tai's other side. "See, Kari? I'm fine," her brother told her.
"I'm sorry," Ryo said again.
"What do you have to be sorry about?" Mimi asked him. "Just being his partner doesn't make you responsible for his behavior! You tried to stop him, and that's what's important. Right, everyone?" Right?
"Sure," Tai agreed. "It's not your fault, just like it's not Agumon's fault or Gabumon's fault." He lifted his arms up to hold his hands around his mouth. "Hear that, Agumon? It's not your fault!" There was no response from the pens their Digimon were in.
"He can't hear you," Matt said tightly.
"Hey, give me back your arm," Joe demanded. "Now I need to do this again. I can't waste bandages, who knows how long we'll be stuck here…"
"I know he can," Tai said. "Even if he can't answer me. I just wanted to get a head start on telling him that. Millenniummon tried to stab you with a claw while you were out, Ryo, and it didn't happen. If even he couldn't do it, there's no way Agumon would have if he was in control of himself."
"He tried to stab me?" Ryo asked, wondering why he felt any shock. He shouldn't feel betrayed, not when they weren't on the same side. He was supposed to be here to fight Millenniummon!
Some of the others glanced at each other. "I'm sure it was just as an experiment," Izzy said, clearly hoping that would help.
"Matt," TK tugged at his brother's side. "Come on, we have to get over there somehow! Patamon was captured because of me!"
"I know, TK," Matt said sadly. "It's not just you and Patamon, they all were. They wanted to protect us. But we're going to get them out of here," he said firmly.
"Yeah, we're not giving up," Tai agreed, looking at where Sora had gone off to the edge of the table.
Her hand was raised to her helmet, shielding her eyes from the lab's overhead lighting, as she looked down and at the gap between this worktable and the one their partners were on. There was enough of a gap between them for Millenniummon to walk there, so a running jump wasn't happening.
"Joe has his bag, and I have… my bag," Izzy said, glancing at Millenniummon's back. His laptop bag.
"We need to find our digivices to get those black rings off them," Matt reminded them. "Escape is pointless if we're just leaving them behind."
"If only we could fight without Biyomon and the others," Sora said, walking back to them. "But we can't rescue them without their help."
"I can," Ryo said, "or Gennai said I could, but Millenniummon took your digivice from me, Tai, and Gennai said I needed that."
"I was wondering about that," Izzy remembered. "How were you supposed to fight a mega without a partner?"
"With a digivice, even if it wasn't mine, I could free Digimon from Millenniummon's control so they could get more powerful and fight him without him just taking them over so he got some powerful new minions," Ryo told him. "Not very far yet. I'm sorry, if I hadn't tried to fight Millenniummon…"
"It's okay," Kari said, leaning over to pat him on the arm. "I couldn't be scared of Gatomon, even when she was working for Myotismon. If Gatomon asked me to go with her, I would have."
Tai shuddered. His little sister, walking right into Myotismon's claws.
"Gatomon recognized me, inside, even after Myotismon did things to her," Kari said. "The others said that she attacked them before they came to the real world, but she would never attack me. Millenniummon is evil – when he was Machinedramon, he killed those poor Numemon. But, if he's your partner, of course you can't hate him," she said, earnest eyes looking into Ryo's.
"No one's expecting you to," Matt said, and although he wasn't meeting Ryo's eyes it was because he wasn't going to turn away from Millenniummon for even a second, unless it was to check on TK or Gabumon. "Partners are like little brothers, or little sisters. Even if you're separated…"
"Even if when you meet again they're acting like a big jerk," TK spoke up.
"They're still…" Matt grabbed TK, mock threatening. TK just laughed, and Ryo saw the others glancing at them when they heard that sound, looking relieved just for a moment.
"We know you're not going to help him, if that's what you're worried about," Tai said.
Ryo looked down at his crossed legs.
"Letting him stay evil wouldn't be helping," Kari said. "Machinedramon despised everything, and definitely didn't have any friends. Gatomon has the others now, even when I had to go back to our world."
Some of the others stared at her. "He's an evil Digimon," said TK. "He's hurting our partners and he wants to kill us! We need to…" He looked shocked. "Patamon! When Devimon killed, him Patamon came back as a digi-egg right away. Gennai said the Dark Masters and the others wouldn't come back right away and they wouldn't have the memories to be evil Digimon because Patamon was special. Because he was my partner."
Joe groaned. "You mean that even if we kill him, he'll just come back again?"
"It was great to come back to the digital world to see Palmon," Mimi said, "but I don't want to keep fighting forever! And seeing Palmon like this…"
"I'm sorry," Sora said. "I tried to get the black ring off of her, Mimi."
"It's alright, Sora. Palmon can't fight a mega alone when I can't even help her digivolve. He would just have grabbed her and stuffed another black ring on her. If it was even possible for you to take it off, without a digivice. Oooh," Mimi fumed. "That would be just like an evil Digimon, letting you think you had a chance to save Palmon and Biyomon when you didn't. That big jerk!"
"The black gears could be destroyed with attacks," Tai reminded her. "We have to try."
"Yes, with Digimon attacks. We don't even have a rock to hit them with," Mimi said, giving him a no-nonsense look. "What about you, Kari? Homeostasis did something about him before."
Kari shook her head. "I don't think so. I don't even have my crest."
"Yeah, speaking of crests," Matt said. "Maybe if we were carrying them, one of them might have done something."
"And let him capture them too?" Joe asked, then realized, "but mine got me through Myotismon's fog, and Mimi's woke her up from the sleep spell at the convention center, so one of them might be able to do something about another evil Digimon's powers, right? Trying the crests after we get out of here is better than not having any ideas." He sighed. "It's normally Gomamon who says that kind of thing…"
"Maybe Magnaangemon could suck him into that gate, and he wouldn't come back!" TK said, cheering up again.
"There was Wi-" Izzy looked at Kari, then back to Tai. "Maybe if we can get him to chase us into the real world somehow."
"You want to unleash that monster on the real world?" Joe wanted to know what Izzy was thinking until he glanced at Kari too. "Oh."
"Wizardmon," Kari explained. "They're talking about Gatomon's friend Wizardmon, aren't you?"
"We shouldn't talk about it in front of him," Tai reminded them, even if from the looks he gave them it was also for Kari's sake.
"Sorry," Izzy said.
"No," Matt told him. "We need to come up with something. You remember what he was doing to the Digimon in his section of Spiral Mountain."
"Those poor Numemon…" Kari shuddered. "A lot of them weren't Numemon before. They were different kinds of Digimon, but they were hurt when they were captured and went back to little forms, and then they were mistreated so badly that when they digivolved to Champion again they couldn't become anything but Numemon."
"And that factory." Sora shuddered. "Biyomon digivolves into Birdramon. All the Megadramon and Gigadramon are dramon type." What if her partner was taken to that factory and came out a Megadramon instead of Birdramon? How would Sora find her partner among all the drones if Biyomon couldn't remember her?
Tai echoed her shudder – his partner was a dinosaur, but that might be close enough. They'd seen the Megadramon and Gigadramon flying around, cleaning the lab, replenishing the cage supplies. The cyborg Digimon really were like robots by the time they came out of the factory.
"I think that's why Andromon was vulnerable to a black gear even though he was an Ultimate," Izzy said. "The factory on File Island… I'd have to investigate further, but I think it's all the same technology. Andromon might have been one of the experiments there, and just forgot what happened to him."
"So he's designing Digimon that will be vulnerable to his control, and turning captured Digimon into those kinds of Digimon?" Matt's fists clenched.
"I hate evil Digimon," said TK.
"What about Gatomon?" Kari asked.
TK looked embarrassed, but "Gatomon wasn't really an evil Digimon, Myotismon just hurt her. Oh." Now he looked more embarrassed. "Sorry, Ryo."
"For what?" Ryo wondered.
"Um…" TK didn't look sure, just like he felt he'd done something bad.
"I know he's evil," Ryo said, and shuddered. "You weren't looking over his shoulder at those reports. I wish he'd left them in Digicode instead of putting them in Japanese for me."
"Reports?" Izzy asked. "Just on the readings he was taking from us, or was there anything useful in there?"
"His forces are expanding his control," Ryo said.
"That's a surprise," Matt said, rolling his eyes. Of course the evil Digimon weren't going to go on vacation just because the Digidestined were captured. "We were away from the Digital World for a few days, real world time, and by the time we got back the Dark Masters took it apart and put it back together the way they wanted."
"I think you guys can guess the different things they're doing to the Digimon they capture." Ryo didn't want to go into details when TK was already upset and Kari was trying to be brave so Tai didn't have to worry about her being scared.
"You just came to the Digital world," Sora realized. "So it probably came as a shock, the stuff evil Digimon do. We've seen this before, but you hadn't, and he's your partner." Ow. "Devimon, Etemon, Myotismon… Millenniummon's really not that unusual, right guys? Just powerful."
"He's dangerous and competent," Matt agreed. "He's got it together more than a lot of them, even if he just decided to blow everything up that time, but he hasn't really done anything the rest of them wouldn't do if they thought of it."
"Or knew how," Izzy agreed. "Etemon didn't understand the technology he was using. There was a Digimon that interfered with my capacity to think and remember my friends." He frowned, looking thoughtful.
"Do you think he can do that to us?" Tai asked, worried.
"No, well, maybe, but that's not what… isn't it strange? Apocalymon just wanted to destroy everything and get revenge on the Digimon that could digivolve. He was supposed to be in control of the Dark Masters, but Machinedramon was making Digimon digivolve, even if they digivolved wrong. I wish I could get a look inside the system here, the records might…" Izzy's frowned deepened.
"Well?" Mimi asked. "Don't keep us in suspense."
"I shouldn't say," Izzy said. "Not when I don't know for sure."
"Right, and he's listening to us," Tai agreed, a little quickly.
"You don't have to treat me like a little kid," Ryo said.
Izzy and Tai looked sheepish. "Sorry," Tai said. "At first there were seven of us, and then the new Digidestined was Kari." When Tai was already in the habit of being protective of his little sister. "You're the new kid now, and you're not used to this the way we are."
Since Tai had apologized, Izzy started to think aloud. "I wish I had the time to look at more of Gennai's records. Not that he managed to save all that much of the Order of Azulongmon's data when the Dark Masters attacked, so it might not have done that much good."
"Do you think Millenniummon is an egg they lost the way they lost Gatomon's?" Kari asked.
"Maybe," Izzy said. "The Heighton View Terrace incident happened when there was a war in the Digital World. Because we saw Digimon then, the digital world saw us, so we were chosen. Since there was a war going on, I bet the Dark Masters weren't the first time one of the Gennai Order's bases got attacked. What if they made his digiegg back then?"
"But that was years ago," Tai said. "We were little kids and Ryo's our age. Would they really have wanted to call him in for that war?"
"If Ryo's crest power means he can power up other people's partners, or even unpartnered Digimon? Kari can channel the god of the Digital world, Tai. We don't know what the limits on their abilities are. Any of our abilities. I should have made more of an effort to study them when we were in the Digital world before, but there was always something more urgent happening. Remember the prophecy about Myotismon's defeat? TK and Kari letting Agumon and Gabumon digivolve to Mega was a lifesaver, and their partners didn't really have to fight to do it. If we understood more about what we were doing, and I bet the Ancient Digidestined knew what they were doing by that point, we could have had Angemon and Angewomon fly in with Kari and TK and then get them to safety."
"Gennai said I could grant power to three Digimon at a time to fight Millenniummon," Ryo told them.
Joe whistled. "Three extra megas would make a big difference. Four, I guess." Since Ryo's partner was also a mega.
Matt frowned, looking at TK. "I guess if Digimon are invading the real world, it's safer to have a mega around to protect you than to not even have a partner." If nowhere was safe. He still didn't like the idea that it might have been Kari or TK who had a partner picked out for them by the Gennai Order that long ago. That might have gotten pulled into the Digital World all those years ago if some attack hadn't overrun some hypothetical base.
"Yeah! If you and MagnaAngemon and MetalGarurumon were here, I know everything would be fine!" TK agreed.
"I wonder what our crests do," Izzy mused.
"Well, yours is obvious," Joe told him. "I have to study all the time, and you just learn a new language and how to reprogram the digital world like that?"
"It's not 'like that!'" Izzy looked insulted. "It's hard! If it was easy, I'd be doing a lot more to help you guys! There's so much stuff I haven't figured out yet!"
"Izzy," Tai said, "You get that the stuff you've figured out is really important, right? It made a really big difference. Didn't you wonder why none of us were trying to help you out anymore? Joe's studying to be a doctor, so he knows how to study stuff, and even he can't make heads or tails of any of it."
"I'm fluent in English and two other languages," said Mimi, "and from what you explained to me, Digicode should be a lot easier, but, well, it's not that it doesn't make any sense. English doesn't make any sense. Digicode is much worse. It's solid idioms. Oh, what was it you called it… called… function calls! When a line in a program is referring to some other program, and you need to know that program to know what the main sentence is doing? Digicode is all like that, like needing to know that poem to know that 'the moon is beautiful tonight' really means 'I love you.' You can read Digicode like all you need to know to understand it is right there in front of you, even when it isn't."
"I can't even get that far," Joe said. "But Mimi's right. I'd need to constantly look things up in order to read it, and I can't figure out how you just press random keys to look things up. Do you even know?"
"It's…" Izzy blinked. "Huh. Now that I think about it, I don't know how to explain it. It seemed so intuitive, but that's because I made it up myself, but why does it work? I'm using certain symbols and concepts to call up related symbols and concepts, but information in a database doesn't index and hyperlink itself."
"You're calling up the data you want, when the whole digital world is made of data?" Tai asked him. "You really didn't know what a big deal that is?"
"I… I thought it was a big deal at first, but I thought I was just being more impressed with myself than I should have been." A flash of regret: had pride gone before a fall?
"It's kind of hard to not be arrogant when you're that much smarter than everyone else and can do that much with it," Joe said.
"You were still insufferable. Don't do that again," Matt said, then bumped Izzy's shoulder with his fist. "Hey, joking. I was just annoyed I was pretty useless, okay?"
"So that leaves Courage, Friendship, Love, Sincerity and Reliability," Tai counted off on his fingers.
"Well, you two can reach mega," Sora reminded Tai. "You might have needed TK and Kari's help at first, but you don't anymore."
Matt nodded.
"Is being able to reach Mega a big deal?" Ryo asked.
"Megas are rare," Izzy told him. "Most Digimon don't live that long, and even ancient ones like Pixiemon and Andromon never reach mega. So that leaves Love, Sincerity and Reliability. Or Love, Purity and Sincerity," he added.
"So my crest might actually be Purity?" Joe asked.
"No." Izzy shook his head. "Your crest might be Sincerity, and Mimi's might be Purity. Gennai's pretty certain they're Reliability and Sincerity, but I don't know. I was trying to look up something on the crests, and Gennai's barely got any of the Order's database, but the crest data didn't quite match up. He's pretty old, too, so it's really possible he might be remembering it wrong."
"Well, that's a lot of help," Mimi said. "Not you, Izzy. So I may be the Child of Purity?"
"Pure what," Matt muttered.
"Actually, that's a good question," Izzy said thoughtfully. "Sincerity does kind of fit you Mimi, because you tell the truth… the way you do."
"Tact is just not saying true things," Mimi said cheerfully. "I'll pass, thanks."
"But that could also be single-mindedness. Focus on a single purpose. Purity of will? Does that sound right?"
"You're the Child of Knowledge," Tai told him, shrugging.
"Hmm… Oh!" Mimi exclaimed, sounding pleased. "Alright, everyone stop talking about this. Remember, we're still being listened to."
"Is there any chance mine has the wrong name?" Sora asked, sounding like she really didn't think so.
Izzy shook his head.
"It's got a heart on it," Matt said flatly. "Didn't you already get over this?"
"It's just… what good is the crest of Love if I can't help Biyomon?" She looked down dejectedly, her hands clenched in her lap.
"Millenniummon put her in Palmon's enclosure and then Biyomon's while you were unconscious," Izzy told Ryo. "He didn't order them to hurt her, but they barely registered that she was there."
"He wanted to see what I'd do," Sora said tightly, with a note of reproach in her voice, confirmed by the look she gave Izzy. "That was obvious."
"Why were you expecting Ryo to know why Millenniumon did anything?" Mimi chimed in. "He wasn't even awake."
"Well, Millenniumon is his partner," Izzy defended himself, then sighed. "I didn't mean to imply anything," he told Ryo. "He's a scientist, so if anything I'm the one who should be trying to figure him out."
"I'm done. Here, Ryo," Joe said, passing Ryo the water canister.
"Hey, let me actually drink some first," Tai said, reaching after it.
"Sorry," Joe said, blushing with embarrassment. "It's important to stay hydrated."
"That reminds me. TK, you need to eat more," Matt said.
"What if there are mushrooms in it?" TK protested. "I don't want to forget Patamon!"
Everyone looked puzzled. "Mushrooms?" Sora asked.
"Oh, right, Demidevimon," Tai remembered. "He gave TK mushrooms of forgetfulness."
"How do you think Patamon would feel if you starved to death?" Matt glared down at him a little. "You need to keep your strength up for when we make a run for it, okay?"