Author's Note: Well, since I got to update earlier today, this is actually the second update. Not a ton of action here, but I really enjoyed writing this. Just got to dig a bit more into characters, and in some cases take them beyond their original selves. Or at least, expand on their original selves more so they move more into my interpretation of them. Hopefully it's as enjoyable to read as it was to write!

Sigma wasn't quite sure what he was expecting when he returned to Daemon's castle, but he certainly wasn't prepared to walk in and see Neo arguing with a girl wearing orange clothes. She must have had some connection to Neo, as she was yelling at him with what could only be described as disappointment. "I can't believe you're doing this! The Digimon in this world can cry, laugh, and communicate with humans. How could you want to destroy them? Let's just go home, okay Neo?" From what Sigma saw, Neo only responded with a smirk before turning away, reacting to this girl much like he did whenever Daemon or any Digimon would threaten him. Without even facing her, he asked in a patronizing tone, "You must be tired, Rei. Why don't you have a rest?"

From this, Sigma didn't need to hear Rei's outburst of "Wait! Listen to me, brother!" to know who he was watching. However, from what Sigma knew of Neo, he would never treat Rei this way, considering his whole reason for being in the Digital World was to help her. The hostility between the Saiba siblings was completely incongruous with what Sigma knew of Neo directly and of Rei from Hideto and Neo's descriptions. Not exactly the most familiar with social interaction, Sigma wasn't sure what he was supposed to do in this situation, especially as Rei moved towards her brother and reached out to slap him. However, Neo didn't bother to turn around even as he heard Rei coming at him, because he knew no harm would ever come to him. Sure enough, a pair of arms suddenly shot out of the shadows and grabbed Rei, immobilizing her. The owner of the arms soon stepped out and revealed himself to be a Devimon, one of Daemon's former attendants now serving a new master.

As Rei struggled to free herself from the demon's grasp, Neo turned to face her. "Rei, I hope you realize I'm not destroying this world for nothing. I just want to rebuild it." Looking into her brother's eyes, she could tell that something was seriously wrong with him. It was almost as if he were a completely different person now than he had been even just before he went off to fight Daemon. "What is wrong with you, Neo? Can't you see that what you're doing is wrong? Just go back to being the brother I love so we can relive the happier times the right way!" Neo's only response was to reach out and take away her necklace. "I'm afraid it's far too late to stop now, especially when victory is within my grasp. Thank you for delivering the Digimental to me. Now, I'm afraid this castle is still going to be dangerous for a while, so I'm going to have to take measures to ensure your safety. Devimon, take her to my old room and keep her there. Don't let anybody other than me in. I'd hate for her to end up in any danger."

With this, Neo began walking to Daemon's old throne room, completely ignoring Rei's protests as Devimon dragged her off to Neo's room. Sigma could only stand in shock, and likely would have remained that way for a very long time if a little green ball that resembled an acorn hadn't waddled up to him and started jumping on his foot with a large smile on its face. Shortly after this started, Sigma heard the sound of footsteps before Mari's voice rang out. "Datirimon, you need to stop wandering off. What if Neo caught you? He doesn't seem like he'd be very friendly…" She trailed off as she saw exactly who her partner had run to. "Oh, hey, Mask-boy. Looks like you got a bit beat up in your fight. The DigiDestined decide to beat you up instead of Piedmon?" Rolling his eyes at her usual show of hostility, Sigma typed a response. "Very funny, Mari. But for your information, they did have to inflict harm on both myself and Piedmon in order to defeat us. Now, is this Datirimon your newest puppet for your sickening cuteness act?"

Mari cringed a little, but knew she had to respond honestly. "Actually, this is Rosemon's Baby form. The DigiDestined beat us, but Daemon summoned us back before she could die. Of course, then Arkadimon- that's what Neo named the Super Ultimate- sort of… ate her. Neo set it up, but I don't think he knew what was going to happen. Apparently, he jumped through some hoops to get Rosemon's DigiEgg back, and she just hatched a little bit ago." Hearing this and imagining what it would be like for him to experience Piedmon's death, Sigma quickly blurted out "I'm sorry. That must have been horrible." Mari was about to respond that she hadn't asked for pity, keeping up her usual antagonistic relationship with the masked Tamer when she realized something was different about the voice that addressed her. Instead of the cold, uncaring sounds of a voice program, this voice carried a tone of sincerity.

"Wait, did you just actually talk? Sigma, I don't think I've ever heard your voice before. So, thanks. It was pretty bad, but at least I got Rosemon back and I actually feel like a better person after this whole ordeal. I even got to see that you have a sweet side." Even though the upper half of Sigma's face was still covered by the mask, Mari could tell that her compliment was making him blush furiously. She kicked herself for forgetting about Sigma's stunted social history and overwhelming him, but when Sigma started nervously typing back a response she stole his laptop from him. "Listen, please don't go back behind your computer. I'm getting sick of constantly dealing with Mask-boy. Just because the rest of us don't wear physical masks doesn't mean we don't hide behind other personalities. Please, I actually like being around Sigma and I don't want to go back to being the bitch I am around Mask-boy. Let me see the real Sigma… well, if that's your real name. I don't really know you all that well…"

Sigma was a bit surprised that Mari's interaction with him had been just as false as his own interaction with others, and decided to trust her. "Sigma is… sort of my real name. It's a nickname I gave myself, but it comes from my real name." Mari waited for him to say more, but he seemed to have to pause for a while. Realizing the cause for this, Mari returned his laptop. "Okay, Sigma, I get that you probably aren't used to talking, so let's make a deal. Long explanations you can use the computer for, but shorter stuff you'll actually talk about. Agreed?"

Sigma nodded and started typing. "My full name is Sigmund Matsumoto. As if my looks weren't enough ammo for the bullies, I had to be given a name that clearly marked me as an outsider. So, when I created my first chat name, I merely took the Sig from my first name and the Ma from my last name to make the nickname Sigma. Really, the only people who know me as Sigmund are the people who ran the orphanage I grew up in and my current landlord. Honestly, I call myself Sigma now."

Mari felt like she just had more questions now that Sigma had given her this information, but she decided not to pry too much into the other Alias's life. After all, they had just gotten on speaking terms right now. Nodding, she responded. "All right, Sigma it is. Well, I'm glad you are just like Rei and a nice person deep down. Honestly, I was worried you'd end up like Neo. He went really far out of his way to get Rosemon back and he's doing all of this because he cares for his sister, so I thought he actually was a nice person deep down. But after seeing that last scene with Rei, it's like he's turned into a worse person in a matter of minutes. I'd have thought after Arkadimon ate Daemon that this castle would be better, but Neo seems to be taking his place."

Hearing this, Sigma suddenly gasped. "Mari, we might be in big trouble." Knowing that his upcoming explanation would be longer, he started typing again. "We know next to nothing about Arkadimon's abilities, so something very bad could be happening here. This mask I wear isn't just to hide from the world; it also helps me in battles. It's linked to my Digivice 01 so I can scan things without having to look away from them, but it also helps me connect to Piedmon much more easily. It's why our Masks Square attack works so well- Piedmon and I can only work so easily together in that dimension because our connection is deepened. Maybe Arkadimon can do something like that without the mask. And if Arkadimon just absorbed Daemon, maybe Daemon's essence is bouncing across that link. It would explain Neo's apparent change in personality. Still, I'd have to scan Arkadimon's data in order to verify the situation."

Mari gave a grim nod. "Well, he did seem a little friendlier after Arkadimon absorbed Rosemon and again after Arkadimon absorbed HolyAngemon's data, but honestly that could have just been him trying to make up for hurting me. After all, he isn't one to throw away allies carelessly. Luckily, he's put Arkadimon in some sort of stasis tank in the lab. If we go now, we should be able to analyze his data while Neo is still redecorating his new throne room. We better be careful, though. He told Devimon to protect Rei from any danger. Since he said that to Devimon, I think it's safe to say he was counting us as the possible danger instead of the remains of Daemon's army."

With that, Mari picked up Datirimon and both Aliases made their way to the lab, where Arkadimon was asleep in a giant tank as he adjusted to his newfound power. Apart from a few minor differences, it looked very similar to its previous form, essentially growing a second set of wings and changing all of the red parts of its body to a purple color. With nobody around to notice him and Mari, Sigma quickly scanned the data, only to realize he couldn't understand any of it. "It's like Arkadimon's data is encrypted or something. I'll be able to crack it eventually, but it will take some time." Mari, who couldn't help but feel a little paranoid with Rosemon's killer floating right in front of her, nodded.

"Just download a copy of his data and work on decoding it in your room. This place gives me the creeps, and it will probably look too suspicious if we sit here the whole time you're trying to figure out what makes this thing tick." Sigma didn't respond outside of a nod, but he followed her plan. If Neo really had turned against them, they would need every advantage they could get in the upcoming battle. If it came to a fight now, Sigma was certain that Piedmon wouldn't be able to win on his own.

Hideto finished recounting his story. "I know it was an accident, but when I think about what would have happened if I had never called out to her… I still can't help but feel like I was partially responsible for everything that happened. I think I just wanted to get away from the guilt, which is why I listened to Neo so eagerly when he said the Digital World could return everything to the way it was back then. I can't believe how stupid I was. Sacrificing monsters just to rid myself of some guilt? I said everything was for Rei, but really I was just being selfish."

Davis nodded. "Listen, I'm going to have to be honest with you. What Willis and I said about forgiveness before was all true, but your situation is a bit more complicated than the ones we've dealt with before. Willis may have created Diaboromon, but he wasn't trying to create a deadly monster. He was just trying to make a friend and a nasty virus happened to infect the data. As for my friend Ken, he thought he was just in a video game, and he also was being somewhat possessed by one evil Digimon while also being manipulated by another one. It took a little bit, but it was pretty easy to forgive them in the long run. You did everything of your own free will, so it won't be as easy for you. I would like to be able to say I forgive you so easily, but it will take me a while until I can honestly say that and then take even longer until I can fully trust you."

Willis was a bit surprised at how cynical Davis had become since the optimistic kid from six years ago, but Hideto seemed to accept this with a grim nod. "Fair enough. I'm glad you aren't going to lie to me just because you need my help. And I don't really know if I can ever earn forgiveness from everything, but I know where I'm going to start. This whole thing started with Rei, so she's where I'm going to start looking for forgiveness."

Willis immediately cut in. "Do you really think that's important? I mean, she doesn't blame you for the accident at all…" Hideto let out a wry chuckle. "You think I don't know that? I'm talking about asking her to forgive me for going so crazy about this. We were best friends, and then I had to pretty much become the worst version of myself I could possibly be while claiming it was for her. Honestly, I feel like that was the worst thing I did, seeing as everything else sprang from that decision…"

Willis snorted. "Honestly, I'm not sure if that's going to be an issue. I mean, I may have only met Rei a few hours ago, but honestly she seemed like the type who isn't capable of thinking bad things about anybody. I'm sure she'll be happy you're back to your normal self." Hideto shook his head. "Thanks, but you don't really know Rei. She always tries to project the appearance of happiness when things get really bad for her. Outside of a few issues, she bottles up her feelings so she doesn't feel like she's burdening others with her problems. After the accident, she was always super cheerful despite everything she was going through. I was the only one outside of her family that she ever showed her real feelings to. To outsiders, it can be hard to tell when she's actually happy and when she's about to break inside."

Davis and Willis weren't sure how to respond to this, but they were spared the need to answer when Hideto's Digivice 01 suddenly beeped. "Huh, that's strange. Nobody usually sends me messages here." Glancing at the new message, Hideto smiled. "Well, it looks like we have one less problem to deal with. Neo just sent me a message that he destroyed Daemon. That means none of us have to worry about him anymore. So, now that that's all behind us, I think I'm going to take a chance on the future. I'm heading back to Daemon's old castle, and I'm going to try and convince Neo to stop this whole thing."

Davis and Willis were a bit shocked at the certainty in Hideto's voice as he said this, and Davis couldn't help but interject. "That sounds great, but I don't think Neo would just give up so easily. Are you really willing to fight him if you have to? Arkadimon is too strong for you to take on your own. Daemon is just as strong as an Omnimon, and Arkadimon would have only gotten stronger after absorbing Daemon's data." Hideto smirked. "Who said anything about me being alone? I mean, you won't exactly be able to help, considering your partners are all back at the Baby level, but I do have friends other than Neo, you know. Rei and I can probably convince Neo, and even if we can't, I'm not the only Alias. I was the most fanatical, so I'm sure I'll be able to convince the other two to back me up. Consider it one of the first steps on the road to forgiveness."

Davis quickly shouted, "You don't have to go off on a suicide mission just to atone for your mistakes!" Hideto shook his head. "You seem to be missing out on a few points here. First, I don't think this will be a suicide mission. In case you didn't hear it the first fifty times I said it, Omegamon and I are at our strongest when we are fighting on the side of good. Now that Warg, Melga, and I are all on the same page, I'm sure we'll be able to stand up to Arkadimon on our own, and with Sigma's help we should be able to win. Second, you can't really stop me. You have three Baby levels, only two of which are conscious, and I have two Megas who will be restored to full health as soon as I Jogress them. If it comes down to it, who do you think would win that fight?"

This effectively shut Davis up, so Hideto began speaking again. "Davis, I know it was impressive, but you should never have AeroVeedramon use Dragon Impulse again. The overwrite is hard enough on him as it is, but that attack boosts the strain immensely. The first time he used it, Omegamon managed to stop him before he could do any serious harm, but this time I could barely stabilize his data. If he uses it again, he won't be able to return his data to a physical form. His data might even be scattered to the point where he won't be reformatted into a DigiEgg. As for what you should do, I'll send a map of this continent to Willis's laptop. There's a city not too far from here that holds an outpost for HolyAngemon's army. They should be able to help you get to Holy Angel Castle. If you don't hear back from me by tomorrow morning, you and all your friends should be ready to fight against Neo."

Willis and Davis nodded, not really having any better plan than the one Hideto offered. Hideto quickly sent the map to Willis before flying off on the newly fused Omegamon. Watching his newest ally disappear into the evening sky, Davis couldn't help but feel strange. What could very well be the final confrontation in this scenario was about to happen, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Even a few months ago when he hadn't been present for the final battle against the Demon Lords, he had at least been able to help defend Earth from their army while the others fought. Now, Hideto was about to try and negotiate an end to the conflict or fight his way out, and all Davis could do was go to Holy Angel Castle and wait to see if Hideto succeeded. After so long of actively trying to save the world, it was difficult to adjust to being a bystander.

Rei dejectedly sat on Neo's old bed. After Devimon had literally thrown her into the room, she had been stuck here. At least Devimon had decided to stand guard in the hallway instead of actually staying in the room with her, but she still had no way to get out of here. The door had locked behind her, and she wasn't sure she'd be able to slip past Devimon even if she could get it open. There was a window in her room, but it didn't open and was too thick for her to break through. In a desperate attempt, she'd even tried jumping off of the bed and trying to get to the vent in the ceiling, but she had pretty much known that that wouldn't have worked when she started. Sighing, she wondered how exactly she would get another chance to talk with Neo and finally convince him to stop this crazy plan. However, her thoughts were interrupted when she heard what seemed to be a banging coming from the vent, later followed by some voices.

"It must be this room!" "Huh, really?" "H…Hey, don't push!" With a loud crash, the grating fell off of the vent, and two dark figures fell into the room. Startled, Rei let out a small scream before she more clearly saw the intruders. Much like Devimon, these two resembled demons, only they were much smaller and looked a lot less threatening, almost to the point of being cute. The two didn't even seem to acknowledge Rei's presence as they began arguing. As they picked themselves up off the floor, they kept arguing over who had decided to come into this room and whose fault it was that they had fallen. Rei watched the bickering silently for a while until she finally made her presence known. "Um… excuse me, but who are you?"

The two demons immediately stopped arguing and turned towards Rei, causing her to shrink back a little. One of the two seemed to gasp in shock and ran towards her, holding out a notebook. He silently held it out to her for a few seconds before he blurted out, "Can I have your autograph?" Rei almost fell off of the bed in shock, but the other Digimon also gave a yell of surprise. The more feminine sounding second demon turned to the first. "Wait a minute, Pul, I thought you wanted Neo's autograph!" The first demon, who Rei assumed was named Pul, didn't bother turning away from Rei. "But sis, this is Neo's little sister! You are Rei Saiba, right? Your brother is Neo?"

Rei nodded, only to see a star struck look come over Pul's face as he literally started floating in front of her. He didn't come down until his sister whacked him with the little baton she carried. Turning to Rei, she decided to introduce themselves. "Sorry about that whole thing. We're PetitMamon that live here in the castle. My name is Pal, and this is my little brother Pul. This dummy wanted Neo's autograph so badly we went and tried to find his room. I don't know what he sees in him- sure, Neo's all cool and scary, but he was basically just Daemon's lackey until recently. Now, he's gotten like a thousand times scarier and probably would tear up Pul's paper when he asks for an autograph…"

"I don't care!" Pul interrupted. "That would make me happy too! I've always wanted to meet real humans, and Neo's the coolest one of all of them! Just having him acknowledge my presence would make my life worthwhile!" Pal held her head as if her brother's fanaticism was giving her a headache, but she decided to just play along. "Alright, fine. Let's go see if we can actually find Neo's room…" The two PetitMamon started flying back up to the vent, only to stop when Rei called out to them. "Wait, take me with you! I need a chance to talk with my brother again!" Hearing this, Pal stopped to think. Surely, helping out Rei wouldn't be that bad, would it? She may do a better job of hiding it than her brother, but she also wanted nothing more than a chance to play with some humans, and Rei certainly filled that criteria. If worst came to worst, she would even be a useful bargaining chip to get Neo's autograph… Unfortunately, Pal was pulled from her thoughts as her brother Pul loudly whispered to Rei. "You can tell she's plotting something- that's the only time she wags her tail like that."

Once again whacking her brother with her baton, Pal shouted, "She didn't need to know that, you idiot!" Turning back to Rei, she cleared her throat. "Alright, fine, I've made up my mind. You can come with me. But, you're going to be the low man on the totem pole. You'd better not do anything to cross us!" Rei wondered how exactly she could cross the two little devils since she hadn't really made a deal with them, but outwardly she only said "Got it!" with a cheerful smile. The smile became more genuine when Pul came up to her and bowed, while saying "Nice to meet you!" This caused Pal to go into a bit of a tirade, but Rei couldn't help enjoying the company of the two PetitMamon. If it hadn't been crystal clear before, she now understood exactly what Tai had meant about being able to connect with monsters so easily.

Rei was only taken out of her thoughts when Pul suddenly grabbed her jacket and started flying upwards. Rei was actually shocked that Pul managed to even lift her off the ground- she was more than twice his size, yet he was slowly lifting her upward. It clearly wasn't easy for the tiny demon, as progress was agonizingly slow, but Rei was still making her way up towards the vent. Pal saw her brother struggling, and decided to help in her own way. "Pul, you dummy, you can do better than that! Lift her like you mean it!" With numerous grunts of exertion, Pul managed to lift Rei to the opening of the vent, where rei grabbed on and started pulling herself up. Pal saw this and immediately decided to lend her own special brand of moral support to Rei's efforts. "Hey, stop slacking off!" Using her trusty baton, she whacked Rei in the legs, only remembering afterwards that Rei was a human and might not be as resistant to injury as most Digimon were.

Seeing Rei pull herself into the vent, Pal immediately flew up after her. As Rei and Pul both took a moment to rest, Pal immediately began apologizing. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! I didn't hit you too hard, did I?" Rei merely looked confused. "What are you talking about?" This caught Pal off guard, as she had put all of her usual intensity into the blow, and nobody had ever just ignored that before. "I hit you in the legs with my baton. I'd have thought that a human wouldn't be able to withstand my strength, but I guess I underestimated you."

Rei sighed. "Oh, you don't have to worry about any of that. I just can't feel anything in my legs. I had an accident when I was in the human world, and I couldn't use my legs anymore. When I came to this world, I could move my legs, but I still don't have any feeling in them." This called Pal to fly off into one of her rages. "An accident? Who did that to you? That's terrible!" When Pul's objection that Pal herself had just hit Rei failed to calm her down, Rei stepped in. "It was an accident… nobody was really at fault. I just wasn't paying attention, that's all." This calmed Pal down, but not because of the words themselves. Something about the way Rei said them told the Tiny Devil Digimon that Rei wasn't telling the whole truth about the accident, and Pal wished she could help Rei express her real feelings. "You know, it's always the kind ones who end up blaming themselves. Now come on, let's go. You two can rest after we find where Neo ended up!" With that, she started flying off down the vent, forcing Rei and Pul to follow her.

Hideto could see the sun beginning to set as he arrived at Daemon's former castle. Truthfully, he could have arrived earlier, but he had purposefully taken his time coming towards the castle. While he had hoped to easily recruit the other Aliases and even convince Neo to stop this fight, he knew there were a lot of things that could easily go wrong. Not wanting to repeat the failure of his challenge with Daemon, he needed to find a way to bring Omegamon into the fight immediately instead of needing to start with Jogress. He hadn't come up with a perfect solution, but he had at least come up with a plan that should work. Hopping off of Omegamon, he scanned his ID card and walked into the castle.

As he walked into the greeting area, he was surprised to find Sigma and Mari waiting for him. Well, Mari looked like she was waiting for him, as she immediately stopped playing with the small green Digimon following her around and jogged towards Hideto. Sigma merely stayed on his computer, intently glaring at the screen and occasionally typing in a few commands. Hideto wasn't exactly sure how to bring up the topic of abandoning Neo's plan, so when Mari immediately told him that they needed to stop Neo, he couldn't help but feel like someone had stolen his thunder. "I was about to say that too. What exactly has been going on here that you decided to go against the plan? Other than the fact that Arkadimon absorbed Daemon, I haven't been kept up to date on everything that's going on."

"Let's just say Daemon might not be as dead as we'd like. Sure, he's not exactly around anymore, but Arkadimon still has his data within him. Ever since that happened, Neo's been acting all crazy. When Rei asked him to stop what he was doing, he had a Devimon capture her and lock her in his room, and it looks like he wanted to keep us from interacting with her more than anything else. And that's only the start- he's been modifying a bunch of Digimon to make them stronger. Since then, all of the Devimon have Digivolved to NeoDevimon, and he's been doing something freaky to some other Digimon as well. He's been experimenting with splicing Arkadimon's data into other Digimon, and so far he's managed to turn a Grizzlymon, a FlaWizarmon, a Sheepmon, and a Sethmon into these really crazy looking Mega levels. Sigma thinks it might have something to do with Arkadimon somehow psychically connecting to Neo and sending Daemon's essence into him, but he hasn't been able to decode Arkadimon's data yet to know for certain."

Hearing his name brought up into the conversation, Sigma turned to the other Aliases. "I'm afraid it will take too long to decrypt all of this data. At this rate, it will be another four hours before I possess all of its information. All I have been able to uncover so far is that it truly is a Mega level and possesses attacks called Dot Matrix and Exile Spear, though I don't have descriptions for either move." Hideto was shocked to hear Sigma actually use his voice, but Mari just seemed relieved that Sigma managed to say more than two sentences at a time. Still, it hadn't been good news. "Well, I don't think we can afford to wait that long. Keep the decryption program running just in case, but we're going to have to try to stop Neo before he does anything too drastic. Do you think Omegamon and Piedmon working together can beat Arkadimon? I wish I could help as well, but for the foreseeable future Rosemon is going to be stuck as Datirimon."

Hideto grimly nodded. "I was hoping it wouldn't come to a fight, but if Neo could really lock away Rei like that I don't think any of us will be able to convince him to stop. I did have a backup plan to fight it out, but I'm not sure how well it will work. If Arkadimon was still and Ultimate, I'm sure Omegamon could win on his own, but now that we're fighting Arkadimon's Mega form we'll need Piedmon's help. We should still be able to win, though. I have Omegamon ready to fight at a moment's notice, so I guess we should just get this over with. Is Neo still in his lab?"

After Mari nodded, the three Aliases headed together to confront their leader and try to stop his destruction of the Digital World. They found Neo standing in front of Arkadimon's lab tank, seemingly smiling at the sleeping behemoth. At first, they tried reasoning with Neo, but he merely laughed at their pleas that it was wrong to run from the real world, sacrifice monsters for a fresh start, and ignore what Rei wanted while claiming to build a world for her. Even Hideto's appeal to their longtime friendship fell on deaf ears, and Neo finally had enough with letting the Aliases waste his time.

"If you really want to stop, I can send you back to the human world at any time. You've all served your purpose. I have no more need of you now that I possess the Digimental of Legends!" Holding up what had once been Rei's necklace, Hideto was surprised to see how simple this magical artifact truly was. Still, now wasn't the time to focus on appearances, so he merely stared back at Neo's eyes. "Yes, really impressive, but I know about that too. If you could use it to make Arkadimon Digivolve, you would have done it by now. I'm guessing that thing isn't fully charged yet, so you may as well be holding a rock for all the difference that it makes."

Neo seemed to find Hideto's defiance amusing. "Well, I see someone was paying attention to the briefings. Still, do you really think I told you everything? The Digimental might not be fully charged, but I have plenty of sources to choose from. After all, it is charged by a very specific energy- the energy released when two Tamers fight against each other. It's already received one dose from your fight when Rei was present, Hideto. I was planning on using all three of you separately to fully charge the Digimental, but apparently you're just trash that can't even fulfil that purpose. Oh well, I'll just defeat you now and then battle those intruders myself!"

Hearing this, Mari couldn't help but laugh right back at Neo. "I guess we should be thanking you then, shouldn't we? I was really worried about how we would fare in a fight against the world's greatest Tamer, but now I see you aren't really him. The real Neo Saiba may have viewed monsters as tools, but he never would regard humans as trash to be used. Since you aren't the Digimon World Champion, this fight should be a piece of cake. All thanks to what you just said." Neo's eyes seemed to flash red at this, though it may just have been a trick of the setting sun reflecting off of Arkadimon's tank. After the brief lapse, he seemed to regain control of himself and coldly smiled back at Mari.

"What, did you think I was above just using all of you? I would have thought you of all people would understand what it's like to be used, Mari. Why should I be different than any other man in your life? And I assure you, I planned on using you from the beginning. Everything up to this point has gone exactly as I planned. Even my beloved sister's appearance was needed. Admittedly, she showed up earlier than I anticipated, but I was always planning on calling her in to this world."

Hearing this, Hideto barely managed to contain his fury. "You mean you purposefully brought Rei alone into a strange and dangerous world? You'll pay for that!" However, Neo just began laughing once again. "You'll make me pay? Please, you were never able to beat me before, and that won't change now." He pressed a button, and Arkadimon's tank immediately opened. "Your Omegamon may be powerful, but you'll never get the chance to use him. Arkadimon will be able to attack your two pathetic monsters as they Jogress. I hope you don't think that I won't exploit the weaknesses of a technique that I was the first to master."

Now it was Hideto's turn to smile. "It's almost funny. Daemon said something similar when I last confronted him. I didn't have a good response then, but I have one now. Come on, Omegamon!" At his command, Omegamon burst through the wall. The Royal Knight may have only used a punch to accomplish this, but the force of the blow reverberated like an earthquake through the castle, reaching as far as Rei and the two PetitMamon in the air ducts. The PetitMamon quickly changed direction and started heading toward the laboratory, unaware of the scene they were about to walk in on. Before the dust settled, Sigma had materialized Piedmon, and the three Aliases stood together facing Neo and Arkadimon. As the last rays of sunset faded, they all agreed with Hideto's challenge: "Neo, we are no longer your Aliases. We're going to destroy your plans!"

Author's Note: Well, there we go. After this, we only have 5 chapters left. And other than Davis and Willis talking with Hideto, we don't actually see the DigiDestined do anything this chapter. Which I think actually helps- after all, they've had so much more screentime up to this point to be developed. That hasn't been the case for Rei or the Alias III. And I know they renounced that title this chapter, but I'm still going to use it because there isn't really another good thing to call that group. Could just go with Tamers, but that would overlap with the probably better known group from season 3 and I don't want to put them in that big of a shadow.

So, next chapter I can guarantee more action, as we have the remains of the Alias III vs Neo. And since events up to this point have gone a bit differently than they did in the manga, even those who read it might not know what's in store. It's one of the few things I have that can be mysterious, what with adapting the plot from something else into the Adventure universe. So, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, please leave some feedback, and I'll update again tomorrow!