Author's Note: This chapter ended up being real short, so I thought I'd go ahead and add it. I think the title of this chapter should say it all.

Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon.

Chapter 7: The Return of Millenniummon

The battle between Sakuyamon and Barbamon raged on in the wide-open area of Justimon's crystal fortress. Every now and then Barbamon would fire a blast of hellfire from his staff that Sakuyamon could only dodge or block with an energy barrier. Meanwhile Sakuyamon would fire a barrage of crystal cherry blossoms that Barbamon would simply knock away with his staff. Cody and Izzy were watching the battle from the sidelines with their Digimon. It seemed like the only thing they could do was watch, and from their perspective Sakuyamon was clearly outmatched. It also seemed like Barbamon was toying with the priestess Digimon. After all, Barbamon had displayed an incredible amount of power at the start of the battle. Suddenly the battle was interrupted when the floor shook for a moment, Barbamon's fanged grin widened.

"Well my dear, it seems that our battle will have to end here," Barbamon told Sakuyamon. "My guess is the tremor we just felt was caused by your dear friend fighting the fabled Imperialdramon, which means that my plan is close to completion. You were indeed a fun diversion Priestess, but now I must prepare. The throne room is just ahead. You are welcome to go there and take witness."

With that, Barbamon vanished in a burst of flames. Sakuyamon turned to Izzy and Cody.

"C'mon you guys, let's go save Ryo!" Sakuyamon commanded before running down the corridor. Her four companions soon followed after a moment.

Back in the throne room, Justimon had just kicked Imperialdramon against the wall, which caused the tremor felt by Sakuyamon and her group. Imperialdramon quickly got back up however, and fired a beam of energy from his cannon. Justimon narrowly jumped out of the way of the blast and leapt back into the air to deliver another kick. The giant humanoid dragon not only blocked the kick with his left arm but also knocked Justimon into the wall at the same time. It was a few moments before the dark hero got back to his feet.

"I can do this all day," Imperialdramon smugly declared. "Why not just give up?"

"Never," Justimon replied coldly as he caught his breath. "I won't give up until I have my revenge!"

"Ryo, I don't want to fight you!" Ken told Justimon. "You're one of the first real friends that I've had. I was very sad when you disappeared. And not long after you vanished my brother died in an accident and my world descended into darkness. Now you've come back after all these years and I find you've fallen into darkness yourself. Well now I'm going to do whatever it takes to bring you back into the light!"

Justimon let out a sarcastic laugh. "You say I was one of your first real friends? Oh please! I was nothing more to you than a tool, a way to defeat a Digimon that everyone else was afraid to fight!"

"That's not true! I owe you my life Ryo! You were there to help me when I first went to the Digital World. I don't think I would've made it out of there if it wasn't for you and Wormmon!"

"And yet you sold me out!" Justimon spat with a more pronounced hint of anger in his voice. "It was your computer that had that rigged quiz on it! You were part of the whole charade! You have no idea the things I suffered through in that so-called tournament and beyond! You say that you owe me your life, that I was one of your first real friends? Well that's some way to show it! You're a weak and useless human being and I'm going to make sure you die!"

Yolei and Davis were both shocked by how much anger Ryo held towards Ken. Ken was shocked too, as well as saddened. He did not like seeing what his old friend had become, and wondered Ryo had gone through to cause him to hold so much rage.

"I don't know what's happened to you Ryo, but I'm still going to do everything I can to bring you back to the way you were!" Ken declared. "Imperialdramon, give him all you've got!"

"If you say so Ken." Imperialdramon said as he took aim at Justimon with his cannon. "Positron Laser!"

Once again Justimon jumped out of the way seconds before the beam hit, but as he was in the air the dark hero was hit in the side by a barrage of crystalline cherry blossoms and fell to the ground. It was another few moments before Justimon got back to his feet and saw that it was Sakuyamon that hit him. Izzy and Cody were right behind her and soon joined up with Ken, Davis, and Yolei.

"So you're fighting me too, eh Rika?" Justimon asked. "You're really going to fight along side these traitors?"

"You're feeling betrayed? How do you think I feel?" Sakuyamon asked in Rika's voice, which had a hint of anger to it. "Just when I think I've gotten to know you I find out you have a whole past that you didn't tell me about! Now I'm not sure if you are who I thought you were! Is this the real you, some kind of rage filled monster?"

"You have no idea what I've suffered through!" Justimon shouted. "I was used by those who I thought were my friends and allies and then went through a living hell!"

"So now you're going to kill them for it?"

"If you truly cared about me, than you would understand my need for revenge and not stand in my way!"

"…Well I don't understand Ryo," Sakuyamon responded with sadness in her voice. "The Ryo I know wouldn't do any of the things that you've done. If you're going to try and murder these people, then I have no choice but to stop you."

Justimon began to tremble in rage. "You're…going to stand in my way? You…you TRAITOR! You choose to side with the ones who sold me out instead of me? You have no idea how much I care…"

Before Justimon could finish his sentence he cried out in pain and fell to his knees holding the sides of his head. The air was filled with the sound of chanting in a language that seemed to be painful for all those in the room to hear. Suddenly Justimon began glowing with a red light.

"Dark Branch Evolution!" Justimon cried out as he exploded into a column of red light that shot into the air and shattered the ceiling above to reveal the sky. "ZeedMillenniummon!"

The column of light finally faded and revealed a Digimon that was completely different from Justimon. This Digimon was gigantic and seemed to be two serpentine dragons coiled around each other like a helix and made of a fiery energy of some sort. One of the dragons was grey and had two horns on its head that pointed straight back. This dragon had a single arm with three claws. The second dragon was brown and also had two horns that pointed back, but also a third horn on its nose. This dragon also had an arm with five claws and looked more like a hand. Six green bands of what looked like digital code and formed a sort of round cage surrounded the whole creature. Shortly after the emergence of this creature, the air was filled by a cackle in the same voice as the chant. The source of the cackling was revealed to be Barbamon, who had emerged from behind the throne.

"At last!" Barbamon cried. "I have brought forth the ancient god of chaos whose power can warp the very fabric of space and time! Behold! The almighty ZeedMillenniummon!"

The entire group was completely shocked by what had just happened. What was worse was that they recognized the name of this new Digimon, or at least part of it. It was the name of the evil Digimon that Ryo had fought at least three times in the past before disappearing and showing up in Rika's world. Suddenly the air was filled by the insane laughter of two voices, both cold reptilian. The group looked up and saw that it was coming from ZeedMillenniummon.

"Finally, after all this time the consciousness of that meddling Cyberdramon is contained!" ZeedMillenniummon cried. "What's even better is that Ryo is also buried deep within me! Now no one can stand in my way of becoming absolute ruler of all creation!"

Back down on the ground, Ken and the others were wonder if there was still any hope of saving Ryo. Because it seemed to them like Ryo had been forever lost.

Author's Note: I've consulted the Digimon Wiki a lot when planning and writing these stories. One of the reasons is to refresh my memory on a few things. I mean it has been quite a few years since I've seen the anime. The other reason is to find out other stuff about the franchise that I could possibly use, like Digimon that could be used for minions or whatnot? Why make stuff up when there's a bunch of Digimon that have never been used in the anime or manga? In the case of this story though I thought I'd make up at least one thing, and that's the idea of Dark Branch Evolution.

The concept of Dark Branch Evolution is basically the same as the Slide Evolution concept used in Frontier, where you have a Digimon evolve into an evil version of itself. Like a Seraphimon becoming a Daemon. With Dark branch Evolution a Digimon becomes an evil Digimon that its pre-evolved form could've become. For example it'd be like a MetalGreymon becoming a SkullGreymon. SkullGreymon isn't necessarily an evil version of MetalGreymon, but it is an evil Digimon that Greymon can become. This way Justimon can become ZeedMillemmiummon without reverting to Cyberdramon first. It does kind of break the thing about Biomerged Digimon being humanoid, but it's a corrupted evolution anyway. Will I use this method in future stories? That I don't know.

So is Ryo forever lost, or can Ken and Rika still save him? Stay tuned for the next chapter to find out, and in the meantime please review and let me know what you think.