Chapter 39: The Queen's Heart
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Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.
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Just after he rematerialized, Yuji felt Baalmon let go of him and Commandramon and he landed face-first. As soon as that happened, he heard a voice chastise the Ultimate-level digimon for his mistake. As far as he could tell, he was in the middle of a large stadium, though why was the question. "You shouldn't have done that," the long-haired boy heard his brother say and he got up, sore from the fall and faced the man with the long goatee standing in front of him, fingering the pointy facial hair as he grinned. "How's it going, dude?"
Yuji grimaced at the sight of his older brother and grabbed his digivice. "What the heck, man?" he asked angrily. "You separated me from my friends while they had to fight the Digimon Queen."
His brother grinned. "Yeah? I think your buddies are going to do just fine over there. You, on the other hand…" He flicked his fingers and Machinedramon came up behind him, raised up to the ground on a platform. "Are you ready, bro?"
A Mega… Yuji thought to himself, feeling nervous at the sight of his brother's partner digimon. He looked over at his partner who was equally as dumbstruck as he was. "Okay, bro, you're getting what's coming to you! Super-Digivolution Activate!"
"Commandramon digivolve to… Tankdramon!" the digimon shouted, becoming the massive dragon-tank. They were both dragons, Yuji realized, hating that he had that in common with his traitor of a brother.
Almost instantly, Yuji synced his mind and emotions to Tankdramon's, powering up the dragon-tank with his determination. It was at about that time that the Unification Wave swept over them. Yuji didn't get any new memories.
###
Taizou felt trepidation as Zeppelinmon flew up in the air once again, preparing to go after the Digimon Queen and her partner. He wasn't sure what to do exactly, but he was ready to do whatever was necessary to take down the ruthless dictator. Sitting in the middle of the bridge wasn't exactly what he wanted to do, but there he was.
"Taizou, I am detecting a massive power surge coming from StrikeMapachemon. I believe he may have just forced a biomerge onto his partner and achieved the Mega level," the airship said to his partner through the intercom. Ayaka blanched at the idea that they were going to be facing the Mega form of the Queen's partner.
"I was hoping it wouldn't come to this," she said to the others.
"Well, she managed to get Orgetorix to biomerge with his partner. Who knows what her partner is really capable of," Taizou told her, just as nervous as she was. "You don't think you can biomerge again just after you did it earlier, do you?"
Ayaka shrugged. "I'm not sure. I could try, but I can't guarantee it." She said.
"I'm not sure if I can do that," Salamon said from her arms, groggily. "I'm so tired I could sleep for days."
"Can't we all. When I'm done with this, I'm so taking a week off from saving the Digital World," Miki remarked. "It's weird that Yuji just disappeared all the sudden like that."
"He's in his brother's domain," Ayaka told her. "I'm worried about him."
"Me too," the dark-haired girl replied. "It's just been one thing after another since we got back. I mean, I knew we were probably going to take on the Digimon Queen sooner or later, but I didn't expect her to have allies."
"We would have had to fight either her or Dorbickmon," Taizou responded. "I'm not sure which would have been worse."
"Unification Wave approaching! Impact in 5… 4… 3…" Zeppelinmon trailed on as the Unification wave hit them. They didn't feel any effects when it did so, washing over them.
"Well, there aren't any memories of another world this time," Miki commented. "Maybe we didn't exist there or something."
"All three of us?" Ayaka asked, disturbed by the morbid thought of there being a world where she wasn't born.
"That's a pretty big coincidence," Taizou remarked, pondering that over. "By the way, there's another Mega in the fight. It looks like…" The buzz-haired boy's eyes widened as he looked at the information on his armrest. "No way."
"What is it?" Miki asked before running over to the chair and seeing the information on the panel. "Gallantmon Crimson Mode? But that's…" Her face registered an expression of shock.
"Gallantmon is helping Tadashi? That's great!" Ayaka exclaimed, an expression of hope on her face. "Zeppelinmon, where are the other members of Takato's team?"
"There are five other signals, two heading toward Roger Volkmann's domain and two heading for Satoshi Terayama's fortress and one of them has changed course to intercept us," the airship replied.
"Okay, open up the loading bay for him," Taizou ordered. "Come on, guys, let's go see this guy."
The group made their way down the elevator and to the location of Zeppelinmon's massive loading bay. The bay was opening up as a figure in yellow armor entered before splitting into two figures of similar height: Rika and Renamon. Rika didn't look much different from when Tadashi's team knew her but she did have a bit more maturity to her from seven years in an alternate reality separated from friends and family. The bay doors closed up behind her.
"You guys?" Rika asked with a bit of shock coming across her face as she started to smile.
"Rika… It's really you!" Ayaka exclaimed.
"No way!" Miki shouted in amazement, running up and hugging the redhead.
"Uh, you guys were friends with Jeri, weren't you?" Rika asked, confused. "Sorry, I don't remember your names."
"My name is Ayaka," the blonde said with a bow.
"And I'm Miki," the dark-haired girl replied.
"And I'm Taizou," the brown-haired boy introduced himself.
"Oh, yeah, I remember you a little. I think Kazu and Kenta talked about you a lot," Rika told them. "By the way, there's a battle going on against a stronger-than-average Mega-level opponent so I'd be careful. Can any of you reach Mega?"
"I did once, but it was earlier today," Ayaka informed her.
"Takato reached Mega for the second time just a couple of hours after reaching it for the first time," the redhead responded. "Is your partner tired?"
"Very," the blond replied with a nod.
"Here, use this," Rika replied, handing her fellow Tamer a stamina seed card. Ayaka immediately slashed it and the effects were instantaneous. Salamon perked up, blinking at her partner.
"Good luck," Taizou told the others. "Zeppelinmon, hold position."
"Affirmative. I don't want to go any closer as it is," the airship replied.
"Wow, this digimon would have been useful during our first trip to the Digital World," Rika commented with a smirk. "Well, we'll have to catch up on everything when all of this is done."
The trio nodded as Rika and Ayaka held out their digivices while the bay doors opened up again.
"Biomerge Activate!" they said, letting the light of Digivolution engulf them.
When Taizou saw the two Megas fly away, he wondered what else he should do. He couldn't just do nothing on the sidelines, so he grabbed his digivice from his belt and checked the locations of any more Tamers around him.
He saw that there were a number of Tamers on the ground. Looking at their data, he noticed that Jeri, Ai and Mako were among them. That gave him something to do. He had to go down and get them just in case the battle got out of hand and they got caught up in it. There was also the possibility of the Megas losing against AshtorMapachemon, something he didn't want but he had to prepare for the worst even while hoping for the best.
"Okay, Zeppelinmon, take a course down. There are some Tamers down there that need to get rescued," the brown-haired boy told his partner.
"Roger, Taizou. Course set and engaging," the airship replied, setting a course for the ground where Jeri and the others were at.
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Antonio grimaced as the Unification Wave hit him, giving him memories of a life with Katarina that was the same as the dreams that had hit him the previous few nights. He didn't feel the dread of not having his other son Eduardo in his life that he had gotten from the memories the first time they hit him, though he still didn't like the idea.
Ed got a few new memories from the other reality and so did Abigail. Art got vivid images of himself at the age of four, but nothing much beyond that. And Orgetorix just vanished along with his partner as the Unification Wave hit them.
"Where'd the bearded guy go?" Ed asked, confused by the disappearance.
"He had an alternate self somewhere else on the planet when the Unification Wave hit, so he was merged with him," Art replied, glancing at his partner as the digimon continued undoing the damage caused by the Digimon Queen to the minds of the various Tamers in the room. The digimon was beyond exhausted. "I don't understand. I've used a ton of stamina programs on him but he seems to be getting worse and worse."
"Stamina can only help if the body's not breaking down as well," Antonio responded. "Think about it: we mainly get tired because otherwise our body will wear out."
"So, he needs a healer," Abigail deduced. "Cutemon?"
"Kyuu!" the digimon responded, walking over to the squirrel and using her healing powers on him.
"Crap, that means that if the Digimon Queen or another member of the Triumvirate decided to strike, only two of us could stop them," Ed told his father.
"I can reach Mega, but I'm not sure what good that would do against an entire army of Ultimates," Antonio remarked. "If Yuji was somehow teleported away, though, that means that Satoshi Terayama is busy, leaving only Roger Volkmann and at least with him, his forces were drastically reduced from when we first got here."
"Roger Volkmann? That would be bad if he was on his way here," Ed said with fear.
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Joey Krenzel, the former Second Emperor, had made his decision. He was going to hold off the so-called Legendary Tamer from going and making a strike against the Digimon Queen's forces and executing his plans to kill all of her brainwashed Tamers inside her base. The report that she had been chased away had come in just a couple of minutes before from an agent of theirs inside the Queen's base, there to observe her judgment against Antonio Urrutía.
Just after they received the report, the second Unification Wave hit, giving Joey more memories of a troubled childhood. As if they weren't bad enough with the fifteen year war ending in a genocidal campaign and torture at the hands of the digimon of that world, he thought with Mercurymon trailing behind him.
"What troubles thee, my partner?" the green digimon asked Joey.
"Everything," he responded, adjusting the rims of his glasses as he walked through the halls of the Legendary Tamer's fortress.
"Partner? Thou art not considering betraying our lord, art thou?" the knight of mirrors asked in surprise.
"He's just ordered me to organize a group to kill all of the Digimon Queen's slaves! How can you possibly think of following such a horrible order," Joey exclaimed.
"You can't," another voice added. The brown-haired boy turned around to glance over at the bespectacled, ebony-skinned second incarnation of the Time Lord Alexander Rinaldi. His blue suit was in impeccable condition and his mien serious.
"Who the heck are you?!" Joey exclaimed, almost ready to strike.
"Well, Joey, I am a force of good and I have information that will stop Roger in his tracks. You just have to take me to him," the Time Lord responded.
Joey nodded, though he didn't quite believe Rinaldi. "What's the information?"
"Mr. Immortal is going to be coming to visit in a matter of hours."
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Her eyes opened and she was in the middle of the room set aside for monitoring the triumvirate's movements through the digital world, using advanced computer technology left behind by the former Digimon Emperor, David Symanski. Everyone had been affected in different ways by the Unification Wave. Katarina just had images of another life course through her neurons as she merged with her alternate self. She knew quite a bit about her life in that other reality, but that didn't really matter at the moment, although she was worried about a son in the real world along with the two daughters from a previous marriage that she bore in the previous alternate reality that merged with this world.
"Anybody have any idea what caused that?" the dark-skinned Greek woman asked her squad.
"I don't know, but the Unification Wave's epicenter was somewhere over on the WWW Continent," Robert responded, shaking his dark-brown-haired head at the data. "There are a few digivice signals there namely one I can't identify along with David Symanski."
"David Symanski? What does he have to do with that?" Katarina inquired, getting a series of shrugs from the various tamers that were under her protection. She had heard of a Professor Peter Symanski from Colorado State University but hadn't thought much of him. His theories on how the Digital World connected to known laws of physics seemed way out there to her. "Continue monitoring them. Are there any other tamers nearby?"
"Kurita Nakabayashi and Rinchei Wong along with a number of other Tamers are several kilometers closer to us than Symanski and the unknown," a red-haired girl informed Katarina.
It all seemed rather suspicious. "Okay, I'm going to need to send a team over there to check on those Tamers and find out what is going on with the unknown Tamer. Also, how many Tamers more are now in the Digital World?"
"Just a few," Muchomon responded, getting in on the action of informing his partner.
"If I had to guess, I'd just say Kurita, Rinchei and a couple of the other Tamers they are with."
At least there aren't too many more kids in danger, Katarina thought, hating what had been happening.
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"Sol Blaster!" Apollomon yelled, aiming for AshtorMapachemon, who managed to dodge the attack but barely.
"Invincible Sword!" Gallantmon shouted, striking the enemy digimon across the chest, causing damage and making data spray outwards. Then the double disappeared and the Royal Knight heard something click behind him.
"Decimation Blaster!" the female raccoon exclaimed, shooting Gallantmon Crimson Mode point blank. The knight yelled in agony and fell a few hundred feet before regaining his flight ability. The enemy digimon had definitely done a number on his wings but not enough because he was still flying. The knight was going to get back at her for that.
"Oh please, you think I'd just let you strike me like that?" AshtorMapachemon asked as Gallantmon went straight through her.
"She's creating illusions. That means she's probably in our minds," Apollomon told his ally.
"That's not good," the knight responded. "So, she's probably invisible or something."
"Or she's making it so we can't focus on the real her," Takato said from within his partner's Mega II form.
"That kind of makes sense," Tadashi replied, grimacing at the thought.
"Since when does a Raccoon have telepathic powers, anyway?" Takato asked, jokingly.
"I don't know. You should as his creator," the blond responded with a chuckle, watching out for the Digimon Queen's partner. The feeling of being inside his partner biomerged was something altogether different. He felt naked, but he was at least glad that no one else could see that.
Then he saw AshtorMapachemon once again, standing right in front of him. He didn't strike immediately, attempting to try to find the real one. He knew that she could get rid of him with one shot and didn't want to take any chances. He needed to defeat her for the horrible things she did.
"Come on, you know you want to play," she taunted. That was a mistake since Apollomon knew exactly where the voice was coming from and charged another Sol Blaster, suddenly turning to his left as he launched the attack, hitting her head on.
The raccoon's visage twisted angrily at the thought of being hit directly like that. She was singed and her hair had been fried off in parts, but she wouldn't let that get in the way of destroying these enemies, so she lurched forward, blades extended from her arms.
"What the-?" Apollomon exclaimed as he dodged the attack before the enemy turned suddenly, attacking him in the chest with her knives.
"Positronic Stab!" the enemy screamed, causing large amounts of antimatter particles to go through her enemy, making him feel large amounts of pain from the attack as large numbers of electrons inside of him made contact, annihilating each other in miniature explosions throughout his body.
Still, at least her little diversion gave Gallantmon Crimson Mode the opportunity to use an attack on her himself.
"Invincible Sword!" he yelled, stabbing the Digimon Queen's partner through the midsection where the kidneys would normally be. Apollomon fell a bit as he recovered from the attack and unfortunately that gave the mad raccoon the opportunity to get out of the way of Gallantmon's attack.
Thankfully, he was caught by Sakuyamon before he could fall too far.
AshtorMapachemon just grinned evilly. "Well, I guess this means I should probably step up the game again," she said as Gallantmon attempted another attack and just went through her telepathic illusion. The real AshtorMapachemon was elsewhere and had spoken directly into the Tamers' minds, even those of Sakuyamon and Shakamon.
Multiple AshtorMapachemon clones appeared, each holding illusions of the Tamers' friends and loved-ones before destroying in the most horrific fashion. The four Megas turned away in disgust, not wanting to see the sickening images but seeing them anyway since they were projected directly into their minds.
"You see, you would all be useful in my army. Unfortunately, the only ones that can be used are the Original Tamers of Shinjuku. The rest can just die," the enemy digimon said, her voice seemingly coming from all of the telepathic clones at once.
Rika grimaced from the sight of her mother and grandmother dying horribly and refused to let this witch do such a thing.
Takato hated the sight of his wife and parents being destroyed, along with Jeri and his other friends.
Still, the Queen's partner was making her way into their minds.
###
What AshtorMapachemon didn't count on, though, was what was inside her. The Digimon Queen was waking up, or rather Marie Cauvin was, feeling almost nothing. However, she was starting to figure out what was happening on her own. Early in the battle, she started realizing that she could use her partner's telepathic powers without the evil digimon knowing and so she did.
She looked into each of her opponents' minds, seeing a quartet wanting to get home sooner as opposed to later. She looked inside Tadashi's mind and saw what she had done to him, immediately repairing the damage to his psyche more than what Sciurumon had done. She hated what she was she had done to him. Nobody should have to live through that. At the same time, she saw all the good inside him.
She saw the good in each of them. She hated what her partner had done to her and how he had used her. Then she looked into Taizou, watching from afar. You were right, she thought, smiling at the boy who she had attempted to brainwash so long ago.
She knew that her father wouldn't have approved while he was alive. The French girl looked back in time, remembering the mother she never knew except from pictures. Then she remembered her father, a jolly fat man if there ever was one, who lost his life prematurely to a heart attack. She thought about all of her relatives and friends that she had either lost or left behind. Then she thought of that boy that she saw come into the orphanage all of the sudden.
She remembered him, how she reminded her of the father that she had lost only he was far healthier than she ever remembered her father being. She remembered how despite not knowing his language, she saw a sadness in Ed's eyes, much like hers but different in some way. She had glanced at his files and saw that he had apparently been taken away from his abusive father in Chile by the police, actually an anti-digimon group that his mother had hired in an incident that resulted in Gustavo Orellana's father having to go to the hospital because of a bullet going through his leg. They targeted him simply because his father was a Tamer and proceeded to destroy his jet-black digivice.
Soon after he came to the orphanage, he somehow got a new digivice, one that was black and gold. He even had a digimon whose info he was going to scan. She noticed the drawings in his notebook one day when she snuck into his room while he was showering and saw that he had apparently scanned some of the drawings, four of them in fact. It was a digivolution line from Rookie to Mega and she noticed another line.
Still, she bolted into a nearby closet as soon as she heard the shower turn off and waited, hoping that he wouldn't come in there. Still, she watched through the slits as he came in, wearing nothing but a towel before taking that off. She had never seen a man naked before so it was altogether a new experience but she turned away in guilt, even as he grabbed a piece of underwear from a nearby drawer and put it on. She was still curious about him.
She couldn't get out of there until he left for breakfast. She now had even more of a crush on the boy which was strange since he definitely didn't fit the conventional criteria for attractiveness. Still, she swore that she would eventually get a partner like the one he had. She grabbed some of his drawings from his notebook, designs for a digimon named Coonmon and his forms. She also realized she needed a digivice to scan the drawings in the first place. She was going to return them as soon as possible.
She knew that the Tamers of Shinjuku had created their digivices using a blue card and a scanner of some sort, but she didn't have any digimon cards since the nuns forbade having them in the orphanage. The thought of nuns made her think about how Ed refused to ever participate in Catholic rituals much to their dismay, but she pushed that thought to the side as she grabbed a deck of playing cards and picked the card off the top of the deck, the Queen of Hearts. The sight made her smile at the teenage fantasy of her being the Queen while Ed was the King. She didn't know whether her plan would work, but, surprisingly enough, the playing card turned into a Blue Card.
Now she just had to find a scanner. For that, she found a children's toy that none of the boys played with anymore that scanned barcodes. She then put new batteries into the toy and scanned the blue card with the barcode scanner, not knowing whether that would work or not.
It did and the toy proceeded to turn into a second jet-black D-Arc. Marie smiled and scanned the drawings. While Ed was at lunch, she put them back in his notebook. He had already pulled them out so chances were that he wouldn't notice that they were in a slightly different position than before.
He did sneak glances at her from time to time, but since he didn't know French, thinking it was a dialect of Arabic or something thanks to its guttural R, they couldn't communicate. Her crush on him just continued to grow until the day that she made telepathic contact with her partner, who immediately took ahold of her mind and suppressed her conscience.
That had started the horrific domino effect leading to this battle against the Tamers of Shinjuku. Marie Cauvin scanned further, hoping to detect Ed. She saw him, feeling his love and purpose as he and his father worked to protect his brother. She had no idea he even had a brother and she was amazed that she could even scan their minds since his brother's partner had powers that counteracted hers. She also scanned his father's thoughts and realized that he was exactly who he and Gus said he was during their defense. She frowned, realizing that she had been used by her partner, using the lies that she had fed to her by Ed's mother's account in the orphanage's files.
She felt she didn't deserve to live after everything she had done under his influence. She knew Ed wouldn't take her. As it was, he had that Abigail girl, not that it would go very far due to the distances of their homes from each other.
So she cancelled the biomerge.
###
A few seconds before the cancellation, the four Megas came face to face with multiple attacks from AshtorMapachemon, forcing them on the defensive.
"When will this ever stop?" Apollomon asked, annoyed.
"When she wants it to stop," Gallantmon responded, barely dodging a strike from the raccoon's gun and feeling the effects of its radiation against his skin underneath his armor.
"Watch, all that radiation is going to give us cancer," Rika joked inside Sakuyamon.
"Easy for you to say. At least you can create a shield," Takato shot back.
"Can't you stop the lovers' quarrel and help us find the real AshtorMapachemon?" Apollomon asked, annoyed.
Then the enemy digimon stopped firing and simply floated there in the sky where they fought, dropping her massive gun to the ground as she convulsed.
"What is… happening… to me?" She gritted her teeth as she felt the biomerge start to cancel out.
"You have hurt far too many people, Coonmon. I am ashamed to call you my partner," Marie told her partner from within.
"What? We're over a thousand meters above ground! By cancelling the biomerge you'll kill us both!" AshtorMapachemon exclaimed in objection.
"Maybe we both deserve to die after what we've done to everyone," she responded. "I hate what I've become. I hate the Digimon Queen!"
Then they split apart. Gallantmon and Apollomon both hurried to grab one of them each. Gallantmon caught Marie while Apollomon snatched Coonmon in mid-air.
The lion realized as soon as Coonmon was in his arms that the evil digimon was clawing at him and attempting to attack him telepathically. At the same time, he was attempting to infiltrate his partner's mind again to brainwash her and restore the biomerge. Tadashi realized that he couldn't allow this to happen even though he didn't want to hurt a living being that was defenseless in his arms.
"He's not defenseless, Tadashi," Coronamon told him.
Tadashi hated what he was about to do to Coonmon but he had no choice. He knew that what he was about to do was evil, but sometimes evil was required to bring about more good. The Agent of Forever inside of him agreed, leaking out of the mental seals that had been inside of him for years. His dark side was actually the part of him that wanted Coonmon to survive.
He couldn't allow anymore of Coonmon's evil to tarnish the Digital World. He needed to bring about a permanent end to his tyranny.
So he snapped the enemy digimon's spine in half, causing the raccoon to gasp.
Coonmon did everything for survival, to prevent such a moment. To him, everyone was a threat and he would have stopped at nothing to bring about both worlds under his control. He knew he wasn't going to do that now as Apollomon squeezed on him. The raccoon had no regrets, even as he disintegrated into nothingness and Apollomon loaded his data to prevent his rebirth.
Everyone was silent at the sight.
The Digimon Queen was no more. Her power destroyed.
Apollomon's arms sunk. Tadashi hated what he had to do since absorbing the data of another digimon was taboo. But a part of him realized that he had to do that for the peace of both worlds. Coonmon, especially if he could reach Mega, was a threat to both worlds. There was no way such a creature could be allowed to stay alive.
###
Jeri entered the bridge just as Zeppelinmon made his way back up to pick up the four Megas and one Tamer that were headed toward him. "What happened?"
"They just defeated the Digimon Queen," Taizou responded from his seat. "I can't believe this finally happened. Now she can pay for her crimes."
The brunette frowned. "Thank you for coming and getting us," she told him.
"You're welcome. I'm just glad you're okay," he replied a smile forming on his face as he sat back and waited for the airship to make it back up. "It's been a long road. I remember when we first ran into her after we first got into the Digital World. Man, it seems like forever."
"Yeah, a lot has happened, hasn't it?" she replied, sitting down at one of the bridge stations, smiling. "How's Tadashi?"
"I don't know. He was captured and brainwashed by the Queen, you know, but when she tried to escape he went after her." Taizou took a deep breath. "Maybe he's the one that defeated her."
"I'm opening the bay doors again," Zeppelinmon informed his partner over the loudspeaker.
"Okay, thank you. So, Jeri, how's that team you picked up?"
"Everybody seems to be good. I'm just glad this mission to the Digimon Queen's headquarters is all over."
"Now we just got to go after Yuji and rescue him from his brother," Taizou said.
###
The four Megas landed in the cargo hold and split up, Gallantmon only doing so after he put Marie on the ground gently.
"It's funny how different she looks now," Ayaka commented, feeling her pulse. The girl, was no longer in one of her outlandish dresses she wore as the Digimon Queen. Instead, she was in a skirt and a blouse and her dark hair had changed to a light brown color. "She's asleep. I wouldn't be surprised if destroying Coonmon put her into a horrible depression, though."
"I just killed her partner," Tadashi told his friend, feeling regret.
"Yeah, but if we didn't do that, then he'd try to bring back the Digimon Queen's empire!" Coronamon exclaimed.
"It doesn't mean I have to like it," the blond responded, still downtrodden.
"Sometimes being a Tamer requires doing things we don't like just because otherwise, things would be worse," Takato assured Tadashi, putting his arm around his shoulders. "By the way, it's good to see you again."
"It's good to see you too, Takato," the blond replied. "Still, I feel like I basically did what Beelzemon did to Leomon."
"Not quite," Rika told him. "What you did would have been wrong in any other situation, but you had to make sure that Coonmon could never be reborn. I'm not sure if I could have done what you did in your situation."
Takato looked down at Marie. "So, now what do we do with her?" he asked.
"Ayaka, you think you can have Salamon repair whatever damage was done to her?" Tadashi asked, much to her surprise.
"What?" the blonde asked.
"She's no longer the Digimon Queen. In fact, I think she felt regret over what she did as Queen and that's why she turned against her partner in the end and cancelled the biomerge," Tadashi responded. "What she did was horrible and will probably haunt me the rest of my life, but she wouldn't have done that without Coonmon pulling the strings."
"You're probably right," Takato told him with a smile. "Wow, you've definitely changed since I saw you last."
"Look who's talking," the chubby blond shot back with a grin. At about that point, the quartet and their partners saw Jeri, Ai, Mako and Impmon coming straight for them, a smile across their faces.
"Wow, it's Takato and Rika!" Ai exclaimed, walking up to them. "You're back!"
"Yeah! I thought we were never going to see you guys again!" Mako added.
"Nah, I always knew they'd come back," Impmon said with a grin. "There's no getting rid of Takato and the others."
Takato smiled. He had never been so happy to see his friends again. "Hi, Jeri."
"Takato!" she exclaimed, hugging him. "I'm so glad you're okay!"
"You too," he said, adjusting his goggles. Jeri also gave Rika a hug before turning back to Tadashi.
"And then there's you. I'm glad to see you're okay," the brunette told the blonde, hugging him tightly. He hugged back.
"Aw, isn't that sweet!" Coronamon exclaimed.
"Can I get a hug too, Jeri?" Guilmon asked her.
"You can get hugs from both of us, Guilmon!" Ai and Mako exclaimed, smothering the poor dinosaur. The girls had to stifle giggles while the boys had to fight chuckles, especially as Taizou walked into the room with Miki.
"So, should we head back to the Queen's palace and get Ed and the others or should we go straight to Crimson's fortress?" Taizou asked the group.
Tadashi was surprised. "Where's Yuji?"
"At his brother's fortress. He was kidnapped right under our noses during the Queen's trial," the buzz-haired boy responded. "Hey, where's the rest of your team, Takato?"
"We all split up to take on each of the Triumvirate. We heard about what they've been doing since we got to the Digital World so we decided to do something while we waited for Shibumi to send another ark or something," Rika explained.
"It's crazy how many Tamers are in the Digital World right now," Takato remarked, leaning back on a bulkhead.
"Yeah, there's a reason for that," Taizou said. They were going to have to get their old friends up to speed on everything.
"Okay, guys, set a course for Crimson's castle," Tadashi ordered.
They didn't know what they were going to find there, but they hoped they could save their friend before something horrific happened to him.
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A/N: Wow, the Queen has finally been vanquished, though Marie lives on. Next we'll see Yuji take on his brother.
Originally, a member of a team of Tamers in the world that Tadashi and the others are going to be headed to in a little bit was supposed to have a quick cameo appearance, but I removed the scene since it didn't really have much to do with the rest of the chapter. Considering the next arc is the final one, there are still a few plotlines that still need to be wrapped up. Thankfully, there's not going to be tons of new stuff and there won't be too many new characters during that final arc. Two minor characters will show up as a part of someone's team along with another surprise canon character, but other than that…