Marlene fell out of the golden light, fell off of Antylamon's shoulder, and hit the dirt hard.
She gasped, lifting herself up. Staring all around her.
She was in a...forest now. Again.
The same forest where she had first met Antylamon?
She guessed it didn't matter too much. But she thought it looked a little familiar-
"HOLY SHIT FINALLY!" a voice exclaimed, before a swift figure of golden wavy hair slammed into Marlene! "We've been waiting for you for - forever!"
"Rachel?" Marlene gasped, struggling in the girl's grasp.
"No, it's the tooth fairy." Rachel let her go, stepping away. Her face was flushed, her lips holding a smile. She turned and jerked her head; Marlene followed her gaze to see LadyDevimon standing near an unconscious Angewomon, who was laying up against a wide, tall tree's base. Rachel looked up at Antylamon. Her smile slipped away. "My sister and my mom are both missing," she spoke on, slow and quiet now. "They weren't here when Lady D, Bitchmon and I showed up. What the hell is up with that?"
"It's the time differential," Antylamon stated softly, lowering herself to sit against a large tree. "It's-"
"Whatever. Weird. Now let's go find my sister and mom so we can get out of here," Rachel spoke on. "We'll all go back to the real world and-"
"NO!" Antylamon suddenly exclaimed, her voice filled with alarm.
"What's wrong?" Marlene asked.
"Yeah, what is wrong with that?" Rachel snapped out. "If you think you can stop me from going to see whether or not my dad is even alive-"
"If you go back now you could all die!" Antylamon declared passionately.
"What do you mean?" Marlene said quickly, trying to give Rachel a warning look.
"One minute, one day," Antylamon spoke clearly.
"Huh?" Marlene stared in confusion.
"The exact time differential between our two worlds," Antylamon went on. "One minute in your world is one day here in ours. That means that for roughly every two and a half seconds that passes in your world, an hour passes here. Or vice versa: for every hour that passes here, only two and a half seconds passes in your world. If you try and go back now, you'd be as good as returning to your world mere moments before Omnimon's blast even strikes the city - and you'd be killed along with everyone else. Even if you waited for a full minute to pass in your world, there would probably still be the dangers of debris, smoke, fire, collapsing in the immediate aftermath-"
"WE GET IT!" Rachel shrieked out, tears now starting to fall from her furious, stricken face. She sucked in an unsteady breath, then spun away and leaned against a tree, hiding her head in her arms.
"I'm sorry..." Antylamon said softly. "But we're all just going to have to wait a few days, at minimum, for it to be safe enough to go back. We can't change the location of a Gate: it will always take you back to the exact position you last were. And in this case, it won't be safe to just reappear at the site of a...disaster."
"I know a safe place for us to go - where we can spend a few days in hiding," LadyDevimon spoke quietly.
"Hoth or Yavin?" Rachel said dully, still hiding her face.
LadyDevimon looked at her in confusion. Then she shrugged. "There's a hidden, ancient underground temple in this forest - not far from us, in fact. That's where most of the free, rebellious Digimon have gathered for the past decade or two. Though I can't guarantee they haven't moved out, or been found out by now. If Antylamon's calculations about the time difference are right, then, since the time I arrived in your world late last night, it's been...two to four years by now, here in the Digital World. That's a lot of time for things to go wrong. One wrong battle, one mistake, one strike, one slip-up or clue that would lead our enemies back to us..."
"Yavin, then - awesome," Rachel muttered. She pushed off from the tree, turning and looking up at Antylamon again. "Don't worry: I'm not going to go back through the portal just to get wiped out. I need to stay alive, so I can find my mom, my sister, and then go find the bitch that did it and make her pay. And the Digimon, too. That damn Omnimon."
"Omnimon wasn't in control of themselves," LadyDevimon spoke. "They had a Dark Ring - around their neck. Did you see it, Tamer? I told you before: the Empress can force Digimon to do her bidding. That's how she does it. It's mind control."
Rachel gazed at LadyDevimon for a long moment. Then she nodded tightly. "Just the bitch, then. And, hey, while we're on the topic...have you ever heard of anyone getting one of those Dark Ring things off of an enslaved Digimon?"
"Only once or twice, but it was more due to random accidents and exertions of power than anything deliberate," LadyDevimon said slowly. "Why?"
Rachel dusted herself off - wiping at her eyes furiously. Despite her state, she raised her fist and gave a grin. "Well, considering I was strong enough to punch through the bitch's barrier and sock her one in the face, I'll bet I could smash these Dark Rings to pieces, easy as pie! If I could free that Omnimon dude and get them on our side...we could have them turn all that power against Helena instead."
"Maybe that is the way forward..." LadyDevimon said softly, staring at Rachel in awe. "If we can't fully confront the Empress yet, then we could - if it is possible - focus our efforts on freeing the enslaved Digimon instead. We're going to need a sizable, powerful force of our own just to get close enough to her castle to fight her, after all. After what you did to her back in your world, I doubt she's going to want to let you get anywhere close to her again. She'll probably hole herself up, and send her powerful Digimon to take care of you for her. That is how she usually operates, anyways."
"And maybe it could help change Digimon's opinions about humans, too," Marlene spoke up quietly. "Like Bastemon, and the others Antylamon has mentioned before to me."
"I don't know about wild Digimon, but most everyone in my resistance group holds the tamers in the highest regard," LadyDevimon stated. "You won't have to worry about anything like that with us."
"Let's get going, then!" Rachel said loudly. "Lead on, Lady D!"
"Um-" Marlene began. "Rachel, are you sure your mom and sister-"
"I'm not sure about shit," Rachel cut across, mirthless. "This shit makes no sense."
"It took you and your mother a few seconds to follow after your sister, didn't it?" LadyDevimon spoke again. "Knowing the time differential now...that would mean she arrived here...a few hours ago, by now, since it took you around ten to fifteen seconds to be sent into the portal after her."
"FUCK - REALLY?!" Rachel yelled out, eyes wide with shock and realization. "My sister's been alone here for HOURS?! I'd thought it was only...ten, twenty minutes, tops!"
"Not alone: her Digimon Partner went after her first," LadyDevimon replied. "Remember? It couldn't have been more than an hour; they're probably together."
"What would your sister do in a situation like this?" Marlene asked hesitantly. "Would she have known to stay put or-"
"Yeah, she would have stayed put!" Rachel interjected. "Unless that Digimon of hers convinced her otherwise."
"If he did, I'm sure he only had good intentions," LadyDevimon stated. "If it was necessary to move, or if he knew a safe place of his own to take her to..."
"Well that isn't too helpful for us, now is it?" Rachel snapped. "Not when we have no idea where they would have gone, even to keep her safe here! Now would you go wake up your bitch sister so we can go find mine?! And my mom - she totally should have appeared exactly when we did! Dad pushed me into her, for fuck's sake! Explain that one..."
"You're right about your mother: by all rights she should have been here with you," Antylamon said, her face scrunching with puzzlement. "I don't know why she wasn't - if you didn't see her around..."
Rachel growled in frustration, clenching her fists and turning away. "Lady D, come on, what are you waiting for?"
LadyDevimon nodded. She looked to Angewomon, who was still on the ground (unconscious, Marlene hoped...and nothing worse). LadyDevimon knelt down next to Angewomon, touching her arm gently. Then, her exposed cheek. "Angewomon, wake up." She stared down at Angewomon, getting no reaction. Then she leaned down low, putting her mouth to Angewomon's ear (or, the side of her helmet where her ear probably was), and she whispered something. Whatever it was that LadyDevimon said, it got an immediate reaction: Angewomon's eyes snapped open, and she was jumping to her feet in an instant.
Angewomon and LadyDevimon gazed at one another, silent, for almost a full minute. Angewomon's face was etched with scorn and disbelief; LadyDevimon just looked...sad.
"Do you see it now?" LadyDevimon spoke, breaking the silence. "The true nature of your Empress. Her ways are not just, serving her brings you no honor, sister. Because she sees you as a disposable, replaceable tool. An item. An imaginary creature, not even worthy of the respect of the lowest person."
"What happened?" Angewomon said, ignoring everything LadyDevimon had said to her. "Why are we home again?"
"What happened is that the Empress - Helena, that is - destroyed an entire human city," LadyDevimon responded. "We only made it out of there with moments to spare. And you only made it out of there because I chose to carry your unconscious body along with us. I could have easily left you behind to be annihilated - it would have saved us all some serious trouble. You might have even had the chance to reincarnate as someone better. But then...there was too high of a chance you wouldn't have been my sister anymore," she finished quietly.
Angewomon looked genuinely shocked. Her jaw had dropped, and her cheeks turned bright pink. Then she gave a loud huff and turned away, crossing her arms.
"Okay, let's go, people," Rachel said loudly, waving an arm impatiently.
LadyDevimon shook her head, then took a look around before starting off in a specific direction. "With any luck, your sister and mother might have both found their way to our hidden base all by themselves."
"Yeeeaaaah...today hasn't been the luckiest of days for us," Rachel said sarcastically.