Lui had never been in the sky before, not even in an airplane, and never dreamed the day would come when he would get to ride a dragon. Qinglongmon was so blue that Lui thought he could blend in with a normal sky; in the present situation, he was a brilliant reminder of what the world was supposed to look like.
"Ukkomon, can you fix the digital world?" Lui said. it was a big wish, perhaps too big to ask of his partner.
"I'm working on it. Let's go to Infinity Mountain."
"Makes sense, we've gotta stop them from breaking it even more. I just hope our friends are okay."
A Xiaomon and a Thunderbirdmon flew towards Qinglongmon as they made their way across File Island; he reminded these birds, too, of when the sky was blue. A flock of reinforcements became a mass movement among avian digimon, who considered Qinglongmon's very presence to be proof that the reign of viruses was over. The East was in rebellion long before they reached the Dark Masters' siege camp.
But their arrival would be delayed, for Qinglongmon and his growing flock shined so brightly that they did not see the crack in the sky.
Qinglongmon struggled, with his thin body, to protect his avian followers from Insekimon, who tumbled endlessly through the zero-gravity space which they had unwittingly entered. Worse, the alien patrolling the place had moved so suddenly and erratically that the dragon could not intercept it in time. Hovering over his back, a beam of jagged light descended, and both Ukkomon and Lui were taken into its UFO.
Humanity, at this time, had only briefly ventured to their planet's own moon. They knew nothing of exoplanets, and were still constructing a space station to better comprehend conditions in low Earth orbit. Digimon in this period, however, were already well aware of the existence of aliens. Embryonic human space programs had, not by coincidence, done a great deal to advance computing in their world, so Vademon was utterly fascinated to be face to face with a human being for the first time.
Even if this particular human was clearly a juvenile.
Ohwada Lui was therefore the first human being to ever see the inside of an alien spaceship, but he was too young, and had encountered too many other strange phenomena, to appreciate the significance of what he had seen for many, many years.
The room he arrived in reminded him of a doctor's office – a place where he'd spent an awful lot of time, first because of his father's sickness and then while recovering from his mother's abuse – but some of the scientific instruments were all wrong, and even the ones which he could identify were of an entirely alien construction, with a system of measurement he did not recognize.
Not to mention the windows. Which weren't this circular in a normal doctor's office, and weren't on the bottom, and didn't show you outer space.
A creature made of tentacles, with muscular arms and a giant, exposed brain – Vademon – glided into the room. "Greetings, human and digimon. I come in peace."
"Then let us go in peace!" an angry Ukkomon said. "We don't have time for your experiments, our world is in danger!" Lui stood quietly by his side, although his eyes clearly marveled, and he did not share his partner's hostility.
"Please relax," Vademon told Ukkomon. "You entered my realm, travelers, not the other way around. I mean you no harm."
"You aren't going to do experiments on us?" Lui asked.
"The medical bay is simply the most efficient place to welcome visitors, many of whom we must extract in difficult conditions. Speaking of which…" Vademon pressed a button, and time outside – or at least the tumbling Insekimon – stopped.
The ship flew over to a Piyomon, whose wing had been badly injured from the encounter with the tumbling rock digimon. With the push of another button, Vademon brought it into the room with Lui and Ukkomon; a series of autonomous machines were soon fast at work repairing and partially mechanizing the pink bird digimon.
"If you like, I can show you the rest of the ship."
"We have time now, so okay." Lui walked around the rest of the UFO, which looked more like a typical spaceship, apart from the domed structure – or maybe just more like the ones he'd seen in sci-fi TV shows. It was easy to marvel at all the buttons, but he knew better than to press them; nothing good could come of activating functions he did not understand.
Vademon was actually giving him something of a tour, for all that the child's eyes wandered. When the alien digimon explained how the ship's ray guns worked, Lui's eyes lit up with an idea.
"Vademon, could you please save the digital world from the Dark Masters?"
"I'm sorry, but that is your world's fight. No matter the situation on other planets, we Vademon have sworn not to interfere."
The only thing the kindly alien would do for them, once all the Insekimon injuries were taken care of, was to ferry them through the rip in space, back into the digital world's sky.
Military forces, both on Earth and in the Digital World, have long placed value in controlling elevated areas. It is always easier to charge downhill than uphill, always easier to see what is going on when watching from high above.
Zhuqiaomon was able to clear the air of virus types on his arrival, for they could not tolerate fire raining down from the summit and sought cover out of its attack range. But the Dark Masters had flying digimon of their own, and Piemon's minions, in particular, were eager to show what they could do with their torn, black wings.
Piemon himself soon entered the fray, riding on MetalSeadramon's forehead – Mephismon to his left, LadyDevimon to his right. Once he became aware that they were dealing with two Ultimate digimon to one, Zhuqiaomon signaled for Baihumon's help with a loud squawk, while Buraimon continued to use his swords like semaphores to give orders to digimon from hundreds of meters above them.
"Trump Sword!" Out of the gap in his hat, the governor saw the first set of swords coming and jumped up, flapping his wings to stay well above the blades. But the ones he dodged were illusions; the real ones soared even higher. When he tried to parry the attack, the swords phased through his own.
They were all too solid, however, when they connected with his heart.
Oikawa watched helplessly from Zhuqiaomon's back, and Maki from Megadramon's; their supply of healing items had been exhausted during this long siege, and all they could do was cry his name:
"Buraimon, no!"
"Don't worry, you'll share his fate soon! Ultimate Stream!" MetalSeadramon taunted. It was not merely a laser blast which hit Zhuqiaomon, but a watery one; the technique drenched the bird's wings and doused his flames, and he struggled to even stay airborne.
"Genocide Attack!" Still unable to reach that final evolution, Maki's Megadramon fought back, but a technique designed to slay weaker digimon in bunches could do little against MetalSeadramon's Chrome Digizoid armor.
"Death Cloud!" Mephismon raised his goat hands and Zhuqiaomon began to decay, all while the bats from LadyDevimon's Darkness Wave swarmed over him.
"Kongou!" Baihumon finally arrived at the summit, and was at least able to dispel the perfect digimon's attacks with his new, white wind; he arrived just in time for Daigo to watch helplessly and cry as Buraimon disintegrated into dust.
"Trump Sword!" Again, Piemon relied on his swords – four blades for four legs, two of which hit. Baihumon's greatest weapon was his speed, which could not survive the blades that pierced his hamstrings.
There were no digimon left, at this time, who stood guard inside the summit door. Buraimon was gone, which left no one to operate the flag signals and communicate what had happened to the other digimon inside the fortress.
The Chosen Children and their partners were all that stood between the Infinity Fortress and disaster, and those partners were injured and fighting desperately to hold out. Maki and Megadramon had slipped away, trying to tell the digimon indoors what had happened in person; this was probably a mistake, as it meant one fewer defender at a time when each of them was desperately needed.
But disaster, for now, would be averted; relief came from the sky. An immense flock of birds, led by a dragon, descended upon Infinity Mountain.
"Sourai!" Qinglongmon's blue thunderbolt struck Piemon and conducted electricity all the way through MetalSeadramon's long body, and they plummeted back to the Dark Masters' base camp.
One can not reasonably expect a turtle – even one with two serpentine heads and a tree on its back – to move at a pace remotely approaching a tiger, a phoenix, or a dragon. Xuanwumon's progress was slow by necessity, and they came from the north, on the cold and far side from the firewall. So Hiroki did not realize just how much more desperate the situation in the rest of the digital world had become.
The name of the village of Mammoth Ring is quite literal; it stands on a raised hill in the snow, surrounded by dirt cleared by the village head's daily walk. Mammon was not only its founder, but its guardian; the Hanumon and Yukidarumon who lived in the village were secure in the knowledge that no one in their right mind would invade a Mammon's territory. In exchange for a mild tribute of berries, they could grow their trees in peace.
There were many in the digital world, however, who questioned Etemon's sanity. Although a virus digimon, he was fiercely independent, refusing, along with the digimon he convinced to join the Dark Network, to attack Infinity Fortress on Pinocchimon's behalf. When he declared himself a Digimon King in his own right, it appeared the height of arrogance; it was only a matter of time, most digimon believed, until the Dark Masters or the Chosen Children crushed his little rebellion.
Besides(?), Etemon's awful songs, in MIDI quality, left all who heard them in pain, and Mammon's large ears in particular could not tolerate their sound.
Hida Hiroki listened carefully to Hanumon's complaints, but the description he heard sounded less like a madman than like a clever villain who strategically feigned insanity, one likely to live far longer than most of the Dark Masters' loyal minions. Then again, the same can be fairly said of many of the digital world's greatest villains, and indeed a fair number of its heroes; sanity has seldom been an asset online.
Xuanwumon's own trees were a welcome sight for a village which Etemon's greed had stripped all but bare. Hungry digimon flocked to his back, and the snake-turtle proved a god of abundance, berries galore hidden within his own treetops.
Mammon himself heard the commotion, and walked up the hill to meet a larger digimon for the first time in his life; the depressions from their footsteps would for a while rob Mammoth Ring of its shape.
"Will you fight beside me to save the digital world?" Hiroki asked. In truth, he would have gladly helped them out even if they all said 'no', but his question was met by unanimous cheers and applause.
Etemon could not help but hear the celebration, and perhaps would have been wiser to run away; to his credit, however, no one has ever accused the monkey king of cowardice. Riding atop his carriage, flanked by Gizamon, he soon arrived in style.
"So you're saying a god showed up? Why don't I play some music for the festivities!"
"No one wants to hear that!" Mammon retorted.
"Well I certainly do! Isn't that right, Gazimon?" The rabbits clapped and cheered, "Well, you heard them. Whether this is a monarchy or a democracy, the answer's the same: Love Serenade!"
Any pretense that he was simply providing music vanished with the very visible sound wave attack; Hiroki covered his ears along with everyone else, except for poor Mammon, whose trunk simply could not reach, and was soon in head-splitting pain.
"You have troubled these poor digimon long enough. Kokuhyou!" It is hard to hold a concert in a hailstorm, and harder still when the hailstones are black and larger than many child digimon. Neither Etemon nor his minions could dodge; they were knocked to the snowy ground, left to slowly crawl back to their carriage for shelter.
Xuanwumon then accomplished what some have described as his greatest miracle of all; he made Etemon actually apologize. He made a promise, which he kept, to leave the Mammoth Ring in peace – even though its entire population would soon leave, joining their turtle god on a march to relieve the Infinity Fortress.
It is no exaggeration to say that every village in the northern side of File Island has a tale of Hiroki and Xuanwumon stopping there, driving out whatever virus digimon the Dark Masters left behind to trouble them, and solving their (typically food-related) problems before they moved, together with a growing army, onto the next settlement. But the incident at Mammoth Ring is the best verified, for the footprints created back then still mark the site to this day. It may fairly stand in for the rest; recounting all of these tales would grow tiresome and distract from the great battle at Infinity Fortress.
Buraimon was dead, and Himekawa Maki, who had taken it upon herself to replace him (because her digimon still could not evolve all the way) was not nearly as effective a commander. The number of digimon inside Infinity Fortress slowly diminished, worn down by a lack of recovery floppies. Continuing their war of attrition, at that time, looked like it would inevitably bring the Dark Masters victory.
Pinocchimon, however, was not in the least bit satisfied with the progress of their siege. "I'm bored. Let's try a different strategy. If Drimogemon can make tunnels, so can I. Drill Nose!"
Pinocchimon's drill was every bit as capable of piercing Infinity Mountain as anything an adult level digimon could do. But it was a narrow nose whose lack of volume did not help it move dirt and rock inside, and did not approach the width of even the puppet digimon's tiny body. Most of the day was spent widening the cavity enough for Pinnochimon to dig deeper.
No one was in a position to complain when Mugendramon retreated around to the south side of the mountain. For everyone, even the birds, it was a sign of relief; the cavity, wide enough for a cannon, was blocked by the outcropping above it, so they did not realize what was coming.
And then came the explosion.
A blast of wind and rock and open sky ripped everything open, and the entrance to Infinity Mountain was shattered; the surviving defenders were taken by surprise. A couple Drimogemon had been relaxing in the blast radius, which was lacking in caverns and population; they perished immediately. Infinity Mountain is hollow, and the explosion was more than great enough to expose rooms full of digimon to the open air – and worse.
"Bullet Hammer!" Pinocchimon raced into the opening, for he considered the child and baby digimon hiding within a nice target for a horrific massacre; no mass shooting on Earth would ever approach the 'high score' he achieved on that tragic day.
Mugendramon only partially ventured into the opening; he didn't quite fit, but only wanted to get close enough to angle his cannon without hitting the other Dark Master.
"Mugen Cannon!" Much of the work that was done turning caves into rooms and housing, along with their inhabitants, was obliterated in Mugendramon's second blast; the survivors soon experienced an artificial earthquake.
Daigo had heard the explosion, and Baihumon did not take long to arrive from the interior tunnels. With a "Kongou!" Pinocchimon was blown back out of the side of the mountain, left to catch himself on one of his Woodmon allies.
"Firewall!" Zhuqiaomon had flown over, and now tried to replace rock with fire; the barrier was hot and visibly semi-permeable, but at least something was there, at least the mountain did not collapse.
"Do you honestly believe you can fix this with a firewall?" Pinocchimon taunted. "We're in this world because we breached the original firewall!"
"Trump Sword!" Piemon floated over to the site of the explosion, where he threw four swords for four wings high into the air at Zhuqiaomon. The bird digimon had been too busy trying to re-seal Infinity Mountain to try to dodge; at least the sword wounds did not stop him from staying airborne.
"Genocide Attack!" Megadramon was still not the equal of her teammates, having still failed to evolve to that final level, but she saw three Dark Masters together and surely they could not all shrug off her missiles. Or at least, that's what she told herself and Maki, to convince themselves that they weren't useless, that they hadn't completely failed.
"Sourai!" Qinglongmon and Lui were slower to the breach, but blue lightning did strike Piemon from above, who could not illusion his way out of the bolt.
"Hell Squeeze!" For the original Chosen Children, MetalSeadramon might legitimately have been the most menacing of the Dark Masters; he floated through the firewall with barely a burn and coiled around Baihumon, choking the tiger. A terrified Daigo had no choice but to dismount and try in vain to escape the much longer serpent.
"Chosen Children. You can no longer run away. You will die in the digital world. Prepare to meet your doom," Mugendramon taunted, or perhaps simply spoke. Everyone listened, and most of them believed him.
"Mugendramon is right about one thing." It was Daigo, not Maki, who gave this speech; he was always better at public speaking, and the situation was one where he felt obligated to take charge. "This is the final battle. We have nowhere left to withdraw. It's time to defeat them and save the Digital World!"
What Daigo could not yet see in the distance – an army of icy digimon, led by the fourth and final beast god – would soon restore to all of them the hope that his words desperately tried to maintain.
Digimon, as any tamer knows, have large appetites, and the virus types besieging Infinity Mountain were no exception. All the meat and produce of the southern half of File Island had been gathered to sustain them, and the Dark Masters had therefore felt not the least bit of pressure; they had many weeks to go before they ran out, and the desperate sorties from Infinity Fortress had not even touched their supplies.
Or at least, this was true until all the digimon of Freezeland fell down upon their siege camp, nearly all of them experiencing the kind of deep hunger that only winter and famine can provide – for even Xuanwumon could not feed them all. None of the Devimon or Tankmon guarding their supplies even tried to resist Mammon and a mob of Yukidarumon; what was not devoured was seized, but an awful lot was devoured.
Had they been only a day faster, they might have ended the battle right then and there, or at least forced the Dark Masters to dismiss their minions and made it a far simpler and less bloody fight. Instead, they heard the sounds of Holy Beasts and Dark Masters clashing, and Hiroki and his partner made their way over, praying they would not be too late.
They arrived in time to hear the end of Daigo's speech, and Xuanwumon opened both his mouths wide. With a "Souryuuha!" two walls of water crashed against Mugendramon, and all his awesome destructive power could not protect the metal dragon from short-circuiting.
"Flying Cross Cutter!" Pinocchimon turned around to protect his comrade, and struck both of Xuanwumon's heads with the boomerang cross on its back.
"Masks Square!" Zhuqiaomon and Piemon continued to struggle overhead, but it is hard to fight a digimon who can vanish, whose very presence can be an illusion. Zhuqiaomon did his best to increase his body temperature, to ensure any contact would be dangerous, but he was not able to melt his opponent's blade before a sword strike from overhead made him crash out of the sky.
Baihumon had collapsed in MetalSeadramon's Hell Squeeze by this point, and Lui could no longer afford to concern himself with collateral damage. Qinglongmon snaked along the top of the cavern, and with a shout of "Sourai!", blue lightning conducted itself through the other snake and the tiger's bodies, and both finally fell.
"Toy Wonderness!" The fight with Zhuqiaomon had taken more out of the fire bird than the clown, and a fierce gust of wind would have blown Lui right off his second partner, had Ukkomon not reached with his tentacles to connect the two. Yet nothing could protect that dragon from Pinocchimon's Bullet Hammer; the combo attack finished Qinglongmon off, and they crashed into the treetops below.
Only Xuanwumon and Megadramon remained; the clashing armies of digimon, when not destroyed, had been rendered irrelevant by the ultimate digimon's awesome powers. Xuanwumon's body was a forest, and Pinocchimon's best efforts could not cut it downbefore his right head reached back up to grab and bite the small puppet, knocking it out.
But Piemon's Ending Snipe lived up to its name, and the last of the four gods was toppled.
Himekawa Maki, even at this early point in her life, was more than familiar with failure. It is hard to accomplish anything in this world, even a child's world, while half-asleep. She always struggled in class, and she lost many more games of whatever she played than she won.
Only with Bakumon – with Megadramon – had she experienced the faintest hint of success, yet it was not(?) quite enough; in the end, she could not find a way to evolve her partner, and her team, her party, had been defeated.
It is normal to cry at the end of the world, and she could no longer hold back tears.
Are you ready for a great sacrifice?
She knew the voice which was asking her; they had inhabited her body once, they felt so much like her that she had once mistaken them for her own soul. But there was something external to this voice, something truly and deeply alien in a way which Megadramon was not, something so odd it made every single digimon strike her as normal, if only by comparison.
However great her later regrets, at that time, she welcomed them into her heart. She saw no other way to protect everyone, no other way to wash away the stain of her failure. "I'm ready."
Megadramon descended to the battlefield, and a white light engulfed Maki, so bright that Piemon had to shield his eyes. Megadramon finally evolved, growing wider, sturdier, her wings atrophying, a brilliant suit of mail made from Huanglong ore engulfing her whole body.
Huanglongmon did not speak her own name, did not go through the usual evolution sequence. Perhaps there was a truer method of evolution out there somewhere that Maki had failed to find, and if so, Huanglongmon might have maintained her form with more stability, might have simply defeated Piemon and saved the digital world herself.
Then again, the prophecy did call for a great sacrifice.
Maki would ask for the rest of the life why only four were chosen, why Huanglongmon could not simply function as the fifth and greatest of the Holy Beasts. It did not matter. She could not stop it, she did not even control her own body when it happened.
"Huanglong Cure!"
Three red digicores went into each of the four Holy Beasts. Four digimon who had been unable to fight stood back up, their many wounds closed, exhaustion wiped from their faces. And Huanglongmon's golden armor shattered in all directions, a piece thwacking Piemon in the face, leaving only a golden digitama behind.
Maki would cradle the egg for the remainder of her time in the digital world, would only part from it on the way home, and this unwillingly, because the gate to Earth would not physically accept Bakumon's digitama. But unlike Patamon's or Wormmon's eggs, generations later, it would never hatch.
Piemon loved to play the fool, but the key word was 'play'. Even he was not foolish enough to take on four rejuvenated Holy Beasts at once. So he gathered his comrades and fled – fled all the way back across File Island, fled back through the firewall and out of the digital world entirely, all with the Chosen Children and the Holy Beasts (Maki, torn and distraught, riding Baihumon with Daigo now) in hot pursuit.
The battle for Infinity Fortress was over. The digimon living there – the ones who had survived this long, anyway, the ones who had avoided the many casualties from the long siege and Pinocchimon's massacre – had nothing more to fear, at least in the immediate future.
But this did not mean that the Chosen Children had finally saved this world.