A/N: Well sorry I keep going off the radar. I've been devoting most of my time to my original story (I finished the first draft and want to get it published! Guess we'll see how that works out…)

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Tai raced down the school hallway, clenching his fists, ignoring the confused looks he was getting from the other students as he flew by them. His heart was about to come bursting out of his chest.

He's got Agumon. He's got Agumon. He's got Agumon.

He didn't stop running until he reached the computer lab... and nearly crashed into Matt, who'd come running from the opposite direction.

"Woah! Sorry," he gasped, stepping back as the two of them quickly regained their balance. Then he gave Matt a serious look in the eyes. "You doing okay?"

"Not really," Matt confessed. "I haven't been able to concentrate in school all day."

"Neither have I," said Tai. He looked out the window, trying to fight back the terrible thoughts of his suffering partner. "I can't believe Ken went and captured them," he muttered. "Who knows what awful things he's doing to them?"

The worst part was, now that Ken never left the Digital World, he'd had an entire night to torture Agumon and Gabumon in whatever way he pleased. An entire night, while Tai could only lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, fighting back the urge to scream into a pillow.

"Hey guys! Sorry, we got here as fast as we could," came a voice. Tai snapped out of his thoughts, and he and Matt turned to see the five new Digidestined running up the hallway to meet them, their partners in tow. Davis was the one who had spoken, and he jerked to a stop in front of them. "Okay, we're ready! Let's go save Agumon and Gabumon!"

"I'll help too," said Izzy, coming up behind the others. "If Ken tries to get those two to digivolve again, it could be dangerous. I'll stay in the lab and send you guys any info I can find on them."

"Thanks, Izzy," Tai sighed, though even that didn't do much to make him feel better. The shorter boy didn't seem to notice his dour mood, instead folding his arms and turning away in deep thought.

"What I want to know is," he said, "what made him choose to go after Agumon and Gabumon specifically? And why only do it now?"

"Who knows what goes on in that guy's head? He's crazy," Matt said impatiently.

TK suddenly noticed something out of the corner of his eye. "…Hey, are you all right, Kari?"

Tai's sister suddenly had a distant look on her face. Hearing Izzy's questions seemed to have had some kind of effect on her. She was standing very still, gazing off and looking like she was reliving some memory.

"Uhh, hello? Earth to Kari?" said Davis, leaning over in front of her.

"I just… had a thought…" she said softly, then shook her head. "No. Never mind. It's not important."

Tai and Matt exchanged a look, ultimately deciding not to comment. "Right. Let's hurry, you guys," said Tai. "Our partners are out there waiting for us."

––

The Digimon Emperor hadn't slept at all the previous night. He'd spent the whole time running experiments on his two newest prisoners, each of whom was currently being detained in a different holding cell. The interiors of both cells were being displayed up on one of the screens lining the control room.

Unfortunately, for all his wasted time, the Emperor hadn't achieved the results he wanted.

"What is wrong with you two?!" he shouted at the screens. "Both of you, dark digivolve! Now!"

He first held his digivice in front of Agumon's screen, and as it shone with a purple light, the little dinosaur started to glow… and transformed into SkullGreymon. It instantly went berserk, launched its missile at the wall of the cell, then leapt up to the resulting hole and tried to claw its way out.

With a disgusted look on his face, the Emperor turned his attention to his second prisoner, hoping things would go differently. They didn't. As he held up his digivice, Gabumon evolved to ShadowWereGarurumon, started howling like mad, and tried to tear open its own cell with its terrible claws.

"It's no use," Ken muttered, turning away from the screens. He wasn't concerned about them breaking out. At that moment, both Digimon were given a violent electric shock from their cell walls and dropped to the ground, unconscious.

"So I was overzealous. From the looks of things, my Dark Rings can't even control Ultimate level Digimon successfully… maybe even hoping for a Mega evolution was expecting too much."

Wormmon was crouched loyally at his side, just as always. "What… what are you planning to do to them, Ken?"

"The way you described him, Omnimon must be at an even higher level than Mega," Ken mused without doing anything to actually acknowledge Wormmon's presence. "I'm not a fool. My Dark Rings have only been successful in controlling Champions. I'll need something else… something more powerful…"

He promptly fell silent, typing something on the keyboard in front of him and generating a series of images on one of the computer screens. Wormmon recognized the blank look on his face; he was lost in his own mind again. He'd probably forgotten Wormmon was even there.

Reluctantly, the little Rookie looked away from him and up to the display of the two prisoners. They'd shrunk back down to their own Rookie forms and were lying on the dirty floor, smoldering from their electrocutions. They weren't waking up anytime soon.

This was all his fault. He'd gotten Agumon and Gabumon into this mess. He had to get them out of it.

The Emperor didn't even notice as he went skittering out of the control room. He hurried down the halls of the fortress, trying to remember where the two adjacent cells were. Finally he arrived at the correct door and dashed into the room as it automatically slid open.

SkullGreymon had reverted back to Agumon, though he still had the Dark Ring clamped around his neck. That was no problem. Wormmon had spent enough time in the Emperor's employ by now that he knew how the Dark Rings worked. He poked it in just the right place, and it popped off and fell uselessly to the ground.

Wormmon crawled into the next cell over and found Gabumon in a similar condition. He did the same thing, freeing him of his Dark Ring as well.

Then he scurried out of the room before either of the prisoners could wake up. If anyone saw him here in the Emperor's fortress… that would be the end for him.

––

"Yes…" An excited grin had appeared on the Emperor's face as he gazed up at his latest creation. "This is perfect! With this, I can control even Mega level Digimon!"

He cleared the computer screen and focused his attention back on the camera feeds of the prison cells… only to find they were both empty.

"What?!" The grin immediately dropped off his face, and he leapt out of his chair. "Impossible! They escaped? Both of them?!"

Meanwhile, Wormmon had chosen that exact moment to crawl back into the room. They'd gotten away… that was good. "Oh… they're missing?" he said, trying to sound innocent. "I'm sorry, Ken. I know this was an important project for you…"

The Emperor spun around to glare at him. "Stop calling me that!" He snapped. "And don't act like you understand my brilliant plans! You don't know anything!"

Trying to ignore the insults, Wormmon gathered up the courage to tell Ken what was on his mind. He'd wanted to spare the other Digimon pain, but truth be told, he had another reason for setting those two free. A more selfish one.

"Listen, Ken. Since Agumon and Gabumon are gone, why don't you use me for your experiments?"

Ken's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"I'm your partner, you know. It's my job to help you." And if I can digivolve, maybe you'll finally start hating me a little less…

Unfortunately, that was not to be. "Have you not been paying attention?" Ken hissed at him. "I'm trying to create a Jogress digivolution! How am I supposed to do that with just one Digimon? Let alone one as weak as you?"

"Er… well, I…" Wormmon slowly trailed off. He didn't have an answer to that. Ken was right… someone like him being part of a Jogress digivolution? That wasn't likely.

"Why is good help so hard to find around here?" Ken turned away from Wormmon with a look of disgust. "Forget it. I'll get those two back myself." He was about to leave the room, but then he thought better, turned around and jabbed a finger at Wormmon. "You! Get out of here!"

Wormmon winced at his anger as the Emperor went striding out of the control room. All this time, and he was still nothing like the kind boy he used to be… it was so frustrating. It felt like Wormmon wasn't making a difference at all.

But he didn't have time to feel sorry for himself.

He had to hurry and meet the Digidestined.

––

"Glad to see you, Wormmon," Matt said as their large group raced along. "You don't have any idea where we're going, do you?"

"I'm sorry, Matt," Wormmon said lamely, trying to keep up on his short little legs. "I've never been to this town before."

"Neither have we. Guess it's one of the places we missed on our first go-around," said Tai. "I wish Izzy could give us a bit more info – hey, wait a sec! We're here!"

The children and their Digimon had just crested a hill, and beneath them lay a deserted town filled with wooden buildings, railroad tracks and railcars.

"…There's nobody here," said Cody, stating the obvious.

"Well, Izzy's been tracking Agumon and Gabumon and said they're headed in this direction," said Tai, leading the group as they all walked into town. "If we just wait here a bit, we should run into them."

"They're headed this way? But that means – they escaped from the Digimon Emperor!" Yolei looked astonished. "But how did they manage that? They both had those Dark Rings on!"

Wormmon awkwardly glanced away. Thankfully, no one was looking at him. He was lucky to be so easily forgettable.

"Who knows? Maybe they got those rings off on their own. Because they're cool and strong, like their partners," Matt said with a boastful grin.

"We'll just have to ask them about it when they get here," Tai decided.

"Y'mean right now?" asked Davis.

Everyone looked where he was pointing and saw a small locomotive had just come out of a nearby tunnel, smoke pouring from its stack. And there were two very familiar Digimon riding on it.

The two older boys' faces lit up in joy.

"Agumon!"

"Gabumon!"

Everyone raced up to meet the train as it slowed to a stop, and Agumon and Gabumon leapt off of it and into the waiting arms of their partners.

"You came for us, Matt?" asked Gabumon, his eyes filling with tears.

"Of course we did, big guy! You had us so worried…" Matt choked out, burying his face into his partner's fur.

"I'm so glad you're safe, Agumon!" Tai laughed, squeezing the little dinosaur as tightly as he could. Then he drew back. "But wait a minute! How did you two escape from the Emperor?"

"We're not really sure," Agumon confessed. "Both of us just woke up and our Dark Rings were gone!"

"Maybe the Emperor let us go out of the goodness of his heart!" Gabumon said eagerly.

"…I think you're giving him too much credit," said Matt. "Well anyway, let's not waste any time here. We've gotta get you two somewhere safe."

Davis looked displeased at that. "What? You mean after everything Ken did to those two, you guys just wanna run away with your tails between your legs?"

"Hey! What's wrong with tails, huh?" Gatomon sniffed, flicking her own tail around.

"I'm just saying, he's gone too far this time! I say we hunt him down and give him a thrashing! Otherwise, what's stopping him from trying the same thing again?"

Wormmon stared up at Davis. He couldn't let his friends go after Ken! If that happened, and they got into a fight… he wasn't sure which side he'd be on.

"I think the others are right, Davis," he spoke up. "Trust me, I've done a lot of running in my life. I know when it's the best idea."

Davis looked down at him in surprise. "You really think so, Wormmon?"

Matt let out a chuckle. "He is a smart little guy, after all."

"Come on, Davis, we'll have another chance," said TK. "Let's worry about Ken when we're at full strength."

Patamon was suddenly staring up at the sky. "Uh oh…" he said uneasily. "Guys… I think we might be too late."

Everyone looked up.

A swarm of Airdramon was descending upon them, a very familiar figure in blue riding atop the one in front. Then suddenly the ground started to rumble, and the group realized they'd just been surrounded on all sides by a number of DarkTyrannomon.

"How does he keep doing this?" TK groaned.

"Why, thank you all for gathering in one place like this!" the Emperor laughed down at them. He gracefully leapt off the Airdramon and alighted on the roof of a nearby building. "I told you I wouldn't let go of those two that easily, and I meant it!"

"He's going after Agumon and Gabumon, guys! We gotta protect them!" Davis shouted, throwing up his Digiegg. The others followed suit, and their Armor Digimon began fighting back against the DarkTyrannomon.

Tai, Matt, and their Digimon were caught up in the eye of the storm. "This guy…" Matt clung to his partner as he seethed at Ken. "What gives you the right to kidnap Gabumon like that?!"

"I see how it is. You don't have a partner, so you try to steal ours instead. Isn't that it?" Tai snapped at him.

"Bingo!" the Emperor crowed at them. "And you know what they say… finders keepers."

Suddenly he reached inside his cape with both hands and drew out… what were those things? They looked like Dark Rings, but they were shaped differently… and somehow just from looking at them, it was easy to tell they were far more powerful.

Everyone, Wormmon included, looked at the Emperor's latest invention in shock.

A Dark Spiral? When had Ken come up with that? Wormmon's stomach sank as he realized it must have been while he was out freeing Agumon and Gabumon. He'd left at just the wrong time…

But even if he'd known about those things, was there anything he could do to stop them?

The Emperor threw both Spirals with perfect precision, and Tai and Matt fell backwards in shock as they latched onto Agumon's left arm and Gabumon's right.

"No!"

The two boys stared helplessly as their partners seemed to fall into a trance. Their eyes began glowing an all too familiar red, and they slowly turned around as sinister growls spread across their faces.

"Tai! Get outta the way!" Davis shouted as he threw himself at Tai, who slammed into Matt, and all three of them fell to the ground and just barely dodged Agumon's fireball attack.

"He brainwashed them again…" Davis muttered.

Tai lifted his head up, his eyes wide and desperate. "No! No! Not again!" He struggled to his feet. "Agumon! Agumon, it's me! You can't let him control you like this!"

Ken threw back his head and laughed. "That's so adorable, that you think you can save them!" Agumon and Gabumon had abandoned their partners and walked over to the building where Ken stood. "But I assure you, with my new and improved Dark Spirals, your partners are mine for good this time!"

Meanwhile, the Armor Digimon had successfully fended off the DarkTyrannomon, and everyone turned their attention onto the scene just in time to see Ken hold up his dark digivice once more.

"Now then… let's pick up where we left off last time!" Darkness began to pour out of the digivice. "Agumon! Gabumon! Jogress digivolve!"

TK and Kari's mouths fell open.

"What did he say? Jogress… digivolve?" Cody had the good sense to be worried. "What does that mean?"

Agumon and Gabumon both started to glow, growing larger and larger until they towered over everyone else present… and then their two glowing forms seemed to slowly combine together. Tai and Matt went very, very pale, slowly stepping backwards, unable to tear their eyes away from what was happening before them.

"Tai…?" Matt said weakly. "He's… he's not…"

"He is," said Tai, his voice low and quaking with rage.

When the light died away, a brand new Digimon was standing before them.

It looked almost like a human knight, covered from head to toe in pitch black armor with a long, billowing red cape. The only things to suggest its origins were its arms; its left arm was shaped like WarGreymon's head, and its right arm like MetalGarurumon's. And on each arm, a Dark Spiral was still visible.

All the veterans among the group recognized it instantly.

"Allow me to introduce my latest creation… Omnimon Zwart!" the Emperor cackled. "I think it has a nice ring to it, don't you?"

Yolei looked ready to faint. "Omnimon… Zwart?"

"That's the most powerful Digimon I've ever seen," Cody said softly, trying to tighten his trembling grip on his shinai. "How are we supposed to fight it…?"

No… Wormmon covered his head in agony. He'd tried so hard to stop this. And he'd failed again. And as Ken leapt off the building and onto Omnimon Zwart's waiting shoulder, somehow he knew.

Not all of them would make it out of this alive.