Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon or its characters.

Editor's Note: Welcome to the re-rewritten version of "Digimon United." The prose has been reformatted from the ground up, but the story and its structure will remain intact. Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Foes from the Other Side (Part 1)

Between the material world and the Digital World, there exists a limbo area caught in the interim, a field of pure, unfiltered data serving as an interdimensional border. Years ago, it was hardly used at all until a calamity created by the vampiric Myotismon opened the floodgates. Today, the new generation of DigiDestined drift back and forth between their native world and their partners' at will, blasting through the boundary in an instant via DigiGates. Few others cross the field by breaching their world's borders, and fewer still enter this space as an intended destination.

A figure drifted alone through this realm of data particles and halo fields, unlit partly due to the distance from and intangibility of any light sources in his surroundings, and partly due to the failing composition of his form. This was, in recent times, his getaway from the trials of his own existence, a place for him to clear his head and look back upon events that recently transpired. The time between those events and now did little to push them out of mind; if anything, he increasingly spent it dwelling on them.

He still cried over it sometimes. Even now, remembering the face of his truest companion, the sorrow and devastation he was in no small part responsible for, he felt his eyes welling up. Of course his tear ducts were the one thing that manifested properly and worked as intended. He could barely wipe it away with his hand, flickering as it was between corporeal states. He clenched it into a fist, a fully formed tear trailing down his cheek as his lingering took him back to the day he met her.

A familiar feminine voice called out to him, startling out of his nostalgia. "Dwelling on the past again, are we?"

The drifter looked behind him to the one who addressed him. The new figure bore the appearance of a human girl, dressed in the black garb of a nun save the cat-styled klobuk on her head. Her twin T-shaped pistols were still in hand, but in the presence of a friendly face, she smiled, lowered her guard, and allowed their data to disperse.

"Noir," he stated flatly. "How did you find me?"

"Ooh, that's a tough one..." Noir chided, mockingly placing a finger on her chin in a feigned gesture of contemplation. The gesture quickly shifted as her hands met her hips, and she leaned in towards him to meet his eyes. "Maybe because this is where you were the last five times you did this?"

The specter chuckled, a weary and hollow sound that betrayed his sorrow. "Yes... I suppose I have come here a lot, to reminisce. I just..." He looked back down at his hand, watching it solidify for the span of a few seconds before regaining its transparency. "I just miss her."

Noir's own expression fell at that, her teasing smile inverting as her posture slackened. "I'm sorry we couldn't do more. My master's power has its limits, and it was nearly beyond them to patch your data back together, especially considering you were standing up to someone like Myot—"

She caught herself mid-sentence, clasping her hands over her mouth, but the syllables she let slip still left their impact. Her friend's eyes seemed to sink that much deeper, the clear and unpleasant pain of an old wound being freshly reopened. Not that he wasn't thinking back to it anyway, but having it brought up by another clearly didn't help matters.

"I'm so sorry!" she blurted out. "I wasn't... I didn't mean to—"

"Don't," he replied, stopping the apology before she prattled on any longer. "What's past is past; though I look back on it too often nowadays, I'm beyond offense regarding it. I'm eternally grateful to you, and to your master, for what you could do to bring me back. Perhaps soon I'll even be able to—"

"Sistermon!"

Noir and her friend both looked beside them, where another Digimon had manifested in the cyberspace barrier. The new figure was quadrupedal, draconic, and pristinely white, wearing a crimson cloak with goggles attached to the drawn-back hood. He panted softly, eyes wide with urgency as they darted between the assembled group.

"Huckmon!" Noir exclaimed. "What happened? Is something wrong?"

"We've got breachers!" Huckmon spat out, breathlessly. "Two Digimon have broken through the barrier and escaped the Digital World!" He quickly shot an exasperated glance to the spectral silhouette beside Noir. "And what are you doing here again!? I spent all night trying to find you!"

"Focus!" Noir shouted, kneeling to Huckmon's eye level and forcibly shifting his head to face her. "You skipped some pretty crucial information. What makes these Digimon so different from any other breachers that you're worked up about it? And more importantly, where's my sister?"

Huckmon tore his head away from her grasp indignantly, but carried on nonetheless. "Boss said the energy readings off one of them were out of whack, and Blanc sent me to fetch you guys while she went to investigate. We're gonna need to go too."

Noir stood up and smirked, summoning her firearms again. "I like the sound of that. Anthony's been itching for a proper engagement." She twirled them for emphasis before firming her grip on the handles, holding them up in a cross position.

Huckmon met the smirk with one of his own, dropping the cowl over his head and the goggles over his eyes. "Let's do this!"

Without any other acknowledgement or fanfare, Noir and Huckmon vanished from the limbo plane, leaving the fallen figure alone once more. He let out a brief sigh as the word Noir had tried to say resonated in his mind. Myotismon... there was still a bitterness associated with that name, and likely always would be. His grip tightened around the staff in his other hand as he chewed on the name a moment longer, still gazing out into the abyss.

Eventually, the specter waved his staff and disappeared as well, leaving the boundary between worlds virtually barren once more.

In the material world, three figures sat in a spherical room surrounded entirely by a deep blue display. They served the organization Hypnos, monitoring the globe and tracking anomalies that crossed from the Digital World into theirs. Two women, a blonde and a brunette, sat back-to-back in elevated seats in the center of the observatory, typing away at their consoles as their supervisor monitored things from below. Their knowledge of the world beyond was limited, and their understanding moreso, but what they could do efficiently and unfailingly was monitor these anomalies.

An alert tore all three sets of eyes away from their stations and towards a mass of red dots that manifested on the wall. Their consoles sprang to life in response as well, energy readouts dancing on their personal screens as the five points moved across the larger display and slowly converged.

"Sir," the brunette called out, "we are reading five signatures converging on one spot, attempting bio-emergence around the Shinjuku area."

"The readings are immense," the blonde added. "Larger than anything previously observed. Our scales are insufficient to measure them."

Her boss pushed up his shades with one hand while fidgeting with his lighter in the other, smirking up at the converging dots. "Looks like a whole mess of Wild Ones. Send out a tracer and keep tabs on them."

"Affirmative," came the call above, and the women returned to typing away at their stations. Their leader watched with satisfaction, still opening and closing his lighter, as a yellow marker appeared on the screen and began advancing on the red cluster.

Elsewhere in the realm between realms, a young and terrified creature ran for his life. His prominent, frilly ears were shrunken back in panic, his stubby little legs carrying him as far and as quickly as they could. The massive yellow ape-man was still hot on his trail, taking a swing at his quarry with his club every time he got close. Suffice to say, nothing was going right today.

His foot came down awkwardly and slipped out from beneath him, and he collided with the surface beneath him face-first. The lumbering Apemon towered over the small white form as it turned to face him, his eyes affixed to the patterned red triangles atop the younger Digimon's forehead.

"Please, mister..." the little one begged, trying desperately to scramble away. "I didn't do anything wrong... I-I was just trying to play!"

The club slammed down right where the smaller creature was just laying, and Apemon snarled at him. "Oh, I wanna play too... and when I get a taste of your power, I can have as much fun as I—"

He was quickly silenced, and brought to his knees, by a blunt object colliding with his gut.

Apemon buckled immediately, as much in shock as in pain, and he briefly dropped his bone club to clutch his stomach with both arms. Through the pain, he could hear the light scuffles of his prey scrambling further back, and the loud thud of a staff smacking the ground right in front of him. When he looked up, he beheld a feminine humanoid form bearing a cross-styled trident lance, clothed in ivory nun robes and a pink rabbit-themed klobuk on her head. Her figure was very demure, especially put against a figure like Apemon's, but her silver eyes bore a harsh judgment.

Enraged, he tried to lunge at the interloper, but a cry of "Protect Wave!" and a harder slam to the floor from the butt end of her lance stopped him once again. A concussive blast emanated from her, blasting him back several yards and putting much more distance between himself and his prey.

As he picked himself back up off the ground, the newcomer shifted her stance, the prongs of her weapon pointed straight at him. "My name is Sistermon Blanc, and this Digimon is under my protection."

Apemon spat disdainfully, snarling at this so-called Sistermon as he wiped his mouth. "Meddling pest! You couldn't just leave well enough alone, could ya? You know what you got back there?"

Blanc looked back to the smaller Digimon she was putting herself in front of, gazing at her slack-jawed and wide-eyed as if he'd seen an angel. She did not, in fact, understand anything about the figure, beyond it being her duty from on high to protect him.

She quickly returned her gaze to Apemon, her lance not faltering. "I know that he is a child, being preyed upon by a bully, and to that end my Cross Barbée will stand between him and you. The strong that prey upon the weak betray a greater weakness within themselves, and it will be your downfall."

Apemon growled at that, his fur bristling and standing on end as his manic eyes fell upon the figure before him. "You call me weak!? I'll show you what strength really looks like! Metallic Fur!"

His stance straightened and every muscle on his body flexed, sending his straightened fur strands firing from his body and straight at Blanc. He let out a primal roar as he fired, partly as a show of frustration and partly to regain some of his wounded pride. The little white Digimon watched the yellow needles fly towards them and heard the cry from his aggressor, and looked away in terror.

However, Blanc kept her composure and straightened out herself, spinning her lance in front of her as a barrier. The needles failed to penetrate her defenses, instead scattering from the deflection and losing their rigidity upon contact. By the time she finally set the staff down again, there was a neat pile of yellow fur in front of her that stopped an arm's length away from her.

After a deep breath, she pointed her lance at Apemon again. "You're out of warnings. Stand down, or I will be forced to fight back."

Apemon grinned wickedly at her in defiance and charged forward, momentarily surprising Blanc. He lunged not at her, but at his club; the twirling of her lance had sent it blowing closer to him. The fur on his body started barraging her again, this time prompting her to grab the smaller creature behind her and backflip out of the line of fire.

Once he figured he had her adequately occupied, he cried out "Mega Bone Stick!" and flung his weapon in her direction. Blanc vaguely noted the club as it careened past her, missing her by a mile and letting her set the little one down without much disturbance. However, she caught movement in the corner of her eye as it boomeranged back towards her... or more accurately, at the defenseless Digimon behind her.

"Divine Pierce!" At Blanc's cry, Cross Barbée began to glow with a holy light. The smaller Digimon watched in awe as his protector prepared her assault, not even noticing the approaching club until she swung out to smack it away. In the same motion, she let the lance fly from her hand and directly at the charging Apemon. The center prong pierced through his shoulder, throwing him back once more with enough force to embed itself into the ground and leave him pinned.

Apemon grunted in pain from the holy weapon jutting out of his arm, and made several attempts to throw up his shoulder to dislodge himself, all to no avail. He tried to clutch it with his free hand, but Blanc approached him quickly and swept him away with her leg. Her demeanor had barely shifted throughout the entire altercation, but her eyes bore through him anew with divine fury as her foot pressed down onto the tender spot on his stomach she'd struck earlier.

"You will be returning from whence you came," the holy warrior commanded, the Apemon beneath her too stunned and hurt to back-sass her. "This is my mercy. Accept it, and walk away."

Apemon nodded, much more eagerly than he ought to have. Screw his pride; he was happy to just get out of here with his life. There would be other opportunities to get an easy power buff later down the road, as long as he just counted this loss and went home. He saw Blanc's expression soften slightly, and thought to himself about all the ways he'd twist this story to make it sound less like he got absolutely curb-stomped by a nun.

His relief evaporated as a sudden gust blew through the area, and a towering shadow materialized out of nowhere to eclipse both himself and Blanc.

The Sistermon looked back at the form behind her, keeping Apemon pinned with her foot as she dislodged her lance. It was a hulking, humanoid creature with brown fur on red flesh, its broad shoulders adorned with massive spikes and bandaging wrapping its left wrist. Its floppy ears had a coat of green fur, and on its head was a partial skull fitted around its three horns. Its dark eyes looked almost vacant, like the creature's higher functions weren't fully functioning, but they revealed a manic rage that couldn't be sated.

Blanc tightened her grip around Cross Barbée. "What are you?"

The intruder didn't answer. It just stood and slouched before her, panting and snarling through an unsettlingly wide smile, those beady red eyes fixed right on her. Then it brought its fist down right on top of her, and she barely had enough time to grab the smaller Digimon and roll out of the way before the blow struck the ground immediately in front of the now-freed Apemon.

The monkey-man bounded to his feet immediately, a wonderful new opportunity flashing before his eyes. Sure, this new brute that just teleported on top of them looked like he'd be too dangerous to tussle with, but clearly Blanc was primed to do all the tussling. That would leave her distracted, and the little brat would be borderline defenseless. How likely was the bigger brat to be capable of multitasking in a high-pressure situation?

The moment Blanc strafed to avoid the lumbering beast's swinging fist, Apemon leapt into action, his club held aloft and ready for some bludgeoning action. "You're wide open! Mega Bone Stick!"

Blanc didn't even change her expression as Apemon approached, simply using her momentum to pirouette and parry his blow. Her next rotation was used to bash the new/old aggressor over the head with her lance, dropping him almost as quickly as he'd gotten back up and not even loosening her grip on her rescue.

She looked back at the other apelike monster assailing her, who was slowly righting himself after his missed punch. He turned slowly towards her, toothy grin and manic gaze completely unaltered from his entry. There was a temptation to study that gaze, to see if those eyes betrayed anything more than animalistic bloodlust. There must have been a deeper hurt behind these blows; rare were the Digimon with no sense of intelligence, and of those, ones with space-warping powers were absolutely unheard-of.

Blanc was reminded in an instant that her compassion was not quite relevant to the situation by a sudden shift in the creature's stance. His arm quickly outstretched, then stretched out, and he growled as his fist flung out like a rubber band to strike at the holy Digimon. She leapt in time to miss the brunt of the blow, but the hit smacked her foot mid-air, throwing off her trajectory and sending her tumbling with the smaller figure cradled in her arms.

"What is even happening right now!?" the little Digimon cried out, flailing in Blanc's arms in a futile escape to just escape this crazy place and these crazy people. Blanc just held him tighter as she stood up, staring this beast down and readying her next dodge so his limb extensions wouldn't catch her off-guard again. He let out a roar that almost sounded like an attempt to speak, lifted both arms, and—

"Fif Slash!"

Someone else descended from above, right on top of the brown bruiser, and swung out at him with the claws on his forelegs. He landed right on the beast's outstretched arms, let out another cry of "Baby Flame!" and spewed a burst of fire directly into his face. As the feral creature growled in pain and reached up to clutch at his burning face, the new figure flipped away and right to Blanc's side, revealing the familiar, friendly visage of Huckmon.

He pulled back his cowl and looked up at his friend, offering her a confident smirk. "This guy can't be the source of the power surge, right?"

Blanc shook her head. "Not him; the one in my arms." She set the latter down, pointing her lance at the former. "But more importantly... where is my sis—"

"Bless Fire!"

Another assault rained down from the sky, this time a hail of holy bullets peppering both the immediate threat and the obstinately stubborn Apemon. Sistermon Noir spiraled down with her guns held straight out, raining fire down from the sky and giving Blanc and Huckmon enough time to prepare for the inevitable next strike.

Before Noir touched ground, however, the feral monster vanished before her eyes. She was caught off-guard, though her landing still stuck, and she leapt back to rejoin her little sister. "Glory hog."

Blanc scoffed. "You were busy looking for our friend, intruding upon space he clearly needed."

A gust blew through once more, and the sisters stood back-to-back as the monster re-appeared before them. Noir tightened her grip on her guns, Blanc on her lance, and Huckmon prepared another burst.

The injured beast let out a frustrated cry, this time a mostly legible "Koko Crusher!" Then he screamed, sending out shockwaves from his mouth that tore through the digitized ground before him as it blasted straight for the assembled holy warriors. Huckmon grabbed their quarry, and all three of them dove to the left, narrowly avoiding a sonic pummeling.

Noir quickly righted herself and charged towards the beast, crying out "Mickey Bullet!" She leapt at him and started her own series of aerial pirouettes, her fingers slamming down on Anthony's twin triggers as her guns sprayed bullets in all directions, the largest concentration of them striking their intended target. Their formation properly broken, Blanc strode towards Apemon, who had begun yet another charge towards the young Digimon they were tasked with retrieving, and started pushing back his advance.

Huckmon just stood idly, keeping watch over the little guy who was apparently the source of the massive power they were investigating. He knew his chance would come to leap into the fray again; the Sistermons were really good about letting him loose. For the time, though, the pale little kid was his priority while they were occupied. Not that he could understand how that was possible, given the fact that one of the beast-men was literally teleporting.

Noir dashed back towards Huckmon, guns still trained on said teleporting beast-man. "Tag Blanc out and send her my way! You take the yellow guy!" Huckmon nodded wordlessly, and both broke off to their respective targets, leaving the small Digimon alone but both aggressors occupied.

Blanc was having very little trouble holding Apemon off, all things considered. With both other elements covered by her allies, and this brute's unwillingness to back down, she was able to fight uninhibited, and he was so focused on his own aggression that he wasn't remotely prepared for her fighting back. He certainly wasn't prepared for her actually being a skilled fighter, based on her observation of him as a dirty-fighting brawler.

Of course, the already off-guard Apemon was thrown back even more by a fireball to the face, and Huckmon leapt into interrupt the fight. "This guy's not worth your time. Noir needs help!" Blanc simply sighed, nodded, and left Apemon to her smaller companion; despite his Rookie status, he was more than a match for lesser Champions such as this one. The other... well, he was another matter entirely.

She darted to the other side of the battlefield, swept up the tiny Digimon they were supposed to be defending in ignorance of his protests, and met with her sister, who was unloading round after round into the mindless brute's face. Once she stopped, the creature started clutching at his face once more.

Noir blew the smoke away from Anthony's barrels and took up a new pose at her sister's side, one arm outstretched with her weapon pointing at their target. "This guy's the toughest Champion I've seen in ages. I think you know what we need to do."

Blanc nodded and mirrored Noir's posture, similarly targeting the beast with her lance. "We have certainly rehearsed this enough."

The monster let out another primal roar and charged towards the pair, his movements much swifter than his top-heavy bulk would have suggested. Blanc and Noir focused together, started advancing in perfect lockstep, and with a unified battlecry, met their target's charge with one of their own.

"Grand Sister Cruz!"

A young man sat by his lonesome on a bench looking out at Tokyo Bay, tapping away at his keyboard. His fingers were typing the answers to questions nearly as quickly as his brain was processing them, making short work of a series of mathematical equations on his homework assignment. He took a quick, deep breath, letting himself properly get in the zone.

Koushiro "Izzy" Izumi was a member of the original DigiDestined, and along with seven of his friends, kept both his own world and the Digital World safe from destruction. His adventures with his partner Tentomon three years ago were the greatest and most important milestone of his life, and he kept in touch with his connections in the Digital World to this day, even lending his support to the current DigiDestined.

However, life had largely moved on for him since the fall of Apocalymon. He'd sacrificed his Crest of Knowledge to properly repair the rest of the Digital World, advanced through his classes like a pro, gotten elected president of the computer club, and rekindled his straining relationship with his adoptive parents. He had everything in a fairly stable place, which meant the only pressing issues he had to concern himself with were school-related. This was where he found himself now, blasting through to the midpoint of his math problems.

His laptop flashed with an alert, completely disrupting his flow. Multiple readings displayed in his homework's place, correlating with energies and happenings in the Digital World. He scoffed quietly at the screen for a moment; clearly the Digimon Emperor must have been on the move again, which meant the DigiDestined were likely en route to fight him.

A closer look at the readings told a much different story, however. The signatures weren't as numerous as the DigiDestined and their partners, not by half. Despite that, however, the energy readings were wildly beyond any digivolution he knew them to still be capable of in the face of the Digimon Emperor's power dampening. Whatever was being picked up was bigger than anything they'd faced since Diaboromon.

Most concerning of all, they were heading in the opposite direction, coming into his world. Whatever these things were, they seemed prepared to breach the barrier between worlds. The energy signatures only grew the weaker the barrier got, which told him there was still no telling how powerful these things really were.

He immediately grabbed his phone and hit the first number on his speed dial. He waited out the tone, eyes still fixed to the growing signatures on his screen, until a familiar voice picked up. "Hey, Izzy! What's up?"

"Tai, we have a serious problem!"

A lone, vulpine figure stood atop a roof in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo in meditation. She knew better than to hassle her Tamer when there wasn't a job to do, so she spent her time honing and focusing her energy to keep herself sharp in the event of a new challenge. There were plenty of those to be had these days; Digimon have been regularly breaking through to this world, strong enough to wreak havoc if left unchecked but never strong enough to challenge the likes of her.

Something pulsed through the air, bathing her in unseen energies that made her muscles tense and her yellow fur stand on end. She turned to face the source and found nothing out of place, at least not that could be seen from her current vantage point. The whole situation read as wrong to her nonetheless, and for a fleeting moment, her stoic expression broke into a scowl.

"I have to tell Rika," she muttered to herself. She closed her eyes, and like a wispy breeze, she was gone.

Elsewhere, sitting alone on a park bench, a young girl attempted to drown out the world with music. She never meshed well with people, and the direction her life had taken recently had served to widen the divide even more. Her purpose was clear to her, and nothing happening around her was relevant to it.

A voice called to her, the tone hushed but still audible through her earbuds. "Rika."

With a pronounced sigh, Rika Nonaka freed up her ears and turned to the source of the interruption, which was perched largely in the shadows of a tree hanging above the bench. "You know I call for you, Renamon."

The shape of her Digimon associate dropped from the branch she was perched upon, keeping hidden against the trunk. "Something's coming. I can sense a new Digimon trying to enter the city."

"Why tell me now?" Rika chided, regarding her with an air of disapproval. "When the digital field appears, my D-Power will alert me. Why are you trying to cut in ahead of it?"

Renamon crossed her arms. "I shouldn't be able to sense it before it emerges, but I can already feel it. The energy I'm reading is... strange, and very powerful."

Rika's eyes widened, so subtly as to be almost imperceptible, and she turned away from her liaison. "A Digimon strong enough to be detected before it breaches... I think this may be exactly the challenge we've been looking for. We'll be able to obtain enough power to take this to the next level."

Her gaze returned to her partner, and a less-than-warm smile crossed her face. "I'll be there as soon as the field opens. You already sense it, so you'd best be there ahead of me."

Renamon simply offered a nod in response. Rika turned away again, and she vanished.

The lumbering, teleporting beast was giving the combined might of the Sistermons a run for its money. Their movements were fluid and synchronized, Blanc's lance matching strikes with Noir's guns as they danced and wove around the creature. However, nothing seemed to hurt him or elicit any reaction except further anger, and every time they pushed him back, he warped away and spawned behind them, forcing them to constantly readjust and try again. The monster himself couldn't get many blows in either, as the ladies nimbly dodged every lunge of his stretching arms and every howl of his thunderous voice. It was a war of attrition, and neither side was slowing.

Meanwhile, Apemon was already down again.

Huckmon stood atop his struggling opponent's back, foreclaws pinning the ape's arms down. He was certainly a rowdy one, but he was pretty much the baseline of Champion power expectations, and Huckmon ate Champions for breakfast. The Sistermon duo were very adamant that, even at his level, he should be able to stand as their equal, and he'd be damned if he wasn't doing a good job of that thus far.

He advanced just enough to use his hindlegs to secure Apemon's arms, buried his face in the ground with a foreclaw, and turned to his allies. "Hey, this one's down! Hurry yours up!"

Without missing a beat or altering her patterns, Noir simply shot back, "Shut up, we're trying!"

The little Digimon Blanc was guarding clung desperately to her back, hanging on for dear life as she ducked and wove through the monster's assault. "Why are we even fighting? I don't like fighting!"

Neither Sistermon had the time to respond before their quarry howled again, raising his fists into the air with an ear-splitting bellow. The pair braced themselves to split off, ready to dodge another round of sonic shockwaves.

Instead, the flesh on the beast man's body began to flex and ripple, then suddenly tore from top to bottom, unveiling six metal cannons in two even columns. All six fired their energy salvos before the girls could even process or adjust, and despite their planned maneuver putting them out of most of the blast range, the final shot strayed from its path and careened straight towards where Noir was strafing. By the time she noticed, it was too late to correct her course.

"Bless Fire!" With her cry, she whipped her guns to the side and fired upon the energy bullet heading for her. Anthony's blasts struck home, and the shot exploded with enough force to desync the sisters and force Noir into a slight skid.

She smirked cockily at the beast, brushing off her dress with one hand while keeping a gun trained on him. "That all you've got, you pile of junk data? I've seen Rookies with better tricks up their sleeve!"

"Um, Noir..." Blanc attempted to interject.

"The teleporting made me think you were something special," Noir continued unimpeded, "but this is nothing! If you wanna size up to little ol' me, you're gonna have to—oh hey, he's getting real big."

True to her word, the creature they were fighting had stopped aggressing them entirely. Instead, his hulking form began to expand, growing taller and wider and dwarfing the Sistermons more than he already did. The color seemed to darken and drain from him as well, and as he grew, it started to become apparent how: increasingly thick streams of energy were appearing from thin air and feeding power into his body.

Noir kept her gaze and aim trained on the beast, but started gingerly backing away. "What's going on? What's he doing?"

Blanc tensed up, the little Digimon on her back whimpering and hanging on for dear life as the monster kept growing. "The energy of this plane... he's taking it into his body. And if he continues unabated..."

The realization finally dawned on Noir, and she started advancing once more. "He's gonna collapse this entire plane of reality in on itself! We've gotta stop him!"

Huckmon perked up and looked back as, without any further hesitation, the Sistermon duo charged forward once again to face the creature that had now more than doubled in size. He took one last glance at Apemon, gave him a sound thwack on the head to incapacitate him, and leapt off him to join the bigger fight. "Hang on, girls, I'm coming!"

The Sistermon duo had to leap to one side before Huckmon could join them properly thanks to another blow from the monster's extending arms. The blow, now faster and more powerful than ever, clipped Noir's ankle and caused her to fumble her landing, leaving her smaller sister to keep her standing.

The smaller Digimon in Blanc's care peeked up to look over her shoulder. "I didn't hear his fists hit the ground..."

Noir perked up immediately, grabbed Blanc, and tried to dive out of the way of the hand that had opted to track them rather than punch them. The speed granted by the new absorbed power outmatched Noir's own capabilities, and his fist closed around the two sisters, swinging up in the air with enough force to dislodge the little creature on Blanc's back. He landed on his rear with a small thud, and could only watch in horror as the rubbery arm smashed the Sistermons repeatedly into the ground.

Huckmon watched in horror as his friends were getting pummeled, and let out an indignant roar. "Get your stinking paws off them! Teen Ram!"

He hastened his charge, eyes fixed on the growing behemoth as his tail began to rotate of its own accord. Despite the creature's significant expansion, Huckmon's legs were still able to propel him towards his quarry's face in a single bound, and with another roar he slammed his tail like a drill straight between the eyes.

The larger beast blinked at the little dragon, completely unfazed and unharmed by the charge. Huckmon didn't even have the time to mutter his frustration before the monster retaliated with a headbutt that sent him crashing to the surface of the plane and skidding limply away from the fight.

The tiny white Digimon was frozen in place, eyes fixed on the scene before him. The nice people who came to save him from that mean monkey guy were getting whooped by an even meaner, even monkey-er guy. He was finally starting to feel safe, and now he didn't know what he felt aside from scared. Too scared to even run away or close his eyes, and too scared to notice the groggy figure crawling towards him.

The Hypnos control room was awash with alarms as a sixth signature appeared and steadily expanded, the warning chimes filling the air with a cacophony of sirens as the two women urgently dismissed them to recollect their bearings.

"There is a new Wild One on the scene," the blonde warned. "It's emitting some kind of energy... nothing we can identify. Our tracers are being disrupted."

Their boss below grimaced, snapping his lighter shut harshly. "Now that's a problem. Never seen a Wild One we couldn't tag. How long until bio-emergence?"

For the first time since the batch of signals appeared, the brunette looked out of her chair to face her employer. "By my estimation... two minutes, sir."

"Dammit!" he cried, slamming his fist into his desk. "The single instances are bad enough, but I'm not about to let six Wild Ones through at the same time! We have to flip the kill switch before they breach."

The woman addressing him recoiled slightly. "Yuggoth, sir!? But... but it's still rebooting after its last use! We don't know what will happen if we use it in such an unstable—"

"What option do we have, Riley!?" he snapped back. "I can't fathom the destruction we'd have on our hands if we let six of these things into our world, especially ones with readings this insane! Activate Yuggoth and delete them!"

Riley grimaced at him for just a moment longer, then turned back to her console. "Yes, sir."

Seconds later, a new signature appeared a distance away from the assembled dots, steadily advancing on them. The blonde nodded slightly, mostly to herself. "Yuggoth has located the Wild Ones, sir."

Her boss's smirk returned, and he flipped the lid of his lighter once more. "Wipe them out. All of them."

The spectral figure loomed above the continuing struggle, having decided to follow Noir and Huckmon after yet more sorrowful introspection, yet helpless to participate with his flickering form despite his burning need to protect his friends below. They were fighting a losing battle against the monster below that was steadily growing in both size and power, and even if he were at his own full power, even if he were fully corporeal, he might not have been able to make a difference. Just watching the fruitless struggle dredged up all the memories once again, of standing up to something much more dangerous and ferocious than himself for the sake of another and getting obliterated for his efforts, and his fists clenched in impotent frustration.

Then he looked further and saw a tiny Digimon staring just as helplessly, oblivious to the Apemon struggling to crawl his way towards it. Perhaps he could be of some assistance after all. He tightened his grip on the staff, and with a building resolve, he began his descent.

Apemon tried his hardest to stifle all of his pained groans as he dragged himself along the digital field, not wanting to startle the little runt until it was too late to escape. If he could just grab his prey and get out, everything would be fine, and he'd probably never have to see that meddling Sistermon or her cronies ever again. Not that'd they'd be able to stop him anyway if they popped up again, because by then he'd almost certainly have used that squirt's energy to—

"No further."

He managed to direct his gaze upward to the new voice. The figure was difficult to make out, and he couldn't tell if that was its incorporeality, the perpetual silhouette that seemed to be shrouding it, or the pain from his own injuries affecting his perception, but one thing was clear as day: this newcomer was going to be another obstacle.

"I'm done wallowing and standing idly," the new form declared, raising what appeared to be a staff as his hand slowly grew more solid. "My friends are fighting to protect this child, and I will not allow you to take him while they are distracted. This form is weakened, but I will use every ounce of strength I still have."

Apemon just grumbled in frustration and looked back down, bracing himself for yet another blow and basically resigning himself to it. He was seriously doubting this kid was worth all the trouble.

Unfortunately, more trouble came in the form of an ear-splitting shrieking noise. Even the titanic monster absorbing the plane howled in agony, and dropped his opponents in order to clutch his ears, everyone else present quickly doing likewise.

After a moment of unceasing droning, Noir started looking around for whatever was creating it. "Where is that!? What is that!?"

As if to answer her question, a brilliant light washed over the area, blinding the group of combatants momentarily. When it dissipated, Noir looked up in the direction of the noise and the light. A massive green aura pulsed above them, containing three glowing pink balls surrounded by yellow shielding. Crackling electric energy connected the orbs to a central point, the nexus radiating an ominous red light as the balls orbited around it. As it spun, it propelled itself towards the group, the aura threatening to swallow them whole.

"This is unlike any Digimon I have ever seen," Blanc observed, gripping her lance tightly. "What could it be?"

Huckmon dropped his cowl over his head with a smirk. "We strike it right now, it could be junk data! Let's go!"

"Huckmon, don't—" Blanc protested, but Huckmon already started his advance, charging at full speed towards where the energy structure seemed to be coming down. "Stop! We've no idea what this... this thing could do!"

"That's why it's gotta go!" Noir shouted back to her sister, having started her own charge. She caught up to Huckmon quickly, her twin pistols crossed in front of her as she readied her strike.

Even their current foe seemed distracted by the coming object, but made no move to advance on it as Huckmon and Noir did. Instead, he slowly turned towards it, manic eyes completely affixed to the swirling orbs and glowing red light. Then he howled ferociously at it, his torso shredding open again as he fired upon the inanimate intruder.

Noir chuckled softly as the cannonballs sailed above her head. "Well, looks like his head's in the game after all. Come on, let's not let him take all the glory! Mickey Bullet!"

Huckmon shot her a smirk as she started unloading a barrage of holy bullets on the approaching target, and matched it with a stream of fire from his mouth. "Baby Flame!"

The abstract construct shuddered from the assault, crackling and buckling from the force behind the unified attacks. Before long, the form exploded, the shockwaves pushing back the entire group as the new menace was handily vanquished.

Noir chuckled as she stood up and brushed herself off. "Ha! See? Not an issue!"

Blanc, however, took a few steps back, eyes affixed to the area where the droning form once was. The outward force of the explosion had begun turning inward instead. "If it was not before... I think it is now."

Her sister didn't take long to register the response, nor the sudden rush of energy getting sucked back towards the area as it began to implode and fold in on itself. She backed up to meet Blanc once more, watching the remnants of the aura condense to a single point. There was a moment's stillness before the space it once occupied tore violently open into a massive, swirling vortex, one that seemed intent on consuming the entire plane.

"Noir, the plane was already unstable!" Blanc chided, even as she took hold of her bigger sister and planted Cross Barbée into the ground to keep them stable. "Now you've hastened what that behemoth was trying to do!"

"How was I supposed to know this would happen!?" Noir shot back, watching the monster Blanc was referring to give out one last roar before vanishing without a trace as suddenly as it had appeared.

The rest of the assembled Digimon struggled to escape the gaping maw of the dimensional vortex, those who still had the strength to run finding the effort completely pointless against the force of the vacuum. Huckmon, however, managed to secure himself by sinking his claws into the ground, deep enough to stay anchored even against the gale-force winds blasting them all. The newest arrival kept himself planted to the ground as well, his hand and staff solid enough to take hold and keep him from falling into the abyss. Both could only watch as, either tragically or thankfully, the winded and beaten Apemon was handily sucked up into the blackness without any meaningful struggle or protest.

A shrill, childish scream stopped the phantom from dwelling on the loss, as the Digimon everyone else had come to save lost his footing and started to fall away as well. Focusing as hard as he could on his form, he stabilized his other arm just in time to grab the little one as he flew past, holding him tight as he shielded them both from the winds.

The child clung desperately to his arm like a liferaft. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" The good samaritan managed a nod, and watched as the vortex began to shrink, having lost some power against the plane's attempt to right itself.

The arm keeping his staff to the ground started to flicker out of corporeality, giving him a sudden start. "Perhaps you shouldn't thank me yet..."

The moment the words left his mouth, both arms phased out and the smaller creature passed right through his intangible form. He gave out a final, desperate cry of "Somebody, please help me!" before he was consumed by the vortex.

As he watched the child disappear, the ghostly figure felt his staff finally lose purchase as well. The closing maw dragged him toward itself, and he could only look back at his friends with a look of remorse as it sent him to parts unknown, its final action before sealing completely shut.

Riley clattered helplessly away on her console's keyboard, trying desperately to appease the deafening warning sirens blasting through the console room. "It didn't work, sir! Yuggoth... they destroyed Yuggoth!"

Her boss dropped the lighter, eyes wide and fists clenched. "How? How strong are they!?"

"That's not all," the other woman called down. "Yuggoth failed to abort the full bio-emergence. Four Wild Ones were held at bay, but two have breached completely. They are in the city now. I'm sorry, sir."

"Dammit!" he screamed, slamming his fists on his own console. "If they can break Yuggoth, they could break all of Tokyo! Find them!"

A potent fog plumed through a concentrated portion of Shinjuku, billowing out from a hidden rift between the two worlds as a signal of an impending bio-emergence. If anyone were to take time out of their day to look upon the fog, they would likely have questioned why it seemed contained within a single alleyway.

As it was, the only eyes upon the area belonged to Rika and Renamon, and to them, this was all very routine.

"Show yourself!" Rika challenged. The fog didn't respond to the provocation, but it continued to spill forth, thickening around them and slowly smothering the light.

Renamon's fists clenched as the alley grew progressively darker. "Rika, something's off about this one. Whatever's coming, we should be caref-"

"Enough," Rika snapped, turning to her partner and regarding her coolly. "No excuses. No chickening out. We have an enemy to face, and from your intel, probably the strongest one yet. Our goal's the same as always, and assuming you're right about this, you'll have finally taken in enough data to digivolve to your Champion form. I'll accept nothing less."

Renamon simply sighed and nodded. She recognized that Rika was her path to getting stronger, and it wouldn't do either herself or the self-styled Digimon Queen any good to fail when the reward was so tantalizingly great.

The fog thinned enough for the deposited Digimon to come into view. Against Rika's expectations, however, there were three of them. One looked like a giant humanoid ape; another looked tiny and helpless, with pleading eyes and a triangle formation on its forehead. The third was much harder to make out, its body obscured largely by crackling electricity, but it was the only one of the bunch that couldn't bring itself to stand upright, implying that it was already injured.

Rika's face hardened in determination. "Three in one... this really will be a challenge."

Her hand went to a white device attached to her belt by a blue strap. This used to simply be a card reader for the Digimon card game, but through the power of a mysterious blue card she scanned through it, it gave form to her partner and allowed her to grant Renamon strength. The D-Power had turned into the most important tool in her life, and helped her see her calling to conquer every challenge and stand unopposed as the strongest Tamer to ever live.

She unstrapped the D-Power and held it aloft in front of the mass of Digimon in the fog. After a moment of scanning and analyzing, its findings came back, and Rika flipped it around to examine the screen.

Digimon Analyzer:

Name: Apemon

Level: Champion

Attribute: Vaccine

Apemon is an Animal Digimon who's sighted rarely enough that most consider him a legend. It's rumored that he draws his spiritual energy from the Holy Ring on his finger. He uses his Mega Bone Stick to demolish his enemies.

Name: Calumon

Level: N/A

Attribute: N/A

No Data.

Name: N/A

Level: N/A

Attribute: N/A

No Data.

Rika's eyebrow quirked up at the sight on her screen. Everything checked out for Apemon, though the data she received on him didn't suggest the level of challenge she'd prepared for. The other two, however... the little one registered nothing but a name, Calumon; and the one wreathed in lightning didn't register at all. That one must have been the source of the intense energy Renamon sensed, because lord knew it couldn't have been the Calumon.

Apemon smashed the ground with his club and growled at the pair, prompting her to casually look up from her D-Power. Of the three, the monkey man seemed to be the only openly aggressive one, effectively painting the target right on his back. She absently swished her hand forward to signal for Renamon to advance. "Get the big one first. And let's hope you're right."

Calumon cowered behind his injured friend as he watched the fox creature approach, whimpering at the sight of the shimmering razor-sharp leaves surrounding her. "This isn't good..."

To Be Continued…

What mysteries lie within the form of little Calumon, and why has it drawn the attention of so many? Can the DigiDestined discover the cause and purpose of this new trend of bio-emergence? And what is the nature of the savage beast that attacked Huckmon and the Sistermons? All this and more, still to come...

Next Time on Digimon United:

Davis scoffed. "What could be so important that we're ignoring the Emperor?"

Izzy responded by presenting his laptop, several warning signs still displaying. "Digimon are coming into our world again. My radar picked up a huge signature in Shinjuku."

...

The towering figure crossed his arms. "Go to the human world, find that Digimon, and let nothing stop you from bringing him back."

Huckmon, Blanc and Noir nodded and bowed before him. "Yes, master."

...

Rika groaned in annoyance and crossed her arms. "I'm going to tell you exactly once: back off!"

The other Tamer's determined expression didn't falter for a moment. "If you're gonna keep hunting innocent Digimon, I'm just gonna have to stop you! Get 'em, Guilmon!"