The digidestined had twice saved the digital world. Two years later, the Otamamon and Gekomon sometimes wondered if it was anything worth saving.

It wasn't just that they labored under the cruel tyranny of ShogunGekomon (when he was awake, anyway); it was that they couldn't revolt, or they'd just be taken over by another ultimate-level digimon outside their village; a stranger and crueler digimon who had never evolved from their kind. Contact with the human world had led strange new ideas to spread through the Geko Shogunate, but the idea of a digimon democracy was neither supported by humans (whose adults, unlike the chosen children, were far more interested in a digital world empire than anything regarding the happiness of digimon) nor by digimon themselves – at least, not by the ones with the power to make democracy happen.

Myotismon had spoken of plunging Earth into darkness and becoming king of the digital world. King, not dictator – not because he wished to pass on his position to his sons (for he had none), but because monarchy was simply the natural order of things among digimon.

Humans had revolutions to overthrow their kings. Human workers went on strike, or they turned their guns on their masters. A gun was a wonderful thing, they thought, for it made true the slogan that all men were created equal: equal in firepower, anyway.

Guns had been smuggled into the digital world by the digidestined. They had no choice: ultimates could fight back, but what about the lower levels? But guns would not pierce ShogunGekomon's hide, and ShogunGekomon was not atypical in this regard.

It was said that, when humans discovered the internet, they dreamed it would equalize mankind. What fools they were, most Otamamon and Gekomon mused. Humans dreamed of artificial intelligence as well, but they dreamed of robots, not digimon, and the thing with robots was that they generally overthrew humanity. Successfully. And didn't fight among themselves.

Robots did not evolve. They were equal in power.

Monarchy had lasted millennia on Earth. It would last forever in the digital world, chosen children or no chosen children.

"Crash Symphony," one Gekomon retainer thought as he stared at the sleeping shogun. Thought, not shouted in a desperate, futile attack; he wasn't stupid.

There would be no revolution.