Chapter 40: Harbinger

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Disclaimer: Definitely don't own Digimon. Does anybody actually read these?

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Mr. Immortal couldn't believe his eyes. He felt the old man's neck and there was no pulse. There wasn't even any heat radiating from his body as he felt his forehead.

"He's really gone, isn't he?" Mizuki asked, trying not to show her sorrow by keeping it behind a mask of seriousness.

"Unfortunately, yeah. Here I thought that as a Time Lord he'd regenerate," the thin blond commented, shuddering at the thought of another dead person. He would have to bury the man's body. Thankfully, they had already reached his island just after the second Unification.

And after that, he'd wash his hands. The thought that he'd touched a dead body made him sick to the stomach, but not as much as the idea that he would probably never see the old man again. He was hoping that he'd at least get some answers from him about Yggdrasil and why he had been stranded 4000 years in the past in the first place.

"So, are we going to have a funeral or what?" Mizuki asked.

"Yeah, I feel like we're just standing here," Shoutmon commented, sad about what had happened.

Mr. Immortal nodded. "Let's get this over with."

###

The old clock shop owner took a deep breath as the tank finally opened up. He barely remembered what had transpired other than that both he and his partner were subtly captured by a mysterious dark-skinned man and a woman. When the old man finally woke up, he realized that some time had passed and he pulled himself out of the tank uneasily.

Considering he was dying of a lethal combination of cancer and old age and didn't have any regenerations left as a Time Lord, the feeling of himself alive was something surprising. Then again, he had no idea what would have happened had he died, anyway, other than a smattering of ideas preached about by numerous religions. The old man actually didn't know what to believe about that.

"Oh, you're finally awake," the bald, dark-skinned man commented, walking toward him through the dark room where the tank was at. "And here I was, rescuing you from death."

"I have no idea what you are talking about," the old man responded.

"I rescued you. You had no regenerations left and I needed your knowledge and experience so I basically faked your death by knocking out Mizuki and my younger self as well as their partners and then taking you with me, putting you in the rejuvenation tank I designed using my old immortality program I used as Mr. Immortal and then travelling back in time ten minutes so that you still died in the eyes of some. I also disconnected you from Yggdrasil's influence."

The old man shook his head. "You mean to say that you actually disconnected my mind from Yggdrasil? How?"

"I found a program in each of our digivices that caused our minds to be connected to Yggdrasil," Alexander Rinaldi explained. "Come with me. It's time you watched your own funeral."

The old man followed his successor to a nearby viewport where he saw a box that had his dead body in it get buried. The experience was quite surreal. "So, you're from the future?" the old man asked.

Al nodded. "I'm the second incarnation of myself. You neglected to tell me that you made me a Time Lord."

"I take it you didn't want to be. Neither did I. I think I just made you a Time Lord while I was under Yggdrasil's influence," the old man decided.

Al Rinaldi smiled. "Like how you sent me back in time 4000 years under his influence," the dark-skinned man replied, not really holding it against the old man. "And I wasn't the only one, either. I was just the lucky one: Mr. Immortal."

"Yes, that was quite stupid. I don't know why Yggdrasil does it, either," the old man said, shaking a bit. Then he caught a glance of himself in the nearby mirror and saw something amazing. His hair was no longer grey, but jet black instead. He also had no wrinkles on his face either. "Amazing. How does it work?"

"Rejuvenation… I considered just uploading the immortality program into your digivice but since you had a X-Loader instead of a D-Arc, I knew it wouldn't be feasible," Rinaldi explained, smiling slightly. "The principles are largely the same, it's just that you're in stasis while it happens. All the data particles inside of you are programmed to go into your cells, repair them, removing any nasty mutations that their genome developed over the years and killing any cancer cells that you happen to have. It turned out that you had some sort of Pancreatic Cancer."

"Yeah, I knew it was something like that," the old man remarked. "So, what are you here for?"

"I need you to help me find the physical computer that Yggdrasil is on," Rinaldi answered.

"Yggdrasil is a digital life form separated from the real world," the old clock shop man responded.

"No, he's not. I found out that the forms of Yggdrasil that groups such as the Data Squad, Tsuguri Tatsuna's team and Alphamon encountered were all projections. Even the entity Norn was merely a puppet of the real Yggdrasil. We've found out that these projections come through a computer located in the real world." The dark-skinned moved toward a computer screen and pressed a couple buttons, bringing up some of the data on Yggdrasil's location that they've found. "We discovered that it connects to an internet router in Mongolia in World 1-0 but we haven't found anything even further than that."

"There's a firewall keeping you out," the old man replied, realizing what his successor encountered.

"That's what we've found out too," the bald Time Lord responded, gritting his teeth. "There's still a lot we don't know."

"Theoretically, we should be able to break past the firewall, but I don't know why you should."

"The Cycle of Timelines needs to end," Rinaldi replied. "We all realize that."

"Who's we?" the old clock shop man asked.

"Me and my Agents of Forever, most of whom are former companions that you were forced by Yggdrasil to abandon in the past," Rinaldi replied, leaning against a console. "By doing so, you started a new timeline each time. We're intent on making this the last one. To do that, we need to figure out why Yggdrasil is causing that in the first place."

The rejuvenated old man sat down on a nearby chair in grief and buried his face in his hands. "That's why…"

"What did you figure out?"

"That's why things changed each time I lost a companion."

"And to think that most of the time Yggdrasil forced you to drop them off in inhospitable, hard-to-reach places. I was trapped in the mountains of Afghanstan and I was one of the lucky ones since I found civilization eventually by travelling west. One man got trapped in the Mojave desert and then there was Sam Urrutía who was stranded in the middle of Antarctica to freeze to death."

"How did you rescue them all without starting a new timeline?" the old man asked, confused about that one.

"It was actually simple. I found a way to retrieve them by temporal duplication without starting a new timeline."

"So, what do you have on possible reasons why Yggdrasil used me to reset the timeline constantly?" the old man asked with a grin. For so long, he had longed for purpose but found himself repeatedly doing the same thing over and over again. He realized that they needed to end the cycle.

"I'll show you after I get back from meeting my younger self," Rinaldi replied, leading the man that was no longer old into the main room of the time machine.

###

Kazu Shioda took in the sights of the vast plains ahead, containing Crimson's domain. He really appreciated the beauty despite feeling frustrations about not being able to get back home to his parents. The sights of the citadel jutting out of the ground kilometers ahead of them was also an amazing sight, a large, blood-colored castle that looked like it belonged hundreds of years into the future awaited them.

Then they spotted a massive bird headed straight for them. It was simply a Parrotmon, not much of a threat to Aegisdramon or Andromon, the latter riding on the back of Aegisdramon with Kazu.

"You don't actually think that guy's going to attack us, right?" the brown-haired, visor-wearing boy asked his partner.

"He doesn't seem to be powering up an attack or anything," Andromon observed.

"I have to agree," Aegisdramon concurred.

Then Parrotmon landed on top of the giant Mega.

"What brings you here?" the bird asked Kazu and Andromon directly. "Here to face our leader, are we?"

Kazu didn't know how to react to the giant bird in front of him. "Well, yeah, I guess."

"Well, he's busy, but if you'd like, you can meet him next after he's finished dealing with his brother," the green bird responded.

"So, you're not going to attack us or anything?" Kenta asked from inside Aegisdramon.

"No, why would I do that when you're not attacking me. As it is, I would lose in a battle against you, Aegisdramon," the massive bird replied before flying off. "If you want to meet Lord Crimson, follow me!"

"You sure he's not betraying Crimson to us?" Kenta asked.

"Dude, I don't know what he's doing!" Kazu replied, utterly confused by the behavior of Crimson's underling. "Just follow him. We can retreat if we find ourselves against a bunch of enemy digimon and we can't win."

"Okay, Kazu, whatever you say," Aegisdramon responded, increasing his speed to match that of the green parrot they were following.

###

Yuji felt the exhilaration go through him as Tankdramon moved as fast as he could, dodging numerous attacks from Machinedramon inside of Crimson's personal arena. The brown-haired boy held his palms out and his partner unleashed an attack.

"Blast Gatling!" tamer and partner yelled, firing off a volley of bullets against Machinedramon. Aside from a few dents here and there, the powerful Mega was largely unscathed.

"Giga Cannon!" Machinedramon said quietly, unleashing a pulse of energy from his shoulder cannons, which didn't hit the tank.

Yuji was definitely giving it all he had but it seemed like they were at a stalemate.

"This battle's going nowhere," Yuji yelled out to his brother who was clear over on the other side of the massive coliseum. Satoshi stroked his pointed goatee.

"Yeah, no kidding, bro," Crimson responded, sarcasm edging into his voice. "Dude, we should totally up it up a notch! Use the Striver Cannon, buddy!"

Yuji glared at his brother. "That's a mini-nuke, Satoshi! Do you want to get us all killed?"

Satoshi shrugged. "Meh, not really."

"What's the point of this whole fight, anyway?"

Crimson shrugged again. "Dude, Defendramon."

Yuji got even more confused by that one. "Defendramon?"

"Yeah, ever hear of Defendramon? He's basically the one member of Dorbickmon's little crew that actually had standards. Then Dorbickmon killed him and loaded his data, or so we thought. It turns out that that was just what Dorbickmon wanted us to think. Defendramon actually reverted to an egg just after the battle since Dorbickmon didn't want to lose another soldier just because of a fight."

"Yeah? What makes you think that my Commandramon is this Defendramon. How do you know that Commandramon even digivolves into Defendramon?" Yuji asked scornfully.

Satoshi just gave another shrug. "Well, it's said that only the most principled Tankdramon can become Defendramon, so I just had an inkling that maybe when your partner got taken to the real world, he was wishing deep down to go to the real world to get out of Dorbickmon's idiotic army.

"Oh, that reminds me…" Satoshi held out his digivice. "Slide Evolution!"

With that, Machinedramon shifted and turned into Dorbickmon. "Bet you didn't know he could do that, huh, bro?"

Yuji was flabberghasted. "You absorbed Dorbickmon's data!" the boy deduced.

"By the way, Yuji, don't believe a thing he said about me being Defendramon. Defendramon was a traitor to the Dragon Dominion!" Tankdramon shouted.

"I don't. We might need to biomerge, though," Yuji replied, bitter anger coursing through him.

"By the way, you say that I absorbed Dorbickmon's data. That isn't exactly true, bro," Satoshi explained. "You see, Dorbickmon's a potential Mega for MasterTyrannomon and my Machinedramon actually digivolved from MetalTyrannomon, so, they're similar lines." Satoshi actually didn't want to trigger a dark digivolution, which would mean that Yuji would inevitably become Darkdramon.

"You're totally lying, bro!" Yuji exclaimed as Tankdramon moved forward. "Blast Gatling!" he and his partner yelled, shooting at Dorbickmon. This time, the attack did more damage thanks to the dragon not wearing armor like Machinedramon was.

"You don't know if I lying, bro," Satoshi replied.

"Why didn't you come home?" Yuji asked.

"I was recruited by Mr. Immortal, Yuj," Crimson told his brother, continuing to sit back and relax. "College sucked and I hated the University of Osaka so I just dropped out. I couldn't face mom and dad again after that. When I came to the Digital World, I had a purpose and I wasn't just going through the motions from day to day, bro."

Yuji still felt angry. "What? That's it? That's why you decided to put together the Triumvirate and take over the stupid Digital World? Man, you're messed up!" His rage was becoming stronger and stronger. "There's no way I'm going to let you get away with that, bro! I looked up to you."

"Uh, Yuji, control your anger, man," his brother cautioned.

"Yeah! I don't care anymore! I'm just going to take you down! Striver Cannon!"

Satoshi muttered an expletive under his breath before hiding behind the throne. He hoped that the metal the throne was made of would protect him from the nuclear explosion. "Attack, Dorbickmon!"

"Tyrant Collbrande!" the dragon exclaimed, drawing a sword and aiming for Tankdramon. Unfortunately, the miniature nuclear weapon hit the ground just a couple of seconds before the Dragon was supposed to hit, blasting forth and destroying the arena.

###

As Kazu and Kenta approached, they spotted an implosion of one of the buildings. "What the heck is that?" Kazu asked, astounded at the sight. The dome-like building's structure was maintained, but all the walls were destroyed from the inside out.

"Like I say, Crimson is busy," Parrotmon answered vaguely.

"Yeah? Busy with what, though? It's like he's going all Nagasaki down there!" the visor-wearing young man exclaimed.

"His research is classified and he asked not to be disturbed," Parrotmon remarked. "Oh dear, I sure hope he's okay."

"Maybe we shouldn't go down there until we know it's safe?" Kenta suggested from within Aegisdramon.

"Dude, you're a flipping Mega!" Kazu harked back.

"There does seem to be a large amount of radiation coming from that building," Andromon stated.

"Oh, crap, he did go all Nagasaki!" the brown-haired boy remarked.

###

Crimson had to work hard just to lift the massive metallic throne from off of him and even then, he limped along since he didn't manage to get one of his legs completely out of the way just in time for the massive attack to hit. He also spotted Dorbickmon standing but in tatters.

"Slide evolution!" he shouted out, hating the pain in his leg. That wasn't anything that one of his medics couldn't fix, but still, it hurt. He glanced down and saw that his foot was ruined and he seemed to be missing a couple of toes.

Dorbickmon changed back into Machinedramon. The powerful overlord glanced around the radiation-soaked coliseum, worrying about his brother. Then he spotted a humanoid figure in the distance and just had to facepalm at the sight. The figure wasn't entirely humanoid, unfortunately, and very clearly had a tail and wings. That wasn't to mention the blue armor with yellow striping going through the center. "Oh crap, what did I do?"

"Perhaps, brother, you should have come home from the digital world and told everyone what had happened," Darkdramon replied.

"Yeah, I should have. The Triumvirate was a failure, anyway. But this is just taking it too far, bro," Satoshi responded, holding out his digivice. "You wanted an interesting battle, so that's what you'll get."

"Hah! Like that isn't expected." Darkdramon started to rush forward, the lance in his right hand extended.

"Biomerge Activate!" Satoshi yelled, merging with his partner.

"Machinedramon biomerge to… Chaosdramon!"

The attack barely grazed the red-armored Mega's hide. Still, this was far from what Crimson wanted. He didn't want the dark biomerge, just a regular one. Instead, this was what he got.

Darkdramon readied the lance that was in his right hand, the Gigastick Lance, and thrust the attack forward once more.

"Demon Stab!" he yelled as he struck Chaosdramon across the chest, actually succeeding in damaging his opponent.

"Stop!" Satoshi yelled out at his brother, but Yuji was unreasoning. Satoshi realized that he had crossed a line in trying to get his brother to access Commandramon's alternate Mega form. He needed to do something quick.

So he tuned into Chaosdramon's abilities. His digivice wasn't upgraded like the majority of the Tamers in the Digital World, but he knew a thing about his partner's attacks. He thrust forward with one of his massive claws, tossing Darkdramon out of the way. He was going to have to stop his brother, just disabling him, not killing him. He had an idea that he hoped he could follow through on.

"Hyper Infinity Cannon!" Chaosdramon shouted, unleashing a powerful attack from the barrels on his back, striking Darkdramon head-on.

The other Mega was still relentless in his strikes, ready for blood.

"Dark Roar!" Darkdramon shouted, unleashing a massive ball of dark energy against Chaosdramon, throwing the red dragon backwards against the wall.

"What the heck is going on here?" The blue dragon heard from behind. His attention was diverted, but Chaosdramon was still trying to get up and couldn't take advantage of the opportunity.

In fact, it was a big mistake for Kazu to blurt out that question. As soon as Darkdramon's acute hearing picked it up, the blue dragon flew straight for him, Andromon and Aegisdramon, ready to do to them what he had planned for Chaosdramon.

Reflexively, once Kazu realized his mistake, he pulled out his digivice and used it, shouting "Biomerge Activate!"
"Andromon biomerge to… HiAndromon!" the cyborg exclaimed, merging with his partner into his completed, black-armored Mega form.

Unfortunately, Parrotmon wasn't smart enough to get out of the way and ended up stabbed in half by Darkdramon before disintegrating into data absorbed by the enemy Mega.

Aegisdramon was nowhere near as easy for him to take down, though. Neither of them knew who Darkdramon really was, so they just instinctively attacked.

In fact, Kazu didn't really even know that Darkdramon was a tamed digimon. Immediately, he used the fission energy emanating from the turbine on his right shoulder and combined it with the fusion energy from his left shoulder and unleashed it all on Darkdramon point blank. "Atomic Ray!"

Still, the powerful Mega got up and lunged forward once again.

This time, instead of HiAndromon attacking, it was Aegisdramon who struck. "Shine Breaker!" The massive cybernetic sea creature unleashed a simultaneous volley of energy, scorching Darkdramon all over, damaging the powerful Mega and causing him to fall down to the ground.

Still, he tried to get up, but he couldn't. Darkdramon took one last breath before splitting into a badly scorched Yuji and Commandramon.

"What the-? Yuji? What the heck are you doing here?" Kazu asked in complete surprise at the sight of his old friend, barely getting up, feeling pain all over.

Yuji realized that he had lost control, much like Tadashi had but without the telepathic infiltration that the blond had had to deal with. Instead, he was just goaded by his older brother into performing a corrupt digivolution to the Mega level.

He looked back, thinking about how he had resisted that telepathic attack from StrikeMapachemon from the battle against Breakdramon. And yet he couldn't keep control around his brother's words.

The long-haired boy got up aching, glancing up at the Mega forms of two of his closest friends. He wished they hadn't seen him like this, but at least they broke the loss of control.

"Funny how it is," he muttered under his breath, grinning like a madman as he grabbed his partner's paw and helped the cyborg dinosaur up. "I guess we all need self-control, even though we don't think about it that much."

"Huh?" Kenta asked from within Aegisdramon.

"Sorry about that, guys. I let myself go back there when I should have kept control of myself," Yuji told his friends. "I'll tell you everything later." The long-haired boy glanced over to where his brother was. Chaosdramon was now standing again.

"I can't believe we let that happen," Commandramon commented.

"Dude, don't worry about it. It's mostly my fault, anyway," Yuji remarked. "Hey guys, why don't you sit this one out for a few minutes while I have a little heart-to-heart with my big bro over there."

"Uh, sure?" Kazu said, not exactly sure about what to do.

"Alright, thanks, guys," the long-haired boy said, grinning at his friends. He tried to remember what he thought about to resist StrikeMapachemon's control. Two of the things he thought about were right there. Then there were his parents, who he realized still loved him despite everything they had to put up with from him. He then thought about the main thing that he thought about to resist StrikeMapachemon's control: his brother. He had been waiting to confront the man for a long time, ever since he had found out the identity of the mysterious Tamer known as Crimson. He was ready to prevent the man's takeover of the Digital World, no matter what.

At the same time, he didn't want to fight him. Not really. He was starting to see how pointless violence really was. True, there were time when he really needed to defend himself, but if nobody else was violent, then why should he be? Why should he incite violence? There was no reason.

"You know, he's actually right about one thing," Commandramon told Yuji. "I remember a whole bunch of stuff from my old life now and one of them was that I was Defendramon."

Yuji gave him a look of confusion. "What? You mean, all this time…"

"I was afraid, you know. I was afraid that Dorbickmon would absorb my data and take away my second chance."

Yuji smiled at his partner as he limped along, ready to face Satoshi.

"Dude, we both had to learn a lot, didn't we?" Yuji asked his partner, wondering why Chaosdramon wasn't really doing anything but move slowly toward them. Then again, he realized it didn't really matter that much. "But, we learned it together, I guess. We can take this guy on together, take down a member of the Triumvirate."

Commandramon chuckled. "Yeah. Let's take this guy down!"

Yuji held out his digivice, hoping that he could do this and not end up as an out-of-control Darkdramon yet again. "Biomerge Activate!"

"Commandramon biomerge to…!" The new form, a rare Digimon of a species that neither Kazu nor Kenta had ever seen before, emerged from the biomerge, a massive dragon-man digimon with jet black armor all across his body. His helmet reminded Kazu of the WarGreymon family of Digimon, but the rest of the armor was far more elaborate and covered the entire body. It also had golden lines going down the sides of the arms and leggings along with a pair of golden eyes and a massive, Roman-style, full-body shield with a golden orb at the center in his right hand. In addition, there was a pair of wings on the digimon's back and a gigantic black gun with similar golden lines to the rest of the body on it.

"… Defendramon!"

"What the heck? I've never heard of that Digimon," Kazu commented from inside of HiAndromon.

"Defendramon is one of the rarest Digimon in the Commandramon line, a Mega that only the least corrupt Tankdramon could possibly ascend into," Andromon explained. "It's said to be one in a million."

"It's about time…" Satoshi told his partner from inside. "Remember what the plan is."

"Yes, I will," Machinedramon told his partner from within Chaosdramon. Almost immediately, the powerful Mega attacked Defendramon, moving forward quickly and causing his massive cannons to swing forward, charging with energy.

"Hyper Infinity Cannon!" he yelled, unleashing a powerful blast against his black-clad opponent who simply held up his roman-style body shield.

"Escudo de Absorción!" Defendramon shouted, forming an impenetrable shield around his body as the golden orb in the center glowed.

"Good, his defense is far higher than anything in my army," Satoshi commented. "I'm sure he could stand up to Roger Volkmann's army too if it came to it. Now, to measure his attack…"

Defendramon held his massive gun and, after putting his shield on his back, he aimed it at Chaosdramon and fired. "Tachyon Cannon!"

The attack was instantaneous. In fact, it seemed to warp time and space around the gun so that it shot out before Defendramon pulled the trigger. The attack connected with Chaosdramon at once, hitting at many times the speed of light as it warped the space-time continuum around Crimson's partner, destabilizing him.

Almost immediately after the attack was finished, Chaosdramon destabilized into two: the rookie BlackAgumon and his Tamer, Satoshi Terayama.

Defendramon moved forward, glancing down at his Tamer's brother in contempt before disengaging the biomerge. Immediately, Yuji grabbed his brother by the collar, looking into his brown eyes as the goatee fell off. Satoshi looked like he was in worse shape than he was, his fake, pointed goatee landing in between the two brothers.

"Why?" was Yuji's one question.

"Dude, I needed you to be at your strongest," Satoshi told him before reaching into his pocket and pressing onto a remote control, much to Yuji's dismay as he backed away from his brother.

"What the heck are you doing? Summoning the rest of your army?" he asked, dismayed at his brother's actions.

"Dude, don't worry! Just wait a few seconds," Satoshi said. About ten seconds after the dictator pressed the button, a squadron of Piddomon, Cutemon and a single MagnaAngemon came out of the nearby stands surrounded the two brothers. Satoshi just laughed at his younger brother.

Yuji just stood there in confusion as a pair of Cutemon started to heal him and his partner and MagnaAngemon started using his healing powers on Satoshi, who continued grinning throughout the ordeal.

"Man, the look on your face is just priceless," Crimson told him.

"What the heck is going on?!" Yuji exclaimed.

"Dude, we're totally healing you. That's what," Satoshi responded as his foot regenerated. "Man, digimon are awesome!"

Yuji glanced over at Kazu and Kenta, who had already canceled their biomerges and then back at his brother. "Okay, man, tell me what's really happening. You want to fight again?"

"Oh, heck no, man!" Satoshi exclaimed. "I'm too tired. In fact, I think I'll take a nap." The long-haired Japanese man yawned.

"So, what are you going to do?" Yuji asked. "Send your army after us?"

"Oh, no, my army is spread out all over the digital world. I sent them all on missions of rebuilding and colonization," Satoshi explained. "I needed to weaken the triumvirate little by little, so I also started fomenting a little resistance in Roger's faction by using his callousness toward the deaths of a group of Tamers to my advantage." The triumvir smiled.

"What?" Yuji asked, really confused.

"Yeah, man, remember that redhead with the big hips? Yeah, I kind of nurtured her doubts a little bit so that eventually she led a breakaway faction that joined up with your little group, the Coalition. Also, didn't you notice the digimon that brought you here?"

Baalmon… Yuji thought back, realizing where he had seen that digimon before. "Harbinger…"

"Correcto mundo, my little brother! I'm Harbinger and I've been orchestrating the fall of the triumvirate. Plus, didn't you think my British accent was just flawless?" Satoshi continued with his smile. "We were so close to each other you didn't realize it. Not to mention, we're on the same side."

"No we're not!" Yuji exclaimed, not believing his older brother. "You wanted to take over the Digital World!"

"Dude, that was when the Digital World was a heck of a lot smaller. Didn't think there was this entire planetary World here waiting for us. Plus, I had altruistic motives back then too. I just overshot. I hoped that the Queen could be reined in and I had no idea that Roger was such a dirtbag even though we worked together to take down this Digimon named TysiachaGlazkovmon or whatever."

Yuji hadn't heard that last part. "What?"

"Yeah, that's right, buddy! I got recruited by Mr. Immortal and Antonio Urrutía to help save the Digital World from TysiachaGlazkovmon. Trust me, it's not fun trying to fight a bunch of eyeballs," he explained. "The thing is, man, that I had nothing going for me back in Osaka. I failed college and I was just spending my days, smoking pot and doing nothing. Then Mr. Immortal found me. Apparently I had potential in his eyes, so he recruited me, saying that I was a good Tamer in an alternate future."

Yuji just stood there in shock. "So, that's why…"

"When we beat TysiachaGlazkovmon, I stayed here in the Digital World, trying to make a difference. The truth was, man, that I was ashamed to talk to you and our parents after I screwed up big time." Satoshi reached down and picked up his fake goatee. "I want to make it up to you guys. I'm tired of all this crap, you know."

Yuji still didn't move. "Then why… why did you have to go after me and force me to go Mega, huh?"

Satoshi's mien turned serious. "Because you have no idea what's coming. That thing that killed all those Tamers is just the beginning. There's going to be more bad guys coming, soon, and you have to be as strong as you can be to stop them or else we could lose everything."

"More bad guys?" Yuji asked, a look of disbelief on his face. "As if you weren't enough, you and your stupid triumvirate!"

"I'm trying to atone for what I did. You can see right here that my forces are only a skeleton of what they once were. All I ask is that you help us all in the end. There are thousands of Tamers in the world, now, and we have to face some pretty powerful enemies."

###

Only a little bit later, Zeppelinmon pulled up, landing in front of the stadium where Yuji, Satoshi, Kazu and Kenta stood. Satoshi was holding BlackAgumon, who was still unconscious despite the healing he had received. Yuji just stood there, unsure of what was going on, whether it was a dream or not. The back compartment of the massive airship opened up and Tadashi walked out, confused about what had to have happened.

"Hey, what's going on?" the blond asked as he walked off along with Takato, Ayaka and Rika.

"I, the second member of the Triumvirate, was defeated by my brother," Satoshi stated matter-of-factly.

Yuji didn't give Tadashi a grin like the blond would have expected. "Yeah, I beat him alright." He gave the ponytail-sporting man a glare.

"You might want to hurry up if you want to beat Roger before he does other things," Satoshi told Tadashi as he walked onto the airship. "For instance, I hear he's thinking of sending an army to kill everyone in the Digimon Queen's palace. Speaking of whom, did you manage to beat her?"

Tadashi stuttered a bit. For an enemy who had just been defeated in battle, Satoshi seemed to be taking things a little too well. "What's the catch? Why aren't you mad or anything?"

"He wanted us to beat the Triumvirate, including himself. In fact, he manipulated us with the Harbinger persona."

"Exactly," Satoshi responded, smiling. "Plus, that way, you'll be able to take on the bio-hybrids that are about to come into the Digital World. There's no other way."

"I'm really confused," Kenta remarked.

"Hey, man, don't look the gift horse in the mouth. I mean, I knew the Digimon Queen was crazy, but I trusted Roger, kinda," Satoshi said as the group walked into Zeppelinmon's hangar. "Though, he did act a little weird during our little jaunt into the Digital World when the D-Reaper was screwing everyone over. Ever since, he's been wanting to kill Mr. Immortal for some reason."

"What?" Rika asked. "Who the heck's Mr. Immortal?" The hangar door closed behind them.

"The Tamer of Forever, supposedly 4000 years old. I guess he manipulated the data inside his body that allowed him to reach Mega so that it would go in and repair his cells or some crap. I guess his real name's Alexander Rinaldi or something."
"Like the Time Lord?" Tadashi suggested.

"Maybe the black dude's his regeneration or something," Yuji suggested.

"Why do you know so much about Doctor Who, anyway?" Ayaka asked, confused.

"Because he was always around when I watched it to work on my English. That's why I speak with such a good British accent," Satoshi explained.

"Wow, this guy's nuts," Rika remarked. "I've never even heard of that show."

Satoshi smiled. "You know, lady, I like you."

"Sorry, I'm married," the red-head replied and Satoshi gave her a hearty laugh.

Yuji just walked away along with Commandramon. He didn't want to be around his brother any longer. He felt used.

He just wanted the day to be over, so he went straight to the nearest vacant cabin and fell asleep. Commandramon looked on in sorrow for his partner.

###

Alexander Rinaldi, the man that was given the title Mr. Immortal exited the Watchmaker's time-travel device and walked into the throne room of Roger Volkmann, glancing at the ornate decorations, replicas of paintings of centuries past, some long lost. He also noticed the stained glass up above. Mizuki walked alongside him, ready with her partner in case anything happened. She could reach Ultimate if she needed to. She also had an idea of using her X-Loader to try and perform Digi-Xros on her and Armadillomon, thinking it may lead to a biomerge.

The 4000-year-old Tamer actually wanted her to stay in the time machine, but he wasn't going to argue with the fiery red-head. He had already warned her that they were going to go up against a Royal Knight, but that didn't deter her. Mr. Immortal also noticed a black man looking at him with a cordial smile.

Something in the man's mannerisms seemed familiar.

Then the blond man looked at Shoutmon who was ready to strike. He could always count on his partner digimon.

Roger got off his throne, a mad smile plastered across his face.

"So, this is what you've become? I picked you back then because I knew you. You were trustworthy and had morals in the timeline I come from," Mr. Immortal told him.

The red-haired teenager laughed. "Morals? Yeah, but do you? Taking what doesn't belong to you…"

Mr. Immortal looked at him with surprise. "What?"

"Your immortality. Mr. Immortal… Okay, Mr. Immortal Guy, what are we going to do next? You didn't realize I was actually mocking you with that name, did you?"

"What?" Mizuki asked, not knowing what to believe.

"You thought up that name to mock me?" he asked, astounded that he didn't pick that up back then.

"Yeah, exactly. You shouldn't exist. You should be dead, man, not 4000 years old," Roger responded scornfully, shaking his head. "No one should live forever. And for that, I'm going to send you to hell where you belong."

Alexander Rinaldi glared at him in both his incarnations. The blond one shook his head. "I don't believe in hell."
Roger laughed before pressing a button on a small device, teleporting Mr. Immortal, Huckmon and himself to an island. "Welcome to the end, stupid immortal guy."

"You burned villages. You killed many innocent digimon."

"I'm just getting rid of the competition. Survival of the Fittest and all that. Then again, I don't really believe in evolution, either, I'm afraid. God created everything in six days, after all."

Alex shook his head. He didn't remember Roger being such a fundamentalist back in the old timeline. "I'm not here to debate theology here, Roger."

The redhead's gestures became ever-emphatic. "Except that what you are is an abomination. No one should live forever! It wasn't God's plan," the red-head exclaimed. "Biomerge activate!"

"Huckmon biomerge to… Gankoumon!" The Royal Knight stood there, ready.

Alex held out his digivice, ready to take on his enemy. "Biomerge activate!"

Nothing happened. That was when the blond realized that the teleport didn't bring Shoutmon with him. That was when Gankoumon readied a fist, punching the ground where Mr. Immortal once was, causing him to barely jump out of the way just in time.

"This is a no-win situation for you, Mr. Immortal!"

Alex knew he was right. The only way to fight this enemy was to use a program that the blond knew would kill him.

He knew what he had to do.

"Activate Ascension-dot-py!" he shouted, holding out the digivice, feeling the data inside his body react to the program. Blue lines appeared all over his skin and his hair turned white. Then he opened up his eyes which turned a bright shade of blue.

"Yeah? Wow, you're a cheat!" Roger exclaimed from inside Gankoumon.

Neither of them noticed a bulky figure in the distance, watching the battle from a safe location and holstering his rifle. He could intervene at any time, but what would be the fun in that?