It was a long time, a long and uneventful and fruitless time, before the forest began to thin.

“The forest is ending, Izzy,” HerculesKabuterimon informed his partner.

“I see that, buddy. Thank you, though,” Izzy replied, quickly tapping away at his laptop.

“Can we just keep moving, dammit?” Jesse grumbled loudly as she stalked out of the forest and onto the wide, open plain that stretched before them. HypnoCalarshmon dragged her large, dragon-like body along. They had pushed themselves hard, trying to reach this place, this point where Izzy had calculated that Matt—an injured Matt—could have possibly made it to since the last time they saw him.

The female Mega Digimon, however, couldn’t understand Izzy’s reasoning. If Matt hadn’t died from the height of the fall, then surely he would have been badly hurt. How could he have survived, without food or water, and injured, for this long?

HypnoCalarshmon never spoke her mind on the matter, however. No matter how powerful she was, she was willing to bet either Chris or Jesse would take her out barehanded if such thoughts were let loose.

MetalJackalmon loped through the underbrush, using his claws to slice his way through. Jaina jogged beside him.

“MetalJackalmon, is it possible for you to know where we are?”

“Possibly, Jaina,” the tall, metal Digital Monster said. “We appear to be in the Great Digital Plain. It is located between the Syakomon Forest, which we have just left, and the Forest of Irrelevant Road Signs, which, if we continued at this pace, we could possibly reach by tomorrow night.”

Jaina nodded. Looking towards the head of the pack, she called to Chris, sitting on Diaboromon’s shoulders. “Chris! Maybe we should call it a day.”

“No!” Chris’s harsh reply came back to her. “Let’s at least try to make it halfway across the Plain before nightfall.”

“But the Digimon are reaching the point of exhaustion,” Izzy said, gesturing towards T.K. and Kari, already carrying their own Digimon, who had passed out from exhaustion some time ago.

Jesse whirled on him. “Listen, brain-o-matic, we’re not stopping ‘till everyone’s dead or we find Matt.”

As if to emphasize the “dead” part, HypnoCalarshmon flopped down next to Jesse and DeDigivolved to her In-Training form, Sephithmon. Jesse sweatdropped.

“On the other hand, one must sometimes eat one’s own words . . .”

BOOM!!!

At that moment, a huge explosion flared up in front of them. A towering black shape—a female by the build—stood in front of them. She cackled a horrible laugh that made T.K., Kari, and Izzy shudder and fall to their knees.

“What is it?” Jaina asked worriedly.

“Marajamon!” Izzy whispered, his face turning a pale white shade of horror.

“That’s impossible . . .” T.K. mumbled.

“We killed her; right after Jennifer joined the group,” Kari breathed, terror filling her face.

Chris rolled his eyes, staring at the black silhouette. “Is that all?” He turned to his wife. “You ready?”

Jaina smirked, her bright pink eyes widening and a grin spreading across her face. “Honey, I was BORN ready!”

“Diaboromon . . .

“MetalJackalmon . . .

*^**^* . . . DNA-Digivolve to . . . Kaminarimon!”

Why can’t I move?

I don’t understand.

Am I alive? I must be; it hurts, hurts so much, like—like nothing else I’ve ever known. Why? Why can’t I move?

Blood. I can smell it. Coating the air, cloying, sickly-salty-sweet. Whose is it? His? Hers?

Mine?

I can’t—I can see. Black . . . is it? Colors . . . red.

Where is she?

Am I dreaming?

No—no. I can’t be. The pain is still there. Silver torture, silver spiders of agony infesting me, gnawing on me, crawling through my flesh.

How?

Why?

Jesse stood suddenly transfixed, though why she could not say. How could she fight now? How could she fight ever again?

You can’t, her mind told her. Never again. You can never fight. Not after Matt. You’ll fail everyone, and you’ll lose someone else.

No . . . no.

No!

“HypnoCalarshmon, come back!”

“What?” There was disbelief on Jaina’s face, stark on the white of her flesh. “You can’t back out of a fight like this!”

“I have to,” Jesse replied in a voice that shook like a rose in the wind.

Marajamon let out an ear-grating cackle. “So, your little friend is afraid to fight? How quaint and amusing! Well, all the better for me!”

“Jesse, what are you doing?” Izzy demanded, taking her by the arm. She jerked free.

“What I have to do, Izzy. I can’t fight. Ever again.” As HypnoCalarshmon stood paralyzed with indecision, her chin rose; she trembled. “Just leave me the hell alone!”

To emphasize her point, she threw her Digivice on the ground and placed her foot on it, threateningly. “HypnoCalarshmon, stay here, or I’ll crush it!”

The evil Digimon laughed again. “How perfectly droll! I simply love it! But enough about her. My time to roll!”

Marajamon drew herself up, raised clawed hands to the overcast sky, and called Hell down upon them all.

Kaminarimon dodged and slashed at her with her blade, narrowly missing Marajamon. Marajamon lept into the air, flipping over Kaminarimon’s head to land behind the Perfection-level Digimon.

“Black Magic!”

The ominous attack leapt in the form of a black hawk from the evil Digimon’s outstretched hands. It slammed into Kaminarimon, breaking her apart into Mocimon and Keramon.

“No! Mocimon! Keramon!” Jaina screamed as her friends hurtled towards earth.

Chris glared at Jesse and, seeing her not about to let HypnoCalarshmon help any time soon, ripped his trenchcoat off and leapt into the air.

“Devil Trigger Activate!”

A black aurora surrounded Chris, concealed him inside for a second; with its collapse, Akumamon replaced Chris. With a flap of his demonic wings, the hybrid hurtled along the ground, barely able to intercept the two Rookies before they splattered against it.

Akumamon soared up, right in front of Marajamon’s face—

“Hellfire and Brimstone!”

Akumamon crossed his arms into an X and ripped them apart, sending the blood-red wave of raw energy and molten fire point-blank at the evil Digimon. An explosion rocked the air. However, when it cleared, Marajamon still stood.

“What???”

Akumamon couldn’t react in time and the Black Magic knocked him out of the sky. He fell to the ground, slamming into it hard on his back and reverting to Chris.

Jaina raced to her husband. He was bleeding from the mouth and cheek, covered in bruises, but was otherwise fine.

“What’re we gonna do now?”

Chris once again glared at Jesanae. “Well, without that Mega we might be in trouble—”

Another Black Magic ripped the air in two, eliminating Seraphymon, Magnamon, and HerculesKarbuterimon at the same time.

“Correction, we’re screwed.”

For the third time Chris turned around to Jesse and shot her an accusing look, and Kari implored her to help them. She kept her heel upon her Digivice and turned away, refusing to hear them, and so was surprised when T.K. grabbed her by the shoulders from behind. The Digivice skidded to one side, but was still too close for HypnoCalarshmon to dare.

“What are you thinking?” her fiancée’s sibling yelled into her face. “We’ll lose without you, and you’re just standing here watching it happen! Is that what you came here for, to watch us die and refuse to help?! Is it?!”

Her mouth dropped open in an instant of flaccid shock, then her eyes snapped with fury and she turned on him and delivered a strong uppercut to his chin. As he fell down stunned, she came to stand over him, and it was as if an unearthly light burned where those eyes should have been.

“I told you,” she began, voice low and dangerous, “To leave . . . me . . . alone!”

“Fine, we’ll leave you alone!” he shot back, blood dribbling down his chin from where he had bitten his lip. “We’ll all be gone, and you can be as alone as you want! You and Matt were always wanting that anyway, so you can have your wish!”

She flinched at each one of his words, and her expression hardened into a twisted mask at the last. Chris, halfway to his fallen brother, stopped short as he realized that her eyes were glowing, with an amber light like the sun at dusk, tinged with ruddy crimson and altogether terrifying. There was hate in that gaze, and grief, and underneath it all a stark terror that it chilled his soul to see.

Then it detonated.

Jesse let loose a horrible cry of anguish, and the amber brilliance exploded all around her, becoming a crackling sphere of pure energy, thrumming with all the power of her tortured life brought to bear. An unholy, terrible rage emnated from her in palpable waves that made Chris feel sick as they passed over him, and it was all he could do no to succumb to fury himself. He held onto reason with every scrap of strength he had left in him, and took another step toward Jesse, and another.

She leveled a no longer human stare on T.K. and the energy swelled.

“Not T.K.!” Kari screamed. “He’s not your enemy!”

“Think of Matt! Of Matt!” Chris shrieked at her, ready to stop her physically if need be, but he didn’t have to. Some of the lambent halo dimmed, and a tiny vestige of sanity returned to Jesse’s face as she looked upon the twin of her love. Slowly she turned her deadly gaze on Marajamon. The energy grew, and grew, and grew—

And released.

When it dissipated, and they cleared from their vision the dazzling bursts of color, there was nothing left where their enemy had been but dust and scorched earth. The acrid scent of smoke rode the wind that was suddenly loud to their ears.

“W-what was that?” Kari asked in a tremulous whisper.

“I don’t know,” answered Chris truthfully as he moved, almost afraid, to look at Jesse. The glow had gone out of everything but her eyes now, and the haunted expression she wore was the most terrible thing he had ever seen. He took a stop toward her, to comfort her.

She toppled bonelessly to the ground, and a final flash of amber light floated in a wisp away from her body.

He ran to her and lifted her in his arms while the others gathered round. “Jesse?” She did not respond, but she was breathing gently, so he raised his head. “I think it’s safe now. She’s all right.”

“But what did she do?” Jaina demanded shrilly.

“She almost fried me,” T.K. put in helpfully. He was ignored.

“She destroyed Marajamon with nothing but her own power,” Izzy said, awed. “I would give anything to know how she did it.”

As if to take him up on the offer, she stirred from her momentary swoon, and blinked several times. But the eyes that opened to reluctantly focus on Chris’s were not eyes he recognized.

They were a deep blue-green, the color of the sea.

“Who are you?” she asked.