"Ukiiiiii!!"
Etemon's screech tore through the air, shrill and furious, as the beam cannon—hidden within the pyramid's outer wall—blasted down like divine retribution. In one blinding instant, his beloved jumbo trailer exploded into a fiery wreck, pieces of metal and plastic raining down around him like a twisted confetti of humiliation.
His sunglasses, somehow still perched on his nose, reflected the carnage.
"That blasted Datamon!" he snarled, baring his teeth. "What does he think he's doing?! Trying to defy me?!"
He stomped down hard, kicking a smoldering piece of his trailer aside.
"Oh-ho-ho! So that's how it's gonna be? Fine, then! I'll take him on myself!"
He spread his arms wide in melodramatic fury, shouting to the skies. "I won't be holding back this time, oh no! When I'm done with him, there won't be a single screw left to salvage! I'll melt him down and make him into a toaster!"
The enslaved Digimon surrounding him—dozens, perhaps more—twitched and jerked to life as the black cables attached to them pulsed with dark energy.
Etemon's voice turned sugary sweet and dangerously unhinged.
"Let's go, sweeties! Charge! Wipe that tin can off the map!"
At his command, the horde surged forward—roaring, howling, snarling. The desert rumbled beneath their feet, the chaos of battle blooming once more around the ancient pyramid.
-------------
Inside, somewhere in the shadows of ancient tech and flickering code, Datamon watched.
And he did not blink.
"Laser cannons from the sides," Matt noted grimly, peering through binoculars at the chaos near the base of the pyramid.
"I think the landmines are an even bigger problem," Joe muttered, nervously adjusting his glasses as another explosion sent a group of Etemon's Digimon flying into the air.
A safe distance away, crouched behind a dune, the group—Matt, Joe, Izzy, and Mimi—watched the unfolding battle like reluctant spectators. They weren't here to fight, not yet. Their goal lay within the pyramid: the crests. TK's and Sora's. Izzy had confirmed it. He could feel them resonating stronger than ever now.
"It'll be difficult to approach from the front," Izzy said, typing rapidly on his laptop. "It would help if Etemon's forces accidentally opened up a hole in the side somewhere."
Mimi frowned. "Hey, hey, relying on them to help? That doesn't feel great."
"If there's an open gap," she added after a moment, "I can use my Poison Ivy to sneak us in. Quiet and clean."
Joe raised a hand hesitantly. "But… we don't know what the inside of that thing looks like. It could be crawling with traps. Lasers. Hidden walls. Stuff that zaps you."
"And here I thought you'd gotten braver," Matt said, half-joking, half-irritated.
"Hey, I am brave! I'm just also… very aware of my surroundings!" Joe snapped.
The tension rose as the group continued bickering—not out of malice, but from nerves. None of them liked sitting around, least of all while the crests they needed were right there, just out of reach.
"So what? All we can do is sit back and watch?" Matt growled, clenching a fist.
"I didn't say that!" Joe shot back.
"Now, now," Izzy interrupted, raising a hand before things got worse. "Let's keep an eye on the situation just a little longer. If we move too early, we'll walk right into a security trap."
Even Izzy, though, knew deep down that there wasn't going to be some brilliant flash of insight by watching Etemon rampage around the pyramid. No easy backdoor. No convenient path lit by destiny.
The best-case scenario?
Etemon and Datamon tear each other apart… and leave the ruins behind for the Digidestined to scavenge.
But that was a hope—not a plan. Or they could wait until Tai manages to evolve Greymon to his ultimate form.
-------------------
The air thickened with heat and tension. The sound of scorched ground, clashing metal, and shrieking Digimon echoed over the battlefield. The fight was nearing its breaking point.
Still hidden beneath the worn yellow sheet camouflaged with dust and desert sand, Matt, Izzy, Joe, Mimi, and Naruto crouched low. For the first time in hours, they were quiet—no debates, no plans, just stillness. They were no longer just observers. They had become predators, waiting patiently as the chaos devoured itself.
"Time's on our side," Matt murmured, eyes sharp, watching smoke billow from one of the downed laser turrets.
"The crests can't be destroyed," Izzy confirmed, almost to himself. "It's just a matter of surviving long enough to claim them."
Naruto remained quiet, eyes narrowed like a fox ready to pounce. Raikomaru crouched beside him, its electric whiskers twitching slightly as it kept vigil. Somewhere nearby, one of Naruto's clones was already at TK's side, and another had gone to Sora's location. They were his ticket into the pyramid—the true key to the crests was not brute strength, but the bond with their rightful owners.
Even amid the carnage, that connection pulsed like a beacon.
On the battlefield, Etemon's army was broken. The black-cabled Digimon stumbled forward, some dragging themselves across the bodies of their fallen comrades. The once-proud, brainwashed legion was reduced to a mindless wave of destruction, all in service to their deranged master.
Tiles continued to break loose from the pyramid's sloped surface, some laser turrets now sparking or dark. A breach was close. Very close.
And deep within the cold, mechanical heart of the pyramid, a single cry echoed from a small, grimy room.
"All right!" Datamon's voice buzzed with glee, his metal fingers dancing across a series of glowing consoles.
Lines of fire flickered on his screen, shifting symbols and encryption scripts unlocking one by one. Access wasn't the end goal. Control was.
Control over the legendary Wall of Fire—the Digital World's ultimate firewall. With it, not only could he trap enemies… he could rewrite reality within its borders.
He laughed, a shrill, mad sound. "Hehe… just watch me, you morons."
His mechanical eyes glowed blood-red.
Outside, Etemon stood atop a crumbling ridge, body trembling with fury.
"Kamikaze!" he roared, flinging his arms wide. "Full charge! Send them all! Wipe him out!"
He meant Datamon, of course.
But he didn't care about the lives of his soldiers.
He never had.
The final wave began—zombified Digimon staggering forward, covered in soot and oil, their red eyes blank. They rushed toward the pyramid like living landmines.
The battlefield would soon be reduced to smoldering rubble… or so Etemon hoped.
And in the shadows, Naruto turned toward the others.
"It's almost time."
--------------------
The desert wind roared like a rampaging beast, curling around them in a whirlwind of heat and sand. The pyramid loomed ahead, scarred and smoking, yet still eerily defiant—as if daring the intruders to come closer.
And then it came.
A sharp gasp tore from Mimi's throat as something immense shimmered into view behind them, bursting from the veil of swirling sand like a living comet.
"W—What is that?" she shrieked, clutching her sunhat to keep it from flying off.
They all turned, shielding their eyes from the grit, and saw it—a monstrous silhouette slicing through the air at low altitude, wings outstretched like gleaming blades of steel and light. For one fleeting moment, no one spoke. Even Matt's ever-watchful scowl softened into awe.
"No… Look closer!" Izzy shouted, his fingers twitching as if longing for his laptop.
The thing hurtling toward them was massive—a towering dinosaur with shimmering orange scales, familiar in shape and presence, yet more formidable than anything they'd seen before. Half of its body was transformed, glinting cold silver in the desert sun. Great metal wings jutted from its back, thrusters blazing with controlled fury. Its head bore a helmet of steel; its left arm, from shoulder down, was no longer flesh, but a war machine. The transformation was complete.
It looked like Greymon… but it wasn't just Greymon.
"I—Is that… Greymon's true Perfect Level?" Matt breathed.
The answer came in the form of fire and fury.
With a hiss of releasing pressure, a hatch opened in the beast's chest. Two missiles, sleek and white, launched with a suddenness that made Joe duck instinctively. They soared past, trailing elegant ribbons of smoke across the sky. In the next breath, they struck the pyramid with a thunderous BOOM, tearing a yawning hole into its side. Sand flew, stone cracked, and a cry of excitement broke from above.
"Woo-hoo!" Tai whooped, one hand gripping the base of MetalGreymon's wing as he rode triumphantly on his Digimon's shoulder. His goggles were dusted with sand, but his eyes gleamed with the same fire that lit MetalGreymon's launchers.
"Tai, stay hidden within my arm," MetalGreymon's voice rumbled—mechanical, deep, and protective.
"'Kay!" Tai nodded, bounding down the monster's plated neck and into the cradle of his left palm.
With his precious cargo secured, MetalGreymon tucked his transformed arm toward his chest, angled his body forward—and dove headlong into the pyramid like a comet crashing from heaven.
The stone walls screamed in protest.
The structure wasn't meant to receive something of his size. Every inch he moved was met with collapsing stone and crumbling tiles, the pyramid coughing up clouds of dust and groaning as if in pain. But MetalGreymon did not stop. He drove forward, carving his path by sheer force, a juggernaut of living flame and iron.
And that was their moment.
"Now!" Naruto barked, his eyes blazing with resolve. From either side of him, two clones emerged—one carrying TK, the other cradling Sora with swift precision. In the blur of motion, they darted toward the smouldering opening left in the pyramid's side, disappearing into the storm of chaos.
Behind them, the real Naruto ran with Raikomaru crackling at his heels, while Matt and the others scrambled for cover.
MetalGreymon came to a halt within the stone corridor, his metallic frame crushing columns like twigs. Behind him, the battlefield still howled—Etemon screeching orders, enslaved Digimon lurching forward with broken movements.
But deep inside the pyramid, something more dangerous stirred.
The alarm klaxons blared, echoing like a monstrous heartbeat. Red lights spun madly across the inner walls. But within a shadowy control room lit only by screens and shifting code, Datamon was hunched over the terminal, unmoving save for the frantic twitching of his clawed fingers.
His eyes burned.
Not with rage—but obsession.
"The Wall of Fire…" he whispered, watching the firewall protocol flicker just out of reach. Every bypass, every algorithm he threw at it—anticipated. Blocked. Mocked.
The bastard security system was laughing at him.
"PIECE OF SHIT!" he screeched, voice bouncing off the metal walls like a corrupted echo.
His circuits buzzed with rage. He slammed his claw against the console—and then, slowly, deliberately, reached for the final key. A massive turn lever glowed with crimson runes.
"TAKE THIS!" he roared, slamming it forward with all the strength his body could muster.
The lights flared.
The pyramid groaned.
Ever since the dawn of creation — since stars first burned into being and time took its first breath — the "Wall of Fire" had never ceased. An unrelenting inferno of crimson flame and nuclear corona, it was a barrier forged by the immortals of logic and sealed by the architects of reality itself. Not once had it faltered.
Until now.
For the briefest moment — not even a second, merely a sliver of cosmic breath — the flames collapsed inward.
Fwoooooohhhh.
Where once there had been fire, there was now a void. A hole — a gaping absence so total it felt wrong, as if reality had blinked and lost its shape. It wasn't just a gap in heat or light. It was deeper than that, as though meaning itself had been sucked away.
From beyond that breach came a voice.
It was not human. Not Digimon. Not anything the universe had ever given name to. It sounded like the boiling scream of entropy — a sound that crawled along your bones and took root in your blood. It was fury, agony, loathing, and eternal grief compressed into sound. A voice born of a hatred that had fermented for eons in a cauldron large enough to fit the Milky Way, stirred until thick and unholy.
And then it laughed.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
A laugh with no joy. No warmth. Just mockery. It oozed apathy, cruelty — the kind that watches a world burn and finds it amusing only because it means nothing.
The laugh passed through the ancient firewall like it had never been there. It travelled along hidden wires, through forgotten programming languages, and into Datamon's core system.
The sound echoed in his metal chamber, but it didn't bounce off the walls — it stuck, like tar, clinging to the air itself.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Datamon jerked upright, static crackling along his joints. The lights flickered. His monitor blinked — once, twice — then went black.
"…W—Who's voice is that?" he asked aloud, voice trembling despite its robotic clarity.
But the monitor wasn't finished.
The computer, which had moments ago been humming with activity — protocols running, simulations analyzing, firewalls aligning — now stood empty. Every single process was forcibly terminated in an instant. The system wasn't simply shut down — it had been ripped out, like organs torn from a living body.
And then something else appeared.
A new screen. A program Datamon had never seen before. Certainly not one he'd installed.
It was a shape — or perhaps a being — spinning slowly on the monitor. A polyhedron, endlessly complex, its geometric edges too sharp, too perfect to be natural. Around it, chains of metallic DNA spiraled like ancient serpents, binding it as if the code itself feared what was inside.
It rotated slowly.
Silently.
And then it began to run.
W—WHAT'S GOING ON?!
Datamon's shriek was shrill now, uncharacteristically high-pitched for a machine. His limbs clattered as he sprang from the console and scrambled to the back of the machine, inspecting wires, tugging cables, rerouting power.
But nothing responded.
The machine didn't even acknowledge his commands.
It didn't need him anymore.
He was no longer the master of the system — he was a spectator.
The screen would not change.
The polyhedron kept spinning.