"There are words on the wall," Tentomon said, peering at the stone.
"This is…" Izzy stopped at once and flipped open his laptop when he saw the script carved there.
"Right. It's the same code we saw in Andromon's factory power room and in the ruins guarded by Centarumon—except for this one character." After a round of comparisons, he pointed it out.
Tai didn't bother opening his computer; using his data goggles to record was faster. He pushed the text to the central computer for analysis.
Izzy tapped for a bit, then stood and walked to the right-hand wall. He rubbed away a particular character with his hand.
Suddenly the passage blazed with light, like a lamp coming on in a pitch-black room. Everyone squinted against the glare.
"As I thought—this place is powered by these programs," Izzy said, enlightened.
"What do you mean?" Sora asked.
"It means if we modify the code on the walls, we can toggle the power in this area." He explained while moving to another section to keep editing.
After he changed a few more characters, a hologram sprang up in front of the kids—just like when Gennai spoke to them.
Only this time there was no disc-shaped projector. It was as if the passage itself had a built-in projector.
The hologram showed a map—oddly drawn, but probably the world map of the Digital World.
"Incredible. Just tweak the wall code and something like this appears? No ordinary computer could do that. Is this really 'programs'?" Joe raked his hair, at a loss before phenomena that didn't fit his knowledge of how things worked.
"I don't know either," Izzy said. "Maybe this is a world made purely of data."
"A world of data, and we're just part of the data?" Sora asked.
"Mm. No physical matter—only data," Izzy nodded.
"Like ghosts?" Mimi said.
"Then where are our real bodies?" Matt asked.
"Maybe still back at summer camp," Izzy answered uncertainly. "It could be that the real us are alive in that world, and what's here is just extra data—copies."
His fingers rattled over the keys. The floating map curled into a sphere—a pocket-sized planet.
"Next, if I feed in the data from Andromon's factory and the map Gennai gave me…"
Sure enough, a full model of the Digital World, a world like the human Earth, appeared before them. A red dot marked their current location—the eastern reaches of the Server Continent.
"What a huge world. It looks just like Earth," Matt murmured.
"Not only that." Izzy pulled up a second globe—the Earth's map.
As he kept working, both very different-looking globes sprouted fine mesh lines across their surfaces.
"These are the networks of the two worlds," Izzy explained, dissolving land and sea and leaving only the netlike lattices.
In the end, the two networks displayed exactly the same structure.
"The Digital World we're in is the network humans use."
"Put another way," Tai said, "if the network is a tunnel, the Digital World is one exit at this end and Earth is the exit at the other." He thought of the movie where Omnimon appeared—Agumon and the others entered the Network from the Digital World, and Tai and Matt went into the Network through their computer. It fit. His take made it click for the others.
"So that means Earth is close, right? We can go home soon?" T.K. asked, hand raised.
"No. It looks close, but it's actually far. Even if the two worlds are linked by the Network, entering the Network from either side isn't simple," Izzy said, offering a real-world example: people sit at computers to play games—they don't enter the game network themselves.
After digesting what the passage had to offer, they pressed on. Tai felt like he'd just bagged a priceless trove—among the files in here was manufacturing data for a portal like this corridor. With that, the machines back in the underground city could be moved in quickly.
They kept walking until they reached the exit, which—unbelievably—was a sphinx. Outside looked nothing like the entrance. In the middle of the desert stood a solitary, inverted pyramid. At last, Tai saw the structure: Etemon's base. And inside, a Digimon who was a wizard with data—Datamon.
"This will finally come in handy," Tai muttered.
Since Izzy hadn't received Datamon's email in this timeline, they were navigating toward Sora's Crest using the location Tai had supplied.
"There are invisible secret passages inside the pyramid," Izzy said as they walked. He keyed in a command, and a structural diagram of the pyramid unfolded on his screen.
They followed him around to the pyramid's flank.
"Behind this wall should be a secret passage." Izzy put out his hand and touched the stone.
Which proved him right—his hand didn't meet stone; it slid through.
"So this is the secret passage?"
"It's visible data, but it's hollow inside—like Piximon's barrier. Everything outside the hollow is real data," Izzy said.
"The Digital World is amazing. It's like walking through walls," Sora said, stepping in.
They moved on calmly. After slipping through five or six similar decoy halls, they reached an electrified grid. Through his data goggles, Tai saw that everything was real current except for a single doorway just taller than the kids.
"Looks like high voltage," Tentomon said, hovering near the grid.
Arcs crackled and danced across the mesh.
"But there should be a hidden entrance," Izzy said, typing away.
"So the rest is actually live?" Joe asked, a little pale.
"Izzy, where's the entrance?" Matt said.
Izzy pointed to a spot a little right of center.
Tai went first, walking straight to the point his goggles had marked. He slipped through and vanished behind the grid.
Seeing he was fine, the others followed.
Past the grid, they entered a vast steel chamber, hundreds of square meters in size—just like Andromon's factory. Nothing but metal, wall to wall.
"What is this place…?" Sora asked, baffled.
"Our destination," Izzy said.
"Look there," Matt pointed to a suspended tetrahedron.
In the room's center stood a dais. Two transparent triangular-pyramid cases were nested together—the outer pyramid inverted, base up and tip down. Suspended within was a Digimon.
"Isn't that Datamon? A very clever Digimon," Tentomon said, recognizing it.
At the sound, Datamon turned.
"Hello, DigiDestined."
The voice came—from Izzy's laptop.
A window popped up on his screen, and Datamon's image appeared in it.
"Right—you're sending data through my infrared port," Izzy realized why he'd received Datamon's messages even with no network cable plugged in.
"I fought Etemon once… and lost. My body was destroyed and I was sealed in here. With my capacity to think stripped away, I could only manage Etemon's Network—nothing else," Datamon recounted.
"But one day, my memory suddenly returned. I began secretly repairing my body a little at a time. I know what happens outside and can influence some things. But to break the seal, I need help from the outside."
"Then you know where my Crest is?" Sora asked.
"Of course. I know far more than Etemon," Datamon replied.
"Can we really trust you?" Joe frowned.
"Of course. We're both enemies of Etemon. Trust me—I can help you defeat him."
"No need," Tai cut in, eyes cold after watching quietly. "With our strength now, beating Etemon won't be hard. Just tell us where the Crest is."
"Release me, and I'll tell you."
"If you won't talk, I'll use my own method." Tai's brow creased. His hands dropped to his sides.
"Tai—" Sora started to protest.
"We can't take him at his word. And this is Etemon's turf—we need to be careful. Leave it to me." Tai stepped forward and raised his right hand toward Datamon. Red light blinked in Datamon's eyes. Orange light gathered in Tai's palm, coalescing into a sphere, then compressing to a pinpoint. With a flick, the point shot through the glass casing and sank into Datamon's body.
Tai smiled. Datamon had tried to play him—so he'd paid a price. The device was built on Devimon's Black Gear principle, except it didn't suppress a Digimon's will—it fused directly into a Digicore and issued commands straight to the heart. No backlash. It only worked after he integrated data from the Holy Program.
The kids stared, mouths agape, as the light formed in Tai's hand and sank into Datamon.
"Tai—" Izzy began.
"That's far enough! What do you think you're doing?" Etemon suddenly appeared in the doorway.
TN: You can vote for this series as a free member here: https://[email protected]/posts/142658209. The winner will continue to receive updates. While the poll is running, new chapters will be added to both fanfics.