Watching the kids disappear into the distance.
Agumon lowered his hand, turned, and asked reluctantly, "Tai, are we really splitting up from everyone?"
Tai didn't look at him. "We'd have had to split sooner or later."
"But is this really okay? Neither the Agents nor the enemies of the Four Sovereigns are going to let those kids just wander around the Server Continent. Right now, you're the only DigiDestined who's left the group. You're not worried at all?" Datamon's flat, synthetic voice sounded beside Tai.
Tai said nothing, just turned and walked toward the now masterless pyramid. Agumon hurried after him.
"There's nothing to worry about."
In Datamon's secret room, Tai rattled across the keys. "Datamon, set up a stable transit gate. I've sent you the address."
Datamon asked nothing and got to work. Agumon glanced around—only he had nothing to do. "Tai, what should I do?"
"Rest for a bit. We just fought—recover your strength." Tai didn't even turn, eyes glued to the screen, fingers flying. Agumon sat off to the side, idly watching them work.
Datamon opened a floor panel and revealed a colossal bundle of conduits: the Dark Network power core that used to feed Etemon's surveillance web across the desert. Black and bristling with tangled circuitry, it looked like a metal beast—enough to make your skin crawl. Worse, the bundle seemed to link to a distant region Tai didn't want to contemplate. Aside from that place, what else could be pouring out power this dark?
Tai began tracing the source of that darkness. He didn't want to believe it—the idea that he had reached in this early—but when he followed the trail to the Digital World's barrier—the firewall—his heart sank. So it was true. His hand really had gotten in ahead of time. Wait—no, something's off. Tai smiled. This wasn't his doing after all; if it were, it wouldn't be this simple. Whoever it belonged to… it was his now. He'd thought keeping a portal running would drain the underground city's limited reserves, but now…
"Since you delivered it to my door, I'll help myself," Tai murmured, hands already patching the Dark core into the gate.
Beep—beep—
A harsh tone echoed through the underground city, followed by a prompt: "Authentication passed. Beginning execution."
A rock-solid gate linked File Island's underground city to the pyramid on the Server Continent. After a period of growth, the underground city had been fully repaired and production was underway.
Platoons of mechanical soldiers marched out of the portal and began remaking the pyramid. Digital alloy plated the ground. Sand gave way to steel. Endless machines flowed up from the underground city, bolted into place, and kicked off mass production of mechanical soldiers. The new soldiers, in turn, expanded the base. Tai hadn't stayed on File Island because it was a terrible place to operate—too many eyes.
Seated, Tai watched the feeds as a tide of mechanical soldiers busied themselves, raising a newborn city. The network they laid already exceeded Etemon's footprint and pushed outward.
Pride filled him. This was his—fully his. He hated to admit it, but in all his years, he'd never had a tract this big under his sole control. In his last life, converting this much land to cash would have filled a whole city. With the pyramid as the hub, structures thrust up at speed. A vast steel metropolis took shape.
Standing atop the highest point, he looked down at the city forming in his hands. Pride swelled. He spoke to Agumon and Datamon behind him: "This is my Metal Empire. I will restore the Metal Empire's glory—and surpass it. We'll carve the Metal Empire back into the Digital World."
With Datamon and a host of Hagurumon managing the Metal Empire, Tai turned to the real problem: how to raise peak power. He wouldn't lack soldiers; with this output, lose one batch and build two more. But aces—top-tier fighters—he didn't have. He throttled expansion. Without Megas, none of this could stand. Mega-level force isn't something numbers can solve. Exceptions like Seraphimon who can punch far above their tier are vanishingly rare.
The Digital World was only recently formed. To Digimon living there, it felt ancient—time flowed differently. On real-world time, the Digital World had existed barely over a decade. Datamon, able to invade the human network, could read actual timestamps—after all, the Digital World's network is a branch of the real one.
In a newborn world, rules keep changing and settling. Every being in the Digital World is part of that world—and when a concept becomes common knowledge, the world itself adopts it. Just as in the human world, name a new thing and it has a place.
Originally there was no "Mega" stage. But the appearance of Machinedramon established a tier above Ultimate. Machinedramon wasn't an evolution to Mega; it was a heavily modified Ultimate. At first, it was categorized as an Ultimate. Yet even if you threw all of the Metal Empire's modified and machine-type Ultimates at it, they couldn't beat Machinedramon. Its power simply sat beyond Ultimate. The Metal Empire labeled that ceiling "Mega."
Once most Digimon accepted how overwhelming Machinedramon was, "Mega" solidified as a new evolutionary stage—a rule of the world. To the Digital World, that was within the last two thousand years; to the human world, a little over a year.
After that, Ultimates had the potential to evolve to Mega.
Even so, across ages only the Four Sovereigns and the Dark Masters actually reached it. Many Ultimates gained power well beyond what came before without becoming true Megas. Myotismon, for example, exceeded the old Ultimate standard but still fell short of a real Mega.
Climbing to Ultimate can be programmatic—via Crests. The Digivice pushes to Champion; Crests unlock Ultimate. But Tai still had no firm path to Mega. In the original timeline, Agumon became WarGreymon with help from Angewomon's Arrow of Light. So holy power might be the trigger for the Digivice. Then again, Leomon advanced after being bathed in the Digivice's light alone. Clearly, the Digivice still hid many secrets.
Elsewhere, after parting with Tai, Sora's group wandered, trading blows now and then with Digimon—mostly Champions. With Lilymon around, the kids drove the attackers off. They were still just kids, and they missed the many eyes tracking their every move. Trouble was already angling toward them; this calm was only the stillness before the storm.
"I wonder how Tai's doing. It's been a while," Sora said, perched on a jut of rock, chatting with the others.
"If it's Tai, I'm not worried. He's always been independent. I just don't know if he's found a way home. We still haven't," Joe said, a bit dejected.
"Everyone, maybe we should go look for Gennai. He might know how to send us back now. Last time he said he'd check," Izzy suggested.
"Good idea!" Tentomon agreed—and then wilted. "But we don't know how to contact Gennai. He always contacts us first."
"What a weird old man—never around when you need him, and popping up when you don't," Mimi huffed. The kids sighed again.
They had no idea a plot was closing in. With every step, their adventure was drawing closer to the truth.
TN: Well, this fanfic got more votes :D, so a bunch of chapters today and even more on my P@tre0n.
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