“Twilight? Twilight, are you okay?”
A dull pain throbbed in Twilight’s forehead as she slowly opened her eyes, nearly blinded by the sudden light assaulting her senses. She found herself in her bed, with Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Rarity, and Spike each standing over her, concerned.
“Ugh... What happen—”
Pinkie Pie immediately grabbed Twilight and pulled her into a tight hug. “Ohmygosh, Twilight, you’re okay! I was soooo worried about you, you were out for almost an hour!”
Twilight gasped for breath under the crushing weight of Pinkie’s hug. “Pinkie! Let go of me!”
Pinkie released her grip and grinned sheepishly “Eh heh... Sorry, Twilight.”
“There’s no time for that, Pinkie!” exclaimed a panicked Twilight, “Fluttershy’s in grave danger right now!”
The group collectively gasped. “What do you mean?” asked Rainbow, worriedly. “What’s happened to her?”
“Uh, do you think it has anything to do with her Element of Kindness going missing?” asked Spike, pointing downstairs.
“What!?”exclaimed the rest of the group, in unison.
————————
A light rain fell from the clouds above a diner in Odaiba, Tokyo. Many people gathered inside, some to find food, and others to take shelter from the rain. This resulted in a large crowd, though that was typical of many places in Tokyo.
Sitting in one of the booths was a group of six children, Davis, Cody, Kari, T.K., Ken, and Yolei, who were lucky enough to find a place to sit before the crowd grew too large. With the children were six creatures of vastly different appearances, Veemon, Armadillomon, Gatomon, Patamon, Wormmon and Hawkmon.
“So none of you guys have plans for the summer?” asked Davis.
“Nah,” replied T.K. “After the all the excitement we’ve been through, I think we deserve to relax for a bit.”
Davis leaned back in the booth and put his arms behind his head. “Whatever you say, A.J.”
T.K. frowned. “You know, Davis, if you’re going to keep getting my nickname wrong, you might as well just call me by my real name. Assuming you even know what it is.”
Davis grinned. “What, you mean Takeru?”
T.K.’s expression of surprise was matched by the rest of the group. “Well I’ll be darned,” said Armadillomon, “Ah was half expecting him to make something up!”
“Well of course I know his name!” replied Davis, indignantly. “Why wouldn’t I know the names of my best friends? I just like pushing his buttons is all.”
Kari, who sat next to T.K., giggled slightly. “You have to admit, T.K, he’s got you there.”
T.K. rolled his eyes. “Anyway,” he said, “I was thinking maybe we should just spend some time hanging out here. We’ve already been all over the world last winter, so I think we could stand some downtime.”
“That sounds great!” said Yolei, who had just finished eating a plate of sushi. “That means we can all hang out together!”
“Sounds good to me!” said Veemon enthusiastically, “Besides, if any of you guys want to travel, I can DNA digivolve with Wormmon, and we can take you anywhere in the world!”
The group was suddenly interrupted by a series of loud beeping noises, indicating that a message had been sent to each of their D-Terminals.
Ken, who had been mostly avoiding the conversation, was the first to react, pulling out his own D-Terminal and reading the message. His expression turned to that of horror as he read the message, nearly dropping his D-Terminal. “No... It couldn't be...”
“Is something the matter, Ken?” asked his partner, Wormmon.
“It’s from Gennai,” he said, visibly distraught, “He... He says someone's building new control spires and dark rings.”
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“Oh no! No no no no no no no! This is bad, this is bad, this is very extremely the worst possible kind of bad!”
“Calm down, Twilight!” said Applejack.
“Calm down? Calm down!?” Twilight interjected, fraught with panic, “You don’t know what happened! Fluttershy and her Element were both abducted!”
The group once again stepped back in shock.
“What do you mean abducted?” demanded Rainbow, hovering in the air, “What’s happened to her? Who did this!?”
“I don’t know!” replied Twilight, collapsing to her knees, “ENEIGHAC opened some kind of portal somehow, and I saw Fluttershy being sucked into it by some kind of evil force! It must have taken her element as well!” Twilight began to hyperventilate, breathing heavily as she was consumed by panic. “What are we going to do? What are we going to do!?”
Pinkie calmly approached Twilight and placed her hooves on Twilight’s front shoulders, and began shaking her frantically. “Get a hold of yourself, Twilight!”
Twilight, shocked by Pinkie’s forceful display, could only stare into her eyes, hardened and filled with determination. “Huh... P-pinkie?”
“You want to save Fluttershy, don’t you?”
“Y-yes...” Twilight stammered, “of course...”
“Well sitting in the corner here and flipping out isn’t going to help any! If we’re going to help Fluttershy, we need you to focus!”
Twilight looked up at her friend and sighed deeply. Pinkie was right, panicking wasn’t going to help any. If she wanted to rescue Fluttershy, she had to come up with a plan.
“Alright,” she said, “here’s what we’re going to do...”
————————
After hearing the news of the control spires, the group quickly met at the nearby school's computer lab to discuss the issue. Along with them were the other Odaiba Digi-Destined, Tai, Matt, Sora, and Joe, along with their digimon partners, Agumon, Gabumon, Biyomon, and Gomamon.
Izzy sat down at a computer with the others hovering behind him. He was clearly distraught, clutching his forehead in his hand as he stared into the screen. “This... This is not good! According to the information Gennai sent, these new Control Spires are being constructed far faster than should be possible!” Izzy pointed at the screen, which showed a map of the eastern coast of the Server Continent. Displayed on the map were several red dots which represented the control spires. “These control spires only just began to appear in the digital world, and there are already more than twenty of them!”
“So, are these the kind that prevent our partners from digivolving?” asked Tai.
Izzy sighed. “I’m afraid so,” he said. “What’s more, according to Gennai, they also force any digimon within the area to revert to their base forms, with the exception of armor forms. So we can’t move outside the area of effect to digivolve. Naturally, their presence in the Digital World means Azulongmon and the other guardians have been sealed away.”
Matt crossed his arms in frustration. “Well, that’s just great. That means we won’t be able to do anything at all!”
“Do you have any idea who’s building them?” asked Joe.
Izzy angrily slammed his fists onto the table. “I don’t know who’s building them!” he shouted, “Nobody has any idea where they came from! They just appeared out of nowhere and now the dark rings are enslaving hundreds of innocent digimon!” Tentomon slowly scuttled backward from the sudden outburst. He’d seen Izzy like this before, when he discovered that he was almost late for an assignment he hadn’t started yet. Izzy could be scary when he was frustrated by something.
Davis approached Izzy and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, don’t you worry about it! We’ll find whoever’s doing this and send him to Kingdom Come! Come on guys, let’s go!”
Davis looked back at the rest of the group, and then turned towards Ken, who was standing at the back of the group. “Ken, you’d better stay behind with the others.”
“No,” replied Ken abruptly, “I’m coming with you.”
“Huh? But Ken,” said Davis, “Wormmon can’t armor digivolve. If you come with us, you’ll only put yourself in danger!”
“I don’t care!” Ken’s eyes burned with an uncharacteristic ferocity as he approached Davis, meeting him face-to-face. “The control spires were my creations, and stopping this is my responsibility!” Ken angrily pointed his left index finger at Davis, causing him to flinch. “I’m not going to simply stand back and watch as history repeats itself!”
The others watched as Davis visibly cringed under the weight of Ken’s gaze. “Alright, fine! You can come with us! Just promise me you’ll be careful, alright?”
Davis relaxed visibly as Ken stepped backwards. “Alright, I promise.” Ken turned towards Izzy and addressed him. “Izzy, I’m going to need to borrow your laptop, if that’s alright with you. I should be able to use it to track our current location in the Digital World, as well as any control spires in the immediate area.”
Izzy looked visibly nervous for a moment. Hesitantly, he reached towards an expensive-looking carrying case, and handed it to Ken. “Alright,” he said, “but be very careful with it. I have lots of important files on there, some of which aren’t backed up yet. And whatever you do, keep it away from Davis!”
The group laughed as Davis lit up with anger. “Hey! That’s not funny!”
“Guys, focus!” said Cody. “We have more important things to worry about!”
The group calmed down and looked at each other. “He’s right,” said T.K., “We should get going. Izzy, have you prepared the DigiPort?”
“Way ahead of you,” replied Izzy, clicking a button that caused the computer screen to glow. Davis, Ken, Cody, T.K and Kari approached the screen alongside their partners.
Tai approached his younger sister. “Kari, be careful, alright?”
Kari smiled. “Don’t worry, Tai. Everything will be fine.”
T.K. looked back at his own older sibling and smiled. “We’ll sort everything out, Matt. You don’t need to worry about it.”
Matt looked back at T.K. “Hey, I’m your brother. I think I’m required by law to worry about you,” he joked.
“Alright guys, you ready?” said Davis, holding out his D-3 in front of the computer screen. “DigiPort Open!”
————————
Twilight stood in front of ENEIGHAC, adjusting a pair of saddlebags strapped to her barrel, and the Element of Magic adorning her head. Joining her in the library’s basement were Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity, and Spike. Each of the ponies wore their respective Element of Harmony, as well as their own saddlebags with supplies for the upcoming rescue mission.
“Has everypony completed their preparations?” asked Twilight.
“Eyup,” replied Applejack, “Ah've hired Caramel to help take care of the orchard while Ah'm gone.”
“I've sent Sweetie Belle off to stay with Mother and Father for the time being,” replied Rarity.
“Everything's A-okay with me!” replied Pinkie with her usual enthusiasm.
Rainbow Dash gave a dismissive snort, hovering impatiently in the air. “Yeah, yeah, we're all ready. Can we please just get a move on?”
Twilight rolled her eyes, before turning back and facing ENEIGHAC. “Alright, then. I’m going to cast the spell that will allow us to locate Fluttershy. Our Elements will lead us to the Element of Kindness, so presumably we’ll be able to find her as well.” She then turned towards her number one assistant, who was eagerly held a scroll and quill in his claws. “Spike, once we're through, I'm going to cast a spell that will send a message through ENEIGHAC. If you don't hear from me within the hour, alert Princess Celestia of our situation immediately.”
“You got it,” replied Spike.
Twilight turned to address the other Element bearers. “Everypony ready? Anything you might have forgotten?”
“For the last time, we're ready!” Rainbow huffed, “can we please just go?”
Twilight let out a sigh of exasperation. “Okay, okay, let's get going, then. Spike, you should probably stand back. This could get messy.”
“Right,” said Spike as he scurried away and ran up the stairs. He knew that when Twilight said a spell could get messy, then it almost certainly would be.
“Alright then, here goes nothing...” Twilight channeled her magic into her horn, causing a light purple aura to envelop it. The aura quickly appeared around the Elements of Harmony, the gemstones of each Element began to radiate an intense light.
Then, a deafening noise shook the foundations of the library as the Element Bearers disappeared in an explosion of light.
————————
The six Digi-Destined soon arrived in the Digital World, in the middle of a series of grassy hills.
“Alright, here we are! Let’s do this!” exclaimed Davis. “So, uh... what do we do now, Ken?”
Ken let out an exasperated sigh, and reached into the carrying case, pulling out Izzy’s laptop. Booting up the computer, he opened a program showing a map of the surrounding area. On the map screen were five red dots, each in a different direction from their current location.
“Alright, it looks like there are five control spires in the immediate area. Due to the rate the control spires are appearing, I suggest we split up so we can take them out as fast as possible.”
"The first is in an quarry to the north, inhabited by Gazimon. Davis, you'll head there. The quarry itself is mostly flat, so Raidramon will be able to take better advantage of his natural speed."
“Got it.” replied Davis.
“The next is on an island in the middle of a massive lake to the north-east. Cody, you and Submarimon will be the best bet of taking that one out. Until you reach the lake you can fly there on Digmon.” Cody nodded in approval of the plan.
“Next is a swamp to the south-east. The area gets very little sunlight due to constant cloud cover and fog, so Kari and Nefertimon will head there.”
“Right, because I can see in the dark,” said Gatomon.
“Exactly,” replied Ken. “To the south-west is a mountainous region with steep cliffs. T.K. and Pegasusmon will head there.”
“Yeah,” said Patamon, “cliffs are no match for my flying!”
“So does that mean you’ll be coming with us to the last control spire?” asked Yolei.
“Yes,” replied Ken, “the control spire to the south west is in a heavily forested area, so Hawkmon will be able to take advantage of the natural cover.” Ken suddenly paused as he realized what Yolei had asked of him. “Wait, come with you?”
“Of course!” replied Yolei. “You weren’t just going to sit here with Wormmon while we all went off, were you?”
“Well, I uh...” Ken blushed as he sheepishly scratched the back of his head. “I suppose I could come with you. I mean, if that’s okay...”
“Perfecto!” replied Yolei.
“Geez,” said Davis, “will you just propose to him already?”
Ken's blush deepened, and Yolei’s face became red with embarrassment. The others started laughing hysterically.
“Shut up!” Yolei fumed, “That’s not funny!”
“Joking aside,” said T.K., catching his breath, “we really ought to get going.”
“Yeah,” replied Cody, “we’ve already wasted enough time as it is.”
“Right then!” exclaimed Davis, “You ready, Veemon?”
“Ready!” replied Veemon. Davis looked towards the other Digi-Destined, each of them nodding in approval.
“Veemon, Armor Digivolve to: Raidramon, the Storm of Friendship!”
“Hawkmon, Armor Digivolve to: Halsemon, the Wings of Love!”
“Armadillomon, Armor Digivolve to: Digmon, the Drills of Knowledge!”
“Patamon, Armor Digivolve to: Pegasusmon, the Flying Hope!”
“Gatomon, Armor Digivolve to: Nefertimon, the Angel of Light!”
Each of the Digi-Destined mounted their respective partner, save for Ken and Wormmon, who climbed atop Halsemon along with Yolei. On Ken’s command, they each set off in a different direction, until they each disappeared into the horizon.