The cold metal of the warehouse doorframe pressed against my back, the last hum of Behemoth's engine still vibrating in my bones. My Digivice screen glowed with Black Widow's intel, a cold, clinical map of Killgrave's defenses. Armed guards at every choke point. Booby-trapped entryways. A perfect little maze of controlled chaos.
I could see Peter's red-and-blue speck against the distant moon, already in position. Gwen and Renamon were a blur splitting off to the designated side entry. My own squad—a silent wave of white, black, and purple—moved with me through the shadowed aisles. Gatomon's eyes were sharp, BlackGatomon's claws were out, and Impmon's usual grin was replaced by a focused scowl. This was it. The moment my useless anger finally hardened into something I could use, something cold and sharp and precise.
The first security guard stepped out from behind a stack of pallets. His eyes were wide and vacant, a pistol held in a steady, unnatural grip. He didn't shout a warning, didn't even seem to see us as people. He just raised the weapon, his movements eerily smooth.
Gatomon was a flash of white. Her Lightning Paw struck the pistol from his hand with a sharp clang before his finger could even twitch on the trigger. BlackGatomon followed through, a shadowy kick to the back of his knee, and he crumpled to the concrete without a sound.
This wasn't a fight. It was a cleanup operation. We were just disarming puppets, one by one, and the silence of it was worse than any battle cry.
"They're not even breathing hard," Impmon muttered, nudging the unconscious guard with his foot. His usual mischievous smirk was gone, replaced by a grimace of disgust. "This is creepy even for me."
I kept moving, my Digi-Goggles scanning the perimeter for heat signatures, for energy spikes, for anything. The next wave of defense wasn't a person. A faint, metallic click echoed from the rafters high above.
I looked up and saw it too late—a large metal crate, dangling from a single, frayed steel cable, beginning its slow, groaning descent. Its shadow fell directly over Impmon.
"Impmon, move!"
He was already scrambling, a blur of purple and red. But Gatomon was faster. She lunged, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and yanked him clear just as the crate slammed down where he'd been standing. The impact sent a shower of sparks and pulverized concrete dust into the air.
My scan locked onto the source. A small, unassuming man in janitor's coveralls stood by a control panel further down the aisle. His eyes were fixed blankly on the fallen crate, his finger still on the big red button. He didn't flinch. He didn't look at us. He just stood there, waiting for his next command.
"That was too close," Gatomon murmured, her eyes flicking from the dazed janitor to the crushed metal. "They're not just targets. They're triggers."
I nodded, my gut twisting into a cold knot. This wasn't chaos. It was an elaborate, deadly Rube Goldberg machine, and every piece was a living person. We moved carefully, BlackGatomon delivering a precise nerve pinch to the janitor's neck. He slumped into a temporary, peaceful slumber.
Every shadow in the warehouse felt heavier after that. Every creak of metal, every distant drip of water, felt like the cocking of a gun. We were moving through a trap where the springs were human souls.
We pushed deeper into the maze of industrial equipment, the silence pressing in. Then my Digivice flickered, and Peter's voice crackled through my comms, strained and urgent.
"Ethan, there are too many signals. I'm reading a massive convergence. Civilians… they're just walking in from the streets. They're coming right for your position. It's like a human wave. My spider-sense is going nuts."
A low, collective groan echoed from the far end of the warehouse, the sound of hundreds of shuffling feet. My tactical map lit up with a swarm of red blips, confirming it. They emerged from between the towering stacks of shipping containers—dockworkers in overalls, office staff in rumpled shirts, even a few bewildered tourists with camera straps. A tide of people, moving with a slow, relentless purpose directly toward us.
Their eyes were all the same: blank, reflecting the dim safety lights. They carried whatever was at hand—wrenches, lengths of pipe, broken pieces of wood.
"They're not just coming for us," BlackGatomon hissed, her crimson eyes narrowing. "Look. They're pushing something."
Beyond the advancing wall of bodies, a massive, rusted gantry crane, long dormant, rumbled to life. Its huge hook swung free in a wide, erratic, destructive arc. The crowd was herding it, pushing it on its tracks. It was on a collision course with a central structural pillar. If that hook hit…
The entire section of the warehouse would come down on top of us. On top of them.
I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw ached. "It's his game. He wants us to choose. Break the people to stop the crane, or let the building fall and bury everyone."
The choice was a razor's edge, impossible and cruel. Just as the weight of it settled on me, the air around us shimmered with a sickly purple hue. A sound scraped at my nerves—a music box, playing a tune that was just slightly out of tune.
A voice, smooth as velvet and echoing from everywhere and nowhere, cut through the groaning metal and shuffling feet.
"Having a little trouble, Chosen Child? Such a predictable little dilemma. It's almost boring to watch."
The purple haze coalesced atop a precariously balanced stack of crates. Jokermon materialized, his painted grin impossibly wide, his dark eyes fixed on me with pure, mocking amusement. He gave a theatrical sigh, the bells on his coat jingling.
"Jokermon?! What are you doing here?!"
BlackGatomon and Gatomon both moved to stand between me and him, dropping into a defensive stance.
"Really now. I set up such a lovely spectacle, and you're just standing there. Where's the fun in that?"
***
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