From my throne in the Divine Space, the cold, clinical glow of the system interfaces did nothing to soothe the rage boiling in my chest. The holographic tactical map suspended in front of me was flashing a critical, pulsing crimson. Devimon had his massive, clawed hand wrapped tightly around Conner's throat, lifting the Kryptonian clone entirely off the ground. The threat assessment parameters were screaming in my ears. Divine interference was prohibited, but the penalty for inaction meant losing my most resilient diver.
My eyes darted across the battlefield screens. If Conner died here, the Crest of Hope would fall into the hands of darkness, the dungeon's narrative arc would violently derail, and the casualty probability for the rest of the Young Justice team would spike to a definitive one hundred percent. I slammed my armored fist against the armrest of my throne, the golden gauntlet denting the white marble.
"Come on, kid," I muttered under my breath, leaning forward until I was inches from the projection. "You didn't survive a Cadmus pod just to get suffocated by a glorified data-vampire. Find a way."
The world was shrinking to a single, agonizing point of pressure crushing my windpipe. Devimon's grip was like a vice of solid ice, but the dark energy radiating from his claws burned worse than any fire I had ever felt. It was actively feeding on my stamina, draining the residual strength from my cells. Black spots danced wildly at the periphery of my vision. Patamon and Gatomon were broken and battered in the dirt below still crawling to save me, and my own legs kicked uselessly in the terrible chill of the corrupted air.
But as my vision blurred, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Wally.
Wally couldn't run. His leg was mangled, bleeding heavily from the shrapnel he took shielding Robin, but his spirit was entirely intact. Dragging himself up against a shattered stone pillar, Wally pointed a shaking, blood-stained finger directly at the towering nightmare holding me.
"Get him!" Wally's voice was ragged, torn apart by pain, but WereGarurumon didn't need to be told twice.
The bipedal wolf Digimon abandoned his defensive perimeter around the triage zone, his heavily muscled legs kicking up a cloud of ash and dirt as he launched himself toward the center of the square. At the exact same moment, the rest of the battlefield recognized the critical danger I was in. With Devimon's forces reduced to a handful of straggling Champions, the local resistance forces turned their full attention toward the dark lord.
"For the chosen humans!" Leomon roared, his voice thick with desperation. He ignored the burning wounds across his chest and charged blindly forward, leading the surviving allied Champions. Ogremon, a Fangmon, and even a battered Centarumon sprinted into the fray, abandoning all tactical formations in a frantic bid to break Devimon's hold on me.
Kaldur and MetalGreymon were completely tied up, locked in a brutal, earth-shaking struggle with the crumbling but still incredibly dangerous SkullGreymon. The undead dinosaur was thrashing wildly, firing blind, organic missiles that forced Kaldur to use the light rain to erect massive shields of hard-water just to keep them both from being vaporized. They couldn't help me right now. Kaldur and his partner fought even harder, pushing themselves beyond exhaustion to finally dismantle SkullGreymon so they could break free to assist, but for now, it had to be the Champions.
The desperate allied Digimon converged on Devimon as a messy, furious wave. Leomon threw a wild Fist of the Beast King, while Ogremon launched himself into the air, bringing his bone club down with a guttural scream. Centarumon fired a blinding blast of solar energy from his arm cannon. Whatever they did, they couldn't so much as tickle the fallen angel, let alone hurt him.
Devimon didn't even turn his head to look at them.
A terrifying, mocking smirk pulled at the corners of his pale face. Still holding me suspended by the throat, Devimon simply raised his free left hand and swung his arm in a lazy, dismissive arc.
The sheer, overwhelming physical force of a Super-Champion swiping the air created a concentrated vacuum and a concussive shockwave that slammed into the charging Digimon like a freight train. The impact was horrific. Leomon was swatted out of the air, crashing through two distinct stone walls before coming to a dead stop in a pile of rubble. Ogremon's bone club snapped in half under the pressure, and the green goblin was thrown violently backward. In less than three seconds, the entire vanguard of allied Champions was down on their knees, seriously injured and bleeding out into the digital earth.
"Pathetic," Devimon sneered, his voice vibrating with absolute contempt, keeping his cold eyes locked on my suffocating face. "You throw your broken toys at my feet and expect a miracle. Your struggles are as meaningless as your virtues."
He was entirely distracted. He was so busy ridiculing the broken Champions for their efforts, so high on his own absolute superiority, that he completely failed to track the blur of silver and blue sneaking through his blind spot.
WereGarurumon used the opening the Champions had bought with their blood. He bounded off the side of a ruined building, twisting his massive body perfectly in the air, his razor-sharp claws glowing with intense, concentrated kinetic energy.
*Kaiser Nail!*
The full-powered attack slammed directly into the bicep of the arm Devimon was using to choke me. It didn't do as much damage as WereGarurumon hoped for—Devimon's code was far too dense to sever in one strike—but deep, jagged slashes tore through pale flesh and black leather showing bone underneath. Devimon let out a sharp hiss of annoyance, his grip instinctively loosening as the localized damage caused his arm to spasm for a moment.
That drop in pressure did the job. I was free. I fell heavily to the ground, gasping violently for air. Before I could even attempt to stand, WereGarurumon's massive hand grabbed the back of my ruined shirt. In a single, fluid motion, the wolf Digimon yanked me backward, putting a full seven feet of distance between us and the dark lord.
WereGarurumon dropped into a protective crouch right in front of me, barring his savage teeth. I coughed up a mixture of bile and blood, clutching my bruised throat, my eyes locked on Devimon.
The demon didn't try to stop us. He slowly lowered his bleeding arm, examining the claw marks. He was immensely amused by our continued defiance. Despite it being clear that we could not defeat him, we kept trying. He looked at Patamon, who was still battered on the ground, and Devimon was even more sure of his victory now that I still hadn't managed to Digivolve Patamon to Ultimate. He wanted to finally see the look of absolute despair on my face.
Devimon slowly turned around, his crimson eyes drifting across the ruined square. His gaze landed on Kaldur and MetalGreymon, who had just delivered the final, crushing blow to SkullGreymon. The massive undead beast shattered into scattered data. Kaldur dropped to one knee, panting heavily, while MetalGreymon let out an exhausted rumble, taking a well-earned second to catch his breath after all even if you ignored the fight he was just in just staying in his ultimate from was exhausting especially after only just getting it yesterday he hasn't gotten use to how energy intensive it is.
Devimon raised a single, elongated claw.
A pitch-black beam of hyper-concentrated darkness erupted from his fingertip. It didn't explode; it simply drilled straight through space. The dark energy pierced directly through MetalGreymon's back, tearing through his cybernetic armor and blowing a massive hole completely through his chest.
The triumphant silence in the square was shattered. MetalGreymon froze, the immense data holding his Ultimate form together violently destabilizing. He flashed with a blinding orange light and almost immediately devolved back into his Rookie form.
Agumon hit the dirt with a wet thud. The gaping hole was still there. A horrific void was punched clean through the center of the small dinosaur's body, crimson digital blood hemorrhaging rapidly into the earth as he began coughing up blood.
"Agumon!"
Kaldur was by his side in seconds. The Atlantean leader's composure completely crumbled as he screamed his partner's name, his hands hovering uselessly over the massive, fatal wound, completely powerless to knit together missing digital code. While Togamon and Birdramon finishing off the last of the corrupted Champion made their way over to cover them.
Devimon slowly turned his imposing frame back toward me. His tattered wings shifted, casting a long, suffocating shadow over my crouched form.
"Do you see it now?" Devimon whispered, his voice dripping with venomous delight as he asked if I still believed in the power of hope. "Look at your friends. They lay dying around you, and there is no one who can save them. Where is your belief now?"
He wanted me to break. He expected me to cry, to drop to my knees and beg for a mercy he would never grant. He thrived on the absolute satisfaction of watching a hero's spirit shatter into a million irreparable pieces.
But as I looked at Devimon, standing over the broken bodies of my friends, I didn't feel despair. I remembered the Cadmus pod. I remembered the scientists telling me my feelings were errors, that I was nothing more than a weapon designed to follow orders. I had spent my entire short life refusing to accept the boxes other people tried to force me into. I certainly wasn't going to start accepting them from a monster like him.
Devimon leaned in, searching my face for the familiar terror he was so accustomed to inflicting. But surprisingly enough, he saw no signs of me breaking down. There was no begging for mercy. There was no despair.
The light in my eyes had only gotten brighter.
Against my chest, the heavy metallic tag holding the Crest of Hope throbbed. The faint glow that had lingered there during the battle suddenly surged, glowing even more intensely than before, casting a brilliant, warm aura that pushed back the dark miasma suffocating the square.
I pushed myself up, ignoring the burning agony in my throat and the trembling in my exhausted limbs. I stood up, planting my boots firmly on the scorched earth, and looked Devimon right in the eye.
"You don't get it," I said. My voice was raspy, but it didn't shake. I wasn't arguing with him or throwing a defiant taunt. I was stating a fact, not an option. "There is nothing you can do to make me lose hope that we will win this fight."
With that unbreakable declaration, the Crest of Hope let out a massive, concussive burst of pure yellow light. A pillar of holy energy erupted violently from my chest, shooting directly up into the suffocating black sky of File Island and tearing the clouds completely in half.
"Conner!" Patamon cried out, bathed entirely in the brilliant, descending light. "Your hope I feel it!"
*Patamon warp-digivolves to...*
The cocoon of holy light expanded rapidly, filling the entire square with a beautiful, harmonious choir of digital chimes. Patamon's small form shifted and expanded drastically. Eight magnificent, feathered wings burst outward, shedding glowing white feathers that instantly purified the darkness touching them.
*...MagnaAngemon!*
MagnaAngemon floated tall and imposing, an Ultimate-level holy warrior clad in gleaming white and purple armor, his face hidden from view.
A sleek silver helmet featuring a shining golden cross. A glowing, purple energy sword extended from his right arm, pulsing with terrifying absolute authority.
Devimon let out a shriek of genuine panic, desperately trying to launch himself backward. MagnaAngemon didn't swing wildly. He moved in a single, imperceptible flash of holy speed, appearing directly in front of the retreating fallen angel to deliver divine judgment for his sins.
The purple energy blade flashed in a magnificent, blinding strike.
The holy sword carved perfectly through Devimon's dark code, the elemental opposite of his existence violently overriding his corruption. Devimon let out a final, horrific screech as the holy energy that once made up his existence before his fall flooded his system once again. He was hurled violently across the dirt, crashing entirely through the remnants of the village fountain.
Devimon didn't shatter into data. He twitched spasmodically in the crater, his massive wings burned away, his armor ruined, and his dark aura completely extinguished. He was utterly broken, barely alive, completely helpless before the unextinguishable power of hope.
In the Divine Space, the blaring crimson alarms immediately ceased. The casualty probability matrix updated in real time, dropping rapidly down to zero. I leaned my head back against the velvet of my throne, a genuine smile creeping onto my face. The kids had just passed the test.