We didn't like the look on Piximon's face. The playful, eccentric trainer who had relentlessly tormented us in the Server Desert was completely gone. In his place stood an ancient, exhausted soldier. The tone of his voice had dropped an octave, carrying a hollow, resigned weight that sent a profound chill down my spine. The gentle splashing of the Primary Village fountain suddenly sounded deafening in the heavy, oppressive silence stretching between us as the present Digimon besides their partners realized this wasn't a conversation they were meant to hear and cleared the area. My mind was already running through dozens of catastrophic scenarios, but none of them seemed to fit the sheer gravity radiating from the small Digimon.
"Piximon," Kaldur began, stepping forward and holding his hands open to show he meant no disrespect. He was pleading with the old trainer, his voice laced with desperation. "We are all on the same side here. There is no need to hide things from each other, especially concerning a threat of this magnitude. So please, tell us why the Mega-level threat or rather the Dark Masters is no longer a problem for now."
Piximon didn't answer immediately. He stared down at the rippling water of the fountain, the reflection of the restored village shimmering on the surface. We waited, barely daring to breathe. Finally, after a long moment, we saw him nod in slow, painful agreement.
"Fine, if you insist on knowing," Piximon said, his voice quiet but incredibly firm. He didn't look up. "We weren't trying to keep it from you because we don't trust you. We kept it from you because we knew you wouldn't agree with using this method to buy you more time to grow stronger and find the rest of your crests. Hell, we don't like having to use this method either. But when you're fighting for the survival of your world and everything in it, you don't get to be picky."
The tension spiked. We were now really worried about what exactly Ikaris and Piximon had done to buy us time. I ran the tactical variables in my head. A Mega-level threat like the Dark Masters couldn't just be hidden or reasoned with. It had to be matched.
"Okay, that's enough stalling," Conner snapped, stepping forward. Despite how aggressively unhappy he sounded, I could see the raw nervousness tight on his face. "Just get on with it."
Piximon gripped his staff tighter, his small knuckles trembling slightly. "Okay. A little while before you came to the trial grounds to unlock your crests' power, Ikaris and myself decided to gather all the willing Mega-level Digimon who could fight. We sent them to go after the Dark Masters and fight them for as long as they possibly can to buy you time to grow. Let me be clear here, all parties understand what is being asked of them. They are unquestionably being asked to die to get you the time you need, because just as Devimon's power was massively increased by the corruption, so is theirs. The Dark Masters aren't something regular Mega-level Digimon can do anything against, otherwise we wouldn't need to summon you to begin with, as we outnumber them by a large degree."
Horror washed over me like ice water. I looked at Kaldur, then Wally, then Conner. As Piximon spoke, the brutal reality settled over us. We didn't know exactly how many Digimon were out there, but we knew they were all currently being slaughtered just to keep the enemy busy. They were dying to buy us hours. Maybe days.
"Why?" Conner whispered, his voice cracking. Then the anger flared, fueled by a sudden, crushing guilt. "Why would you do that?! We could have just gotten stronger faster! They didn't have to do that! Just throw their lives away!"
Conner's fists clenched, his jaw set in a hard, furious line. The trauma of his Cadmus origins, of being treated as a disposable weapon, was bleeding into his reaction. He looked entirely ready to leap into the sky right this second doing his best to try unlocking his flight power and go straight to the mainland to save them.
"Sit down, you stupid boy, before you make their brave sacrifice worthless."
Piximon didn't shout. He didn't even look at Conner as he said it. But the sheer authority, the crushing, unfathomable age behind those words, hit like a physical blow. For the first time since we met him, Piximon truly looked his age, like a veteran of a thousand hopeless wars. That unyielding, sorrowful authority alone was enough for Conner to freeze, his anger evaporating into shocked obedience as he slowly sat back down on the edge of the fountain.
"Do you think I or Ikaris wanted to do this?" Piximon continued, still not raising his voice, but the look in his eyes kept us all absolutely quiet. "I have known most of those Digimon for millennia. Ikaris has known them even longer. A few of them were some of the last of the first Digimon ever made by the Creator to not reincarnate yet and remember how it was when he still walked among us. Digimon that Ikaris basically helped raise since birth."
We couldn't even form the words to apologize. The scale of his grief was beyond anything we had ever experienced.
"I can understand your frustration at us about this, about being here in the first place even," Piximon said, finally looking up to drag his gaze across each of us. "But if I'm being completely honest with you, I and Ikaris feel the same about you. We can't help but wonder why... just why did the Creator choose wet behind the ears children like you? Children who need so much time before they can be of any help, instead of real warriors like the last chosen heroes? Experienced heroes who know what they're doing. That way, we wouldn't have to say goodbye to so many of our friends. Mind you Ikaris could never say anything that could be confused for him questioning the Creator so don't expect him to share his opinion."
His words stung, but we couldn't even defend ourselves. We didn't know how to respond to this because we could somewhat understand where he was coming from. Just like he said, while we were somewhat angry about being ripped from our world and thrown into this nightmare, when you looked at it from the Digimon's side, it was a tragedy. They were expecting seasoned heroes who could save them immediately. Instead, they got a group of teenage sidekicks who were still learning the basics of teamwork. They had to sacrifice their oldest, dearest friends in the desperate hope that we kids could grow strong enough to at least save whoever was left.
"But after seeing you with my own eyes, and seeing how far you've come in such a short time, I can understand why the Creator chose you to be the ones who save us from this even if you need a bit of time to pull it off," Piximon said, taking a deep, shuddering breath. He turned to face us fully, looking each of us dead in the eye. "But if you want to make it up to all the Digimon who are currently sacrificing themselves for you right now as we speak because of your current weakness, you will get stronger. You will destroy the source of the darkness so that once they reincarnate in their next life, they will only know of the peace they sacrificed for. Understand me?"
We could only nod in agreement. Not just out of guilt, though there was quite a lot of that burning tight in my chest. We nodded because winning was the only solution we were willing to accept at this point. Failure meant the permanent extinction of an entire world, and the meaningless deaths of the warriors currently holding the line.
"We promise you their sacrifice will have meaning, because we will win, Piximon," Kaldur said, returning the ancient Digimon's heavy stare. His resolve to save these people visibly increased behind his eyes, a hardened, unshakeable leader stepping fully into his role.
That was all Piximon needed to see. He nodded once again, his posture straightening slightly. He regained his smile, but we could all tell it didn't quite reach his eyes. It was a mask, put back into place so he could keep functioning.
"Okay, that's enough about that. I think that's enough questions for now," Piximon said, tapping his staff against the cobblestones. "I'll be on my way. I'll see you all at dinner time, and we can continue there, okay?"
He started to fly away, his tiny wings buzzing rapidly as he gained altitude. None of us tried to stop him. We just wished him a good afternoon and promised to meet him at dinner. While I had dozens more questions I desperately wanted to ask, pressing him right now would be heartless and completely inappropriate. So, dinner time it was.
We all just stood there silently around the fountain for a long moment, watching him shrink into a pink speck against the digital sky. Our partners shifted uncomfortably beside us, not entirely sure of what to say to comfort us.
"So... that happened," Wally finally muttered, breaking the silence as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm gonna just be honest. I know I'm the one that was complaining about a rest day earlier, but now I feel like an absolute ass for doing it."
Gabumon and Biyomon were quick to step closer, nudging Wally's legs to assure him that there was nothing wrong with taking a small rest after what they had just went through yesterday. Tentomon, Gomamon, and the other Digimon were quick to join in, clustering around us.
"They chose to fight so we could have this time," Tentomon said, looking up at me, his antennae twitching earnestly. "We all both need and deserve this rest day. If you break your bodies now, their fight means nothing."
"Yeah!" Gomamon chimed in, splashing a bit of water to get our attention. "We'll just work twice as hard to make up for using it! Every day afterwards, starting tomorrow!"
The team exchanged looks, the heavy, suffocating guilt slowly transmuting into a cold, diamond-hard determination. The partners were right. Wallowing in self-pity over our age or our need for recovery was an insult to the Megas dying for us right now. We agreed silently, pulling our focus back to the immediate, practical tasks at hand. We needed resources, and we needed to be ready for the desert.
We sat back down on the edge of the fountain and decided to finish counting our Dungeon Coins. Every single coin was going to be spent at the general store today. We were going to buy every advantage we could afford, because tomorrow, we were crossing the ocean. Tomorrow, we were taking the war to the Server Continent.
From the perfect, unbothered silence of my throne room, I watched the holographic projection of the heroes counting their glowing coins. I leaned back against the cool marble of my throne, steepling my fingers as I analyzed the psychological shift that had just occurred on File Island.
It was fascinating to watch. Piximon's profound, heartbreaking speech had landed perfectly, driving a wedge of pure, unadulterated motivation straight into the core of the Young Justice team. The irony, of course, was that the millennia of history Piximon was crying over didn't actually exist. I had created the Digital World a little over a week ago in my own relative time. Piximon, the Dark Masters, and the supposedly ancient Mega-level suicide squad were all constructs of my design, birthed with fully formed memories of a history that had never physically transpired.
To Piximon, the grief was completely real. The coding of his soul told him he was losing his oldest friends. And because it was real to him, it became overwhelmingly real to Dick, Kaldur, Wally, and Conner.
*Why did the Creator choose wet behind the ears children?* Piximon had asked.
I smirked into the empty throne room. If I had dropped Superman or Wonder Woman into the Digital World, they wouldn't have synchronized with the crests as easily. They already possessed fully formed ideologies and very rigid moral frameworks. They wouldn't have desperately or quickly sought validation and friendship from their Digimon partners, and they certainly wouldn't have generated the volatile, massive (for my current reserves) spikes of divine energy that these teenagers were currently pumping into my system through their emotional turmoil and rapid growth.
I needed them young. I needed them desperate. I needed them to feel responsible for the lives of these digital constructs so they would push past their mortal limits and forge bonds tight enough to birth Ultimate and Mega evolutions. Which none of the older heroes could hope to pull off and that might be fine at the beginning but once the Dark Masters pulled up it would have been a whole different ball game. And that's not even mentioning Apocalymon with only eight max members available for that fight and the only way to hurt him being the Digimon empowered by the crests so the less said about their chances if they were in the kids place the better.
The suicide squad of Mega Digimon was just another parameter I had authorized. Ikaris had proposed it to explain the delayed timeline of the Dark Masters, and I had approved it because it served exactly this purpose. It stripped the heroes of their arrogance and replaced it with a crushing, necessary obligation to survive.
I waved my hand, shifting the holographic displays away from Primary Village and bringing up the wireframe map of the Server Continent. Tomorrow, they would set sail. I had done everything needed to ensure the Dark Network's De-digivolution grid was perfectly calibrated. As soon as they stepped foot on Etemon's sand, their Champion forms would be stripped away. The safety net was officially gone.
Let them rest today, I thought, watching the data streams lock into place. Tomorrow, the real pain begins.