- Apologetic -

"The Emperor's upgrades are enough that taking any more regions requires a focused attack," Bob informed the rest of Team Upload in one of their new main bases. "So the good news is that we are justified in not expanding anymore now. Unfortunately the bad news is that we can't justify expanding into his territory without a serious force now. Hopefully we have taken enough of the world to get the Chosen Ones to still go after us more than him."

HackBiyomon frowned at this as she leaned against a tree. "The human world is still the way I remember it mostly. Which is 'big, complicated, and controlled'," she quoted the Wyrm grunt's description of the world distractedly. "Our bases there are secure, power generation is up and running, and our artificial worlds fully operational."

Alice didn't bother to lean, she was instead draped over a crystal computing system. "Analysis of the Stones is complete, and we are ready to start tuning them now. As predicted we should," she yawned heavily "be finished by the end of the week at the latest."

"Hackware growth and development is within expected parameters," the Architect noted with a calm unhappiness. "It appears that there is no impact from either this world's nature, or from our alteration of that nature."

The conversation continued for a while, with the half asleep form of Absol as only hybrid not joining in with any comments. The grunts had minor complaints and suggestions about how to proceed. Alice and Bob mostly clarified why those were not things they could do anything about. The Architect only rarely added his own thoughts, sometimes siding with the Crypt twins, rarely with the grunts, and twice having HackBiyomon give her thoughts.

The young girl was not having a good time with her own week of being in human form, and already missed her wings greatly. She had chosen her tree because Absol was lying next to it, on that old bed he kept in his personal storage ever since they figured out they could put stuff there. The pokemon world's inhabitants were not actually that unfamiliar with being able to do things like that, so the rest of them had not thought that the magical ability to just keep stuff with you was that impressive.

"I'm thinking about what my mom said about my sisters," HackBiyomon quietly told the pokemon. "And a part of me wants to just go apologize to them now, before things get any worse."

"Sooner is better than later," Absol actually answered her, an increasingly rare thing since their arrival as he ran himself ragged in an ongoing attempt to divine the way out of their current mess. "Today wouldn't be too bad."

"Better for her, or all of us?" Alice asked of the two, apparently she had heard the conversation. "Because her sisters are kind of supposed to be our enemies."

"Although if they can be trusted it would give us an avenue to speak with DSS covertly," the Architect suggested.

"It does do that, but the main thing is that it makes it easier for them all to accept us as not being truly their enemies when the time comes," Absol clarified. "Also it would keep her mom from getting into trouble with her sisters. The whole family seems to be solid at keeping secrets."

"You mean that?" HackBiyomon asked eagerly. "I can do it without causing problems." She then blinked as she reviewed the rest of the conversation. "I can do it and that would help?"

"Here," Gazimon said as he tossed something for Joe to catch.

The oldest Digidestined had dealt with this kind of thing enough to manage to grab the small black device, despite the fact that he had literally just arrived in the Troubleshooter Lab from his world. "What exactly is it?" he asked resigned. He heard Gomamon snicker at his dull response, and gave his partner a brief glare. The object was slightly smaller than his Digivice, with a hard plastic case and a trio of lights. One wasn't currently lit, while the other two glowed a dull red color. "Other than obviously something for my new job," he guessed.

"Delta 2 did tell me to give you one," the rabbit digimon agreed. "This is the new Gatecrasher I've been working on with Izzy to get you older kids the ability to get to the Digimon World yourself." Gazimon then casually walked back to his wire infested console. "It is a lot more brute force than what the other kids have, so you can't use it to just open the gateway like they do, direct transports only. It also needs to recharge due to not working directly from a Digivice's power. You have two trips a day, and I had to work to fit that much power storage into the thing. Red lights are available charges, the yellow one indicates an error occurred and that means you need to contact me or Izzy ASAP."

Joe blinked at that description, and looked at the device again, before sighing. "Let me guess, she needs me to be digital for today's stuff?" he asked dully, and the digimon didn't bother with responding with more than a solemn nod. "Any idea what it is?"

"I have a few trips to and from Janice's homeworld in the schedule from her, so I assume they want to know what you look like as a pokemon for some odd reason," Gazimon complained. "Or they want to figure out if you will when you're digital, we did find a good candidate for Cody's great grandfather's disappearance." The rabbit monster then tapped a few keys on his console. "Yeah, looks like his mom is scheduled to go there tomorrow. We must be trying to figure out if the kids can go along."

"So I guess that means I'm getting to see a different world too?" Gomamon asked.

"Worst case you end up a pokemon too," the rabbit monster suggested jokingly, then noticeably sobered. "But seriously, try not to turn into a pokemon too, we have enough problems."

Sora looked up as her mother hung up the phone. "Who was that?" she asked, ruffling her feathers a bit awkwardly as she still wasn't quite used to having them. She actually wasn't very comfortable at all with the form, but after she had seen how Yolei was also struggling with the same problem she decided that she should at least attempt to get comfortable for the other girl.

"Your little sister is coming over," her mother replied confusingly.

"That's good. I've been looking forward to meeting her," her father then added ominously.

"Uh, wait, I thought I was the only daughter you had that you hadn't met?" Biyomon asked him, still clearly uncomfortable with calling them her parents too.

Suddenly a red flash appeared in the middle of the room, and before Sora had even realized what was happening she found herself standing ready for combat in front of her newly arrived clone. Despite not being sure how or why she had reacted so swiftly, she still didn't flinch as she realized what was there.

"Uh. Okay, yeah, maybe I should have started at the door," the villain nervously said, before she looked around the room awkwardly. The disconnect from her sinister mood and actions the last time Sora had seen her was extremely confusing.

"Probably," her mother agreed, as if the evil copy was supposed to be there. It still took a moment for Sora to realize that this was the 'little sister'.

"Why are you here?" Biyomon demanded, directing an angry look at both the copy and their mother.

"To apologize," HackBiyomon replied cringing. "I, well." The younger girl looked at their mother uncertainly. "I have no idea where to start. I'm definitely sorry about making the two of you switch forms, that was a poorly thought out idea. Lots of things weren't true that I thought were. But, at the same time it was one of the best options we had to keep you all out of the digimon world for this week so we could undermine the real enemy's plans."

"'Real enemy'?" Sora asked, and did not move from her defensive stance.

"Whoever set up the 'Digimon Emperor'," HackBiyomon clarified. "Uh, okay I really hope DSS explained what Absol can do?" she halfway asked, and as she saw they did not seem to know continued. "Okay, Absol can see disasters, mostly just ones that help him but these are bad enough that they don't have to help for him to see. If the Emperor goes down too quick then the person or people who set him up will just go all out on us, and none of us are able to stop them right now. So, we're making sure you have another bad guy to keep them busy while also helping to get you strong enough to beat them."

"I think we might need some more detail than that," their father told the copy.

Joe looked the other otter monster in the eye with a dull expression. "We're blaming Gazimon for this," he told Gomamon.

"Joe, I have almost-hands," his currently orange furred partner complained, holding out his forelimbs to demonstrate. "Not to mention we look like twins."

"So the two of you don't normally look much like each other?" the blue and black humanoid dog monster at the edge of the large stone platform asked curiously. "I almost wish I'd gone with the others for the eye goggles to see what my relatives look like as humans."

"Tyra, how are we dealing with this?" Joe asked the black box at the edge of the area instead of responding to the pokemon. He rubbed at the yellow float that apparently was now part of his body uneasily.

"You two are helping the Lucario handle the volunteers I'm gathering now," the patchwork digimon's voice told them with ample annoyance. "We have digimon refugees that can help us figure out if this is a Digidestined thing, or if Floramon and Tyranomon just got lucky to stay digimon."

"So, if I'm understanding you right, you decided that instead of just telling everyone what the problem was and helping directly, you would try and help us fix the problem while looking like you weren't actually helping at all," Sora complained from behind her wings, then looked up to glare at Biyomon for giggling at the summary. "Well, we can definitely tell you're a copy of me then."

"We can what?" HackBiyomon questioned, quite confused by how the two things were related.

"After, um, well I guess after you were made, Tai disappeared and the rest of us split up," Biyomon noted still looking amused. "This nasty digimon called DemiDevimon then convinced Sora that she couldn't use her Crest, so she basically decided to do that too."

HackBiyomon simply stared at the bird digimon for a moment. "Are you telling me that the first thing I tried to do in order to actually be your evil clone is something you've already done?" she asked a bit harshly.

"Well I didn't have an army of evil digimon to help," Sora countered, but looked slightly nervous about it.

"Didn't those Gazimon say they would help us do stuff if we could keep them fed?" Biyomon noted idly. "I'm fairly sure you were seriously considering their offer."

"Okay, yes I probably could have had a small army of evil digimon if I tried," the transformed Digidestined admitted unhappily. "But I didn't, so that's still a big difference."

"I'm not sure I like my first attempt at being the evil clone still being something you did," HackBiyomon complained, and doing so seemed to actually ease the tension that had lingered in the room slightly. "I'm also quite sure I don't like the idea that you thought you couldn't use your Crest. After you found the original it should have been easy."

"'The original'?" Sora asked confused.

"Instead of the one Datamon made for his trap," her copy specified, then frowned at how her sisters were only looking more confused. "Wait, that one worked? Huh, I guess he really did make it right then. If you never found the original Crest of Love then maybe we should try and see if it s still around somewhere."

"That'd be nice," the temporary bird digimon said uncertainly. "Being able to reach Ultimate again would help a lot."

"What do you mean 'again'?" HackBiyomon questioned darkly.

Joe and Gomamon both looked unhappily at the crowd of both digimon and confused pokemon in front of them. The pair of Floatzel then sighed in unison, which given their identical appearance seemed to unnerve many of those transformed. "Well, looks like it is a thing that happens," Joe complained as his tails twisted with annoyance.

"I kind of wish this was tested before I got turned into another thing," Gomamon added. "Can we go back to normal yet? It s weird being the same thing as you."

"Yeah, you guys can come on back with the volunteers. Delta 2 is going over the data from this to figure out what we're telling the Hidas," Tyra's voice said. "Unless of course you two want to spend some time in the town yourselves to see what civilized pokemon are like. I'm not sure if there is anything we'd work with the two of you on today with this project taking focus."

"Go spend the rest of your shift with the locals," Delta 2 suddenly cut in over the Dark Network Node. "Make sure to find their own medical support and figure out the basics of how they work. Working with your world is important, but might not be a long term thing, and these guys I know I'll be dealing with for years."

"So, just to ask, is anyone up for some training?" the Lucario helping them out asked. "Because I could actually use some help with fighting Water types."

"Tyra, is violence a common side effect of this sort of thing? Because I almost want to say 'yes' to that," Joe complained uncertainly, earning a shocked look from his double.

"Yes, that is in fact a common side effect of being made into a pokemon. I'll see if I can convince our boss to let you come home now," the patchwork digimon admitted.

"Right, 'replace the Tags and Crests' just went on my list of things to do," HackBiyomon complained. "Although I'm not sure where we're going to get enough power for that one. Might need to start smaller."

"Wait, you're planning to help with that already?" Sora asked.

"We really do want to," the copy confirmed a bit hurt. "Admittedly mostly because the bad guys winning would hurt us too, but we're still trying."

"If you are sorry about turning us into the wrong thing, why don't you just turn us back?" Biyomon asked a bit harshly.

This made the younger girl cringe and look away awkwardly. "Uh, that isn't exactly the safest thing to try. Personally I'm even regretting doing this to myself already," HackBiyomon said nervously. "I already miss my wings, and being a human-Hackware hybrid is a lot weirder than being a digimon one."

"Wait, you're stuck too? This is something so bad you can't even turn yourself back until it's over?" Sora questioned a bit frantically.

"I still haven't figured out why Kari ended up a different digimon yet either," the red eyed girl complained. "Uh, do you guys know the reason?"

"Gatomon is a Champion. Unfortunately Kari is now a BlackGatomon because of that problem," Biyomon criticized. "Something about their new Digivices being a bit evil."

"Any more bad news?" the Upload hybrid asked, her face now buried in her hands. "Maybe one of them turned into a pokemon too?"

"Cody's mom," Toshiko Takenouchi said a touch jokingly. "Although that turned out to be because of family history. Apparently her grandfather was something called a 'Sandslash'."

HackBiyomon paled at this statement. "I've fought one of those before, they can be scary," she said with worry. "Sandstorms and earthquakes and sharp spikes."

"We saw one fighting at that 'League' thing, I can fully under-" Haruhiko Takenouchi started before the full implication of that statement hit him. "Fought as in had to fight against yourself?"

"He was very clear that he wouldn't try and actually kill us, I had a lot of other Champion Hackware to help, and I was a bird monster that couldn't fit in this room," his youngest daughter explained, with little effect on his unease.

"I'm not sure I want to think about what I helped Biyomon try and fight," her mother said faintly. "And she turned into a bird monster the size of a building."

Joe sent out an exhausted sigh that was accompanied by a noticeable amount of water at the edge of the small arena where he had unwisely decided to fight the dog monster. His float was entirely deflated, he was sore in places he didn't have this morning, and Gomamon was giggling on the sidelines.

"Well, if anyone tells you that you don't know how to fight I can say they're wrong," his Lucario opponent said from where the young canine was also laying on the ground.

"I think I pulled a lot of things," Joe grumbled, and then flexed his claws to judge if he was up for standing again. He was not.

"Hate to say it Joe, but I don't think I'd have done that well in this body," Gomamon commented with amusement. "Then again I think between the two of us you've actually had more success fighting digimon without evolving."

"Don't be so down on yourself, Goma," Joe dryly replied. "I'm sure with a bit of practice you can reach 'captured by restaurant owners'."

"I think you're underestimating how strong that Vegimon was," his partner said a bit less jokingly. "Seriously though, are you okay, Joe?"

"I'm not sure it is a good idea for me to stay like this," the former human grumbled. "I might get used to fighting."

"Well, the hope is that you wouldn't need to ever deal with Corruption," Tyra suddenly said from behind the group. The patchwork digimon walked forward to look over the two Floatzels. "But if you do end up working on anything related to that then we will need you at least knowing how to avoid attacks properly." She looked over at the Lucario unimpressed. "Although from the looks of things you're already doing alright."

"I just evolved," the canine defended himself. "I thought I'd found a way to win my first match against another evolved pokemon." He groaned and failed to stand up.

"Did he win?" TyranoGazimon asked Gomamon.

"Nope, Joe was the last one standing," the other orange otter said with a laugh. "At least until he realized that the other kid was down. Now neither of them are standing."

"I might need to ask you to pass messages along to DSS for us," HackBiyomon said after the short discussion of what kinds of fights she and her sisters had been in.

"Wait, you're going to let them know about this?" Sora asked confused.

"They already know, I was still here when they showed up to get mom about what I did to you," the younger girl noted. "Not to mention they know what we could really do if we weren't holding back so much."

"Holding back?" her currently human sister questioned with worry. "But, you've been conquering lots of the Digital World and taken out lots of the Emperor's digimon," Biyomon worried. "If you're holding back, why do you need our help?"

"We were assuming the original Digidestined could still reach Ultimate," HackBiyomon started uneasily. "And we also know from Absol's predictions that the bad guys can beat us easily if they go all out. So we're trying to buy time for the new ones to get stronger, hopefully to the point where the bad guys can't beat them."

"Mom, you knew that they knew?" Sora questioned her mother a touch darkly. "They've known this entire time?" she asked a bit more harshly.

"I think that might be why Absol said telling you sooner was better than having mom keep this a secret longer," HackBiyomon deliberately noted idly. "That way a Digidestined was aware of this so it wasn't just the people from another world." She shifted uneasily. "Can you keep this quiet?"

"If things are so bad that you're all still holding back and can't deal with our problem instead? Yeah, I think I can at least not mention this," Sora agreed unhappily. "But I'd rather not if that was possible."

"I'll check with Absol then," the youngest sister agreed. "Maybe we can get some of the older kids in on this. Joe might be able to keep a clear head about that."

"Well, he is working for DSS now," Biyomon informed the other transformed digimon. "So if they already know then maybe they're going to tell him."

"Given they ran out of humans before we did I'm fairly sure that means he's going to be transformed into a monster before the week is out," HackBiyomon informed the others unimpressed.

"For the record, I don't want to be a pokemon again if I don't have to," Joe told his new boss as he sat down heavily. His body was still sore, despite being human again. "Hopefully 'Team Upload' isn't bad enough we'll need to have those of us who are supposed to be human join in the fights."

"Hmm," Delta 2 muttered unhappily. "There is a bit of a story with that one. We'll see if you're up for learning it in a little while. In the short term, Davis and Davey are both likely to be both human and digimon going forward if we can get that working, and from today's work I can fairly clearly say that Cody is probably going to be a Sandshrew, even if he doesn't go on this trip, the next time he returns from the digimon world using your gates." She sighed heavily. "Which means that even if we don't end up needing it we probably still will have some of the ones that were originally human ending up monsters in the future."

"Anything else we need the kid for?" Tyra asked as she looked at a clock on the wall. "It s getting a bit late."

"No, I think that's more than enough excitement for one day. Do you want me to send you back from here, or is there anywhere else you need to be?" the Administrator asked.

"Actually could you send us somewhere else? The older Digidestined are getting together tonight," Joe noted, and then gave the Porygon 2 the details on his destination.

The two of them soon found themselves at the edge of the park, where five of the older members and their digimon were already present. Sora and Biyomon seemed to have just arrived as well, and looked rather distracted. Tai and Matt were quietly discussing something, likely the fact that they weren't bringing their siblings along. "Wait, you're serious? Your parents are having Kari eat cat food?" Matt then asked more loudly as the others noticed Joe's arrival.

"Alien cat food full of that energy that's making us superheroes," Tai confirmed with a sigh. "Which they're also feeding our normal cat, because the bag Shawn gave us is too big for just this week and Gatomon isn't in trouble. Although from the things she's mentioned I think she might have been stealing from Miko since she came back."

"Are they actually making you cut back on schoolwork in order to deal with digimon stuff?" Izzy asked their leader uneasily. "Mine are. The good news is that I've got a start on getting us a new set of Crests."

"Yeah," Tai admitted. "Although I think all of us have some of that problem now. I've been trying to get some books on the way the other human world works, and the stuff I've seen so far is scary." He looked each of them in the eyes. "I mean, it looks like they have at least a small problem like what we've faced during the downtime we had in the digital world every year somewhere on their world."

"I'm sure that both of these 'pokemon' groups are holding back on us," Matt complained at that information. "We've seen what those tournament monsters can do, and even if the 'Troubleshooters' are weaker than that it can't be by that much. That means that 'Upload' also has to be pretty strong, and we know they have plenty of Champions they can send at us."

Sora looked particularly uneasy at this statement, and Joe could guess that their transformed teammate wasn't fond of the idea that what happened to her was 'holding back'. Unfortunately Joe couldn't really help with that. "Given what I learned today about just how much pokemon love to fight, I have to agree," he informed the group while rubbing at still slightly sore muscles.

"So they went into detail about that kind of thing?" Biyomon asked with a strange expression on her face that was honestly a bit hard to judge. Joe was more used to seeing a beak on her, and he was sure how not having one changed her face.

"Actually I've had firsthand experience today," the Digidestined of Reliability admitted and moved to sit down. "And I also got into a fight with a puppy monster until neither of us could stand."

"Where were you while he was fighting a monster?" Gabumon asked Gomamon at that declaration.

"Also a pokemon, because today sucked," the seal digimon complained. "I mean, now I know that letting him do that was crazy, but when it was happening? It just seemed normal, not a big deal."

"And I was having fun when I was doing it," Joe informed the group, still shaken by that fact. "I was fighting a monster, and having fun. A whole world of people who think like that? Yeah, I think they have to be holding back."