A black void this time, cold and unwelcoming. It was better than a burning forest I suppose.

“It’s time we had a chat, boy,” Skullgreymon said, his voice echoing around me.

“Then come out and face me,” I spat ,checking myself over, a flicker of gratitude coming over me. I was back in my human body... I took only a moment to revel in it before the moment was ruined by Skullgreymon stepping out from the shadows. Looming over me as usual, his dark aura was as foreboding as always.

“You… did well,” It spoke in a calm, even tone.

“A compliment from you? Now I’ve heard everything,” I snarked giving the bastard a smug smirk.

“Yes, you are usually far more pathetic,” Skullgreymon with a low spine chilling chuckle, “But you did do well, fighting with a ferocity worthy of the flame of AncientGreymon, but now the real challenge begins. Our Crest is missing, it is not in the digivice as it should be and thus I am restrained to this primal form,” He sounded disgusted as he looked down to his left skeletal arm.

“The crest of courage... Maybe that's the crest Skullmeramon was looking for... you have any idea where we could find it?”

“No… but It speaks to me. It tells the tale of a pony of yore that bore it true, perhaps your pony allies can shed some light on this mystery,” Skullgreymon said, sounding annoyed. I could feel why.

“You don’t like asking the ponies for help do you?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“We- I am Greymon, I need not stoop to asking for lesser beings... assistance,” He growled.

“Then I’ll ask for you. As you said, this is your body and I’m not a Greymon,” After saying this I turned away from him, willing myself to wake up, a shining door of light opening up in the dark void.

“Good luck… Connor,” Skullgreymon said, the usual chilling tone absent. Funnily enough, his words did spur something inside me. I would bring an end to what plans IceDevimon and his lackeys had, no matter what.

I awoke in my bed in the castle, slowly opening my eyes, and adjusting to the light. My gaze falling on a familiar pink furred Alicorn at my bedside, watching me intently, her eyes lighting up when she realized I was awake.

“You’re up!” Cadance said excitedly.

“You were watching me sleep?” I asked, a bit creeped out, something she seemed to pick up on.

“OH! Um, yeah sorry. I was worried after you passed out a couple of days ago, so Fluttershy and I have been watching over you in shifts. She stayed up all night with you, past her shift in fact… so I moved her back to her room after finding her passed out at your bedside,” Cadance explained apologetically.

“Wait, how long was I out?” I said a bit panicked now, If I’ve been asleep too long that would mean that we’ve lost crucial time and with two Digimon forces each with seemingly different goals on the loose, every second counts.

“Three days...” Cadance said gritting her teeth, “We were afraid you may never wake up, our knowledge of Digimon anatomy is admittedly lacking so we weren’t able to really do anything but wait”

“Three days…” I said taken aback, it had felt more like only a few hours. “Has anything important happened while I was out?”

“Yes actually, the castle got repaired rather quickly with two alicorns, the library too! The ponies who died in the attack… well there wasn’t anything to bury, but those who survived made sure they at least had tombstones. My people’s numbers had been cut in half by that… monster,” Cadance said, her eyes flooding with tears that quickly dripped down her cheeks, “I-Im sorry,” She said quickly wiping the tears away, “OH! I almost forgot, another human arrived after Celestia left for Canterlot!”

I shot upright, “Another human? Who?” Words could not describe how excited I was to see another human after almost a month of being away from home.

“I’ll go get him! He wanted to meet you anyways and asked me to come to get him when you had awakened,” Cadance said, her eyes lighting up with excitement. With a flow of sky blue magic, she popped away and left me alone with my thoughts.

The thought of meeting a human burned away, as my mind mulled over the fight that had led to taking a three-day-long nap. That Gigadramon kicked my ass and so did Mephistomon, if not for me removing one of his arms I would… probably be dead. In the middle of the fight, death never really occurred to me, shoved to the back of my mind as my more primal side took over. It was nice sure… but IceDevimon is far more cunning and tactical, if I keep relying on primal rage and brute force, I’m gonna find myself losing due to superior skill and tactics. I need to learn to temper this primal rage, to temper Skullgreymon himself. But I’m not sure how I could even begin to do that.

The sound of Cadance’s return cut off my thoughts, a flash of light blue magic accompanying it as she returned with a tall, middle-aged man with short well kept brown hair tied into a small ponytail, wearing a snow-white hooded robe with a brownish-grey lining along the hood’s rim, and along the line of the robe itself and the pant leg of said robe. Two lines of the same soft greyish-brown color came down curved under his arms in a tight U shape, the bottom being unviewable due to the navy blue belt with a silver square buckle, he had a jet black skin-tight undershirt, a quick glance down showed me he wore white boots with light brown, almost tan soles, his outfit was complete with a humble brown leather satchel wrapped over his head and resting on his left shoulder. I had a feeling I had seen him somewhere before but couldn’t put my finger on it… or claw rather.

“My name is Gennai, it is my understanding that you already know who I am,” Gennai said with a warm smile.

“Yeah, your world has a cartoon adaptation in mine,” I said with a nod, a feeling of relief came over me. If Gennai was here then it must mean something good or at least usually does when he appears in person.

“That certainly is interesting,” Gennai said with a surprised yet curious look on his face, before said face to one of regret and shame? “Starting off, I must offer you my sincerest apologies for your current state. It was not my plan to have you forcibly taken in and forced into a form not your own. Please forgive me,” As he said this he got all the way down on the floor, his knees touching the ground, as was his head, and his arms stretched keeping him from falling on the floor.

“W-wait you don’t need to do that, it wasn’t your fault!” I said waving off the gesture in shock and a bit of panic.

He got up but still had the expression of guilt, “No, I take full responsibility. I should have been far more clear and strict when I gave my instructions, or perhaps even waited for the next digital gate… even if such a gate was unlikely to even activate any time within the next year."

“Digital Gate?” Cadance asked, cocking her head to the side as I’d noticed a pony often does when they are confused.

“Portals to other realms formed of excess data in one location. A very rare occurrence, or more often, purposely made by Mega or higher level Digimon. Ultimates can make them as well, assuming they are both knowledgeable enough and skilled enough to create one. The gates themselves are rather like… how do I describe it...” Gennai took a moment to think, “AH, like a wifi connection. It transports beings in data form between two places. It does have a limit on how much data it can carry at a time, and certain data amounts can slow down the travel.”

“Sounds like a train, kinda,” Cadance said, finding her own alteration.

“Eh, close enough I suppose,” Gennai shrugged.

“How long does it take Ultimates and Mega’s to go through?” I asked, now very interested in these digital gates, “And can their exit location be switched?”

“If you're the one who created it, yes. As for your first question, it's fairly straight forward, Ultimate level Digimon can only go one at a time unlike lower levels that can be transported with multiple Digimon, and it can take them a few months to a year depending on size and power. Once again, unlike Champions and lower which only need a few days to traverse the gate, and as for Megas and higher...” Gennai took a second to readjust his satchel, leaving Cadance and I in suspense, a sly smile forming on his face, teasing bastard.

“They can not travel the gates at all,” Gennai shrugged.

“Wait, seriously?” I said leaning back in surprise.

“Simply put, they are far too powerful and large as far as data is concerned, if they were to try and travel through the gate, all gates in that realm would crash and they would be stranded in the Dark Area, a dimension between the digital world and other universes. A nasty place, really, though apparently not accurately named being a white void and all,” Gennai commented.

“So we don’t have to worry about Mega Digimon coming to Equestria!?” Cadance said positively beaming with hope.

“I wouldn’t go that far…” Gennai said darkly, “They’re already here… I’m sure of it”

“Who?” Cadance said before realizing that his statement was a decent answer to her question, “I mean who specifically?”

“I don’t have anything solid as of now, but something about your situation is… eerily familiar. In any case, it’s clear you will need more help in the future, so I will be trying to get in touch with one of the DigiDestined from my world and send them your way, any preferences?” Gennai asked half-joking as he looked at me.

“Send the main man,” I said simply with a dramatic nod.

“Ah Izumi-Kun, or Izzy as he prefers, a fine choice,” Gennai laughed, before seemingly remembering something, “Ah yes, I tried to make a portal to your home dimension while I was waiting for you to recover, unfortunately, the portal I made didn’t last long and was barely big enough to send one of my In-Training level friends through,” He fished through his satchel and took out, to my utter delight, my beloved laptop. The one I’d had since high school and stubbornly refused to replace, even with how outdated it was. It was jet black with some Digimon and pokemon stickers, and Agumon, a Tentomon, and Reshiram from pokemon. He handed it to me and I excitedly snatched it from his hands and opened it carefully with the tip of my claws. I noticed right away that it felt heavier than usual.

“I hope you don’t mind but I took the opportunity to upgrade your device, It now has a Digimon analyzer and access to my entire database concerning everything I know about the digital world as well as digital coding, it even has a Digimon nursery in case you need to keep young Digimon safe in your computer, but you don’t have space for anything above Rookie.”

I nodded, my eyes locked on the picture I pulled up from one of my folders. The first thing I ran to, the last picture I took with my family after my sister had been born. It took everything I had to hold back my tears, but I managed ,if only to keep up appearances in front of Cadance and Gennai.

Gennai seemed to sense my change in the mood without me having to say anything, “Well anyways, there will be a war meeting tomorrow, and I would love to stay for it, but unfortunately I’ve been away from the digital world for long enough.”

“What’s going on on the other side?” I asked, managing to rip myself from the computer to look at him.

“Virus type Digimon have been wreaking chaos across the lands, Izzy and the rest of the DigiDestined have been doing well against them, but their numbers don't seem to dwindle that much day to day, no matter how many we defeat. They seemed to be replaced the next day as if by magic…” Gennai looked troubled after finishing his explanation.

“Then you must be risking a lot to even consider sending one of your own to our side,” Cadance noted, with a grateful smile.

“Indeed, but your world has just as much importance as ours, Im sure the others will agree,” Gennai said smiling warmly before returning his gaze to me, regaining his look of guilt, “I shall be looking for a way to send you home when I can, it may take some time. The multiverse is quite a large place, but as long as your world has a form of internet then it will have a DigiServer.”

“DigiServer?” Cadance asked, the girl really liked learning about this stuff, I can relate to that.

“In short, a universe sized space in the digital world made up of deleted or unused data forming a place where digimon can live,” Gennai explained, “They are connected by digital gates, I assume I don’t need to explain what a digital gate is again?” Gennai asked teasingly.

Cadance giggled and shook her head. “That's good, I will be off then!” Gennai said a cheerful smile on his face as he stepped out the door, closing it behind him.

The room went quiet, I went back to looking at the picture, I wonder what they're doing right now? They must be freaking out by now… I was due to meet them a few days ago, I wonder if they would just give up on finding me eventually, and my name would just become another name on a list of missing persons.

“Do you miss them?” Cadance asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“What?” I asked not sure if I heard her correctly, turning to see she had a mixed look of worry, curiosity, and sadness.

“Do you miss them?” Cadance asked again, a bit more matter of factly, leading me to believe she already knew the answer.

“What a stupid question,” I muttered, a bit annoyed now.

“Tell me about them,” Cadance requested, asking me more than telling me, but for what reason I couldn’t deduce.

“Why should I?” I asked in an irritated tone.

“I'm the princess of Love, what people don’t seem to get about that is, there is more than one kind of love,” Cadance said shooting me a knowing smile.

“Familial love huh, so you're a glorified counselor?” I said snorting a bit in amusement.

“Yep,” Cadance said with a perfectly serious tone, her face firm yet somehow still soft, “I'm perfectly okay with being dumbed down to that, because a ruler's job is to serve the people not themselves. Councilor's do just that, serving the people through easing their spiritual pain, and helping them through problems of the heart.”

“I'm not one of your people though?” I asked, giving her a quizzical look.

“You stuck your neck out for us on more than one occasion and risked your life to save my people and I, so tough shit Snap. You are one of us now, no escape!” Cadance declared, gaining a mischievous grin.

I laughed a bit before asking, “Snap?”

“Oh yeah! You wouldn’t know about that!” Cadance giggled, before saying, “That's what the guards have been calling you. The guards give nicknames to all members of their ranks and after your battle against two ultimates, they named you Snap, since you snapped Mephstiomon’s arm off.”

“Huh, neat…” I muttered under my breath.

“But enough about my family, tell me about yours!” Cadance in a rather excited tone, leaning forward energetically.

“Uh…” I said feeling quite put on the spot, Cadance just gave me a rapid yet reassuring nod, an excited grin plastered on her face.

“Well… I guess… They're good folks, the kind of people you can rely on to lend a hand when you need it, patient too,” I laughed, “My mother had the patience of a saint… my poor mama…”

“What makes you say that?” Cadance prodded.

“Oh cuz I used to go looking for fights when I was younger. I would walk up to the biggest meanest motherfucker at school, excluding faculty of course, and sock them in the face!” I said grinning despite myself.

“Nice,” Skullgreymon chuckled in approval.

“Hush you,” I replied almost teasingly.

“How’d that go?” Cadance said, giving me a frown of disapproval.

“Oh I got my ass kicked usually, always coming home with a black eye or a broken nose,” I shrugged, “My poor mama would tell me off for at least an hour every time,” I chuckled, “Til I stopped of course,” The guilt from that particular memory returning to the forefront after the high I got from remembering my past fights had passed.

“What changed?” Cadance asked, her tone hadn’t changed from a calm neutral since we had started this little counseling session.

“Well one day I came home pretty late… a lot later than usual, and when I got home I snuck in through the back, didn’t want to get caught coming home late ya know? So when I got in I overheard my mom talking to my dad… she was crying, going on about how she was so scared that I would get myself killed, how much it worried her that I was always getting into fights… and….” I trailed off.

“And?” Cadance pushed.

“And how she didn’t know it would be this hard when they decided to adopt…” I replied, gaze returning to the picture on my laptop, before turning back to see the look of shock on Cadance’s face.

“Did you know? I mean before hoof?” Cadanance asked quickly, and worriedly.

“No… welp… more than one way to skin a cat eh?” I chuckled.

“Morbid figures of speech besides…” Cadance said looking a bit sickened by the term of phrase, and now actually looking at said phrase, yeah… its kinda fucked up, “What happened after that?”

“Well, I stopped picking fights… didn’t stop people from coming after me but hey, free cardio!” I nervously laughed.

“Coward,” Skullgremon muttered.

“Says the pile of bones,” I mentally snapped back at him, a little irritated.

“Says that man with a 20-5 loss rate,” He fired back.

“Says the bitc-” I almost finished.

“Connor?!” Cadance asked, cutting me out of my thoughts, this mare really liked doing that.

“Hmm?” I said, returning my attention to her.

“You zoned out! I was asking who the foal in the picture is!” Cadance said a bit of annoyance but a smile of amusement was on her face nonetheless.

I blinked and noticed I had accidentally moved the laptop to a position where she could lean over to look at it.

“Curiosity killed the cat eh?” I muttered.

“What do your people have against cats?” Cadance asked, looking horrified.

“Guess the cats out of the bag,” I said with a grin, getting an obviously faked and over exaggerated gasp of horror from Cadance before she burst out giggling, “It's typically seen as rude to look at someone’s computer screen without asking, kinda like reading a book over someone’s shoulder,” I informed her.

“OH! I'm so sorry,” Cadance said, blushing a bit, “I suppose that should have been obvious though,”

“As for your question, that would be my baby sister. Technically not related by blood, but I don’t really care. She’s my sister,” I said, my eyes falling on the tiny little redheaded girl, barely a month old and tightly clenching my shirt in her tiny little fist, her eyes barely open, the faintest hint of blue behind her loosely closed eyelids, as I held her close with the stupidest smile on my face.

“I thought I understood what you lost before but… when Flurry fell into that pit, for a split moment I thought I lost everything, and in that moment I understood. I understood why you were so angry, so unwilling to forgive Twilight for what she did. Your aggressiveness towards anyone that tried to wave off what happened to you, it was never about losing you arm, or even your body… it was about losing your family,” Cadance said, tearing up a bit, biting her bottom lip.

“Yeah...” Was all I could say.

“Well, this has been insightful…” Cadance muttered softly.

“Yeah…” I said again, clicking off the pic and looking around for the files Gennai had downloaded, finding some files on digimon’s binary and other interesting topics. If it wasn’t for my background as a programmer, a lot of this stuff would fly over my head, but even with that in mind it would take a few long nights of cramming to learn what was basically super programming. Might be able to make something out of this though, maybe a gate home and an actual Digimon to replace me. Gonna keep this plan to myself though, I don't want to get people’s hopes up.

“So… what now?” Cadance asked, “I mean yeah the war meeting is going to reconvene tomorrow, but what do we do now? Twilight hasn’t left her room and you got your flank handed to you by those Ultimates. As things stand, it's not looking good for us, even if you and Aunt Tia were able to fight off an Ultimate, albeit barely.”

“If you think the Mephistomon was at full power, you're sorely mistaken,” I said, having brought up the Digimon analyzer to have it analyze the data of Mephistomon in the background while I try to learn Digi-Coding, from the data it had already analyzed it confirmed my suspicions.

“Wait… what!?” Cadance asked, horrified.

“Yep, according to this analysis mephistomon has an ability known as Black Sabbath. It instantly kills any creature comparable or weaker than it, except virus types… hmm interesting,” I muttered, “Not to mention it was a fresh Ultimate, so it was unable to access its full physical strength.”

“I think I follow,” Cadance muttered, shivering in fear, the thought of an instant-kill AoE attack with this effect no doubt fueling this fear, “Basically, since they were new to the power, they weren’t able to use it properly.”

“Yep, a freshly Digivolve Digimon can only use so much of that form's power until they’ve used that form for a bit,” I explained as I made a google doc for keeping notes while I continued my research.

“So that's why you were able to beat it? You were more experienced with your mastered Greymon form?” Cadance asked.

“More experienced period. Like I said, I used to get into fights all the time. Didn’t win many of them, but as they say, the difference between a master and a student is that the master has failed more times then the student has tried,” I shrugged.

“Wise words,” Cadance said, sounding impressed.

“Not entirely accurate ,as I'm far from a master, but close enough. As for my Greymon form I haven’t mastered it yet in all likelihood. If I had, I wouldn’t have needed Celestia’s help ,seeing as Tai’s Greymon was able to trivialize Ultimates at his prime,” I continued.

“You still haven’t answered my question though,” Cadance pointed out.

“Ah right, I’d rather wait for the war meeting, I need to gather my thoughts,” I said, giving her an apologetic look.

She nodded, giving me a smile before turning to leave, “I'll leave you alone to study then, Fluttershy might not though,” She said half joking.

I watched her go out the door before returning my gaze to the computer, time for a crash course on Digimon code.

Author's Note

Sorry for the late chap, I got sick for a bit so I just didn't have the energy to write, Im back at it though! Might make chap 11 early to make up for lost time but no promises