The silence in the sanctuary was absolute, thick enough that I could hear the erratic, shallow breathing of my own teammates. My mind raced, trying to fit this massive influx of tactical data into a cohesive puzzle. The enemy hadn't just conquered the surface of the Digital World; they had executed a perfect, paralyzing first strike against the Creator's heaviest hitters. We had spent the last several days believing we were just a small rescue team caught in a localized war. Now, looking at the Great Angel standing before us, I realized the horrifying truth. The angelic military was locked in a siege beneath the world, holding the gates of hell shut against the Seven Great Demon Lords. The Four Holy Beasts were gone. The Eternals were forbidden from interfering. We were not just a random strike force. We were the only offensive maneuver God had left to play.
Before Kaldur could even formulate our next question, the atmosphere in the quiet wooden church shifted violently. The ambient, comforting warmth that had been radiating from Ophanimon suddenly spiked with an overwhelming wave of profound sorrow. It was so intense that my chest ached, and I instinctively took a half-step back, my hand resting on my utility belt. Ophanimon lowered her shield, planting the base of her javelin firmly against the wooden floor.
"Before we continue, I must apologize," Ophanimon said, her melodic voice cracking with a sudden, devastating weight. "On behalf of the entire Digital World, and especially the angel Digimon... to all of you."
We traded bewildered glances. Wally opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but the Great Angel didn't give him the chance. With a loud, echoing clatter of jade-green armor, Ophanimon dropped to her knees. She bowed her head, pressing her golden helmet completely against the wooden floorboards in a posture of absolute, total submission.
"It is because of our weaknesses that the Creator felt like he had no choice but to seek outside help," Ophanimon whispered, her voice echoing mournfully through the empty pews. "To finally even the battlefield, putting you all in such terrible danger. Please, forgive us. And forgive the Creator."
For a second, nobody moved. The sheer wrongness of the sight paralyzed us. This was one of the Three Great Angels of the Digital World, a being of unimaginable power and holy authority, groveling at the feet of four mortal teenagers. The visual alone was enough to make my stomach twist into nervous knots.
Conner was the first to break the frozen tableau. He lunged forward, grabbing Ophanimon by the shoulders of her armored plating, trying to pull her up. Kaldur was right beside him, his hands hovering uncertainly, while Wally stammered out a chaotic string of denials.
"Lady Ophanimon, please, you have to get up!" Conner urged, his super-strength carefully modulated so he wouldn't accidentally damage her armor if he even could was a completely different question but he still tried to be careful. "You don't need to do this!"
"Truly, you do not have to go so far just to apologize to us," Kaldur added, his voice steady but laced with unmistakable panic. He helped Conner guide the angel back to her feet. "We understand the situation now. We know that the Digital World was caught in a no-win scenario. No matter how you look at it, your forces are entirely depleted. With the Four Holy Beasts fighting the source of the darkness, the angelic armies protecting the Kernel and the seals of the Seven Great Demon Lords, and the ten Eternals barred from direct interference... you truly have no free hands left to help with the surface. You didn't drag us into this out of malice. You brought us here because we are Lord Amir's only hope of evening the battlefield, even if we don't win in the end. We understand."
Ophanimon stood tall again, though her posture remained bowed with guilt. She shook her head slowly, the feathers of her eight wings ruffling in a phantom breeze.
"No, young heroes," Ophanimon insisted, cutting Kaldur off gently before he could continue. "This apology is something that had to happen I was originally going to wait until your questions were answered but I couldn't hold back any longer. Like I told you, I have not heard from the Creator himself since the darkness first fell across our lands. But not long afterward, Ikaris came to meet with we Three Great Angels in the Kernel. He came to deliver a direct message from Lord Amir himself. The message was simple: On the day the heroes that wield the virtues enter my church, whichever one of you meets them first, please give them our deepest apologies. And... give them this."
Ophanimon reached into a hidden compartment behind her breastplate and withdrew a folded, weathered piece of parchment. She held it out with both hands, presenting it to Kaldur as if it were a sacred relic.
Kaldur took it hesitantly. He unfolded the paper, his teal eyes scanning the contents. Immediately, a deep, visible look of confusion washed over his face. He frowned, tilting his head as if changing the angle might make it make sense. The rest of us leaned in, our curiosity overriding our lingering shock. Kaldur turned the paper around so we could all see it.
My detective instincts flared, but they were entirely useless here. On the paper were two lines of glowing, shifting symbols. They looked like a cross between ancient cuneiform and digital binary code, pulsing with a faint, ethereal blue light. We had no idea what to do with them, let alone what they actually said. I opened my mouth to ask for a translation, but Ophanimon understood our confusion and answered before the question even left my lips.
"They are Star Gate Coordinates," Ophanimon explained, her voice entirely devoid of deception. "Coordinates directly back to your home world. This is the Creator's sincerity, to prove that he means you no harm, and that you are completely free to leave at any time. With these, you only need to go to the Star Gate, and you can immediately return to your Earth. You will have nothing more to do with the Digital World, the darkness, or this war from here on out."
I stopped breathing for a second. The church was so quiet I could hear the blood rushing in my ears.
"In fact," Ophanimon continued, we could feel her green eyes locking onto ours with desperate earnestness through the helmet, "if you wish it, I can take you to the Star Gate right now. As long as we are quick enough that the enemy forces do not realize I have left the Kernel defenses weakened with my absence, we should be able to get you home within the hour."
Speechless didn't even begin to cover it. We just stood there, staring at the glowing symbols on the parchment. We were being offered a way out. A guaranteed, immediate, risk-free ticket back to Happy Harbor. Back to Batman, Superman, Flash, and Aquaman. Back to a world where we weren't the only line of defense against an apocalyptic demonic army. We didn't quite believe her at first, but studying the resolute, tear-filled expression on her face beneath her helmet, I could tell she was being completely serious. Lord Amir was more than willing to let us leave right this second if we said the word.
* * *
From the cold, immaculate marble of my throne in the Divine Space, I leaned forward, resting my chin on my steepled fingers. The massive holographic screens hovering before me displayed the tense, silent scene inside the sanctuary in perfect high definition. I could see the exact moment the realization hit Dick Grayson's eyes. I could see the tension bleeding out of Wally West's shoulders as the concept of 'home' suddenly became a tangible reality rather than an impossible dream.
I smiled, a slow, calculated smirk that carried no true warmth.
This was the linchpin of my entire psychological architecture for the Young Justice team. I knew these heroes. I knew their comic histories, their traumas, their ingrained moral compasses. If I kept them trapped here against their will, they would eventually break. They would view the Digital World as a prison, and their Digimon partners as the shackles binding them to it. Resentment would poison their bond resonance not today but eventually, severely capping the amount of divine energy I could harvest from their emotional growth and their combat encounters. Forced conscripts only fight hard enough to survive.
But volunteers? Heroes who are handed the keys to their own prison cells and choose to throw those keys away? They fight to the bitter, bloody end.
By having Ophanimon deliver the Star Gate coordinates and the sincere apology, I was entirely removing the resentment from the equation. I was proving that I wasn't a tyrannical captor, but a desperate God begging for their help. I was giving them the ultimate luxury in any war: free will. I watched the system metrics in the corner of my vision. Their emotional resonance output was already beginning to spike, the divine energy trickling into my reserves as they processed the magnitude of the choice before them.
I settled back into my throne, crossing my arms over my bare chest. I didn't need to interfere. I already knew exactly what they were going to choose.
* * *
We didn't say yes, and we didn't say no. For a long, agonizing minute, we simply stood in a circle, wrestling with the implications of the glowing coordinates in Kaldur's hand.
I slowly turned my head to look down at Tentomon. The large, insectoid Digimon was staring intently at the floorboards, his antennae drooping slightly. I looked past him. Gabumon was rigidly avoiding Wally's gaze, fidgeting with the fur pelt on his shoulders. Patamon had landed on the nearest pew, staring at his tiny clawed feet, while Gatomon sat perfectly still, her tail wrapped tight around her paws. Agumon and Palmon stood quietly beside Kaldur, offering small, encouraging smiles that didn't quite reach their eyes.
It broke my heart. They understood perfectly well that we wanted to go home. True we were heroes who should do their best to help those in need but we were also terrified teenagers pulled away from our mentors and our families. Our Digimon partners wanted to ask us to stay—they desperately needed us to save their world—but they refused to be selfish. They cared about us too much to guilt-trip us into staying in a warzone.
I looked up and met Wally's eyes. The speedster swallowed hard, his usual joking demeanor entirely stripped away. He nodded once. I looked at Conner. The clone's jaw was set like granite, and he crossed his arms, leaning slightly toward Gatomon and Patamon in a silent gesture of protection. I finally looked at Kaldur. Our leader's expression was unreadable, but I could see the resolve settling over his broad shoulders.
We were remembering everything that had happened since we woke up on the beach. We remembered the desperate, terrified Digimon being attacked in their villages. We remembered Leomon and Ogremon, two seasoned warriors throwing themselves into a meat grinder just to protect the helpless eggs at Primary Village. We remembered Piximon telling us about the Mega-level Digimon who were actively sacrificing themselves in a suicidal vanguard strikes against the Dark Masters, dying right now just to buy us enough time to stand in this church and have this conversation in the hope we will save their own friends and family.
We knew that whether we did or didn't take the Star Gate back to Earth right now or later, we would be in serious, unimaginable trouble with our mentors when we got back. Batman would interrogate me for days. The Justice League would likely lock down the gate and forbid us from ever returning, treating the Digital World as a quarantined threat zone. But if we left now, this world would fall to the darkness. And once the Digital World fell, Devimon's promise would come true—the Dark Masters would open the gate to Earth next.
In our hearts, the decision had already been made long before Ophanimon handed over the parchment. We were staying until this world was saved. It was a world that deserved saving. And strangely enough, knowing that we possessed a guaranteed way home made the choice to stay infinitely more comfortable. We weren't victims of circumstance anymore. We were heroes answering a call to action.
Kaldur folded the parchment carefully and tucked it into one of the waterproof compartments on his belt. He stood tall, looking directly into Ophanimon's eyes.
"We thank you, and we thank Lord Amir for this choice," Kaldur said, his voice ringing with absolute, unshakable authority. "To know that even in the dire situation you find yourselves in, you still give the option for your only hope to leave... that shows exactly what kind of people you truly are. But we have decided to stay. We will stay until this world is saved from the darkness. And it will be saved."
The rest of us nodded in immediate agreement, stepping closer to our partners. Tentomon let out a buzzing sound of relief, hovering up to bump his head against my shoulder. Gabumon threw his arms around Wally's waist, burying his snout in the speedster's side. Patamon flew up and landed squarely on Conner's head, while Gatomon offered a rare, genuine smile. Agumon and Palmon cheered, throwing their hands in the air.
I glanced over at Piximon. The tiny, brutal Ultimate-level trainer who had beaten us into the sand just days ago was looking at us with an expression that looked dangerously close to profound respect.
Ophanimon's reaction was far more visceral. The Great Angel let out a choked sob, tears spilling from beneath her golden visor and tracing tracks down her pale cheeks. She bowed to us again, placing a hand over her heart, her voice trembling with sheer, overwhelming gratitude as she admitted that the angels hadn't been entirely sure what they would have done if we had actually chosen to leave.
We spent the next few minutes assuring her that we were committed, helping her regain her composure before we could resume our tactical questioning. Once Ophanimon was back on her feet, leaning on her javelin with a renewed, fierce light in her eyes, Kaldur pivoted the conversation back to the war.
"Okay, for our next question," Kaldur said, folding his arms. "What do you know about the source of the darkness exactly? Who is leading the Dark Masters?"
Ophanimon's serene expression vanished, replaced by a thunderous scowl. Her hand tightened around the shaft of her javelin so hard that the weapon which no one but Piximon knew was one of the purest Chrome Digizoid weapons in existence groaned, and had they known and understood what that meant they would have been stuck speechless at the sheer physical strength it took to do that to the weapon trembling violently in her grip. But it was a sight to see that just thinking about the entity behind the corruption was enough to provoke the angel of mercy into a state of divine wrath.
"We do not yet know the true name of the mastermind," Ophanimon spat, the words laced with heavy venom. "The coward has gone out of their way not to show themselves to our forces. All I know for certain is that apparently, the Four Holy Beasts managed to somehow track them down at the very beginning of the war. They have been locked in continuous, world-shaking combat for the past ten years."
I pulled my holographic notepad back up, typing furiously. "Where?"
"All I can say is that they appear to be fighting in another dimension, one that exists very close to this one, parallel to the Digital World's mortal plane," Ophanimon explained, her gaze drifting toward the high arched ceiling of the church. "We can confirm that both parties are locked in a desperate stalemate for the moment. But we are not sure how much longer either side can hold out. For now, thanks to you choosing to stay and because we do not have to worry about the Digital World's mortal plane being completely destroyed by their clash, we can afford to stretch our angelic forces a bit more and work on gathering information on the enemy's dimensional location."
She looked back down at us, even though the helmet her green eyes were piercing and urgent. "But either way, please, you must hurry. You need to gather the rest of your crests quickly. The fact that the other side's generals have gotten brave enough to actually organize a direct attack on Primary Village is a very bad sign. It means the stalemate in the other dimension might be shifting. not to mention Myotismon is preparing for something massive now that he has the Crest of Light, and you need to be ready when it happens."
We nodded in unison, the weight of the ticking clock settling heavily over us. I squeezed the hilt of my batarang, my mind already calculating our next vector across the Server Desert. We thanked her for the warning, promising that we would do our absolute best. We were out of the tutorial zone now. The real war was about to begin.