Doc Cracker shows up several minutes later, with his Digimon in tow. He has several portable screens around him, hovering in the air as he walks. By now, your Mekanorimon has lost power, and reverted to good ol' Kokuwamon again. He jogs forward to receive a pat on the head from doc.

"Heard the big lug toppling over from all the way upstairs. Good work, boy. Marnie, where's the Commandramon?"

"He let us go in the end. The two of them went into the network."

"Now, there's a welcome surprise! Let's get a move on. I've been hijacking the radio waves to keep the heat off us. No backup for that Digimon until he heads outside."

You take a good look at him. Even though he's reset his avatar, he looks haggard and exhausted, with his clothes hanging loosely off his wiry frame. He doesn't have the veil of static around his face, nor do you think he had time to put on a VPN. If this partition marks users, he's surely been logged by now. Heading back to the lab is out of the question.

He leads you to the globe, where he fiddles with the panel a little more. Before your eyes, numerous blue holograms pop into existence, wandering into the mall from the same direction that DarkTyrannomon fled. He's enabled the customer redirection protocol again, to flood the real mall with customers and muddy the trail that you two are going to be leaving.

Before departing, he looks around the mall suspiciously, his numerous eyes focusing on the trace data that leads into the very same globe you're using.

"Did you see the Rookies?"

Solarmon rotates on the spot, and the three Kokuwamon snap their claws together idly.

"They're gone." You admit.

"Bah... Would have liked to finish them off. Solarmon here would get much stronger from beating three viruses. Did you at least give them a good clobbering?" He asks, clearly bothered by their escape.

You think back to the fight you had, where you kicked Elecmon in the nose and launched Tsukaimon off the second floor. You can say conclusively that you did.

"Clobbered hard. They had a sort of second-in-command, who put the gang together before BlackAgumon came along. Phascomon finished him off."

"That's good. One down. But it's the big one that's really to blame."

"What'll you do if he comes back? He did once, and I doubt Commandramon can take him out for good."

"I'll set up shop a bit deeper in this time round. He could only reach me because there was nobody around to respond. This time, I'll be right under their noses."

He sighs.

"Real big loss of data, with the lab gone. But I have safehouses, so don't you worry your little head."

The whole lot of of you step outside, and the world inverts once again.

==