Back in the TV shop, the room is getting dangerously crowded. The multiple Digimon are sure to draw eyes soon. The fact that they haven't means that Squid is doing something to the mall. Your partners are all clustered around a curled-up shape on the floor. Your eyes widen as you look at Bella. Gazimon is standing over her, teeth bared in anxiety. She looks awful.

Huge swathes of her textures have been peeled back, exposing the wireframe underneath. It's like what happens to Digimon when they get damaged or Digivolve. Humans aren't supposed to be like that. She has a window open and she's weakly hitting the avatar reset function, but nothing is happening. The edges of the texture voids are spiky and fuzzy, extending forward into blindingly wide artifacts that sheets of skin and clothing are mapped to, instead of her arms. She raises one hand and looks at her frozen fingers. You watch her pull herself back up against a shelf, with her open palm never closing.

"What... What happened to me...?"

You can't tell how much is because of the DMIA damage, and how much is because of the cable. You wince at the sight. That's way more than you expected.

"Nothing Squid can't fix." Wind reassures, but he looks just as shocked at the rest of you. He shoots you a wary glance.

[I think I can do something, yeah. Just get home!]

"Okay. Digimon away."

Echoes of 'Hololize' fill the store. Even Lenny says it, his eyes wide as he feels Kunemon's absence. Wind pulls Liza away and speaks to her in a hushed whisper, barely within earshot of you.

"I need you to take care of him."

"Take care like-"

"Whatever you want. Just bring him away from here. He's been exposed, he can't come back to the base."

"For how long?"

"Forever. Unless Squid comes up with something. I'm trusting you with this because you have a Champion now. You need to take him as far away from us as you can, then break off and return to base. Got it?"

"You want us to just ditch him?!"

"We don't have a choice! They've logged him, they know where he is at this very moment."

"It's just-"

"Have I ever given you the impression that my orders are optional? Go do your job. Now. I need to take care of Bella, and get the data back safe."

She bites back a retort. Liza catches your gaze as she turns away, her own eyes watering with fresh tears. She softly reaches out to grab Lenny's shoulder, then starts leading him out of the mall. The rest of you walk in the opposite direction, with Ryan at least having the initiative to put a jacket over her extremely damaged avatar.

"Wait, wait... I can still stick with you guys! You can't do this to me! Not after everything, hang on- NO! NO!"

Liza smacks him in the back of the head, shutting him up. She looks pained as she drags him away from you guys, making sure he doesn't try to follow. She firmly locks arms with him and vanishes into the nearby streets.

"Come on... We'll think of something for you."