For all of his shortcomings as an individual, Lex was a fascinating specimen, both as a computer program and as a biological specimen. Technically, he was a Digimon—his most basic traits were inherited from the libraries that were used to code the original Digimon; but he was also something far more complex. Looking at his code was like looking at a work of art. He was the perfect instrument of destruction which could be tuned to eliminate anything from a single atom to a city block. Properly directed, he could be used to eliminate anything from a single atom to a city block. He was easily capable of countering all but the most powerful of attacks, even utilizing a feedback system to redirect the majority of energy attacks back at the original attackers.

At the moment, the only problem was the guidance system of that machine of destruction. Rather than being the directed force of death that he should have been, he was cuddling with a female Digimon of opposite polarity, wearing an extremely large smile on his face, making little whistling noises while he slept. He had been hoping that Vagerdramon that he had ‘sent’ would have brought him to his senses and done what he was destined to, but the other Virus had taken care of that problem surprisingly well.

With a sigh, he supposed that he would have to just wait a while before trying anything else. Maybe he would get lucky and it would happen naturally, although such an occurrence was extremely unlikely.

* * * * * * * *

Jean had spent the night laying on top of Jamie, which was something that he seemed to enjoy doing. He had been especially unhappy the night before after he had found out that he wasn’t going to partners with Jes any more. She had done everything that she could think of to make him happy again—she hugged him, kissed him, even took her clothes off and got underneath the covers with him (something she still felt uncomfortable doing), but he didn’t seem very interested in doing anything to her like he like he had the previous night. Eventually, they settled on going to bed together and simply laying there with her on top of him.

She wasn’t used to getting as much sleep as she was getting here in the Real World. She usually didn’t get as much sleep in a week as she had in the past few days; unable to adjust and sleep so much so quickly, she had instead ended up sleeping for all of twenty minutes or so, then woken up and stayed in place for the next eleven hours, nuzzling him and enjoying the warmth of another living being against her body. She had considered waking him up to try and talk to him again, but she thought it might be better to let him wake up on his own. She sighed through he nostrils and licked his face a few times.

“Jean, I’m awake…” he giggled a little. “I’ve been awake for almost half an hour…”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t want you to move… …” Jean blushed a little. Maybe he was finally ready to talk about her and Jes. She didn’t want him to feel bad.

“Jamie…can we talk?” she asked timidly.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Jean…” he answered, looking away. “Just remember that you mean more to me now than ever.”

“Jamie…” she answered, even more timidly than before. “If I could will myself to take Jes’ place, I would, but I don’t know how.” Feeling bad and even more guilty than she was before, he was awake, she picked up the blank Digivice and pressed buttons randomly on it, thinking that maybe she would be able to somehow insert herself onto it. She really wanted to be there for him.

“No, Jean, don’t do that…” he took the Digivice away from her, putting it on a wooden stand next to the bed. “I don’t want you to be Jes. I want you to be you…it isn’t that losing Jes bothers me, it’s just ... I don’t know...I liked having a Digimon.”

Jamie smiled a bit, gave her a hug and a kiss on her cheek. He was a good person…Jes was lucky to have had him as a tamer and Jean was lucky to have her as a mate. If she was going to give up the life that she had known, this was the kind of person that she wanted to have at her side.

Suddenly, the device beeped to life. Both of them reached for it, but Jean reached it first, having moved much more quickly than Jamie. On the screen was a digital rendition of her with a few status indicators and and the name of her species written in bold white letters: Clerimon.

Jamie looked at it, then looked up at her and smiled, giving her a hug. Was this what it felt like to have a tamer? She didn’t really feel any different than she did a few seconds ago when her name wasn’t on his Digivice. Maybe that was because they were already in love. Of course, having a tamer was one of the most strictly forbidden things to residents of the Citadel and members of the Order—there could be no higher commitments than those of the institutions of the Citadel, and to be a tame Digimon was to be at worst the property of your tamer, and at the best be always at their side, which was certainly not in line with the dictates of the order, and by extension, the Citadel itself.

“Jean…I love you…” he was holding both of her hands in his now. Somehow, the sentence seemed to have more meaning than it had the last time he had said it to her.

“I love you, too…” she felt blood rush to her face.”

“Do you want me to get some breakfast?”

“Breakfast?”

Jean had no idea what either of those things were. They must have been something humans did. She was about to point out to Jamie for the thousandth time that she was new to this world and didn’t understand a lot of the things that humans said or did, when a growling noise suddenly came from somewhere in her midsection. She jumped up onto her knees in fright, afraid that she had somehow been infected by a virus. Once she decided that she hadn’t and that something other than herself had made the noise, she raised herself off of Jamie and started looking frantically around the room for anything that could have made the noise.

For some reason, Jamie found this whole thing very amusing, and was almost rolling out of his bed with laughter. Once she had looked through every single place in the room that could have contained whatever made that noise, she decided that maybe she was hearing things and put her robes back on, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’re hungry…” he was giggling.

“Hungry?”

“Yep. You need to eat…you don’t need to do that when you’re in the Digital World, but you do here. Jes had some trouble adjusting to that, too. She reacted the same way that you did when she heard her stomach growl for the first time. I’ll be right back,” he grinned a little bit and got dressed, leaving the room for a few minutes.

When he returned, he had a small white plate with a small assortment of brown and white things with a little tub of a yellow gelatinous substance that smelled very strange.

“That’s butter,” he pointed out. She tried to save that in memory for later. “You put it on the food like this … ...” he used a small piece of white plastic to pick some of the ‘butter’ up and put it on one of the pieces of what he later told her was called bread.

She watched him pick up the heated piece of bread and put in it his mouth. She knew what eating was, obviously. As part of her training, she had learned that it was something that she was going to have to do if she stayed in the Real World for a long time. There were even some Digimon that made it a habit of doing it even when they didn’t have to in the Digital World—usually, those Digimon happened to be Viruses and preferred a different way of consuming and absorbing their prey. Because it carried that stigma, it was viewed upon in a somewhat negative light, and she was hesitant to do it when Jamie offered her another piece of butter-covered bread.

Her views on the matter changed when Jamie slipped the piece of bread into her mouth when she opened it to say that she didn’t know if she was ready yet. She had never tasted anything before, especially not here in the Real World where organic senses were much more keen than they were back home.

“Good?” Jamie asked as soon as she swallowed the piece of food. She nodded in response, savoring the test of what the humans probably ate on a daily basis. In a few minutes, she had forgotten about the taboo that was attached to doing what she had just done.

“Do you want more?” he asked, setting the brown tray off to the side. Jean’s eyes widened a little.

“You can get more?”

“Of course you can get more…with what I’m paying for this hotel room, I would certainly hope so,” he giggled a little. Jean didn’t understand what he had said, or why he had laughed at it, but it was obviously meant to be funny. He kissed the side of her muzzle, then got up from the bed and the left the room to get some more food, promising to be back in a few minutes.

Jean smiled as he kissed her, and found herself wondering if he had ever kissed anyone other than her before. If he had, she wouldn’t mind…she didn’t think it would be right if he did it with anyone else while they weren’t together, though. That just wouldn’t be right.

As she was trying to work out how human mating and relationships worked in her mind, a small digital field appeared at her feet. The noise was nothing new to her; in fact, she had been expecting it—messages were delivered in almost the same way when she was in the Digital World. When the energy from the field dissipated, there would be a small scroll left behind containing some kind of instruction for her. She knew what was going to be within those instructions, as well; it would probably “Return to Citadel Immediately”, followed by a small hand-written message by one of the thousands of scribes that worked underneath the Citadel, probably something ridiculing her actions and promising some kind of disciplinary action if she didn’t immediately comply.

She sighed and closed her eyes, trying to put the knowledge that the small piece of parchment was there out of her mind, but she couldn’t. Nothing could change the fact that it was there, no matter what she wanted. Within a few seconds, her senses picked up a virus—Jes—coming toward the room. She never thought that she ever would have been accustomed to the presence of a Virus anywhere near her, but now that she was living in close proximity to two, the senses that normally kept her alert of threats to her life were being kept in check more and more.

“I thought I smelled a field…” Jes said, standing in the same form that she had been in before when the two of them had fought, with only a small trace of the injury that Jean had inflicted on her.

“You did.” Jean kicked at the piece of paper, which was still yet to be unrolled. “It’s not a Digimon, don’t worry about it…” her voice had turned monotone as she tried to ignore everything in the world around her except Jamie. Nothing else mattered but staying with Jamie for as long as she could…if she had to die, she wanted it to happen while she was in Jamie’s arms, sharing one last kiss with him, not in the depths of the vast underground dungeons maintained and almost constantly being expanded upon by the Citadel.

“What is it, then?” Jes picked it up, breaking her mental image of slowly being reduced into her constituent code while trying to squeeze Jamie. Jean grabbed it from Jes’ hands and promptly tore the rolled-up parchment into two pieces, scattering the pieces around the room.

“They want me back,” was all that she could manage.

“Then go back,” Jes responded simply. “Now that he doesn’t have to deal with me anymore, I’m sure that he’d be happy to go with you. Jean wasn’t even going to try to explain to Jes why she didn’t want to go back. It would be too hard to explain, especially to a Virus. Instead, she looked away in shame. It would be anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or so before a Reclaimer was sent to bring her back by force; if she resisted, she would be killed. Depending on the Reclaimer, everyone she was with might be killed, as well. Maybe it would be best not to resist, since she didn’t want to see Jamie, Lex, Angie, Jes or Oliver to suffer on her account. On the other hand…she might be stronger than the Reclaimer, and she might be able to defeat it. No, that wouldn’t work…somewhere in the back of her mind, she recognized that Jes had left the room…they would just send someone stronger to begin with, since they knew exactly how strong she was at any given time. Whatever she did, there was no way out of it…she used the sleeve of her robe to wipe away tears that had started streaming down her cheeks.

“Jean?”

“Jamie!” upon hearing his voice, she immediately leapt onto him and kissed him like it was the last time the two of them would be together, which was unfortunately probably true. He stumbled against a wall from her added weight, dropping the tray of food that he had brought with him, joining in the kiss hesitantly.

“What’s wrong, Jean?”

“They…they want me back!” she started bawling on his chest.

“Oh…well, I’ll go with you if that’s what’s bothering you. I’ll go anywhere with you; I have to, since I’m your tamer now.”

“N-no! I don’t want to go back! I…the things I’ve done with you, I couldn’t be an Interdictor anymore, I might be u-used for breeding…” Jamie frowned at her, but she continued crying.

“What if I forced you?...”

“They’d know anyway…b-but, even if they didn’t, I wouldn’t want to go back anyway. Even if I could go back, I wouldn’t want to. I want t-to be done with the killing. After seeing Oliver and Jes together, and the way Lex looks at Angie, I could never do the things that I used to.”

* * * * * * * * *

“It is eminently obvious that she has no intention of returning.” The strong, loud, filling voice reverberated through the tall, round chamber that occupied one of the numerous towers of the Citadel. This one was home to one of the groups of senior Digimon responsible for watching over the Interdictors and making sure that each of them adhered to the dictates of the Order.

Unfortunately for the Order, one of its members seemed intent on breaking nearly every single one of the rules that it held as sacred: unauthorized consorting with Viri without reason; fornication—not just fornication, but fornication with someone outside of the Order—not even a Digimon. Worst of all, she had refused orders from a superior higher up in the chain of command.

“Protocol dictates that she be given time to dwell on her actions and repent. While she will never serve as an Interdictor again, it is possible for her to continue serving the Citadel in ways that can tolerate being performed by a less than perfect being,” another voice said, this one holding a much more elderly and educated tone, much like the drawling voice of a stereotypical university professor in the Real World.

“It is regrettable that she has chosen this lifestyle,” added another one, this one almost certainly feminine. “She showed a considerable amount of potential as a fighter. In fact, she has reached a level that few Interdictors reach. Reclaimers are not trained to handle members of the Order of this caliber. Most of these problems present themselves much earlier in the life of an impure Interdictor.”

“Then what do you suggest?” another voice, this one carrying a more youthful, whimsical quality to it. This voice belonged to someone who was always asking questions and seeking advice from the more senior and experienced members of the Council of Purity.

“It would only follow that the only solution is to retrieve the Interdictor personally,” the voice of the first one of the members of the Council responded. That proposal seemed to surprise the rest of them, but they seemed like they were considered it. They collectively started watching one of many large glass orbs on the ground level of the chamber. There was one for each one of the members of the Order, which was always kept at a number no less than two thousand and no greater than two thousand and ten. The one that was displaying Jean’s life was outlined in a light red rather than the tinge of blue that surrounded the other two thousand and four, indicating that she was having second thoughts.

* * * * * * * * *

Jean was obviously very afraid of having someone come from wherever it was that she used to work or whatever. He still didn’t really understand what it was that she was so afraid of, but whatever it was, it seemed like it was very serious.

“I love you, Jamie,” she managed to get out in between sobs. Trying to be reassuring, he gave her a gentle squeeze. What the hell. If he was going to die, he was going to die happy, and with Jean. He didn’t want her to think about that, though…he wanted her to think happy thoughts about happy things.

“I love you too, Jean,” he said, removing one hand from her back and using it to start stroking the top of her head. “And don’t even get me started on what I’ll do to keep you.”

For the first time since this whole thing had started, Jean let out a little giggle in between sobs.

“You could never hurt them, Jamie…not the Reclaimers, and certainly not anything stronger than them…when they came, you should probably run. You, Oliver, Anige, Jes, Lex…especially Lex, he’s strong and they wouldn’t want him to live to be any stronger.”

“No…” he shook his head. There was no way that he was going to leave Jean’s side. “We’re mates. I’m the male, so it’s my job to protect you.” For a moment, she smiled at him; she didn’t know if that was a condescending smile on account of his apparent ignorance or a smile of happiness at his devotion for her—either way, he was fine with it.

“But, Jamie, you aren’t even a Champion, and the Reclaimers are usually around Mega.”

“That doesn’t mean that I can’t do anything.”

“Not against them, you can’t…” she looked down sadly. Jamie frowned. He had spent a lot of time in the Digital World, but Jes had never been attacked by any of these Interdictors before. She had never even heard of them before…on the other hand, they hadn’t spent a lot of time in the upper middle layers that Jean had said was where their presence was strongest.

“Just how powerful are they?” Jamie asked. He had never seen anyone so terrified before.

“You don’t want to know,” she answered quickly. Knowing that nothing that he could say that he was going to calm her down or convince her that everything he was right, he held her as tightly against his body as he could, gently moving his hands along her back.

“C-can you rub my shoulders again…like you did when we met?” she looked up at him, and he saw that tears were going down from her pretty blue eyes, a sight so sad that he almost broke out into sobs himself. He was happy to try to allay her worries a little by giving her a neckrub, and he did his best. She sat down on the bed and Jamie positioned himself behind her. Within a few minutes of neck and backrub, she had stopped crying,she had loosened her robe and was letting it hang loosely off the tops of her arms to give him access to her shoulder. Her tail was swishing against his stomach over and over, just like it had the first time that they did this.

“That is quite possibly the most disgusting sight that I have ever seen in my life,” said a scholarly-sounding voice from somewhere to the right of the bed.

“Maybe, but I—” Jamie started the sentence before he realized that there was someone else in the room. “Oh, fuck..”he didn’t even want to turn around to see what it was. He was sure that it was something terrible that he didn’t want to see, even though it was probably a vaccine, and vaccines usually weren’t as bad-looking in their higher forms as Viruses were.

Jean threw him onto the ground and knelt protectively next to him before he even knew what was going on. From this position, he didn’t really have a choice but see the Digimon that had been sent to bring Jean back.

In short, it wasn’t what he had been expecting at all. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Floating in mid-air near the edge of the bed were a collection of four small, fist-sized, chubby, baby-faced creatures that looked remarkably like a collection of small cherubs. Actually, that was exactly what they looked like.

“What the hell…” Jamie stared blankly at them. They didn’t look terrifying at all. If anything, they looked about as strong and as powerful as an insect. And yet, Jean looked like she was about to die from fright. Was this what she had been expecting that was supposed to be so scary and terrifying. Jean nudged him into silence, keeping him from saying anything else. Whatever these things were, they were obviously terrifying her, despite the fact that he could probably swat one out of the air with an open hand.

“We’re disappointed in you, Jean. You had potential.” One of them—the only one that looked remotely feminine—said. As far off as the idea seemed, it looked like it was having misgivings about doing whatever they planned on doing to Jean.

“Be that as it may, do you have anything to say about your actions?” Another one, with longer, more practiced speech asked.

“No…w-w…yes, I do!” Jean’s head shot up in defiance. “You’re wrong…everything you do is wrong. Everything you do, everything you’ve ordered us to do…the mindless—”

“Its treason, then…” a younger-sounding cherub on the far right of the group said, snapping his fingers and making a set of shackles made from blinding white light bind her wrists behind her back.

“I love you, Jamie!”Jamie was sitting up now, and gave her a hug. There was nothing that those little cherubs could do to keep her from hugging the woman he loved, even if they were powerful magicians like Lex.

“I love you too,” he whispered. What the hell. Nothing really mattered anymore. Slowly letting go of Jean, he stood up and got in between the group of small Digimon and the only person in the world that he had real feelings for. “WHO ARE YOU!?” he yelled at them, putting as enraged an expression as he could on his face. He knew that if these things were as dangerous as Jean thought they were, there was no way that he could ever do anything to them.

“Jamie, don’t…” Jean whispered to him, tears streaming from her face. Looking back from Jean to the small collection of cherubs, he realized that each one of them was giving him the most flat, unaffected stare that could be managed by something with such a small face.

“What?” he scowled at the cherubs. “Did I stutter or something?”

“You aren’t serious, are you?” The one with the young-ish voice said after an extremely long pause.

“I’m dead serious!” Jamie yelled in response.

* * * * * * * * * *

Lex was outside the door, waiting for Jes to open it. He had been with Angie in the ‘shower’ when he had first sensed the presence of other Digimon in the building they were staying in. He was able to tell almost right away that they were very strong…maybe even strong enough to take him as a group. But they were in the same room as Jean and Jamie, and that could only mean that they were here to take her back to that terrible place.

“Jes…Lex…are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes,” they both answered at the same time. Jes almost immediately vaporized the door with an attack from her infinity form. Lex quickly evolved up to his Perfection level, feeling his physical body disappear over the course of a few seconds.

“Fall from Grace!”Before Lex even had a chance to get into the room, one of the Digimon had the time to perform an attack that left Jes down two levels from her infinity form. When he got in, trailing Angie as closely as she could fit behind him, Jean was protesting against doing anything to the rest of them.

“They don’t have anything to do with this! Please, leave them—”

“SILENCE!”

* * * * * * *

One of the Kerubimon raised its hand into the air as Jean started protesting. She knew that something like this was coming for as long as she resisted—possibly even if she didn’t. A sharp pain started going through her body starting from somewhere in the depths of her stomach. Only a few seconds passed before she was in more pain than she had ever been in all of her life.

A high-pitched shriek escaped her as she felt like her chest was about to explode. Every second that passed doubled the amount of pain she was in. Her eyes started rolling back into her head as she found that she couldn’t breathe because of the pain; a black veil started to cover everything in the room, making it gradually fade from sight.

When it seemed like she couldn’t stand anymore and was about to finally collapse, die, and escape from the pain in death, it finally started to subside, dropping to the point where she could think and speak again.

“Jamie…” she managed to wheeze out of her lungs. “Please…you can’t…do anything.”

“SILENCE!” she was punished again for what she had done, bringing her almost into unconsciousness for the second time before finally having her level of pain brought down to where she could breathe again. This time, she didn’t say anything afterwards—the pain rose in intensity so quickly that she couldn’t even control her movements. Every muscle in her body tensed up, her tail straightened, and her fingers outstretched as far as they could.

* * * * * * *

Lex briefly looked around the room. Oliver was over by Jes with one of his hands in front of her body; apparently he thought that he was somehow protecting her. Angie was up against the wall behind him with her hands over her eyes.

“I can’t watch,” she said after seeing Jean get hit with the second of the two pain-inducing attacks.

“Ahhh..J-Jamie…I l-love you…” Jean’s body was clearly struggling with each and every one of his movements as she tried to uncurl herself from the fetal position that the attack had put her in. Lex couldn’t take any more of this. If he still had eyes and a face, he would be crying.

“Glyph of Counterspell!” One of the many glyphs that he knew that were connected to his abilities slowly formed itself out of blue energy into the air, flew at Jean and then settled itself into a position above her, clearing away the ability that was causing her so much pain.

Jean immediately jumped up onto Jamie and clung to him while the four Kerubimon turned their attention to Lex.

“Jamie, I love you … remember that …”

“You insolent fool!” Lex knew that they were powering up, gathering energy for some kind of attack, but he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to block it, so instead he just watched Jean and Jamie, watching happily as the two of them kissed. If he had accomplished nothing else in his life, he had given them a few more seconds to be happy together.

A blast of hot air blew him against the wall, breaking both his concentration and his connection to the spell that he was using to keep Jean safe for a few moments. His grip on reality fluttered for a moment, but he was able to hold onto it strongly enough to realize that Angie was behind him and that he had to maneuver around her if he wanted her to survive. He hit the wall at full impact, and felt his power dissipate for a few moments.

“LEX, No!” He was dimly aware of the fact that he was being held up and supported by Angie’s outstretched arms. “Lex…are you alright?”

“I…I think so,”he answered, looking over to Jean and Jamie again. The Kerubimonhad used the pain attack on Jean again, and Jamie was leaning over her, laughing. He sounded like he had gone mad…

“Hahahahahaha!”Yep. He had gone mad. “AntiVirus…Vaccine…right…” Jamie giggled like a lunatic, grabbing hold of Jean’s hand tightly, who was quivering with pain. “You think you’re so much better just because you’re a different type…hahaha…even Jes has more mercy than you guys, and that’s saying something…” Jamie started babbling and repeating the same things over again. “Just a virus with a name upgrade…” The Kerubimon seemed to take great offense to what Jamie was saying, but seemed to collectively change their minds after a few seconds.

“…You are human, and corrupt, so your ignorance is understandable, and thus not beyond a measure of forgiveness. However, you should consider yourself lucky that our singular purpose is to reclaim her. If we had sent anyone else in our place…” their gazes fell on Jes and Lex first, then on everyone else in turn, although they didn’t stay on anyone else as long as they had on the two of them. “They would all be dead.”

* * * * * * * *

Angie had been trying to ignore whatever those little cherub things were, trying to concentrate on stroking Lex’s head and making him feel better, but when the little things looked at her and Lex, she started.

“And so would your child,” another one of them piped in, looking at Angie. Lex almost immediately growled. My child…?She thought, staring absently at the Kerubimonthat had spoken. She didn’t have any children…

“No one threatens Angie, or … …” Suddenly Lex’s face softened and he looked up at her instead of the little cherubs. “Oh, Angie…” his face almost immediately lit up as he looked smittenly at her.

OH!Although it was a delayed reaction, it was a strong one. There was no way that they were going to take away their child, no matter how hard they tried. It just wasn’t going to happen. They weren’t going to kill Lex, either. He was too nice…she smiled down at him and started stroking his head again.

* * * * * * *

Jean looked up at Jamie questioningly through the haze of pain. Nothing that he was saying was making any sense at this point…she could barely make out the words that were coming out of his mouth, let alone make any sense out of what they meant.

“Jamie…I love you … I’ll miss you…It was worth it…” she strained to lift herself up and kiss Jamie again and feel what it was like to have his arms around her, but before she could manage to get up to him before a more intense wave of pain knocked her back and the ground, causing another loud moan of pain to escape her.  The four members of the Council of Oversight and Judgement made a square around her, looking at Jamie and ignoring her.

“I guess I’m the only one you need to kill, then,” he said, giving her a silent, loving look while at the same time managing to voice absolute hatred to the Council that had come to take her away.  “As if you’d hesitate anyway…I guess I’m in the way your purpose…heh…why bother existing?  There’s no point, really…” he giggled again, reaching down and grabbing her hand.  “Why am I happy?  I’m about to die…” she shook her head as much as she could, giving her a a quick kiss.  “Love you loads.  Like, everything…I guess that’s the fluff out of the way.  Go for it, pinky.”

“It is against our edicts to harm humans while here, as your ignorance is not the fault of yourself, and ultimately, nothing you could do in our world would do enough to attract our attention.  However, the corruption of one of our most sacred agents is not something that we can tolerate without punishment; rest assured that it will be dealt with at the next full meeting of the Councils.”

Jean closed her eyes and knew that the end was coming.  If it wasn’t coming this very moment, it would be coming very soon, and she didn’t want to see it coming.

* * * * * * * *

Lex watched sadly as the four small Digimon created a portal to the Digital World and take her with them.  He would have stopped them if he could, but the attack that they had used on him was extremely powerful, and he still wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to get back up to try and chase after Jean.

But he had to…Jean had given them a lot, and it was really his fault for being a virus that she got into all of this trouble.  If he had been an Angemon, or—he giggled at the thought of female—an Angewomon, he wouldn’t be in the position he was now.  But he was, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it standing here.