--- Visitors from Another World ---
Twelve kids and an equal number of Rookie digimon appeared in the middle of a clearing with a loud thump as most of them failed to land successfully. The youngest six and their partners were on alert, fresh from a battle against their current foe that had just gone strangely. "What's going on? Where are we this time?" Mimi Tachikawa asked from one edge of the group as these Digidestined collected themselves.
"Arukenimon had some sort of device that overcharged a large number of Control Spires," Ken Ichijouji explained as he cast a dark glare at a black obelisk nearby, and then paused as he inspected the nearby structure. "That one is active, and overgrown?" he then said with considerable confusion.
"I don't think I've ever seen anything like that, Ken," Wormmon agreed with his partner, and the large group looked with unease at the vine covered structure.
Patamon then immediately evolved into Angemon as T.K. braced for whoever was using that Spire, and then everyone paused at the success of that attempt. "Wait, even Arukenimon and Mummymon have been able to use those to stop that," Yolei said uneasily.
Davis Motomiya and Veemon both looked around with rather nervous expressions. "How far could they have sent us?" he asked with a bit of false bravado. "Ken, any idea where we are?"
"I'm not sure I even could recognize all of the places I built Spires," the former villain said regretfully. "Maybe we should just look around?"
"Sounds like a plan to me," Tai said as the older Digidestined and their digimon finished checking what supplies they actually had on hand. There was not much at all, as none of them had been prepared for the sudden shift in location, and they didn't have the luck this time to be left with an emergency supply bag.
The landscape was quickly identified as the edge of a forest being logged for industrial purposes, with machinery still present and a lot of tracks leading to the site from the direction of the Spire. "I don't get it, this doesn't really look like the kind of thing I remember you doing as the emperor," Cody said to Ken, with a flinch at the end as the younger Digidestined realized how that sounded.
"It isn't. This looks almost like the kind of places I ran into when I was conquering, but this place is definitely connected to that spire," the reformed Digidestined said, still clearly unfamiliar with what they were finding. They had moved into the tree line to try and find any digimon working at the site, but it had quickly become clear that it had not been used for at least a couple of days.
"Are you sure this is the right place, Boss Man?" a loud and deep female voice said from outside the forest in the direction of the Spire.
"Yes, Dark Tyranomon," a familiar sounding voice replied, although none of the Digidestined in the forest were quite sure they were hearing what it almost sounded like. "There was a fairly massive breach in the barriers of this world just a short time ago at this location, and that likely means someone has arrived from another world."
"Do we really need to deal with this ourselves, Ken?" Wormmon's voice said from the same direction as those other two, despite all of them being able to clearly see Ken's partner was not speaking. Then a trio of digimon finally entered view, a bored looking Dark Tyranomon, a sinister and massive Blossomon who had vines that matched those around the Control Spire, and another Wormmon sitting on top of the plant digimon's largest flower. This new trio stopped firmly on spotting all of them. "Ken, why is there someone else who looks like you should?" the insect doppelganger asked the Blossomon.
"I can still turn human, Wormmon," the plant monster grumbled fairly quietly, but also looked over the Digidestined carefully. "I doubt these are imposters given what we know. For one thing as far as I can recall I have never interacted with the Digidestined in that outfit." The mass of vines and flowers shuffled forward in a totally inhuman manner that made it hard to believe this was some other version of Ken. "Their response to our appearance also rules out travelers from the future, and that first fact rules out the past. Which means they are most likely from another reality where some event has gone differently at some point."
"Any way we can double check?" the massive black scaled dinosaur questioned as she carefully inspected all of them herself. This third digimon was the most out of place of the trio, and most of the Digidestined and their digimon were unable to figure out who she was. "I don't want to let some troublemakers get away with something like that. Makes you look like a bad Emperor."
"You're still the Digimon Emperor?" T.K. asked harshly at that statement.
"It's just the Dark Emperor now, I basically lost the war and got stuck leading what's left of my army now that it's over," the Blossomon dully replied. "So, if you're saying that it means you aren't an emperor anymore. How did you manage that?"
Ken honestly didn't have any idea where to start with how wrong that question was. "How exactly did you manage to get anyone to side with you in the first place? All that I ever did was control digimon," he asked with a great deal of unease. The Wormmon in front of them looked just like his partner, and the Blossomon sounded sort of like him, but that didn't make him a mirror.
"Boss man had us fighting the damn crystal monsters," the Dark Tyranomon said with a huff. "I know they turned out to be trying to fix things, but invading the digimon world and kidnapping all the digimon out of it looked a lot worse than what the Emperor was doing to us. Especially since we didn't know they were just taking them to another digital world."
"Where did another digital world come from?" Tai asked for the group as they all tried to process that insane 'explanation'.
"I think that means they didn't have to mess with Team Upload," the other Wormmon complained. "That means... A whole lot of things probably didn't happen to them actually." The three digimon all seemed to need a moment to consider that idea. "That's an entire war that didn't happen."
"Dark Tyranomon, go contact the Digidestined and let them know we have versions of them from another world where Upload did not arrive," the Blossomon said quickly and firmly. "I'll try and figure out at least some of how things have gone for them without that interference helping against the overall threat."
"Do you mean that this 'team' started a war in the digital world just to deal with Arukenimon and Mummymon?" Izzy asked with clear horror.
"Myotismon actually," the other Wormmon said with clear and understandable hate.
"Myotismon?" the older Digidestined all shouted as soon as the name was out of the digimon's mouth.
"Our Digidestined have known that he was behind that conflict longer than they knew who I was," the Blossomon grumbled. "I'm not sure where they found out it was him though." The plant monster then looked thoughtful for a moment. "How and when did they learn that you were the Emperor?"
"Wait really? How did they figure something like that out before the soccer game?" Davis asked before the other Digidestined could ask any of a large number of better questions.
"I don't remember ever playing against your counterpart in a soccer game," Blossomon admitted with a tone that said he still had realized something important from the question. "But I do know that Upload's first major offensive against my forces caused me to miss one. Although that was only about a week after Upload arrived, which was quite a while ago. I cannot imagine that they wouldn't have tried to confront you in the human world with that much chance."
"Two of them are on their way, Boss," Dark Tyranomon rumbled as she returned. "Apparently their tech guy already had some idea this happened," she added while pointing at Izzy. "So good news is that they're already trying to get all their world traveling stuff ready. Find any bad news yet?"
"Apparently in their world they've known exactly who I am about as long as you've been working with me in this one," the plant monster grumbled. "We probably need more information to really compare."
"I suppose we could explain what's happened so far," T.K. grumbled while giving all three of the digimon a dark glare. "At least until we find this 'help' you called."
---
Blossomon mostly watched who he could have been as the group explained the way the conflict would have gone without outside interference. It was strangely enough a string of lower scale combat encounters for fairly random results compared to his own focused war, but that didn't mean he didn't understand how such events could arise. He just wished more of that understanding came from the part of him that was Ken Ichijouji, instead of most of it being perfectly logical only from his perspective as the Dark Spore.
For instance the transfer from just expanding territory, to then trying to capture the partner digimon in order to gain the advantage of an Ultimate in that lower stakes conflict, and then to making a true Dark power to take over for this other Ken. That path of events made perfect sense if viewed in the context of the standing orders on how to proceed that his Spore-self remembered.
From the way the group was reacting to their own explanation it was also apparent to them that what they were explaining made more sense now that they knew someone else was using Ken as well. Particularly once it neared the end of that series of events, as this 'Kimeramon' he made was a lot better explained with that context.
"Honestly, I just turned myself into an Ultimate," he admitted to the group as they started to describe a race to a location deep in the ocean that he now needed to inform his own Digidestined about. "Considering it merged me with the evil plant spore stuck in my body, I'd say that was a worse idea."
"It sounds like it took him longer to figure out that this wasn't just a game, Boss Man," Dark Tyranomon said to add some uncertainty. "That is what got us trying to take down the spider and the mummy. Well, got you helping the two of us."
"You were working with Arukenimon and Mummymon?" the smallest Digidestined asked, and Ken was fairly sure that was the spike monster's human form. It had honestly been a while since he had seen the human forms of the Digidestined, and he wasn't entirely sure if he still knew all of their names. "Is that why you tried to become a digimon yourself?"
"That is part of why he did that. Team Upload captured these artifacts called the 'Destiny Stones' and used them to lock those two out of the digimon world," Wormmon explained, and apparently the younger members of this other set of Digidestined had some idea what those were. "So those two had to go to Ken to come here. That was maybe a week after that first assault by Upload, but it took a lot longer for Ken to turn himself into a Blossomon."
"Did they have a fortune teller or something?" one of the younger girls asked, Blossomon was fairly sure she was Flybeemon's human form.
"Yes actually," he admitted to them with an uneasy shift of his smaller flowers, he could feel those other faces frowning. "They apparently knew in advance that those things needed protection from some threat."
"That is frightening, but given that those two are currently trying to destroy those stones in our world I believe I can see the reasoning," this other Izzy said to them all. "But I think the next part is the important one," the genius added to get them back on track.
"Well, it was a big fight to actually beat Kimeramon," T.K. started to explain, and the only reason Blossomon knew his name was that one of the Flamedramons' counterparts kept having trouble with it. "Ken didn't really have any control over that horror, and we ended up having to take down his entire base to even try to beat the thing."
"Yeah, we went inside and grabbed his power core. It turned out to be some special golden Digi-Egg," the Flamedramon's counterpart said eagerly. "Veemon was able to evolve into Magnamon and that almost was enough to take out Kimeramon." The leader of the Digidestined in the field then looked a lot sadder, as did the rest of the group. Especially Blossomon's own counterpart. "Wormmon gave all his energy so that we had enough to beat him, and then he died."
"Wormmon what!" Blossomon demanded at that statement, his vines cracking a tree he had been idly holding onto.
"I don't think you have any room to complain about that sort of thing, Ken," his own partner countered with a dull angry tone that was familiar after the plant crashed to the ground. "Given that you did that exact same thing to get the rest of the Digidestined to Mega against Myotismon."
"It was the best option," he tiredly explained to his partner, while the group of arrivals looked at him with a large amount of horror.
"You died in the digital world?" the other Ken said in a horrified cry, as if there had been a chance when that could have died in that way before.
"Not quite. We had to hijack the energy transfer capability of the Control Spires, and the best way I could do that was manually," Blossomon admitted sadly. "I burned out my own energy, and now only the network of active Spires is keeping me alive." He turned over towards the closest one, the location always in his mind. "I am negotiating with the Digidestined to see if one can be built in the human world so I can return there."
"You mean that you're stuck in the digital world?" the older girl with pink hair asked sympathetically. "That's horrible."
"It was the best option," he repeated tiredly as he felt the approach of two flying digimon. "I believe the Digidestined are here."
---
Yolei looked with considerable worry in the direction the giant flower digimon had turned as he said that. They already were in some world where the whole digimon problem had already been solved, but apparently that took an entire war happening first. Two digimon then swooped down from that direction, and this time there was another Hawkmon alongside an unknown other digimon, a red metal dragonfly monster that it still took a horrible moment for her to realize might claim to be another version of her.
"Alright, what exactly did you find 'Emperor'?" that bug monster asked in a voice that was definitely too close to her own.
"Well, Flybeemon, it appears to be a version of your group plus myself that has never had to deal with Team Upload," the plant monster shot back. "You do know I have a name, right?"
"Tai didn't tell the rest of us yet to preserve your identity," Flybeemon countered a touch sympathetically.
"Yolei does have a point, Ken. You did only tell them so they could tell your parents you were stuck here," the other Wormmon said.
"I honestly had forgotten her name," the plant monster grumbled surprisingly apologetically. "It has been so long since I've even seen any of you in human form."
"You make it sound like I'm turning into a human again," the other Hawkmon complained. "I've been human once so far, and I'd rather not try again."
"You've what?" all of the digimon other than Flybeemon asked, including all three of the local digimon their group had been talking to. "I just meant her, I didn't even know that you could turn normal digimon into humans like that," Blossomon clarified with some degree of unease. Yolei found she wasn't the only one of the Digidestined looking at their partner with some worry, but Mimi looked completely horrified.
"You mean we've gone to a world where humans and digimon switch skins?" the older girl asked half hysterically.
"Which one is she?" the Blossomon asked Flybeemon, who looked like they would rather do anything but answer.
"I'll let our Mimi figure out how to tell her that," the bug grumbled and then tapped a little bit of glass under the metal visor on their head. "I made it, it's a full group. Looks like twenty four people, including a Ken Ichijouji." She rapidly turned to face Blossomon. "Wait, you're Ken Ichijouji?"
"Can we focus on getting these guys out of our territory," Dark Tyranomon grumbled, not really asking a question.
"Okay, do you guys really expect me to believe that we are in another world where I just happen to turn into a giant bug?" Yolei finally asked of this insane display of unreality.
"Excuse me? Have you ever even tried the other forms we have for options?" Flybeemon asked rather harshly. "Halsemon and Moosemon are both four legged, Harpymon only has wings, Shurimon has blades at the end of every one of your limbs instead of actual hands."
"You can let go of those," both of their Hawkmon grumbled to interrupt the sudden list of digimon. "Wait, are those what I'd turn into with the other Digi-Eggs?" Yolei's partner added suddenly.
"Yeah, this one here is Knowledge. Which is why it is the bug one," Flybeemon confirmed tapping her metal chest plate. Then the insect digimon looked very thoughtful. "But we didn't actually start using the other forms until we had the artificial ones, and Upload made those. After Upload turned us into digimon and humans as a distraction to begin with," Flybeemon said with growing anger. "A whole week of being stuck as a Hawkmon or Halsemon just because they thought they couldn't have us knowing that they were targeting the Destiny Stones."
"How did you hide being a digimon from your family for a whole week?" Matt asked uneasily, and Yolei wasn't sure how this digimon would explain that. The question seemed to make Flybeemon shake with some emotion, but Yolei couldn't tell what.
"We didn't," the other Hawkmon answered. "The people we were working with at that point made us tell them, and that led to so many issues. We came here from the new stand our dad managed to get set up to sell things in this world as a lizard monster."
"I still don't believe Tai is letting him do that," Flybeemon sighed. "Four different worlds, and the three that we can actually let stuff go between are monster worlds he isn't from."
"I really wish we were more sure he wasn't from any of them," the other Hawkmon agreed.
"Boss man, are you sure we can really trust the Digidestined with these other Digidestined?" Dark Tyranomon asked, and after all of that Yolei felt it was a valid question.
---
T.K. was not sure at all if these digimon were actually trustworthy, but by this point their story was complicated enough that he actually believed it. For one thing Arukenimon didn't seem the type to put this much effort into just keeping them busy. The argument that resulted from the massive dinosaur's latest complaint was definitely good proof that this was somehow another world's Yolei.
"Right, they should be as fine as we can promise from anywhere in our worlds," digimon Yolei said while clearly aware that wasn't reassuring. "And if anything does happen our medical facility should be stocked now," she added to T.K.'s considerable confusion.
"You have a medical facility?" Tai asked clearly just as uncertain.
"We kind of got our own personally tiny digital world office building thing we're using for that," the other Hawkmon attempted to explain. "It is probably a lot easier to show you all than explain. Yolei, do they have a portal ready yet?"
A tear in reality answered him, with the far side showing what honestly looked like a perfectly normal office building's reception desk. At least as long as you overlooked the small lizard-bird monster sitting on the visible desk. "Oh wow, that's actually another set of everyone," that monster commented. "Mr. Yagami, they're coming in now, I'll send them to the cafeteria," she then said to an intercom on the desk.
"Tell Yolei and Hawkmon to keep them from actually eating anything in there until after Joe gets a chance to check them out," Tai's voice said from that device fairly clearly. "I've called him over at DSS, but it will be a while for him to finish what he was working on over there."
"You're on speaker, and Aiko has it loud enough that I think the other Digidestined can hear you," the Flybeemon yelled through the opening in reality. "Come on, we have a bunch of vending machines it might not be safe for you to use," she then told all of them.
They somewhat reluctantly followed the bug and bird digimon into the office building, and then through a doorway into a cafeteria more than large enough to fit all of them. Another Agumon was in the large room at one of the vending machines covered in alien berries on their advertisements, apparently there for a can of some fruit drink with a funny looking top. "Oh, Yolei. Is this that other set of Digidestined?" this small dinosaur asked they came into view.
"They never had to deal with Upload," the other Hawkmon explained tiredly.
"Does that mean they didn't meet Shawn and DSS either?" the other Agumon asked thoughtfully. "Because that would explain why they don't seem to recognize the base."
"Well, DSS was chasing Team Upload for some reason. I tried to get that Jack guy to explain, but how he dodged clear answers was just too complicated for me to figure out if they actually wanted to catch them or help them," Flybeemon responded, and then motioned for them all to sit down. "I'm not looking forward to whatever the straight answer is for that one."
"Do we even get any answers we look forward to anymore?" the other Agumon joked. "Anyway, I have a presentation to get ready for. Good luck." The small dinosaur then left the room with his drink, as if a digimon giving presentations was just normal.
"I'm glad he wasn't in the suit again," the other Hawkmon grumbled confusingly, which seemed to be the default way these digimon said anything. After that they basically just sat in the big room for a while. It was awkward, the two local digimon present clearly didn't want to ask questions after how the conversation had gone so far, and T.K. could tell none of his friends wanted to share information right now.
After a few minutes they were greeted by the mostly relieving sight of an actual human being, although the digimon alongside the newcomer wasn't as reassuring, what looked like a wax Flamedramon that had been in the sun too long. It also would have helped if the kid was someone T.K. knew, instead of just some boy that looked sort of like if Davis had a little brother. "Yolei, were you able to get a good idea on what your dad's plan is? Because I'd like to deal with any problems that causes before they happen," the molten Flamedramon asked in a voice that was closer to Davis'.
"Finally a human!" their own Yolei cried out at the sight of the other new arrival. "I was starting to worry this was a world that only had digimon in it."
"Uh," said human said in a voice that was familiar, and had an easy explanation they had heard recently, but was still uncomfortable to think about. A common problem here. "Are these the other versions of us?"
"Looks like it- Oh. I guess we just call the other you 'Veemon'?" the Flamedramon then asked the only Veemon in the room.
"What?" Yolei asked flatly. "You're- The first human in this entire world we see is Veemon?" she then asked a lot more angrily. "Why is your Veemon human?"
"I haven't been a Veemon for a long time now, so really it's probably better to just call me 'Davey'," the boy admitted, then looked thoughtful. "Although I guess you didn't know my name before, so that kind of makes sense."
"But, why haven't you been a Veemon?" Veemon asked sounding a bit hurt.
"Uh, well. Honestly it would make a lot more sense if you've been human before, but that's not a nice thing to just do to somebody to try and figure that out," Davey replied with an embarrassed tone. "Although a big part is mom talking about all the things humans can do."
"Wait, do we know that their partners are clones of them too?" the Flamedramon asked thoughtfully, which was another whole new topic T.K. didn't know where to start with.
"Can we hold off on any more strange things going on in this world until we've handled some of the ones we've already heard?" Sora asked what he was thinking out loud, and a touch desperately. "We've already found out that your Ken has gotten stuck as a digimon in the digital world, your Yolei is some kind of bug monster." Said bug monster was not happy with that statement, and shouted that she was usually human. "Then we learned that you somehow have people switching species everywhere, had a secret base, and now your Veemon has apparently decided to be human."
"Well, I don't really have any good news," the Flamedramon responded far more carefully than T.K. expected from Davis' counterpart. "Yolei, Hawkmon, maybe you should try and go over some of those a bit more? I've still got a couple of reports to write, and Tai wanted me to check out that new group of digimon mercenaries that apparently started up in the Mystery Dungeon world. Well, at least they sounded like mercenaries to me with how they do odd jobs to get money, and they called themselves a 'Team' which has me worried."
"Alright, I think we can handle that much," the other Hawkmon said before Flybeemon could complain more.
"I can help too," Davey said with a nod. "I'd actually rather not be a digimon again, and trying to explain why actually does sound better."
"Okay, I think I can handle most of it on my own. Maybe I'll ask T.K. and Patamon if they want to come along," the Flamedramon said to the shock of T.K. and his set of Digidestined. "If something big comes up don't be afraid to contact me, but, well if something big happens on my end I might end up calling instead." The lizard-blob monster then simply left without a second glance at them to head back to the room they had arrived from.
"Was that really your me?" Davis asked uneasily. "He seemed smart," their gogglehead reluctantly admitted.
"Well that does sound like a question he'd ask," Flybeemon said carefully. "Was that really that much smarter? He seemed fairly normal to me."
"He's usually a bit faster about things when he's a Flamedramon," Davey noted easily, as if that was just a thing. "That's actually one part of why I haven't been a Veemon, I'm a bit smarter as a human. Not much, the change when I went right from Veemon to Flamedramon was bigger, but still enough to not want to stay a Rookie."
"What about ExVeemon?" Veemon asked a bit sharply, understandably the lizard digimon wasn't taking this whole thing very well.
"ExVeemon?" all three of the locals asked.
"Wait a moment, do you mean you've managed to evolve normally, without using a Digi-Egg?" the other Hawkmon asked a touch jealously. "None of us have managed that yet."
"Well, Kari and Cody have, but that's a bit different," Flybeemon noted, but she still looked interested in their answer.
"Yes," their own Hawkmon replied to his double. "I become an Aquilamon, Armadillomon turns into an Ankylomon, and Wormmon ends up a Stingmon."
"Aquilamon," both the local Hawkmon and their Yolei sighed. "Just like Momoe's pelt," Flybeemon then added inexplicably to the Digidestined's mild horror.
"Whatever that means can wait," T.K. said before they could get lost learning how Yolei's sister ended up with the skin of her partner's evolved form.
"She's a Gabumon but different, a lizard wearing feathers instead of wolf fur," Flybeemon explained anyway at their mixture of reactions. "That just confirms that we probably share a Champion form."
"I'm still surprised the other Davis was so serious," Cody noted uneasily instead of engaging with that mess. "Even if he was smarter because he was a digimon."
"I'm standing right here you know," their Davis grumbled, but he didn't sound that upset. "But he did seem really focused. It was kind of cool, but weird."
T.K. could have agreed out loud, but honestly it was off putting enough to see a version of Davis that far more easily reminded him of Tai than his own version usually managed. The Yolei of this world was even looking at their Davis with considerable concern now from just how they all were reacting, and it was clear she respected her version in a way that made T.K. feel a bit bad about how he tended to think of his own.
"I think maybe we need another topic while we wait for Joe to get here with Nurse Joy," Davey sighed unhappily.
Izzy was the one who snorted at that name, but most of them were amused by the coincidence. "You mean you have a nurse for monsters named 'Joy'?" Davis asked clearly holding back a laugh. "Does she have pink hair, and a bunch of identical relatives too?" Davis then followed up, which was probably taking the joke too far.
"Yes," Flybeemon said in the slow awkward tone of someone who did not get the joke, but did have to agree to the question involved in it. That was rather terrifying. "So, you do know about Nurse Joys then? I guess Shawn must have still shown up in your world?" Her tone was questioning, and uneasy, but the real part of that which worried T.K. was how she had just casually agreed that the nurse that was coming with their Joe was in fact the same as a fictional character.
"Uh, like from the pokemon cartoon? I guess they were sort of in the games too, but I don't think they were named there," Izzy quickly tried to ask to make some sense of things. "I didn't think those were based on anybody."
"I'd think the actual pokemon world would be the first thing you'd talk about instead of their weird shows and games," Davey said, basically confirming that they were talking about real pokemon.
"'Team' Upload," T.K. realized aloud. "Do you mean like 'Team Rocket'?" he asked despite the insanity of questioning if a fictional group was related to real things.
"I believe they were once part of that group," the other Hawkmon agreed. "So you do know quite a bit then. That's a relief."
"But, pokemon aren't real," Cody pointed out, to the clear shock and confusion of the locals. "I mean it's just a game, not like digimon. My mom even has this little stuffed Sandslash toy she named after my great grandfather."
That statement made Flybeemon and Hawkmon take to the air and had Davey pale entirely. "Joe, please tell me you're going to get here soon!" Flybeemon then shouted.
"You forgot to ask questions to find out if the other Cody's great grandfather was a pokemon didn't you?" a thankfully human Joe suddenly asked as he arrived from the doorway opposite the entrance they had used, and he was alongside what was quite clearly a Nurse Joy from pokemon. She even had a Chansey with her wearing a name tag on a string that read 'Beatrice' and a small armband with some sort of device on it. For some reason the Nurse Joy had the same kind of name tag. "Yolei, we know that typed energy exposure could have turned ours into a Sandshrew at any point."
"I could what?" Cody asked a bit blankly, and T.K. didn't know how to approach that entire statement either.
"We still need to check if you have to worry about that," the other Joe said with quite a bit of confidence. "Honestly, with how things have been going for us we need to check every last one of you for any 'turns into another species' issues, digimon included." The older local Digidestined then got out some sort of complex handheld computer thing.
---
[Author's Note]
This 'what if' scenario has delayed the previous chapter quite a bit actually with how much time I ended up spending on it, and as you can see I didn't even manage to finish the reveals and scenes I had hoped to write.
I don't know if I will revisit this one, but there is enough interesting stuff here to at least get things going again if I do.
