Japanese Title: The Four Kings of the Evil Mountain! The Dark Masters!
Four large Digimon discuss that the Chosen Children will be returning soon, and prepare to take them on...
The Chosen Children and their Digimon land in the Digital World and see that, in the same way they could see the Digital World's formations from the real world, they can see the real world in the Digital World's sky. They soon find none other than the Chuumon from File Island. While Jou finds out the hard way that the Digital World's surfaces are fragmented and creating cliffs out of nowhere, Chuumon explains that his friend Sukamon died falling into a pit created by the distortions, and that the distortions were caused by the powers of darkness reshaping the world to make it easier to rule. He points out Spiral Mountain, a towering mountain that most of the land had been twisted and shaped into.
Chuumon reveals that the Digimon responsible for this are called "the Dark Masters", and that anyone who has tried to go against the Dark Masters has been defeated. They are attacked by one Dark Masters, MetalSeadramon, and the Chosen's Digimon evolve in order to take him on... only for MetalSeadramon to make short work of them.
MetalSeadramon blasts them away to another area, where they're attacked by Mugendramonnote , another of the Dark Masters. All of the Chosen have their Digimon (except Angemon, who was knocked back to Patamon before the battle started) super-evolve against... only to be promptly defeated again. They're sent into an area, where everyone finds themselves controlled by a literal puppet master: the third Dark Master, Pinnochimonnote . Pinnochimon forces all of the Digimon to devolve and ships them and the Chosen off to the last Dark Master, Piemonnote , who tells them a deranged story of the Chosen climbing up Spiral Mountain and being killed by the Dark Masters.
Taichi and Yamato have Agumon and Gabumon warp-evolve, but Piemon quickly defeats them and tells them that they"re too inexperienced to properly use their Ultimate-level powers against him. The four Dark Masters regroup and prepare to kill the Chosen starting with Mimi, but Chuumon takes the attack for them. Just as they’re about to get killed, Piccolomon appears and creates a diversion while they escape.
Piccolomon tells them that there"s something the Chosen are missing that they"ll need to get before they can defeat the Dark Masters, but he’s interrupted by the Dark Masters themselves before he can elaborate. Piccolomon tells the Chosen to head towards Spiral Mountain while he holds off the Dark Masters, assuring them that they’ll find what they’re missing and that they"ll be invincible.
An explosion in the distance informs the Chosen that Piccolomon had performed a Heroic Sacrifice to save them, and the kids head off to Spiral Mountain...
Tropes
- Alien Sky: As a counterpart to the Digital World looming in Earth's sky, the heroes find out that the Earth itself has replaced the Digital World's own skies.
- Back for the Dead: Chuumon and Piccolomon appear again just to be killed by the Dark Masters before the episode is over.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: For all their power and for the successive demonstrations of how much more powerful than the Chosen Children they are, the truth is that the Dark Masters could have just killed the children and their Digimon instead of trying to put on a show. That way, Piccolomon probably wouldn't have made it in time to save them.
- Bus Crash: In this episode we learn that Sukamon died while the Chosen Children were in the real world.
- Call-Back: Chuumon at first is scared of the Chosen Children and only calms down when he notices that Palmon and Mimi are in the group. It makes sense considering that Mimi and Palmon are the only Chosen Child and partner Digimon he and Sukamon actually met in person, thirty episodes earlier.
- Cliffhanger: The English dub pushed Piximon's sacrifice to the opening of the next episode, ending the episode with him standing off against the Dark Masters.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Dark Masters wreck the Chosen with four in quick succession, to drive home the power of Mega-level Digimon and of the Dark Masters in particular:
- First, MetalSeadramon takes on all eight Adult partner Digimon at once, tanks their attacks face-on without flinching, and throws them about like beanbags before tossing them over the horizon.
- Next, Machinedramon easily defeats Angemon and, when the other Digimon digivolve to Ultimate level and charge him at once, knocks them out of combat with a single shot each before they have a chance to do anything to him, and sends them falling into an abyss.
- Puppetmon/Pinnochimon's encounter is barely worth of being called a battle — he grabs the other Digimon with his puppet strings, makes them attacks each other and, when he gets bored, knocks them all back to their In-Training (or Adult, in Gatomon's case) stages with a hail of bullets.
- Piedmon takes on WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon at once, casually dodges their attacks and sends them back to being Agumon and Gabumon with a single blow.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Piximon stays behind to fight the Dark Masters, knowing full well that he can't survive such a battle, in order to buy the Digidestined time to escape and to survive long enough to save the world.
- Hollywood Darkness: Exaggerated. One of the first things the kids remark on upon returning to the Digital World is how dark it is, even though the sky is blue and the scene's actual brightness barely drops below the show's usual levels.
- Just in Time: Piccolomon saves the Chosen Children by taking them into his magic barrier when the Dark Masters were about to kill them.
- Killed Off for Real: Chuumon and Piccolomon are both killed by the Dark Masters.
- Mr. Exposition: Chuumon briefly serves as this, letting the Chosen Children, and by extension, the audience, know about how the Dark Masters reshaped the world into the Spiral Mountain and Sukamon's death.
- Taking the Bullet: Chuumon dies after shielding Mimi from a sword Piemon threw at her. He hangs on to life just for enough time to ask Mimi to go with him on a date after he's reborn.
