Japanese Title: Bombing Mission! Mugendramon
While Taichi's group of Chosen Children wanders around, Hikari begins to cough heavily and collapses. The kids realize that Hikari's cold has returned, and Hikari tells them that she didn't tell them about this because she was afraid she'd drag everyone down from hurrying to save the world.
Taichi recalls an incident that had gotten Hikari into the hospital, and wonders if Hikari should have come to the Digital World at all, even if Hikari is necessary to Save Both Worlds. Kabuterimon leads the kids to a city that seems to have features of landmarks all over the human world, and they land in a mysterious house in the hopes of finding something for Hikari, only to find a box of cold medicine to be empty. Taichi entrusts Hikari's safety to Sora, appoints Takeru as a guard against the Dark Masters if they arrive, and goes out with Koushirou to look for something to help Hikari.
Koushirou uses a telephone booth and his laptop to find pharmacies and hospitals around the area, and they use it to get a lead on where to find medicine for Hikari — but unfortunately, Mugendramon at his base catches onto their tapping into the phone line and sends out his Metal Empire Army to attack all of the pharmacies and hospitals.
Taichi arrives at a hospital and gets another flashback, this time of his mother running in to meet him at a hospital and demanding to know where Hikari is. Koushirou finds a bunch of medicine, but without the help of Jou they're unable to figure out which is cold medicine, and Koushirou taps into the network again to run a search, alerting Mugendramon to their exact location. Thus, even though they successfully identify which bottle to take to Hikari, they're quickly attacked by Mugendramon's army of Mechanorimonnote and Tankmon. Taichi and Koushirou wonder how they found them and make a run for it.
Koushirou uses his laptop to pinpoint where the army is stationed so they can avoid it and get the medicine to Hikari, but this broadcasts their location to Mugendramon again. Koushirou realizes this once the army ends up heading right towards them, and they're forced to have Agumon super-evolve to MetalGreymon in order to escape.
Taking refuge in a church, Koushirou admits his carelessness in allowing Mugendramon to get to them through the network, and Taichi goes ballistic at him because due to him, they're stuck while Hikari's condition is getting worse. Taichi realizes what he's doing, stops, and narrates the story of how one time when he was in second grade and Hikari was in kindergarten, he'd underestimated an illness that Hikari had, taken her out to play with soccer with him, and only realized something was seriously wrong when she'd kicked the ball feebly and collapsed. Hikari was taken to the hospital in a near-death condition, and when Taichi's parents found out, he was harshly slapped across the face and scolded by his infuriated mother at how he nearly killed his little sister because of his stupid decision. When she had returned from the hospital, the first thing she had said to Taichi was an apology for not kicking the ball well.
Taichi breaks down and says that this is the kind of person Hikari is: someone who will put others before herself, even if it kills her, and that Hikari may have not even wanted to come to the Digital World but considered it her duty to help save it. As a result, Taichi feels like he's failing in his own duty to protect Hikari.
Koushirou decides that two can play at Mugendramon's game and sets up his computer so that it'll hide the location of his network access but also reveal the location of Mugendramon's army. Unfortunately, this causes Mugendramon to resort to his last resort of "Plan Z", which is to send out Megadramon and Gigadramon to blow up the entire city. Koushirou realizes this, and they quickly head back to the house before it's promptly blown to pieces and a despairing Taichi is placed under attack... before he’s promptly saved by Angemon and Takeru, who has the others hiding out with him.
They're soon attacked by Mugendramon himself, who sends everyone down a large pit...
Tropes
- Abuse Discretion Shot: During one of the flashbacks, when Tai causes his little sister Kari to become hospitalized due to taking her out to play when she was ill, a slapping sound is heard as the scene transitions from Kari lying unconscious on the playground to Tai holding his reddened cheek and his mom with her raised hand, tearfully and angrily shouting, "What were you thinking?!" (This is averted in the original Japanese version, however, where the slap is shown onscreen.)
- All-Loving Hero: Hikari proves to be a deconstruction of this trope: she is so selfless she will always put other people's needs in front of her own, even if it kills her. When Taichi is rambling about it to Koushiro, he thinks that probably Hikari didn't want to come to the Digital World to begin with, but that she felt she couldn't refuse knowing what was at stake. This trait is also evident in Taichi's flashbacks, in which Hikari went outside to play with him even knowing she was sick, and she almost died as a result. On top of that, the first thing Hikari said to Taichi once she got better and went home, was apologising for not being able to kick the ball very well.
- City of Everywhere: Machinedramon's domain consists of buildings from every famous city: New York, Paris, Rome, etc.
- Cutting the Knot: After Izzy launches a pattern of fake access points, causing his army to stuck in place, Machinedramon just decides to have Megadramon and Gigadramon bomb the entire city.
- Eiffel Tower Effect: Machinedramon's city domain is made to resemble many cities across the world. At first, the Chosen Children believe they're in America, but then they see Rome's Colosseum and Paris' Arc de Triomphe.
- A Glass of Chianti: Piedmon comments how Machinedramon lacks of feelings and is the perfect killing machine while he gleefully enjoys a glass of wine.
- Gratuitous Spanish: After Piedmon muses about how he won't be able to torture the Chosen Children because he believes Machinedramon will successfully kill them, he said "Adios!" while looking at the scene through a screen.
- Heroic RRoD: Spending an extensive amount of time trekking through a sweltering desert with no proper cover, all after being chased and fought by two Dark Masters and their forces, proves to be too much for the eight-year-old Kari's body to handle and she collapses on the road from heatstroke and fever.
- Hope Spot: Izzy finds a box of medicine for Kari only to see it's empty.
- Mecha-Mooks: MachineDramon makes heavy use of Cyborg and mechanical flunkies, such as the Mekanorimon and Tankmon, to try to flush the heroes out of hiding.
- Mutual Kill: The Mechanorimon and the Tankmon that cornered Taichi, Koushiro, Agumon and Tentomon accidentally blast each other when both of them fire at the same time and the Chosen Children and their Digimon are able to escape.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Koushiro connecting his computer to the network makes it possible for Machinedramon and his army to find him and Taichi. When Koushiro realizes this and lauches a pattern of fake access points in an attempt to fool them, Machinedramon decides to simply destroy the entire city.
- Palette Swap: Megadramon and Gigadramon have very similar designs, with the major differences being their color palette and the fact that Gigadramon has mechanical wings.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Subverted. When Taichi and Koushiro finally make it back to the house with the medicine, the house is bombed by Megadramon and Gigadramon... and then when a missile is about to kill them, they are saved by Angemon and it's revealed that Takeru, Sora, Hikari and their Digimon took shelter in time and are safe.
