GJTPRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

THE DDLA - EPISODE 4: FLASH

Part 1: Enemies

Date: FridayMarch 19th, 2004

Time: Approx. 7:00 pm

Place: Ankokuwa High Command, southern Saitama Prefecture, near Tokyo Japan...

Giman Uirusu fidgeted on his "throne" in the building's control center, sighing and wishing for good news in a world that was only now giving him bad news.

The past two and a half weeks had been both tumultuous and very depressing. His Ankokuwa forces had just barely escaped total catastrophe at the Odaiba branch of Tokyo University, after his takeover attempt was defeated and his force scattered by the same group of kids and monsters that had defeated his attack on the Fuji TV station. Though a significant number of defectors from that college had supplemented the Ankokuwa ranks, all his efforts to generate a Digimon army had been thwarted, and worse, the public defiance of his cause had started escalating rapidly.

The failure of the attacks had aggravated a simmering anger against the Ankokuwa power and the momentum Giman once had now was gone. The momentum had now gone to his enemies, stirring up the youth of Tokyo with their words, now supplemented by police ads posting the Digimon as friends and encouraging support. The airwaves were filled with messages deliberately crafted to provoke public outrage and violence; he feared that a citizen's war had already been declared on him.

The more traditional enemies, rival yakuza gangs, now felt empowered by public support to take him on and stem their own losses to the Ankokuwa. Agents of these gangs in conjunction with young troublemakers had already attacked Ankokuwa offices in Osaka and Nagasaki, and the monitoring outposts in Tokyo city proper had either been abandoned or captured by police when citizens turned from informants to tattlers. He couldn't keep his headquarters here, close to the enemy, for he feared one good attack and all would be lost. What Giman needed most was time, time to build up a good defense against a monster attack, time to integrate the college defectors without losing their loyalty, time to find a supercomputer to use, time to make everything safe.

The only piece of good news he got was that a new supercomputer was being shipped to Tokyo from San Francisco, intended for the Japanese Meteorological and Seismic Research Center. Upon hearing this from his San Francisco cell, he told them to "go for broke", abandoning their offices to hijack the cargo vessel carrying the computer, the SS Crayfish. Now he was waiting for any word on whether the vessel had been captured or not.

The uneasy tedium was broken by a courier rushing into the room, holding out a slip of paper to take while in a respectful bow. Giman took the folded-up note and unfolded it. All it read was "Fish has been netted. What should be done now?"

This to-the-point message brought a smile to Giman's face, for it indicated that his San Francisco agents had managed to capture the ship. He told the courier to send the following message back: "Wait offshore for Sea Wolf, they will provide direction. Avoid contact with all military vessels." (The "Sea Wolf" referred to the AS Sea Wolf, a former harbor tugboat converted to a gunboat by Giman, occasionally used to monitor fishing activities of their clients.)

After giving this message to the courier, he also ordered him to summon Kobu to the chamber immediately. Giman would give Kobu the mission of prepping the Sea Wolf for launch as soon as possible (urgency was important because the window to pull off the heist was short) to take the supercomputer parts off the Crayfish and transfer them to Hub X for assembly. He would decide later what to do with the Crayfish, its now-hostage crew and its other cargo.

The important thing was that he was now back in the game. Now if he could get enough time, he could still build his army. For the moment, he smiled with satisfaction...

Previously, at the Odaiba school computer lab, Odaiba, 5:00pm...

"Order... order! Let's have order!" Izzy exclaimed over an assembly of DigiDestined, sitting in the computer lab that had once been an access point to the Digital World. Now it was, at least temporarily the main council assembly room.

When the crowd calmed down, he officially stated that the first meeting of the First Council of the Digidestined was now in order and roll would be called. The list of members was called and each member responded in affirmative: Tai, Agumon, Matt, Gabumon, Izzy, Tentomon, T.K., Patamon, Kari, Gatomon, Davis, Veemon, Ken and Wormmon.

With roll finished, Izzy declared the meeting in session and opened the floor to motions. T.K.'s hand shot up almost immediately, surprising a few others in the room.

"T.K., you have the focus of the council. Make your motion." Izzy replied in a procedural manner, his monotone belying the surprise on his face.

"I move to declare open conflict with the Ankokuwa. The time is right, we have the public on our side, and if we do nothing the initiative goes back to him. It's time we took the fight to him!" T.K. argued vehemently.

"Any to second the motion?" Izzy asked, the reply coming from Davis' raised hand.

"T.K.'s right, we need to take the fight to this guy instead of just reacting to him!" Davis explained, a glance at Kari's face warning him not to try anything funny.

"Very well then. Any opposing arguments?" Izzy asked now, this time meeting with silence. This prompted him to pass the motion to the Digimon, who had the same right of support and objection as the human members of the Council.

"Izzy, I think I speak for all of us when I say we support this. We are facing someone that clearly has designs on the Digital World, and stopping him here will keep the Digital World safe. It may also bring back the Crests sooner than the estimate Gennai gave us." Tentomon quickly piped up. With no dissenting opinion, Izzy declared the motion passed.

Izzy wrote the official declaration: "The DigiDestined, provoked by the gross and malicious acts of violence at the Fuji TV Station and Odaiba College as well as the potential to become a direct Digital World threat, do hereby declare a state of war against the Ankokuwa yakuza organization and its allies. This declaration hereby authorizes any means necessary to permanently neutralize or destroy the threat posed by the Ankokuwa organization, and this declaration shall be in force until said objective has been achieved."

After Izzy wrote and read the declaration to the Council, Matt questioned how "street legal" it would be. "Earlier this week, I got a message from the Tokyo Police chief. He basically stated that they were fast-tracking our special commissions and that we were legally protected for any damages we may cause fighting against the Ankokuwa." Ken answered.

"So we have legal protection in case our Digimon accidentally smash up a building or something in our fighting? I wish we had had that a few months back..." Davis commented.

"I think if it wasn't for the fact that the December attacks were confusing everybody, we would've already been sued. Hopefully, that cover is retroactive..." Tai added.

"You see what they say on the TV? Some humans are pretty loony about what they think of us..." Veemon piped up.

"Stay focused, guys. Any other motions for consideration?" Izzy stated, bringing attention back to him.

Tai's hand went up after a few moments of inactivity. "You have focus, Tai." Izzy affirmed.

"I propose that we turn our informal relationships with the newer kids into a formal master-apprentice training program with assignments based on Digimon species, and that this system should be implemented as quickly as possible." Tai explained.

"Interesting, anyone to second the motion?" Izzy asked. This time, no one raised a hand.

"Very well then, are there objections to the motion?" Izzy asked again. Matt cautiously raised a hand in response.

Izzy acknowledged that Matt had focus and Matt stated, "I do not think now is the right time to implement such a system. These kids are going to get dragged into our conflict with the Ankokuwa, and I don't know if their partners are ready to protect them if worst comes to worst. It's only been about a month since their partners got to their In-Training forms, I don't know if they would be confident enough in a fight or not. Let's see what the Ankokuwa do next before we put that plan into action."

"Very well, the floor is open for rebuttals." Izzy stated, looking around at the pondering council members.

Tai spoke up again: "I understand your concern Matt, but to fight the Ankokuwa we're going to need all the help we can get. These kids have connections we don't have, know things we don't know yet. They can help us fight in ways we can't; if they know anything about where the Ankokuwa are, they can help in that way, or even just fight alongside us. I believe the benefits outweigh the risks here."

"I still don't think it's a very good idea right now. Both our parents and their parents are holding us accountable for whatever happens to them. I just don't want to be taking the risk of something going wrong." Matt replied.

"I see your point, but we need to believe that they can be an effective help to us. We need to encourage them to be the best assistants they can be, and if we don't let them try we're going to lose some opportunities to fight against Giman and his organization."

"Tai's right. We need to give them a chance to prove that they are just as capable of being DigiDestined as we are!" Davis quickly added.

"Same thing here too! Those new Digimon are looking up to us! We should let them help us!" Veemon interjected, apparently speaking for at least some of the other Digimon.

"I do think Matt has a fair point though. Why don't we wait a few days on this, give everybody a chance to think it over as well as ask the new kids what they think?" Ken put in. When no one objected to this, Izzy asked for a vote on tabling the motion until all interested parties had been contacted. The human vote was 4-3 in favor of tabling the motion (Tai, Davis and T.K. being the minority); the Digimon unanimously agreed not to vote directly on the matter and accepted the results of the human vote by default, not wishing to cause further problems.

Izzy opened the floor to additional motions after the vote was recorded, but none came up. He then quietly dismissed the council, giving Tai the power to chair the next council meeting. The DigiDestined dispersed, Tai with Kari, Matt with T.K., and Izzy with Davis and Ken. All were talking about how this experiment with democracy had worked reasonably well despite the hesitation on the part of the Digimon in participating.

For the DigiDestined, there seemed to be nothing but good days ahead. But even then, a new crisis was begin to form, propelled by desperation and dismay on the part of a ghost of the past...

Time – 11:00 pm, Kamiya apartment...

"Kari, there's something here."

"Gatomon, you're hearing things. Go to bed already..."

"No Kari, there's something here. I feel a presence."

Kari sat up in bed, immediately noticing Gatomon slowly scanning the room, her tail ring and eyes glowing in the darkness.

"Are you sure, Gatomon?" Kari worriedly asked.

"Positive. There's a psychic signal I can feel from it, it's around here."

Kari smirked in the darkness, checking around her bed to make sure it wasn't the Dark Ocean trying to take her again. When no obvious signals of such activity appeared, she got up out of bed and turned on a light.

As soon as the light turned on, Kari let out a loud yelp. There were three shadows the light was making, but only her and Gatomon in the room. The third shadow, vaguely shaped like a human figure, suddenly darted in Gatomon's direction. The feline Digimon fled toward a corner, but the shadow caught up with her, and she was frozen in place for a few seconds with the shadow underneath her position.

Having heard the yelp, Tai and Agumon burst into the room, Tai asking what was going on. The human figure shadow zipped toward Tai and Agumon, Gatomon still frozen in place. Tai now yelped as well, jumping out of the way of the shadow as it settled under the startled Agumon. He too was frozen in place for a few seconds, then suddenly the shadow drifted toward the wall facing to the outside of the building and disappeared into the same wall.

"Tai? Kari? What happened?!" came the voice of Tai and Kari's mom from behind, Tai and Kari turning around to see their mom and dad awake with a mixture of concern and sleepiness. Tai and Kari looked at each other for a moment, then responded that they didn't know what had just happened but whatever it was had disappeared.

Meanwhile, Gatomon had become able to move again, and rushed over to Agumon despite feeling a tingling sensation all over her body. "What happened? Where'd it go? What did it want?" she heard Agumon asking from his frozen position.

"I don't know, Kari maybe? How do you feel?" Gatomon asked.

"Tingly all over. Bit dizzy..." Agumon answered, clutching his head to keep himself from falling over.

"Me too. We've been attacked, but by whom?" Gatomon stated.

"I wish I knew. I couldn't move, it just paralyzed us!" Agumon exclaimed, now able to move again. Each of them had been paralyzed for about seven seconds, more than enough time for any attacker to hurt Tai and Kari if they had wanted to. So why the retreat?

"Don't worry, Mom. We'll figure out what happened. Our partners should be O.K. now. You two go back to bed." Kari was trying to reassure her parents. Cautiously, they retreated back into their bedroom, looking back at Tai and Kari as they did so.

Tai blew out a sigh of disbelief. Just when things seemed to be looking up, now they had a new problem to deal with...

What was the purpose of the apparent attack? Who was it that attacked Kari in the middle of the night? Will the attack happen again? Find out in Part 2, "Dead Reckoning"!