Disclaimer: I will not be making any money from this fan fiction; the majority of it takes place wholly in my head

Disclaimer: I will not be making any money from this fan fiction; the majority of it takes place wholly in my head. So Bandai please don't sue me, you aren't missing anything.

Note: this story includes elements taken from the following sources and may not be wholly accurate.

The series.

The CD drama.

Runaway Locomon.

And my brain. (Second-hand as it may be)

Enjoy

Waiting for eternity, and not a moment longer.

Chapter 1 – Seeking.

I just ran, I couldn't help it; I had to tell the others. We had spent such a long time searching that it was hard to believe that it had been under my nose the whole time.

I can't believe that it had never occurred to me to look there, I'm not telling Yamaki this time.

By the time the monster makers could reassemble I will be back in the digital world, but shouldn't I offer that chance to Rika and Henry?

We had worked so hard; to be ready when the time came to get our friends back, it would be wrong of me to not give them the same chance I had.

I know that Henry, his father and the others are working on a new ark to transport us to and from the digital world, but the fire wall they had put up to stop humans from entering the digital world, and Digimon from entering the real world, was so unstable that it could take years of research to get it right. But the longer we leave it, the less chance there is that we will see our friends again; that I will ever see you again, Guilmon.

So here I am running through the streets like a madman. Henry and Rika will want to know.

The sky was pretty cloudy, and despite the fact the sun was shinning, the air was chilling and foretold the approach of an oncoming storm.

I better get going or I'm liable to have to swim home. A smile fluttered across his lips and he felt happier.

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Henry's mind roved back to the memory of the conversation he had had with his mother a few months ago, as he sat leaning over the dining room table. He did not really want to think about it, but he could not help it.

I don't know why I did it, but I just can't forgive him, even if he could bring Terriermon back right this moment. He thought.

I know I haven't been treating him fairly but I have to stick by what I believe is right or what good am I.

"He's my dad and we've never had an argument before…but he's never done anything like this before" Henry remembered saying, looking directly into his mother's eyes.

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Mrs Wong felt ill; no She felt helpless. She often stopped to watch him. It was during times like this she could see his loneliness and frustration in the set of his shoulders. It was how quite he was now that made her feel worse, if it was possible. She knew he was thinking about that again.

She cast her mind back to the last time they had talked about it.

Henry was looking into her eyes asking for help in such a way that it tore at her soul to see her child so distressed.

She knew her son well enough to know what was going through in his mind.

He wants forgiveness for what he said, an acknowledgment that he was right to say what he said. She looked at her son, he had helped save two worlds and then just when he had thought it was all over he lost his friend and, apart of himself.

His sister had been the same. Suzie had cried for weeks that her partner was gone, but she hadn't apportioned blame like her brother had. Sometimes it seemed as though she could not understand that word, partners, it was like a symbiosis and one seemed less without the other.

It wasn't so bad with his sister, but Henry was like his father and grandfather, calm ninety-nine percent of the time, but that calm attitude came with a price. They were prone to standing up for their beliefs with the force of a tidal wave when they knew they were right.

She and the others in her family, Henry's other brother and sister, had to endure the looks that pasted between Henry and her husband. It wasn't an argument as such and they were still civil to each other but it was more of a silent conflict. She hoped that after all this time that they would have sorted it out by now, but more than a year had gone by and nothing had changed.

Mayumi had hoped that things would have improved six months ago, when Janyu and his old monster maker friends had decided to rebuild some bridges and re-establish their old team. Everyone had pitched in, providing financing, a small lab and a few other things.

Mayumi enjoyed the idea that her husband had returned to the kind of things that he enjoyed the most; she hadn't seen him show such enthusiasm since before he had gotten his job at the nearby Microsoft office. It was not that the work he did was unsatisfying; it was just not his idea of fun.

A Digital zone was discovered, but Janyu and the others said that it could be dangerous, so they informed the authorities and had the area surrounding it sealed up. Takato was apparently appalled by the idea; he wanted to take the risk.

Henry took it in a similar way, although he didn't argue quite as much, as he appears to have his own plans on how to get his friend back.

The first break through came slightly after Henry proposed his idea to send voice messages to the digital world. The problem, of course, was that there was a chance that the messages would never reach the recipients. Janyu had jumped at the chance to work on the idea, hoping that it would help towards repairing their fractured relationship.

After a month of hard work, they had finally managed to get the first proto-type ready to be sent, and Henry's relationship with her husband seemed to be on the mend, at work anyway.

Mayumi chuckled to herself, the thought of the working together at the same firm just rushed into her head. Henry had spent, as much time as he could with the 'monster makers', working on his system and during those times, at least, he seemed to get along with his father.

Janyu was right, knowing there was at least a chance that Terriermon would get his message, did make Henry happy, for a while anyway. At home things are as cold as ever. Janyu is trying his best.

He is trying his best to apologise, he knows he can never regain the trust he had lost but he has to try, hasn't he? I love my husband and son dearly, but they are tearing each other apart… I can't take sides no matter how right my son is or how much my husband wants to make it up to him; they have to sort things out for themselves.

She remembered once all those months ago, she had overheard Henry practicing what to say in his first message to be sent through to that other world. He sounded so strong, so sure that things would work out, not letting even Terriermon know how badly things were going for him. Henry was cutting everyone out from his pain.

"Henry, I know that in your heart you forgave him a long time ago and in your father's heart, he wants to make things right. But you must both come to terms with what's happened. That is the truth, what you both do with it is your choice" She said, as she tried, almost failing, to hold herself together and stop from moving to hug him.

She hoped that she had said the right thing back then.

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Henry shifted in his seat, uncomfortably.

"Thanks mum", he remembered replying. "I know I haven't made it easy it for you, and I have been a little cold to dad and maybe a part of me has forgiven him, but I am not yet ready to accept that or tell him"

He tried to look resolute back then.

Mother gave me such a faint smile and spoke softly. "I will not tell him, like I have said before, I love you both dearly but this is your burden to bear, yours and his."

This isn't good, I have to talk to someone or I might explode, He said to himself. His mother's voice suddenly intruded on his thoughts.

"I have to go out and get some things in to make dinner, do you want anything special?"

He searched his mind for an excuse and found one." No thanks mum, I 'm going to see if

Rika's homes from School yet, see yah"

Henry got up and made his way out.

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With that he left, and secretly Mrs Wong hoped that her son found himself again, Terriermon had turned her son from a lonely, computer obsessed boy, into a man.

She had always thought that that Digimon game was bad for him, but it became his life and salvation, perhaps now it would be the death of his soul as well.

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Rika Nonaka was dead to the world. She had all lost her drive; her grades had always been good and she had always done her homework, but for the last few months she hadn't been herself. For most of past year, she had held onto the hope that they would have found away back to the digital world, but to no avail.

They had managed to locate a gate near Guilmon's old hang out, although the gate wasn't big enough to fit anyone into. Takato had been excited about it, and was sure that given enough time it would grow bigger and stabilize.

Yamaki, however, was less optimistic wanting to ensure that no one got sucked in by mistake. A digital barrier had been set up months before by Henry's father and the monster makers to prevent humans from going to the digital world, it was also designed to prevent Digimon from coming back through either.

Rika tossed her entire body, moving from lying on her left side to resting on her right.

She could feel the terrible foreboding that came with knowing she had made some very poor decisions in her life and that recent ones were playing on her mind.

I just need some time to rest She told to herself. I keep telling myself that but I don't want to rest and I don't want to accept that she's gone. We've searched, high and low, for the better part of two years and we haven't found anything. I know that there is a chance I will never see her again, that the gateway to the digital world really is closed forever.

The Monster makers, for the most part, have been no help at all to the tamers in their ever-increasingly desperate search to be reunited with the lost parts of themselves.

That's how Rika saw it.

Rika regretted that she had sent the message that she had, yes; by the end of it she had said what she wanted to. But she must have appeared to be such a fool; blaming Renamon for something she couldn't possibly have any control over. The fact that the message might never reach Renamon was possibly the saddest thing that Rika could think of. Almost.

Things seemed to be going from bad to worse, for Rika. She had learned just a few days before she had sent the message to the digital world that her father had been involved in an accident with a stolen vehicle. It was that, more than Ryo's attempt to reason with her, which had convinced her to make a message of her own.

Now she felt as though she had left it too late to tell Renamon what she really felt, just as she had been robbed of the chance to see her father again.

His death hurt me, and it continues to hurt me, but what if something happens to Renamon? Before I have a chance to talk to her again? What if I have missed my only opportunity to say goodbye? Rika shrank away from those thoughts, which were frightening her.

I was truly happy for the first time in my life, it was as though that no matter how bad things got we would always be together. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night screaming her name. It's kind of silly, but Renamon completes me in a way that's hard to explain. I understand her because she is like me, cold on the outside and warm on the inside, and thus I can understand myself.

The more she thought about it the more she was convinced that Renamon was almost like an older sister to her. She had never meant to tell Renamon that but, Rika was finding it harder and harder to concentrate and keep her fears to herself, and it worried her.

So here I am, I have nothing I really want to do, stuck in my room, waiting for her to ask me what's wrong. I admit to myself that most of the time I can keep myself under control and ignore my true feelings, but when I'm alone it comes tumbling out, and for a long time only Renamon ever heard that part of me, and it was comforting that I knew she would never reveal my secrets or my pain.

Rika shuddered, remembering that, due in no small part to her fear and anger; she had almost lost her friend before she realised she even had one.

Part of Rika hoped that her message wouldn't reach the digital world, that no one knew how lost she felt and how little control she seemed to have over her past and future.

She had managed to keep all these thoughts and feelings inside for weeks, months, years and if she didn't get them out she felt like she might fall down and never get up again.

Thinking about how badly she had treated Renamon back then almost made her more depressed than before. Rika silently wept for a while, then slowly Rika's eyes skid closed.

In a shorter time than she had expected, She began to breath more deeply before slipping into a comfortable rhythm. She had finally drifted to sleep; she didn't get long to nap however.

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A voice calls through the darkness "Alice".

The dreams wouldn't stop.

"Help me, help me please I cannot be alive, yet I am not dead. Help me! Please!" The voice wouldn't go away. "I lost him! Please leave me alone, we both did what was required of us, I loved you, but I can't change the past"

"Please leave me alone!" Tears coursed down damp cheeks.

Alice was tossing in her bed again.

Rob McCoy could only watch as his Granddaughter suffered for a reason he couldn't grasp. He knew she would have problems, as all young people do as they grow up. They believe you can't ever understand the problems they encounter, so they never ask for help until they are either unable to contain it anymore or desperate enough to ask.

His Granddaughter usually told him everything, and the fact she hadn't come to him for help long ago was a bad sign. He hoped she would be okay, he took a step back, sometimes she never tells him anything.

He decided that she would come to him with it, in her own time, until then he would just have to wait.

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He had rode quite quickly from his home, and although he felt frustrated, he still wanted to talk. He needed someone who would understand, so he decided to visit the one person who might have some idea on how he should deal with what he was experiencing.

The streets were already well on their way to being empty of most people, as a there was usually a few hours of calm before the people who worked at night, or simply went out for fun, started moving around. Tonight most people would stay indoors, as the weather agency had reported that a severe storm was coming from the south, it was already raining as it was so Henry pedalled a little faster.

Twenty minutes he finally got to where he was going.

Rika was perhaps the person he could trust the most at the moment; he just hoped she could help him. He had been to Rika's home once before, a temporary salvation from the D-reaper, where they had a meal together before going into battle.

He leaned his bike up against wall, which surrounded Rika's house like a fortress, and secured it to the wall with a tiny lock.

He pulled the bell beside the door and waited.

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"Rika, can you get the door?" Her eyes shot open, and her heart was sent into a flutter, she quickly got dressed. She put on her shirt, with its broken heart, which she had taken up wearing again due to the mixture of awkward feelings she felt. She slid her jeans up her legs and tried to make herself presentable.

"Ok, Grandma" Rika walked through the house and slipped on her shoes as she exited the door, entering the garden and throwing on her long jacket that was on the coat rack. It was quit cold outside, whether that was more due to the chill in the air or the void inside her was debateable.

The garden was beautiful even at this time of year; perhaps it was the fact that it was so plain that made it that way. When she was younger her father would help her dig around in this garden, planting seeds in a small flowerbed that had been set aside. Beside it used to be a swing, where she spent a lot of her time playing.

That had been along time ago, she had let the flowerbed become overgrown with wild grass and the swing had rotted away so that only a slither was left. She had watched and allowed it to happen. It was just after her parents had broken up. She grew tired of it and herself; she had just sat and watched herself, as she had been, vanish along with that swing.

Of course her mother had not noticed any abnormal change in her. Mum didn't even realise the significance of it!

But it had been her father's idea to make the flowerbed, because Rika had showed an interest. Rika, being only six and a half at the time, had fallen in love with flowers. The swing her father had made was just been an extension of that, a place to sit upon and admire something beautiful Rika had helped create.

Her mum had never really taken an active part in it.

When Rika had been seven, she had tried to get her mother to help her, but she was always too busy with 'something else'. The 'something else' later imprinted itself into her consciousness, as something she would never allow herself to like or allow her mother to think she liked.

It had been Rika's father who had been the one to spend as much free time as he could, and would even make time late at night, to help Rika tend to the plants or fix anything that got broken.

When Rika had left the whole thing to rot, her mum just believed that Rika was growing out of such things, but that wasn't it.

Rika had loved tending to the garden, and playing on her swing, but things changed when her father and mother got divorced. It had happened one week after Rika's eighth birthday.

Her Dad had always thought that his wife was too focused on her career, and keeping up her looks to notice anything that happened around her. He always complained how forgetful, or how easily she got carried away with her work.

The final straw had been when she forgot her own daughter's Birthday. He swore that, one-day, his wife would regret her behaviour, but he was unwilling to hang around to find out.

In a way, he had been right, almost. If Renamon had not arrived when she did, it would not have take a genius to workout how much of a distance there would have been between mother and daughter by now.

The relationship, between husband and wife back then, had been falling apart since a while before then. They had slowly become strangers, or so dad had felt.

The divorce had been a very brief affair, and from then on Rika had had very little contact with her father. He still set her toys, and presents. He sent her mother child support and to Rika he sent an allowance. He never missed a birthday, and his gifts always seemed right. It had been him who had sent her a set of Digimon cards, probably guessing what kind of girl she would grow up to be, since it was hardly the toy of a 'flower girl'. Not that Rika had ever been that bad.

Rika smiled to herself and thought. In a way, I owe my father for getting me to this point, for allowing me to meet 'Her'.

He was just never around, physically after that. He said that if she ever needed his help he would be there. Those words were of little comfort now, and she felt the sadness in it.

After her father left, there was no one there to help her maintain the garden. It began to show sighs of it dieing, and the swing began to become overgrown with ivy that was growing up the small metal frame from which it hung.

It was shortly after that that her grandmother had moved in, Rika was thankful to her for coming; she allowed Rika her own space, once in a while. Up until her grandmother's arrival, her mother had taken to bringing Rika to work with her.

Even thinking about it made every cell in Rika's body cringe. Bell rung loudly and brought her out of her past and back to the present.

She moved to the gate and opened it. She found Henry standing there, and for a moment her heart began to beat a little faster. "I'm sorry Rika, I'm not here because of that. We haven't found anything yet, but err, can we talk?"

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Takato had already run quite away, passing several places he knew well, his school old and home. Places that held a lot of good memories, and some very crazy ones and until recently he had thought that they were all he would very have of his friend.

He finally arrived at the apartment Henry's family called home, and practically choked himself, due the excitement he was feeling, when as he asked Henry's father where Henry was.

"I have no idea where Henry is" said Mr Wong.

"You have to have some idea, I need to speak to him, and it's a life and death situation" Takato replied, rather flustered.

Mr Wong tried to think, he didn't hate his son and it wasn't that he disliked him; it was just that things between them had been stained lately and part of him understood why. The sound of his wife coming up behind him to see who was at the door brought Mr Wong from his thoughts.

When she saw Takato, she knew who he was and why he was here and her husband obviously hadn't caught on. The look in the boy's eyes told her that something important was happening, it was the same look of enthusiasm that Henry had when he spoke of Terriermon and their friendship. "I suppose you want to know where Henry is, Takato?"

"Ah…yeah I do actually, do you know where he went?" said Takato, only just remembering to add a small bow to his request.

"Well, he said something about going to see Miss Nonaka" Miss Nonaka? Who is?

"Oh of course, Rika! Thank you Mrs Wong" He bowed again and ran around the corner.

"I wonder what that was all about?" Mr Wong asked, more to himself than anyone else.

Mrs Wong watched as her husband returned to their living room in a daze.

Janyu had not slept well recently, so perhaps that was the reason he had missed something so obvious, the possibility that Takato had found what it was that they had spent so long searching for. It was dangerous and hopefully Henry would talk him out of anything too risky.

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Just less than two years ago he had been in charge of the top secrete organisation known as Hypnos. Hypnos was originally intended to track the complex interchanges of digital information across cyberspace, a watchdog against digitally preformed crimes, and a dream to stand against the nightmare of hackers, hoaxes and thieves, among other things.

A dream polluted by the creation of something not seen before, digital life forms.

It had certainly not been in his job description to perform impossible feats, like the ones he was asked to deal with on a daily basis. But the fools in the cabinet, who he reported to, had asked him to do just that.

The order he had been given was simple; at least it seemed so at first, prevent Digimon from entering the real world and deal with those that had already appeared.

He had failed to realise that the Digimon were much smarter than anyone guessed them to be. Eventually after everything was said and done, he had tried his best under the circumstances, and almost lost any reputation he had worked so hard to create and protect.

He found himself suddenly thrust into a maelstrom of gargantuan size, a tide of events that would test him to the limits of his mental endurance, and it had almost sent him over the edge of his sanity. He had almost lost it, and he could have lost so much more, if it hadn't been for the monster maker's help in defeating the D-reaper.

His situation hadn't been any rosier, even after the D-reaper had been destroyed and the Digimon return to their own world. After the dust had settled it seemed as though he would finally be able to get back to a normal job. But it wasn't to be.

It seemed the governments involved in the Hypnos experiment had decided that their priority was to wrap up the situation as quickly as possible. They must have been formulating a plan on how to cover things up neatly from the beginning. They planted a number of news stories to begin explaining away all that had happened over the last few months.

The public were never told about the digital world and its inhabitants, or about what the D-reaper's true goal was, or why it was doing it. Governments rarely very gave the whole true to anyone. They definitely didn't want to give people the idea that there was another world on our doorstep, from which monstrous, uncontrollable beasts could come forth at any time to destroy us.

The D-Reaper was well known for being used by many countries as a form of waste management in their computer systems, especially in Governmental departments such as the ministry of defence. It had been quite easy to create the façade that the D-reaper had absorbed a Digimon A.L.P that had found its way in from a redundant data bank. They obviously didn't want anyone to know that there were thousands of them living in cyberspace, and who would?

They then used Hypnos as a scapegoat blaming their 'incompetence' for allowing the 'infected' D-reaper the chance to escape and cause havoc. Of course the man in charge was also blamed and 'fired' from his posting. It made him sick to his stomach.

They hadn't actually removed him or any of his staff at that point because they felt that it was too soon to make those kinds of decisions. They might as well have handed him his redundancy slip right then, and give him a cheap gold watch as a going away present.

He knew they had already decided that his fate was no longer their concern. It would take four months for them to, finally, give him the boot. They weren't as nasty about it as they could have been, but he still felt some resentment.

The Digimon themselves were said to have been created by a government funded team, whose mandate was to create beings capable of fighting against aberrations, and the fact it was the absorption of one such Digimon that caused the D-Reaper to develop a rudimentary intelligence and go rampant was an unfortunate mistake. Another example of what they were calling Hypnos's incompetence.

D-reaper was rampant, yes, but certainly did not have a rudimentary intelligence; it was possibly the biggest threat to mankind since the creation of the atomic bomb and biological weaponry. Anyone who thought that it was anything but deadly was most likely out of his tiny mind.

The public had no idea what the Digimon really were, apart from creatures based roughly on a child's game, and they had no idea that Takato and his friends were involved in the fight at all. The Government denied that the Digimon themselves had survived the battle, trying to put people's minds at rest by reporting that they had been destroyed by excessive damage, and eventually deleted.

They also reported that the experiments regarding A.L.P, or Artificial. Life. Programs were simply too hazardous to continue.

Hypnos was also too much of a gamble to remain in the public domain. The government was every quick indeed to close the whole thing down, it wouldn't of course but appearances are everything. Yamaki had already heard rumours that the equipment would simply be moved and set up somewhere relatively quickly, Hypnos would go on under another name.

Of course a lot of conspiracy theories had popped up about the whole disastrous affair. Yamaki had heard several already, and some were closer to the truth than they realised and others were just plain foolishness.

An example would be that the D-reaper and the Digimon were advanced weapon designs pitted against each other in a live fire exercise that went wrong. Another theory was that were alien life forms from another world come to enslave us. Yamaki suddenly wasn't sure what had him sicker, the gullibility of the public or the stupidity of the Government itself?

It had taken only a few months for the government to decide that the smoke had cleared enough to move Yamaki as far away from their project as possible.

Yamaki had known that this was coming, and who wouldn't have known, so he had made a plan with Janyu Wong. He would joining the monster makers, who were planning to create a number of small personal projects, in whatever spare time they had for their own personal time, agreeing to meet once every two weeks or so to collaborate on various Digimon related projects.

Yamaki wasn't entirely happy with the arrangement, but it would do until he could find another job elsewhere, not that he was in any particular hurry to do so. The time he spent at Hypnos may not have been entirely pleasant, but the pay was extraordinarily high, he could probably be able to live for the next three or four years without having to go to work.

He wasn't really the kind of person, to spend so much time doing nothing, so with the help of Janyu and the monster makers, he created a firewall between the Real and Digital worlds. It was exquisite, designed to prevent humans from entering the digital world and Digimon from entering the real world. It was still a work in progress, but it did its job, everyone seemed happy that it was working so flawlessly, well almost everyone. Takato and I both discovered a Digital warp near where his Digimon used to live, he and I didn't quite see eye to eye, and we each had opposing opinions.

He tried to argue that the warp might grow big enough for him to go to the digital world and get his Digimon back, but by then the firewall was up and running. The firewall prevented anyone from being taken to the digital world against his or her will, or even by your own will.

If you tried to enter one on your own, it would stop you by sealing the breach; tests of the system had proved it was still too unreliable at that point. The system could accidentally take a human life, if the system was not correctly adjusted. None of us want to create something that is designed to end life, be it human or Digimon life.

The breach is unstable even now, and given its strength, and unpredictability it might be along time until we can open the door again and not get burned. I know Henry Wong wants to create an ark specifically designed to be able to cross between the two worlds, but with how things are going right now, I doubt that he will see any proper results for a long time yet.

I ordered the concrete hut that had once been Guilmon's home, to be surround by a concrete barrier just encase Takato tries to do something we all might regretted.

The last thing that Yamaki was asked to do for Hypnos, was to run a few last tests on the systems used to monitor the network. When he reported back to them that there was no trace of the Digital world, the smile that graced the chief cabinet's face was a confirmation of what he already knew. They would get rid of him without a second thought.

As far as they were concerned, the Digimon had returned to their world and that was that. The fact that there seemed to be no hope of return for them seemed to confirm a lot of what little his superiors understood. He was told that they were satisfied that there would be no more uninvited guests for the foreseeable future.

Yamaki hoped they were right. The board must have believed that the operation was a success and that Digital threat had been neutralized. He was told to leave three days later. He was actually quite glad to be out of it, to be perfectly honest.

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Six days earlier.

The digital world was suffering a catastrophe, and it seemed as though nothing could be done about it, even the Sovereigns could not understand or stop what was happening.

The Digital world, which had so carefully, so slowly but surely been repaired and rebuilt, was now closing in on its own oblivion. The digital world was a system of interconnected regions of compacted data that interacted with any thing that came in contact with it.

Long ago Azulongmon had contemplated that the digital world itself was alive, but numerous investigations had failed to prove that, and even if it was it did not have an awareness of its own.

The digimon believed that they were safe, once their true enemy had been destroyed, and it had taken months for the Sovereigns to restore the Digital world to its former glory. It looked as though the Digimon would never have to face such a threat again, but it seems as though the digital world would never be without one impending doom or another. I guess it is just our rotten luck. Azulongmon thought to himself.

The digital world still had it's secrets. The digital world may have existed longer than anyone could tell. The Sovereigns were the original programs created by the monster makers, and after they were no longer required or useful they were simple erased, or it was more accurate to say that an erasure was attempted.

Damaged and for all they knew betrayed by their creators, they were guided by unknown entities, that would later be named the DigiGnomes, to a place where they could be left in peace. The programs that eventually would evolve into the Sovereigns discovered that the Digital World had limitless potential.

The Programs discovered that in this strange world they could create, for themselves, physical bodies in which they could interact with the data around them. The bodies they formed were relatively simple versions of their real world counterparts. Soon due to the massive amount of information they had acquired, the programs grew larger and more complex. Ultimately they became the first true digimon, although true in the sense of how they were now.

This world was perfect for their needs. They used the original lines of code that formed them to create new Digimon, copies that possessed all their knowledge, and were capable of making great leaps in evolution and intelligence. The original Digimon themselves, being the first and wisest took a new name for themselves. They became the Sovereigns, protectors of the digital world.

The Four newly anointed Sovereigns split the digital world into parts, that each would rule over, and in times of great need they would met to discuss any problems that arose.

The Sovereigns were at first, happy with what they had created, but that didn't last. So there were thousands of these copies, but with no individuality to them. They were not unique or capable to choosing their own destiny. They simply were.

This troubled the Sovereigns greatly; with no diversity their race would become stagnant, long before they had a chance to accomplish anything. An army of clones could not produce one work of genius, or perform one act of individual growth. It was during this crisis that their greatest fear was realised. The Enemy had come.

The one who had been dispatched to kill them had followed them here to this place of refuge. It deleted all that stood before it, and pretty soon the Sovereigns realised the error of creating clones of themselves, that shared their full knowledge and data.

He signed, we Sovereigns have made so many misjudgements, and you would have thought we would have learned by now. If you copy a mistake enough times, eventually it comes around and bits you in the ass. Perhaps when I attend the meeting tomorrow, I can help avoid one such mistake.

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"What is it you want to talk about, Henry?" Rika spoke, allowing a small amount of concern to creep into her voice. It didn't take a genius to realise what was troubling him.

Rika had grown up during her adventures together with Henry, Takato and the others.

She realised how narrow minded she had been. Using taming Digimon as an excuse to run away from her problems with her mother, and eventually from her own feelings.

Rika knew she couldn't change who she was, and she wouldn't if she could help it. This was her true self, no matter what hell she had been through in her life. She had always been at odds with people, and it was scary interacting with them again. If she had to guess, then it was obvious that Henry was afflicted in the same way she was.

"Rika, I…?" Henry began, but Rika cut him off. "Henry, it's about you and your dad, isn't it?"

Henry smiled at her weakly "That obvious, huh?" She had seen that lost and lonely look before, in her own eyes, when looking in the mirror. For a moment she felt herself feeling very sympathetic, but she quickly cast the emotion aside, she calmed herself down.

"Henry look, I don't have any advice for you. Whatever the problem is, your going to have to find a solution on your own!" she looked right at him and tried her best to pull a face which would let him know that she didn't want to talk about 'that kind of stuff'. She knew where that conversation would lead.

"Rika please, I have no idea what to do" He began to pace up and down. "I wanted to ask you how you've lasted so long?". Rika began to feel disturbed by the familiarity of the situation, the memories it was invoking in her, despite her attempts to block them out. She had never wanted anyone to know the way she had treated her mother.

"How did you go from day to day without feeling this pain?" Henry looked like he was either about to cry in frustration or scream in anger. Henry knew enough about Rika's strained relationship with her mother, part of Rika wanted to tell Henry to go away and not talk as though he knew anything about her problems.

Things had actually gotten a lot better with her mother, over the last few months. Although their was still some stuff that would keep them apart. She didn't want to tell anyone how rigorous it had been before then. Henry had helped her once so she decided to return the favour, just this once.

"Henry, look, there is nothing to tell." His face fell a little so she continued "You really only have three choices; forgiveness, ignorance or rebellion."

"Ignorance? Or rebellion?" Henry asked, she realised that he had no clue as to where this conversation was headed. She felt her temper begin to get the better of her. She knew he wouldn't just choose to forgive. It wasn't in his nature, and was probably too hard, the hardest of all the choices.

"Yes Henry, I suppose you want me to join the dots for you?"

For a brief moment she saw fear and hesitation, but for only a moment, before it was replaced by the realisation that from now on, nothing would be quite the same in his life. He nodded once.

Rika wondered for a moment how it could be that she had become so good at reading him. Rika knew, most of the time, exactly what Jeri and Takato were thinking or going to do. Henry however, could sometimes think in different ways, so it was harder to read him. It might have been a result of bio merging with Renamon. She couldn't be sure.

"Ignorance is pretty simple. All you have to do is be civil to him, but never allow yourself to feel for him again. Basically you have to become cold when talking to him. You can never show him how you feel" she heard a small gasp escape him as he realised full meaning of her words. It was like he had been hit in the stomach, but he nodded and asked "and Rebellion?"

"Rebellion is a much more drastic course of action than ignorance. You have to change yourself from within, it's all about dubbing down parts of your personality and magnifying others".

Henry stood motionlessly for several minutes; he allowed himself the luxury of considering what his life had been like up to this point. The good and bad times that he had shared with his father. He would have called himself happy at one point. He was part of a large family. He had friends, not many friends, but they were good ones.

Henry could not help but hate part of himself for not realising that his father had an alternate motive for scanning Terriermon, more than he had said. As much as Henry loved his father, and as much as his father loved his family, Henry could not distract himself from the knowledge that his dad was capable of lying so readily about something that important.

" What does it feel like?" Henry asked her finally. Almost as if he knew which path she had taken, even though she wasn't sure herself.

Rika responded, she felt, from the deepest truth. "Henry, I won't lie to you, it hurts… a lot." He nodded "It hurts like nothing you can describe, for a long while, but eventually it stops hurting as bad, but you never forget what it feels like." He nodded again with more conviction this time. He looked like he had come to a decision, but there was one more thing she had to say.

"And even if you eventually get over it, it will change you forever, you have to decide if this is exactly what you want because it is very hard change what you've said and done. It may be that you'll never get back to who you were".

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Five days earlier.

"This is foolishness, Azulongmon, how can you float there and ignore the possibility, that I am right?" The situation was pretty direr, and the council of Sovereigns, had once again been assembled to deal with the situation. Zhuqiaomon was once again showing his prejudice towards humans, blaming them for this situation.

The Sovereigns had the right to rule each of their domains however they saw fit, without the need to consult with anyone else. However in situations that threaten all areas of the digital world, action of any kind had to be voted on by the Sovereigns.

The Sovereigns had met in council many times, each time one of the their own homes had been used for the meeting. This time it was Azulongmon's, which was being occupied all four of the Sovereigns.

One a month, for the last twelve months, they had met to discuss a problem of great importance to all who called he digital world home.

"Are you trying to accuse me of being foolish?" Azulongmon asked in his normal tones, giving his fellow Sovereign the chance to explain himself. It was Baihumon who spoke instead.

"Azulongmon, you have always been most trusting than the rest of us, however the possibility that the humans are connected to this strange phenomena must be investigated, will you at least consider that?"

"What is there to consider?" Ebonwumon said, in his irish accent, which poured from his left head. "I don't believe that his is the humans doing this too us, they wouldn't harm us after all that's happened" his right head finished in its scottish one.

"Doing us harm-" He almost laugh "they have done nothing to us, but do us harm, how can you" He shook his head in disgust. During the purging, they narrowly escaped, Zhuqiaomon was the one who had received the most damage and he never forgot that. Anything the humans did was a catalyst for his hatred to come spilling forth.

"Your personnel vendetta against the humans, is well known, have you considered that it is clouding your judgement?" Ebonwumon asked.

Buihumon lifted his hand to another outburst. "Stop it, still agree with Zhuqiaomon, it is better to check out all the possibilities before we make any kind of judgement, besides, if the humans are involved, they may not be evening doing it intentionally."

He took a good long look at the two opposed Sovereigns. " It is better than doing nothing as our world is eaten out from under us?"

"We must vote on it again?" Azulongmon asked. He was tired of the constant debate.

"Yes, we must!" Zhuqiaomon throwing his flame covered head backwards, which was his equivalent of a shrug, as he too was bored of the constant rattling of sabres between the four of them. This had gone on for far too long.

"Alright then" Azulongmon said "you have five minutes to decide." Everyone entered a calming state of meditation, designed to allowing the recipients to reflect upon the decision at hand.

The Government of the Digital World was designed to be a balance. Four Sovereigns, four votes. Many times in the past the council had been called to vote on some of the most desperate situations in the Digital worlds history.

The system had worked perfectly well for almost every situation they had voted on. The last time the council was assembled was during the time leading up to the D-reaper's resurrection.

The council had voted 3 to 1 against, taking action in the real world, against the humans. Zhuqiaomon, of course had chosen to ignore the council's decision, sending his servants 'the Devas' to attack the humans.

Each of the Sovereigns were allow to have a number of dedicated servants, the only one who had a permanent group of them was Zhuqiaomon, who had always preferred to distance himself from the lesser duties that came with his position. Although it was to be said that Zhuqiaomon was no coward, and was quite ready to fight for his beliefs.

After five minutes had pasted Azulongmon spoke. "Fellow Sovereigns, choose your votes carefully, as the decision you make today as profound consequences on the future of all digital life in our world". He breathed deeply for a moment before continuing. "In regards to the investigation into the mysterious phenomenon endangering our world, should we attempt to investigate a possible human instigated cause in the 'real world? '? Be it deliberate or accidental?"

He had made up his decision long ago, so he was naturally the first to speak, using the ancient formal speech used by all the Sovereigns when forming policy and voting.

"I, Zhuqiaomon, Guardian of the Southern region of the Digital World, respectfully vote. Yes, that we must investigate any possible cause of our situation. I assure you, that I am not blind". The phrase 'unlike some digimon!' was clearly something he was itching to say, by the look on his face.

"I, Azulongmon, is the Guardian of the Eastern region of the Digital World, Respectfully vote. No, we have caused problems there by acting with too much haste and not enough thought."

It was Baihumon's turn to vote. "I, Baihumon, Guardian of the Western region of the Digital World and youngest of the Sovereigns, respectfully vote. Yes, every avenue of investigation must be exhausted before we decide what to do and what not to do".

Finally Ebonwumon spoke. "I, Ebonwumon, Guardian of the Northern region of the Digital World and the oldest of the Sovereigns." The Irish head said, "Respectfully vote, No, for the same reason as Buihumon. We need to rule out all possibilities in our own world before we go gallivanting off into someone else's." His Scottish head said.

It was two votes against two votes for the 12th vote running, it had to be a record.

Zhuqiaomon looked livid. Azulongmon, knew that the longer this situation was left unresolved the less time they had to solve this mystery and save their world.

Azulongmon decided that he had no choice but to invoke the only method available to them, when they were required to break a deadlock that had must be broken.

Azulongmon looked at the only Digimon who it could be claimed were his equals.

He spoke with more confidence than he felt. "I, Azulongmon, Guardian of the Southern region of the Digital World. Respectfully request that we seek a way to break our deadlock, the only way we know how"

The rest of the Sovereign Digimon wore equally shocked looks on their faces.

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The Present

Henry had been acting less and less like himself than usual. Rika noticed that as the weeks had gone by. He stood there and looked as though he was seriously considering what she had told him, which was a really bad sign in itself. The fact that he wasn't rejecting it, out of hand when he heard the details, were far worse.

Rika was still debating with herself as to whether she was willing to allow Henry to decide for himself, or tell him not to go through with it when he spoke up. "I have no idea what to do, I don't even want to know if I would have the strength to do it, I need more time to think"

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Takato was exhausted, when he finally found himself opposite Rika's home, and he had not been so exhausted in his life before. The truth was that the tiredness, the stitch in his left side, and the ache in his feet was nothing compared to the empty feeling inside when he had allowed himself to begin to believe he would never see Guilmon ever again.

The pain reminded him of what had been lost, and could never return, it also reminded him of how much there still was to go. He was only a couple of feet from the large doors that were the entrance, when the one nearest to him opened, almost smacking him in the face. He lost his balance, and barely managing to stop himself from hitting the hard cobbled surface of the street.

"Takato, you look terrible", a boy said. "what happened to you?", a girl asked. Takato looked up to find both Rika and Henry staring down at him, with some concern etched into their features, and he realised that he must be quite the sight.

Takato was about to ask if they could help him up; when both Rika and Henry lifted him up by his shoulders, and he realised that he didn't need to ask. They were his friends.

Slowly they guided him into the house. They lifted him just enough so his legs could recover from his long run. It was then that it hit him how much simpler it would have been if he had just gone home and called them on the phone instead of trying to run the distance. But he wanted to see their faces and hadn't really thought it though.

Rika helped Henry get Takato comfortably, sitting him down on the couch, and by the looks of his sweaty clothes and stained shoes, he must have run half the length of the city before eight o'clock. Henry both took seats opposite him.

Rika didn't actually think that much about Takato had suddenly decided that long distance running was a good idea for a new hobby. But if they were to find out why, then it would be best to calm him down first.

She would have gone to get him some tea or something, if it wasn't for the fact that her grandmother hadn't just walked through the door carrying three fresh hot cups of tea.

She deposited the cups. "Oh, guests, I'll see if I can find some more cups" she said as she smiled and left the room. Leaving the children to discuss whatever it was, that had brought that nice Matsuki boy here in such a state.

Seiko felt a little guilty for spying on her granddaughter's conversations, but Rika had never really said that much, even to her. It wasn't that often that one got to see who the real Rika was.

What really amazed Seiko was the fact that Rika had told Henry anything at all. Rika had kept a lot of things close to her chest, especially her anger at her parents divorce, she seemed happy before that.

Had Rika been happy before? Seiko had asked herself many times, and answer had always been yes. So why was it so disturbing? The answer to that one was the same as ever, Rika had been happy before and after, but the fact that she had let go of her child like ways had been distressing.

It was heart breaking when she asked what had happened to the Rika she thought of in the past. Maybe that was just the problem with growing up.

Rika and Takato helped Henry to the sofa, and then took seats opposite him, giving him a few minutes of rest.

Takato was completely different from Rika and Henry. While Henry was quite, confident and emotionally calm in almost everything, Takato was very capable of getting himself into trouble. Takato was someone who liked to live life to the fullest and was quite intelligent when he put his mind to it.

She was shocked, one day, when she woke up and realised that she actually enjoyed both Takato and Henry's company. She remember how she had actually gotten angry because they kept on at her about how Digimon were more than just data, but they were right.

Maybe she liked them because, unlike so many other people they accepted her for the person she was, and never bothered her when she seemed out of sorts. They could still be a pain. A good example was how Takato insisted that he had had a dream about her. But she wouldn't change them for anything in the world.

"Are you alright now, Takato?" Henry said. Rika notice slight red patches under Henry's eyes. For the first time since he had arrived she really notices that he had been crying before he came to see her.

Rika looked closely at Takato now, and noted the same puffy eyed look to him, and without even looking in the mirror she knew that she looked a similar way. The last couple of years had taken its toll on all of them.

"I'm alright Henry," said Takato with a small grin on his face.

"What exactly are you doing running all the way from yours to-, your wet through!" Rika asked with her own version of a grin twisting her normally serious features, trying in her own way, to remind Takato that he looked like an entire sewer full of drowned rats.

"I have been 'running around getting wet', because…" He let the sentence hang for a moment "I found it"

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To be continued…

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So there you go, the first chapter is up. There maybe some rewrites in the future, for this story, but changes will be minor. Depending or what my beta tells me.

Note 1: I have finally decided to return to working on this fic, while I have time, a lot of bad things have happened over the last year, so many apologies to everyone who has read my first chapter and liked it. Chapter two is coming (today, tomorrow or perhaps Wednesday) and three and four are in the planning and partly written stages.

Note 2: this thing is finally spell checked.  I have also restructured it a bit to make it easier to understand and added more detail where it needed a little something.  