A/N: I'm eventually going to go to bed at a reasonable hour but it's probably not going to be tonight. So much writing. So much. Anyway, this is an expanded canon of Dawn/Dusk because, you know, I'm crazy. No clue of the update schedule on this but I will try for as much as I can. Expanded and merged canon here, so this will not entirely flip the gameverse on its head. But basically, if the details aren't given in game, I'm jumping for it. And if you don't know the game, but you know Digimon, you're gonna be fine. Maybe.

Challenges: Slots Challenge, Anime/Manga Diversity Challenge prompt K16. write a fic in first person past tense, and Advent Calendar day 25. write a gift fic for a person AND review them. Well, Ryoumafan, here's the gift fic! I'll try to get the review up before I sleep but if not, definitely soon.

Warnings: child abuse, swearing (mostly from Sayo), violence, harm to minors in general, mental illness, and possibly others. Not quite sure of that just yet. Will announce as they appear.

Well, all of that said, please read and review and hang on for the ride!

Prologue: Sliver of Light

"Tell me the first thing you remember."

"Aw hell, doc. Again?"

I will be the first person to admit I have a bit of a bone to pick with anything related to doctors. I didn't really like being poked at and chained to a stretcher. It wasn't the funny story you wrote home to your grand kids about.

My first memory was of a flashlight.

Somehow, the fact that therapists were little more than doctors who paid to poke at your psyche instead of your body never sat right with me.

Apparently, I had bit a couple of people, and made my way onto one of the more dangerous servers of the Digital World. They almost classified me as a dangerous creature, animal, feral, over human. I can't say that bothers me. I have always liked being thought of as a bit savage, a bit wild. I mean, where's the fun in saying "yes, sir" to every little thing?

The woman (I didn't like calling her last name, or her name in general, really, unless it made her mad) didn't cross her arms, but she did raise an eyebrow. "Sayo. I know we've gone through the experience a lot-"

"Eight damn times," I interrupted, crossing my arms to prove the point. "And that's this month. You have holo-video footage, you have other witnesses you can ask, go annoy them instead of talking to me about old shit that is sure as hell not helping me do my jobs right now!"

I don't remember anything before that flashlight. I didn't even know my own name. Nothing quite so surreal as having a computer recite your name from an identification scanner and expecting you to accept it.

The woman took a deep breath, and another, and all I thought to do was wonder if the lady needed an oxygen tank. Supposedly, pure oxygen was great for the brain. Maybe that would be the way to tell her to get the hell off of this topic. "It is, in part, why you're cursing at me."

They told me I had a sister, a sister with hair like mine and bruises on her back and throat and a mother who was going to be locked up for the rest of our lives and a father who had suffered a heart attack because of me. Who might die because of me.

They didn't understand why after telling me this, that I decided that biting them again was an appropriate course of action, as was running for my life.

I sat back in the chair, tipping it back. "I'm swearing at you because we're goin' nowhere and I've got training in a couple of hours. Night Claw, remember? We're all crazy. We're all bastards. We're all broken. That's the slogan, that's the promise. You ain't getting' no namby-pamby repairable little kids on this side."

"Your optimism is reassuring to me," she said to me. Her lips twitched.

I cackled. "You're the one who ain' puttin' it down on your pretty little pad, are ya?" I couldn't help but give her a suggestive wag of the eyebrows. "Come on Annie, humor me a little." I rubbed at my dark jacket. "Lemme go to work, love."

She didn't protest the pet name this time. Kinda weird, but maybe I puffed out her steam. "How's your sister?"

Damn, that was a fast change of subject. "Yuki? Ehm..." I fiddled with my hat, searching for words. "She's all right, right now. Lonely with just her and dad, but I'll see her at the end of the month."

"Has she said anything?"

I raised an eyebrow, regarding Anya (I will never call her and her sweetly freckled dark-butt Ms. Strider. She was around way too much for that. "Not to people she don't like."

"You mean basically everyone."

"Humans are a pain in the ass."

None of these people knew shit about common decency. Still don't.

"And yet," Anya said, giving me a pleasant smile. "The Digimon are still asking for our help even now."

I glowered at her. I hated when the woman used logic on me.

She snorted when I said so. "Sayo, that's because you are obsessively determined to be right every damn day."

Well, she had me there. Still, I managed a smile worthy of a true-blue Night Claw prepared to ruin the lives of everyone around her. "I got a curse word out of you. Does that mean I can go?"

She pinched her nose. "Yes. You can go." I shot from my chair. "You're going to have to talk about your problems someday, Sayo."

I waved a hand at her, running out the door as fast as I could without losing my hand.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered as soon as I was out of earshot, pulling my socks back up. "Fuck if I'm talking about it anytime soon." Didn't have time for that mess.

I ran past dark walls, lights kept somewhat dim for the people who had vision problems and those who flinched at the sight of flickering bulbs. Neither issue described me, but all the new recruits had the latter for a while. Enough times near a Tyrannomon breathing fire near a Renamon's crystal attacks gave most Normal Tamers enough nightmares to last 'em weeks.

Yeah, here at Night Claw, the first thing you learned to do was dodge. Or die. Julia's a strict bitch, but she loves us all.

Most of the time.

I waved at the guards to the city and resisted the urge to make a really horrible chess pun. I never thought it was fair to do that to a Bishop and RookChessmon. I know that must be the dumbest thing to hear in the mornings.

"She's right," chimed my Digivice, or rather, one of the creatures inside of it did that. "You're going to have to talk about it one of these days."

I pouted at the device, stepping onto the blue square and clicking the middle button. "What difference is it gonna make? I don't remember, and really, I don't really wanna." For a moment, I remembered being stuck to a bed and shrugged my shoulders to make sure they were still mobile. "Julia don't care, so long as I do my jobs right, so neither should anybody else."

Inside the device, one partner let out a sigh, but went quiet as my body lit up blue. I grit my teeth and swallowed.

I was never gonna get used to teleportation pads.

"Where the hell have you been?" Newton toyed with his blue beanie hat, which I knew for a fact he only wore because he hated his haircut every time he was forced to have one. His right foot was up in mid-tap, and I rolled my eyes.

"It wasn't my fault this time," I told him, and Dorothy, who was peering at the Digital World below the CITY Server with the same obsessive fascination she had every time one of our team (usually me) made the others wait too long. "Annie kept trying to get me to talk about my feelings." I didn't add air quotes, figured my voice could do it for me.

Newton snorted. "In other words, do her job."

I shot him a pout, purple eyes blown wide. "You're an ass, Newton."

"Least I don't harass a chick for not being as bad as the other psychos they send our way."

"He's kind of got you on that," Dorothy chirped, finally pulling away from her observing of what were likely specks of Digimon. I have no clue what she saw down there. "Now, come on. The Chief is waiting at Thriller Ruins. Tournament training and all of that."

I clapped my hands together and rubbed them. "Oh good, I get to practice my killing strike on unsuspecting Light Fangs."

Newton snorted. "I love how you assume they're just target practice." He shoved me into the golden portal and I glared at him mockingly.

"Everyone's an appetizer to me, brainiac. Even you."

Then I stood back and waited for the feeling of my entire body being dissolved and reassembled across another network.

Again. Teleportation sucked.