Chapter 1: The Mark of Eight

Huanglongmon sighed. He was tired already, tired of all the trouble caused by the imbalance of the world. Too much good on his side, not even those who committed the tiniest sin will be forgiven even if he was willing to reform. Too much evil, and the bad will corrupt everything in its path. So you can see how much the wise old being was torn in many different directions.

Meanwhile, the four Sovereigns were discussing something…something very important to the Digital World and Real World alike. But as they could not come to a satisfactory conclusion, Xuanwumon suggested that they call upon Huanglongmon to give his opinion. Hence Qinglongmon, Baihumon and the remaining two went over to where Huanglongmon was.

Noticing that the Great One was napping (or so he appeared to be), Qinglongmon softly told his other comrades; "The Great One is napping. Let us leave now to allow rest to clear his mind." With that said, the blue dragon flapped his many wings (though not as many as Huanglongmon's) and began to leave the area. "Let sleeping dogs lie." Continued the dragon, meaning the sentence as a joke on Huanglongmon's sternness and his being napping at the time being.

"Hang on, young dragon." A voice said, "You do not know the difference between a nap and meditation?" Huanglongmon opened four of his eight eyes. "The world is becoming unstable once more." The Great One smiled at the quartet. "Is it not what all of you meant to tell me?"

Baihumon grinned. Turning to his best friend, Xuanwumon, he said, "You know, we sort of forgot that Huanglongmon knows everything. Especially when it comes to the world's balance." The tiger quickly turned his attention back to the Great One, for he knew very well that Huanglongmon was going to give one of those long speeches of his.

However, Huanglongmon did not do so; instead he asked the four on what they would do if they were in his shoes. Nobody replied, for they felt very sure that this was a weird question to test their true minds or so and so. With a kind glance at the four, Huanglongmon allowed himself a laugh.

The laugh was thunderous, and it rang through the whole room. The Great One then said, "My friends…A new corrupt has arisen. After Taichi, Daisuke, Takato, Takuya and Masaru, the Digital World was stable for quite an amount of years. Then the Royal Knights were unable to defend themselves against the Stigmalant Virus, leading them to corruption and the rise of their Reversal Modes." Huanglongmon paused for some air and to study the four Sovereigns.

"The Royal Knights in their reversal modes were then vanquished. As all of you will and always remember, that alone was not the end of the Virus. It struck again and this time, took over you, the Sovereigns. Xen's help was once again enlisted, and you were freed." Said Huanglongmon with an odd air. "The Virus was led to its end, and ultimately it destroyed itself."

The dragon couldn't suppress his laughter anymore, and thus began to laugh in his thunderous voice. His laughter was taken as an invitation to laugh too by the Sovereigns, who at the moment, were dying to laugh at one of Baihumon's jokes. Once the laughter had died down, the Great One continued, "If my memory doesn't fail me…"

Baihumon seized this chance to remark, "Your memory never fails except when it comes to owing us Bits." The tiger Sovereign then grinned as he retreated back to his original position. His comrades were bursting with laughter, and upon Huanglongmon's hearty chuckle, the quartet began laughing again.

"…To continue my sentence, I was about to discuss with you the matter of Drake and his friends' defend against the Overseers. He too, made short work of the Overseers, but the ultimate sacrifice was made to send the Overseers to their annihilations. One of his party's members was the weakest of them all, and thus decided to sacrifice himself to enable the rest to charge up one final blast to take all of the opponents down." The Great One said, putting the most emphasis on the part where a life was concerned.

With a sweeping glance around the steadily darkening room around him, Huanglongmon continued with a nonsensical sentence, "The night catches up on us. Now the stars appear which forms into the horoscopes. Ursa Major is exceptionally bright tonight."

So far, Zhuqiaomon was very silent. The sole female member of the Sovereigns then put in her bit by saying, "May you continue on with no distractions, my respected Huanglongmon."

The Great One seemed to have blushed for a short while, before he regained his composure. He then went on with his speech, "Now, all of you should know that a peace this long is never going to last. The beings on our side have turned against us, with those bearing our secrets selling them to the evil. I have vanquished them for our peace of mind."

Qinglongmon was quite shocked at the other dragon's speech. "So, what we have to do now is that of finding the new eight to take the holy beings down and back to our side?" The blue dragon guessed, having racked his brains while the Great One was presenting his speech.

"I vote that we four split into teams of two to find and delete the one who started this treachery." Xuanwumon said after much thinking. "To quote a Chinese saying that goes: To kill a man you have to kill his horse first; to find a thief you have to find his leader."

The tiger Digimon grinned as he placed forth his thoughts, "Maybe we can sit back until we locate the dark forces, then wage war on them." It was very clear that Baihumon had said this without much thought.

Zhuqiaomon didn't say or suggest anything. "However, I think that doing all of your suggestions will make us look like ruffians. And that will make us no different from the treacherous beings under our wing." She then said, "My suggestion is to let all five of us recruit more comrades to best the other side. Maybe it is because of the amount of army members that they have joined the dark forces. With more members, they may just come back with no hassle at all and some may even have the evil side's secrets that will hand us an advantage indirectly."

Huanglongmon smiled. His charges were growing well and their suggestions good and usable. "I have to say; all of you are coming along nicely, while at the same time keeping true to your personalities. But first, I will tell you my thoughts about your plans before I tell you mine."

There was no choice for the Sovereigns but to agree.

"Young dragon, you have a valid point there. Our eight are already marked down, with each of them having contrasting pasts and virtues. I shall introduce you to them. There is no leader for the eight of them; they will have to elect their own leaders depending on the situation. The first member of the party is Koenjinn, a female member who will be presented with an Angel Cross Digitama. She was once a proud Tamer of a Ryuudamon, but the girl pushed him too much in a battle. Yes, they won, but the digital partner was deleted. Hard times are inevitable if one is going to convince her to be a Tamer again.

"The one with the Dragon Swirl Digitama is Igarashi, a young boy with a dark personality, but now is trying to reform. The guilt he bears upon his shoulders is of his friends' death hence leading to his reformation. The boy would be quite a hard one to convince to take up a Digimon partner who would be his lifelong friend. Another member is Furunii, a very innocent and easy-to-convince girl whose traits will assist in the process of making her accept her assigned Beast Shot Digitama.

"The first half of the Chosen twins would be Mikahari, elder brother to Kirahari by three minutes. He believes in second chances, and too holds true to a world that is not corrupted in any way possible, which means total purification. Kirahari, however, is an oddball. The twin of Mikahari is special in his own way. He always does things the way he is ordered to, but the end result somehow gives off an air that it was done by him. He also stands his ground very well, like his brother. Hence, the difficult points in convincing the duo would lie in them being stubborn and hard-headed. Their traits merit them the Seraphim's Justice Digitama and Wolf's Claw Digitama respectively.

"Matsushin has a passionate flame burning in him in what ever he does. His passion can be truly felt by those who know him as a friend! The passion in him naturally draws the Dinosaur Tremor Digitama towards him. Shirasaki the orphan has been living with an old lady for all these years, and surviving on leftovers. The cats in the house eat much better food than he does, which makes it a miracle that the boy has grown up nicely. Perhaps it owes to his strong sense of survival. He gains the Devil Flame Digitama. The two I have just mentioned should pose not much of a problem

"Last but not least, there is the girl who mourns over a stray dog's death. I believe the Labrador died because of a very unlucky coincidence which involves the animal being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the incident could be avoided if only Kumiko didn't release the dog for the sake of giving him freedom. But freedom will always be cherished, is it not so, my four sovereigns? Hence, Kumiko shall be given a chance at another life with the Anubis Jewel Digitama. Please put forward any question you may have now." The Great One concluded.

The Sovereigns had no problem understanding what Huanglongmon had said, but the problem lied in how and where they were going to corner and convince the Chosen Ones to accept and raise their Digimon partners.

Before any one of them could pose the question, the great dragon had already said, "Do not worry about the handing over of the eight Digitama. I have ensured that plans are made beforehand."

"Hence, I can safely say that the young dragon's suggestion has already been thought of, nevertheless, quite a good suggestion. My wise friend, your suggestion is nearly the same as mine, with some crucial details different only. My version is that of the eight going to battle and conquer the first one who defied us. Of course, we will supply the power and energy needed to do so.

"Tiger cub, it is very like you to think so, when it comes to waging war and battling. But the war comes in later, when the Chosen Children wage their war against the being behind all this chaos. Only then we shall each use our powers to annihilate the other side. My fiery Sovereign, you have indeed read my mind. We will go about recruiting new forces, together with the help of the chosen eight." Huanglongmon concluded.

With a hearty chuckle, the Great One smiled at the quartet. He then said, "Nothing more is left to discuss about. Hence, I announce that this meeting has officially ended." The dragon then went back to his thoughts, leaving the four Sovereigns to their devices.

The Chosen Eight…will they accept their rightful roles? Will they prove to be good choices? I did this without even consulting the rest. No…it will be the best choice I've made this far. And was the sacrifice actually worth its rightful value? But this is no time to ponder things. I must proceed onwards with my plan.