Author's Note: The characters that I've included from the TV series only appear in the Prologue and future 'Intermission' chapters throughout - they are not the main characters in this series!


CHAPTER ONE

YATES'S BAR, SWINDON TOWN CENTER, UNITED KINGDOM

20:39 PM - MONDAY, 13th SEPTEMBER, 2010

The bar wasn't quite what you'd call "thriving", noted Venetia Polizzi. The young woman, who'd turned twenty only four months previously, was stood with her arms resting atop the bar, quietly surveying what spirits were available for consumption. Unfortunately, she recalled, there were no promotions on Monday nights, mainly due to the fact that people worked the very next day and had no particular wish to be fired by their bosses.

Well, most of them didn't.

Venetia sighed heavily - not for the first time that night - and dropped her head into her arms. Already, she'd given up trying to become inebriated, instead figuring that it was best not to be too drunk as she made her way back home in the early hours of the morning.

Turning to her left, Venetia blurted out, "Got any orange juice back there, Indi?"

The lone barwoman that night, Indigo Rose, rolled her eyes at her blonde friend's question before reaching down behind the bar for a fresh glass. "No more booze?"

"So your profits are gonna go down, so what?" asked Venetia sarcastically. "I just want my orange juice!"

Indi, hearing that the blonde's voice was quickly becoming more and more agitated, struggled to empty the contents of a small bottle of bright orange liquid into the glass. "Ok, ok, relax; it's coming!"

As soon as Indi had placed the glass on the bar, Venetia scooped it up in her hand and downed it. "It's not alcohol, you know," Indi commented. "Another?"

Venetia nodded and handed her empty glass back to the barwoman. Indi then bent down and took a bottle of orange juice from one of the mini fridges below the rear of the bar, emptied the liquid into the glass and handed it back to Venetia. The drunk young girl downed the drink yet again, before finally resting her forearms on the glossy surface of the bar. Standing, she said, "Right then, I'd better get going." Reaching over the bar, Venetia drunkenly hugged the barwoman - something she would never have done sober. "See you later."

"You, too," Indi replied, feigning happiness. "And try not to get lost going home like last time!"

Leaving Yates's, Venetia took her phone of her jeans pocket and checked the time - 22:02. Good thing I don't have to be in college 'til tomorrow afternoon. She turned to her left and commenced her trek toward home, thumbing the keypad on her phone along the way.

VENETIA: GOING HOME. SEE YOU THEN X

A few seconds later:

KIERAN: COOL. LOVE YOU X

VENETIA: YOU CAN PROVE THAT WHEN I'M BACK :P X

She laughed wickedly to herself as she walked down Faringdon Road, headed toward the bus stop so that she could "convene" (as she and Kieran called it) at the earliest opportunity. Not that Venetia wouldn't be able to do it alone were Kieran nowhere to be found.

Her train of drunkenly-pleasurable thought was interrupted by her ringtone, and she put her phone to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Venetia!" A somewhat familiar voice rang out of the phone's speaker, almost deafening Venetia in one ear.

She sighed. "Ashley, you really don't need to be so loud," she said, "I can hear you even if you whisper!"

Ashley whispered down the line so quietly Venetia couldn't hear him. "What?" she asked.

"I said," Ashley replied, "that I'm the only one who can hear minute noises when I'm drunk." Venetia rolled her eyes. They'd been friends for just under a year now; ever since she'd started showing up in one of the stairwells at college with several mutual friends, Venetia and Ashley had become almost BFFs and sharing evey part of their lives together. Except love lives, though; she wasn't quite Ashley's type.


DIGITAL WORLD

"Bring it before me."

The doors to the inner chamber opened with a groan as two Arkadimon guards brought a bound and beaten Calumon to face the Shadow Lord. The little white Digimon was dropped to the tiled floor, landing with a painful oof! that resounded throughout the chamber.

"Leave us," commanded the Shadow Lord. The guards left without hesitation, closing the heavy DigiChrome doors and leaving Calumon alone to his fate.

The Shadow Lord laughed. Leaning, he peered over Calumon's terrified form. "Why is it," he asked wickedly, "that your kind continually sees fit to attempt to unseat me from my throne?"

Calumon remained silent, shuddering in utter fear.

The Lord raised his brow. The pathetic creature had so far resisted torture; hell, it had even survived the captivity of the Sovereign Zhuqioamon during the D-Reaper crisis nearly a decade before. If he was to garner any worthwhile information from the prisoner, the Shadow Lord knew he must convince it another way.

"I don't see your vaunted Tamers anywhere, little thing," he said calmly. "I'd bet they don't even realise you're here."


SWINDON

"It can't be all that bad," replied Venetia. "He wouldn't have kissed you unless he wanted you - subconsciously, at the very least."

Ashley sighed. "Well, I kinda already knew that, Venetia. But obviously, with him being with Rosie, nothing more's ever really going to happen between Sy and I."

Rolling her eyes again, Venetia asked, "And you know that how exactly?"

There was a brief silence as Ashley appeared to hesitate. "Call it intuition."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Would this be the same intuition that helped to arrest that crazy psych teacher last year?"

"Venetia, you know me too well," replied Ashley. "Besides, I simply knew where he was going to be to try to get away from the cops. I wouldn't exactly call breaking his nose 'helping to arrest him'."

By now, Venetia had turned down into the walkway that connected to the bus station and had stopped in the queue for her bus. "You're so humble, Ash," she said sarcastically. "I don't suppose you're getting anymore flashes of intuition right now, by any chance?" For some insanely as-yet unknown reason, an elderly man, sat cross-legged on the bricked ground, had caught her attention.

"Should I be?"

There was something about this man that drew her. She couldn't explain it. "No, no," she lied, "nothing to worry about. Listen, I'll talk to you later, k?"


DIGITAL WORLD

"They'll be here," said Calumon, resiliently. "Once they know about you, Takato and Guilmon and the others will stop you!"

The Shadow Lord laughed hard. "Not, I think, after you have told me about the secrets of digivolution." He reached out and grabbed Calumon in a single hand and pulled the tiny Digimon toward him. "You hold the key to digivolution, little one," he said. "The crests and tags of old were created using energy taken from your Digi-core. I had the chance to take that energy for myself once. I will not allow it to slip away from me again."

The Shadow Lord began to hold Calumon in a tighter grip, eliciting several sharp squeals from the Rookie-level Digimon. The Lord laughed harder each time Calumon screamed in pain.


SWINDON

Without wanting to draw too much attention to herself, Venetia headed toward the elderly man, who was still sat on the ground with his eyes fixed upon the buses that were continuously pulling in and out of the station. Strangers passed him - some in groups, some pulling suitcases behind them, some simply texting friends or family - but his eyes never once stopped staring at the same spot.

Venetia, who had never before decided to talk to someone who appeared homeless, gradually came to the old man's side and crouched, careful to keep the strap of her hipster bag from slipping off her shoulder. She didn't talk to him straight away, just crouched next to him and studied his face. It was lined with creases and furrows, implying he'd had a hard life before arriving at this spot.

Suddenly, his grey-blue eyes turned toward Venetia, startling her and sent her falling uncomfortably onto her backside. "Young one," he said, startling Venetia even further.

She looked around to see if he could possibly be referring to someone else. He wasn't, unfortunately. "Y-yes...?" she stammered.

The man continued to gaze at Venetia as he spoke. "Young one," he replied. "Beware the shadow. It is lurking, constantly lurking," the man said.

"Shadow?" Venetia chorused.

He remained quite still and quite silent for some time, until he spoke just three words. "It is coming." Then the old man simply disappeared into nothingness.

Venetia's blood drained from her skin. A man had just disappeared there and then, right in front of her eyes. She looked about her, expecting to see equally shocked faces from everyone in the vicinity; not a one of them was even looking in her direction. It was as if they either didn't witness the extraordinary event, or just plainly didn't give a damn. No, he couldn't have done it. He couldn't have done it. No one could disappear like that, it was impossible. Ok, thought Venetia, maybe he's wearing an invisibility cloak or something.

"Are you still there?" she called out to him, keeping her voice low so as to stave off crazy looks from the surrounding pedestrians. "Hello? Crazy-old-guy-who's-potentially-on-drugs?" Still nothing. Well I know I'm definitely not drunk enough to have imagined the whole thing.

Venetia stood, and hurried to call Kieran. She was about to press his number on the speed dial when it occurred to her that she probably was drunk enough to have hallucinated. Besides, no one else had noticed him, apparently, and she wasn't about to risk losing her boyfriend due to her possibly being a hallucinogenic alcoholic; her parents had divorced over far less. No, she decided, she wouldn't call anyone; Venetia returned her phone to her pocket and continued to await her bus' arrival, standing silently in the queue and making no indication as to anything untoward happening.


CANCOURT FARM, 1.5 MILES SOUTH OF SWINDON

08:12 AM - TUESDAY, 14TH SEPTEMBER, 2010

He'd just had a very weird phone call with Venetia. Or at least the last part had been weird. She'd never asked about his intuition before, even during the crisis involving the psychology teacher, so why now?

Ashley James Lambert was just about to fall asleep last night, when he got the idea to call Venetia into his head. He felt it was his duty to keep his BFF informed on all the comings and goings on the Simon 'Sy' Holloway front. Not that it really mattered anyway, considering nothing was actually happening between the two of them. While the pair had shared a couple of kisses - Ok, quite a few, thought Ashley - it wasn't as if there was any form of bond between them. Then again, it wasn't exactly within Ashley's sense of morality to break up a couple, even if Rosie was bad for Sy.

Rosie Peat was Sy's on-again off-again girlfriend. She also believed herself to be the center of the universe. No one else in the group was going to tell her so, most likely due to the fact that they were all simply waiting for Rosie to work it out on her own time. But, taking all that into account, Rosie and Sy were still sort of a good match. Even if she was an egotistical bitch.

Ashley went downstairs, showered (the shower was unfortunately placed in the utility room along with the front door - not exactly the best of combinations), then went back up to his room to change. He decided on a white t-shirt and jeans, leaving his dyed-red hair to drape down below his shoulders. Though he himself certainly loved it, Ashley's hair was often a source of disagreement with members of his family; his mother practically threatened to scalp him almost every time they got chatting.

Speak of the devil; "Ready to go?" his mother, Catrina, asked. She'd appeared in his bedroom's doorway wearing a green sweater and jeans, a handbag slung over her shoulder. "You've got to be there in half an hour, Ashley James; hurry up."

Ashley answered her demand by grabbing his bag - a black plastic shoulder-bag - the multicoloured strap twisting in places as he donned it.


NEW COLLEGE, SWINDON

09:06 AM

Ashley pulled into the car park with time to spare. His first lesson of the day - English Literature - wasn't due to begin for another hour. He continued to simply sit in his car, staring out at the college building directly in front of him. What was it about Sy that got him staring into nonexistent voids? So what if he's kinda cute, thought Ashley, especially when he smiles. He looked in his wing mirror to see that his cheeks were beginning to flush with colour. Before any other physical signs began to show themselves, he took hold of his bag, opened the door, and stepped out. Then again, there's always Jeff...and Darrell. Hell, maybe I'm just attracted to testosterone. Great, so I've been fantasizing over a hormone. You watch, it'll be all the rage ten years from now...

He fell to the tarmacked ground almost immediately, smacking his nose on the car door as he went down. It took Ashley a few seconds to realise that he'd connected with another person, and that this unknown stranger was also on the ground. He looked up and squinted through the throbbing coming from his nose to spy a long mane of red hair.

"Hey, you ok?" said the hair.

Laughing, Ashley saw that the hair belonged to someone quite familiar to him. "Yeh, I'm fine," he said. "Sorry about that, Alicia; didn't see where I was going! Are you ok?"

"No, no, you didn't," Alicia said, shaking her head. "Oh - here, you forgot this." She handed Ashley his bag after hefting it from the ground. When he took a breath to speak, Alicia beat him to it. "Yes, Andrew is still single."

Ashley smiled inwardly. "Really?" he asked with mock indifference. "Any chance he's giving you a lift home tonight?"

"Ha ha," Alicia said sarcastically. "No he isn't. Besides, I should probably warn you that he's really not your type."

"Why? Don't tell me he's decided he's actually straight now."

"Not quite. But if you ever have an actual conversation - more than the one word you said to him when you first met him - then you'll manage to work it out for yourself."

Holding his hands up in submission, Ashley said, "Ok, ok! I'll take your word for it! You hungry?"

"Only if you're paying."


"You should try lifting the roof of your mouth."

Sy lifted an eyebrow. "That's physically impossible."

Rosie clipped her boyfriend round the head with the papers in her hand, hard. Very hard.

"Not for you, and certainly not for me." Sighing, she said, "Just do it, Simon."

"D'ya think maybe I'm not able to do it simply because I'm not a singer?" Sy asked hopefully, rubbing his head at the point of impact. That paper had hurt - far more than paper ought to.

Not missing a beat, Rosie replied, "Not a chance. If I can sing, so can you," she said, punctuating each word with a jab of her finger; Sy flinched each time as she came closer and closer to poking him (rather painfully, presumably) in the throat. "Just not quite as well," she added.

Before Sy could say anything in reply, Alicia and Ashley entered the stairwell, each carrying burger buns filled with what looked to be full-English breakfasts. "Learning to sing again, Sy?" asked Alicia, her mouth full with food.

Sy smiled halfheartedly in response.

"Actually," said Rosie, "he's on his break. Right, I'm off; see you all later." Kissing Sy on the cheek, Rosie hefted her bag and left the stairwell.

The three friends who were left in her wake stood awkwardly, none of them wanting to comment on Rosie's exit.

It remained silent for several seconds afterwards. "So," said Alicia, if only to break the awkwardness. "Anyone hungry?"

Ashley was about to give his assent when he noticed a light vibration emanating from his bag. Digging through his paperwork, his fingers found the source; a strange blue-white metallic object. Three darker blue buttons lived on the front of the device; one on the left side, two on the right. A small black stub jutted out of the top left-hand corner. A quadrangle screen rested in the centre; usually black, it was flashing with a faint white light every couple of seconds or so.

Quickly hiding the device back away within his bag, Ashley looked around him to make sure no one had noticed what was going on. Sy and Alicia were engrossed in a vital conversation about hair dye. Daring to breathe a light sigh of relief, Ashley took out his phone and began to text the one other person in Swindon who might understand what was going on.


Life stopped dead. Time froze. The sounds of students and teachers outside of the office fell silent. His world had ended.

Steven and Susan Crinson, parents to Jorge Crinson, had been killed in a road traffic collision.

Jorge, usually a quiet soul at any other time, sat in the high-backed chair, struck-dumb. The universe beyond the bounds of his mind, body, and soul was erased from his perception; a lone figure amid a storm of nothingness.

He stared at the wall behind the family liaison officer - a woman in her late thirties - and a male police officer, who looked to be in his early fifties. Jorge remained that way for what seemed like hours; time was nonexistent.

"Mister Crinson."

Jorge was brought out of his grief-induced reverie by the FLO.

"Mister Crinson, your family is with your parents at the hospital. If you'd like, we can take you there now."

Jorge barely nodded his assent.