Disclaimer: I do not own digimon.


Chapter 1:

"Tokomon! Tokomon, where are you?"

The others followed suit with similar shouts.

They had just arrived on the continent of Server and spent the night at a Pagumon village. TK knew there was something wrong with the Pagumon's behavior, it seemed like it was a big joke the digimon were playing on them, but then when they woke up Tokomon was missing. This wasn't a joke anymore.

Tokomon couldn't have left, right? Someone had to have taken his partner, who had just digivolved the previous evening at dinner. Maybe Tokomon didn't like him anymore and just wanted to get away from him. Feelings of sorrow continued to well up inside of him; could that really be what happened?

No, he couldn't believe that. Not after Tokomon came back for him after the whole Devimon thing; Tokomon wouldn't do that.

He and the others walked up to Izzy where the little genius had drawn a map of the surrounding area. He and his friends had split up to look for Tokomon and then reported back to Izzy, where he drew X's through the areas Tokomon wasn't found at.

"He's not in the village," Matt reported.

"Hm, can we hurry this up? I'm scheduled for a mud bath and a facial in half an hour," Mimi said.

Gomamon rolled his eyes and said, "Tokomon should know better than to interrupt your beauty treatments."

Mimi nodded, "You're so right!"

Joe burst out that Gomamon was being sarcastic, but TK didn't pay attention to the rest of their conversation. He just stared at the ground, worry etched all over his face.

"He's not by the waterfall," the Pagumon stated as they hopped towards Izzy.

"This is bad," Izzy spoke TK's mind.

"Where is he?" he wondered.

The Pagumon turned towards him and chuckled.

"What's so funny?" he questioned the Pagumon. This little trick of being good did not sit right with him at all; these Pagumon knew something.

"We weren't laughing!"

"No, we feel so bad that Tokomon is lost!"

Their words weren't sincere; this was all an act and he knew it.

"You tell me where Tokomon is this instant or I'll..."

"TK!" his brother said, while walking towards him and crouching down so that he was at eye level. "The Pagumon have been nice to us this whole time! I'm sure they had nothing to do with Tokomon's disappearance!"

The others nodded and looked at him with sympathetic expressions on their faces.

TK pulled away from Matt's embrace and paced around furiously. The Pagumon weere behind all of this, but their little facade tricked the others. How could they not see what he was seeing?

The others went back to Izzy as they looked at his map.

"Tokomon's small, so he can't have gone too far!" Izzy stated.

TK kept thinking of where the Pagumon would have taken his partner. Tokomon wasn't in the village, so where he could they have...

The waterfall! That's the area the Pagumon were responsible for, and of course they'd lie about Tokomon being there.

At that instant, there was smoke in the sky over by the river.

"It's Tokomon!" he exclaimed.

"No, really it's nothing. We looked by the river and didn't see a thing!"

"Well, it was possible that Tokomon arrived after you Pagumon searched the area," Izzy thought out loud.

Tai came down from his vantage point and said, "Hey, I'll check it out." He must have been worried about Agumon, since the digimon had been missing for so long.

"No, don't do that!" the Pagumon shouted.

TK was pleased that the others were starting to see through the Pagumon's fake kindness, but he couldn't wait any longer to find Tokomon. He started running towards the waterfall that instant.

He heard the others shout at him to come back, but he ignored them. He was running full speed at the waterfall, but his short legs didn't allow him to take very long strides. It wasn't long before Tai passed him and the others had caught up to him. Matt tried to scold him for running off like he had, but he didn't pay any attention to his brother.

As they got to the river they saw the watefall split open and Greymon shot a Nova Blast at these two standing rabbit-like digimon. The digimon fell into the river and were swept away by the currents.

"Tokomon!" he shouted as he saw his partner tied up and locked in a cage. He ran to his partner and freed him, giving him a big hug.

"Tokomon, I thought I lost you again!"

"I'm like a boomerang, I keep coming back!"

He was faintly aware that there were a bunch of Koromon tied up in cages as well and the others freed them.

"Well hello!" a mysterious voice said. It sounded like the voice was coming from some type of rock star or something.

Then a hologram appeared above the trees surrounding the river. The hologram was of an orange monkey wearing black sunglasses and holding a microphone. There was also an electric guitar strapped around the monkey's shoulders. TK didn't know how, but he could tell this monkey was evil even with his ridiculous appearance because of the shiver that ran down his spine.

"Hey you measly digidestined humans, thank you very much. Hello!"

"It's Etemon! Oh no!" the Koromon exclaimed, clearly afraid of this digimon.

"You little bratty kids messed up my beautiful plan, so now I'm going to have to punish you all by playing a little number I just wrote. It's called 'wrecking the whole place!'"

"Do you think he can actually do that?" Izzy asked.

As if answering Izzy's question, Etemon yelled, "Dark Network Concert Crush!"

A bunch of black, electrified cables started floating up towards the sky and then sent down lightening bolts of pure darkness. TK felt like he was hit by one of those darkness bolts and dropped to his knees. He put his hands over his head and wished for the pain to be stopped.

The others were helping their partners digivolve to their champion forms so they could fight Etemon, so Tokomon was the only one that noticed TK fall to the ground.

"TK, are you alright?" his partner asked him, clearly worried.

TK didn't respond. The darkness Etemon was using seemed to have some type of effect on him, but he couldn't understand why. The pain continued as the bolts kept getting nearer to them. Finally, one of them hit the rocks above them and the rocks came tumbling down.

"TK!" Matt shouted, noticing his brother wasn't running away. The rocks were about to land on them when Matt was able to help him up to his feet and escape the rockslide.

They kept running until they reached a dead end. Now that they were farther away from Etemon and his Dark Network, the pain TK was feeling started to ease up.

"What's this?" Tai asked.

The Koromon responded, "This is a safe place where we hide when anything bad happens to our village."

"What do we do now?"

Suddenly Tai's tag started to glow and the cave glowed as well with an orange color. They watched as the wall that had blocked them from continuing further shrunk to a small trapezoid.

"I think I know what this is!" Tai exclaimed.

"Ok, what?"

"A crest!"

The orange trapezoid slid right into Tai's tag, a perfect fit.

Once the excitement of getting a crest faded, they realized that they were now in a forested area that was surrounded by mountains. The Koromon said that these mountains were a long ways from their village, so the crest must have teleported them to this area to escape Etemon. TK was thankful as the pain he had felt was gone.


It was another sunny, beautiful day in the Digital World, but things were not what they used to be. In his world of darkness, Apocalymon had been able to create evil digimon that he sent out into the Digital World. Devimon was destroyed, but that digimon was meant to be destroyed; Devimon's only purpose was to infuse the littlest digidestined with that orb of darkness he had created.

That orb was one of his masterpieces. Inside of it was all of the sorrow, all of the pain, all of the darkness that he had to experience on a daily basis for all of eternity, all conveniently wrapped up into a tiny sphere. The orb was meant to be instilled into the young digidestined and then be broken, releasing all of that darkness into the boy's body, mind, and spirit.

His plan had not been going as according to plan, though. The orb could only be burst open by an act of true darkness. He had meant for that act to be giving up all hope after the boy's partner died at Infinity Mountain. But even with his persuasion, the digidestined was still able to hold on to hope and bring his digimon partner back to life.

That was not meant to have happened, but this was only a slight setback. Since the digidestineds were all connected because of their digivices, all that it took was for one of them to do something truly evil, and then the orb would break, and the boy would start losing his hope. He sensed that this time was approaching, as he watched the digidestined of courage lose control and try to force his digimon partner to digivolve to the next level so that they could defeat Etemon, one of his pawns. It was only a matter of time before his plan was set into motion. He would've smiled about the impending doom of the youngest digidestined, but this world prevented him from feeling joy. It was only a matter of time, though, till the entire Digital World felt what it was like to live with such darkness.


Soccer. As much as he thought it was silly for them to be playing a game in the Digital World, he had to admit that it would be nice to get his mind off of everything for a little while.

They were just about ready to start playing a game of digimon vs. humans when Tai kicked the ball away from them and scolded them, "I can't believe you're playing soccer at a time like this. Would you use your heads for something other than hitting the ball? The sooner Joe finds his crest the sooner we can leave."

'What a jackass' TK thought to himself. His mother would have scolded him for his language, but then again his mother wasn't here and it wasn't like he had said it out loud. Besides, it was true. Ever since Tai got his crest he had been acting like a big jerk. He felt that since Agumon was the only one to digivolve to the next level then he had to push his partner digimon as hard as he could. Apparently this meant stuffing Agumon with all of their food, and then scolding everyone for trying to have a little bit of fun.

"Haha! Who's the king?!"

TK recognized the voice; it was Etemon. They all started running away towards Joe, who was standing in the soccer goal for some reason. Once all of them were surrounding Joe, the soccer goal fell down and trapped them.

"Goooooal! I sure did it, I scored a goal!" Etemon mocked them.

Tentomon tried to break through the net, but was electrified on contact; they couldn't escape.

Etemon went into this long speech about not being there in person and there being a special guest. When Tai asked who it was, a Greymon with a black collar around its neck crashed into the coliseum. Somehow Agumon wasn't trapped, maybe he couldn't keep up with their running because of all the food he ate. At any rate, Tai realized that Agumon was the only digimon that could do anything and had Agumon digivolve. A battle then ensued; Greymon vs. Greymon.

Unfortunately for them, their Greymon was much too slow to keep up with the other Greymon because of all the food in his stomach. Tai realized that Greymon didn't stand a chance and continued to will his partner to digivolve. TK felt a chill rush down his spine, similar to the one he felt when Etemon used dark lightening bolts to attack them. Since that time, TK realized that the pain he felt had something to do with darkness or some type of evil force. The previous time it had been Etemon's attack, but what could be causing him to feel this now?

During this time, the battle was only getting worse for Greymon. He was being swung around by his tail and then thrown into the stands. This was not looking good for them.

Gomamon tried to help by using his Marching Fishes attack. Rainbow colored fish swam out of this weird statue, flew over to a Gazimon on top of the statue, stole the fireworks from the Gazimon, and then threw them at the Greymon. This gave them some time to think of a way to get out of there. He, Matt, and Izzy had noticed that one of the tiles underneath them could be lifted, and they proposed that they dug their way out.

There was some rock underneath them with a strange symbol on it. Joe's tag started reacting and the stone began to glow. It was just like when Tai found his crest. The stone shrunk to a little trapezoid and they all cheered that they had found another crest. Unfortunately for them, that rock was the thing they had been standing on, so when Joe got his crest they ended up falling down into some pit. When they recovered from the fall, Tentomon found a tunnel and they were able to escape.

Once they climbed out, they were able to see the battlefield. Greymon was caught by his throat and the other Greymon rammed him into the stadium. TK felt the same chill he felt before, but this time it was strong enough to make him gasp and drop Tokomon.

Tokomon was trying to talk to him, but the pain only intensified.

"Don't stop me, this is my chance to make him digivolve to the next level. Please mind your own business Sora."

Tai, it was Tai that was causing him to have this pain. His will to force Greymon to digivolve was about to cause something bad to happen. He tried to call out for Tai to stop, but it was already too late. Tai had run out into the middle of the battle, obviously forcing himself to be in danger to make his partner digivolve.

The others digivolved so that they could help Tai out, but it was already too late.

"You can do it Greymon! Digivolve!"

This caused TK to drop to his knees in horrific pain. It felt like his entire body was on fire. He looked up and tried to shout out desperately to Tai, but there was already darkness shooting out from Tai's crest towards Greymon. He watched as beams of darkness shot into Greymon and Greymon started digivolving. TK never saw the end result because the pain intensified, which he didn't think was possible. He tried to fight the pain, but it was too much for him. He blacked out.


"TK!" Joe shouted as he watched the young boy suddenly collapse to the ground. The others didn't see what was happening to TK because they were worried too much about Tai and the ensuing battle. TK looked out to the battle and tried to say something, but he couldn't utter the words. TK then collapsed onto the ground, unconscious.

Joe dropped to his knees beside TK, but flinched when he saw a dark wisp of air float out from the back of TK's neck. Soon there was a dark aura emanating from the boy. Joe tried to touch his friend, but retreated his hand because of the burning sensation he got when he touched the darkness surrounding TK.

He saw a fire red light off to his side and looked out to see dark beams of something shoot directly into Greymon causing the digimon to... digivolve.

Once the digivolution was complete, a huge creature made of bones with a giant missile on its back replaced Greymon. Could this be Greymon's next digivolution? It all seemed wrong to him, but the others were all focused on SkullGreymon and not on TK, so he returned his attention to the unconscious boy.

Joe could see that TK was still breathing, but the boy did not move an inch.

"Joe? What's wrong with TK?!" Tokomon asked him.

"What's going on Joe?" Gomamon asked as well.

"Uh, guys...?" he tried to call out to the others, but no one was paying him much attention. They were too busy with... Joe looked back at the digimon Greymon had become and shuddered at the sight. That digimon really gave him the creeps, but he had to be brave right now.

Joe was lucky he had looked at that time because SkullGreymon picked up one of the soccer goals, crushed it in his claw, and then tossed it their way. Reacting on pure instinct, Joe scooped up TK into his arms and ran to dodge the assault.

Once out of harm's way, Joe looked back to see that Birdramon's, Garurumon's, and Kabuterimon's attacks had no effect on SkullGreymon and the evil digimon simply swatted them away like gnats. Luckily, SkullGreymon decided to run out of the coliseum without attacking them, and rampaged out into the desert. They watched as SkullGreymon ran and then stopped, let out a deafening roar, and started emanating dark air from his body. SkullGreymon started glowing a gold color and started dedigivolving.

The others started running towards SkullGreymon, and Joe followed, TK still in his arms and Tokomon trying his best to keep up with them.

When they got to the scene, SkullGreymon had returned back to Koromon. Joe felt TK start to shake as they got closer to the Koromon, but once all of the black air had dissipated, TK stopped.

Joe was gasping for air. He had gotten in better condition since they had been in the Digital World and all they seemed to do was run all the time, but carrying TK with him proved to be tiring. The little guy was heavier than he looked, or maybe Joe simply wasn't that strong.

Joe carefully laid TK down on the sand before his arms had time to give out on him. He tried to regain his breath, while also trying to get the others' attention.

"Uh... guys?"

No response.

"Guys?"

Still no response.

"GUYS!"

They all turned around at his sudden outburst.

"Joe?! What the he..." Matt started, but then the blonde saw his little brother lying down on the ground unconscious. "TK!"

Matt rushed to his brother's side and the others stood around TK as well.

"What happened Joe?" Sora asked.

"I... I'm not quite sure," he replied.

Matt grabbed him by the shirt collar and yelled at him, "Why didn't you tell us TK was injured back in the coliseum!"

He tried to respond, but didn't know what to say in response to the blonde's ferocity.

"Lay off Matt!" Izzy exclaimed.

Matt's eyes continued to shoot him a cold glare, but Matt did turn back to TK.

"What's wrong with him Joe?" Mimi asked.

"I..." he tried to find the words, it all had happened so fast, "Greymon was fighting the other Greymon and when Tai rushed out into the middle of the battle, I noticed TK drop to his knees. I think he was trying to get your attention Tai, maybe trying to get you to stop, but then Greymon started digivolving. TK was then surrounded by this dark, black air, almost like the digimon do when they digivolve, but it was pitch black. SkullGreymon then attacked us, and I carried him out here. That's really all I know."

The others didn't know what to say. Tai looked down at the ground, "Was this all my fault? Did I not just hurt Koromon, but TK as well?"

"Tai, I'm sure this is not your fault," Sora tried to reassure, but she wasn't entirely certain that was true.

Matt stood up and glared at Tai, shaking in anger. "Of course this is all your fault Tai!"

The others tried to calm Matt down, but the blonde looked like he was ready to rip off Tai's head. Matt was about to charge when Joe got up and held him back. Matt tried to break free, but Joe held firm.

"Matt," he said, "Calm down now. You need to be focused on helping TK, not hurting your friend."

Matt started to stop struggling, but he still held an evil look in his eyes.

"We can't be certain Tai is the one to blame here Matt, and Joe is right. It is not beneficial for us to start fighting each other, especially when one of us is hurt."

"Izzy's right," Mimi chimed in.

Matt still looked like he was angry at Tai, and Joe couldn't blame him, but they didn't need a fight to start amongst themselves. Thankfully Matt backed down and returned to TK's side.

Tokomon was nudging at TK's side and muttering the boy's name. Joe looked at everyone else, who all looked confused, hurt, and worried. He couldn't help but wonder if coming to Server was even worth it after all the trouble they've faced so far. Matt and Tai were fighting, they still couldn't digivolve to the next level, TK was unconscious, and Etemon was still out there trying to hunt them down. He wished they would've stayed at File Island and never come to Server.


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