DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, obviously. This is a FANFIC. A FICtion written by a FAN. Digimon is owned by Akiyoshi Hongo, Toei, and Bandai, along with other related companies.

Last time on "Digimon Genesis" a troubled boy named Takumi Hito collapsed on his bed in sadness, feeling that he had let the memory of his father down by being a failure in school. While half-conscious, a group of people forced him to ingest a strange green formula. When he awoke, he decided to take a walk in the night. While on the stroll he came across one of his classmates. Then, a strange sensation went through Takumi's body and he transformed into a dragon and killed the boy. When he woke up later, it was daylight, and he had no idea what had transpired.

DIGIMON GENESIS

CHAPTER 2

A MEETING IN THE DARKNESS

Takumi ran down the road. His eyes were foggy, he could barely make out an object ten feet in front of him. Still he ran on. What lie ahead could not be scarier than what lay behind.

Suddenly, the boy stopped, panting, turning around. He had ran quite a ways.

Then he looked down at his feet. He was only thirteen years old, and yet he had done something so horrible, so dark, so extreme - he had committed murder. Or did he? Had it just been a dream.

Yes, Takumi thought. It had to be. There's no way I could have done . . . that . . . no way . . . no way . . . and then he looked at his hands. They still carried the stains of blood.

That is not what I think it is, he thought again. It's not blood. It's something else . . . it's not that . . .

Takumi's run slowed down to a walk, but it was a fast walk, as though a dark force was behind him. His house was only a few minutes away.

When he came to his house, he felt odd.

Birds were singing. The house was still and quiet. It didn't feel right. How could the world be so quiet when such a terrible thing had happened?

Takumi walked up his driveway, still staring at the brick house. The whole world, even the house itself, seemed like they all had more than a vague idea of what he had just done. For some reason Takumi felt that they demanded an apology from him. His own house seemed to watch him. It was like it was waiting for him to come up the driveway, kneel before it and confess. Entering through the front door and refusing to repent first was a sin.

Should I go in? he thought. Although the birds were in graceful melody, and the sun was rising above the clouds, it seemed as though something were waiting in the house that wanted to hurt Takumi.

It was sunny and quiet. A normal morning . . . to everyone else.

No one would know, Takumi thought. No one would know that I did it - that is, if I did do it. Did it even happen? At this point he almost turned back to go check on the body - to see if it was there, or never was there, if it was a dream.

Then a terrible thought came to him. The morning had been quiet - eerily quiet - and empty. He had not encountered a single person as he had ran down the road. What if everyone in the whole wide world had disappeared, without a trace, leaving him trapped in this oddly mundane morning forever?

He had to find his mother. She had to be at home. If she wasn't, then something was wrong.

He ran into the house at light speed, opening the door and stepping inside. He was about to call his mother's name when -

"Takumi! Oh Takumi, where have you been? Are you all right?" It was the voice of his mother, and he noticed that she had spilt coffee on her robes when she had ran frantically down the stairs.

"H-hello, mom," he managed to say. "What's wrong?"

What's wrong. That was classic. He knew very well what was wrong. Leaving the house in the night without a word of where he was going was wrong. Sleeping by the side of the road next to a murder victim was wrong. Being the murderer of that person was wrong.

"Where have you been?" his mother asked. "I was so worried about you - I'm so relieved that you're okay. I thought - I thought -"

"Thought - what?"

"It was on the local news. They found a boy murdered on the side of the road! His body was all torn to pieces. They don't know who or what killed him. When I didn't find you at home, I thought it was you!"

Takumi's heart skipped a beat. When she said this, he thought she had suspected that Takumi had been the murderer. Then he realized that his mother had been worried that he was the boy who had been killed.

"What? Oh my gosh . . ." He tried to sound shocked, even though he had known about this before anyone else.

But it was shocking. Someone must have found the boy's body just minutes after Takumi fled the scene of the crime. But in that time, they also needed to report it to the police and the police needed to report it to the local news.

"Just how much time has it been since I ran away?" he wondered. He wish he had a watch on him, but he would never know for sure what time exactly he had woke up and saw the body himself.

"Come here, Takumi," said his mother, bringing him into the kitchen. "It's on Channel 5. Can you believe this? In our own town!"

"The body was found about 7:26 AM by a man in the area." Takumi managed to listen to the news reporter on television, who was interviewing an old man with a cowboy hat and very bad teeth.

"I was just out in ma'yard, when I see this feller on the ground . . . I wonder what he's up to, so I go look at him and then I see this blood . . . there were these claw marks, like it was made by some wild animal." Had it been another situation the scene would have been almost comical, the man looked like the stereotypical hick, but this was no laughing matter, even the man himself had a guilty look on his face, like he was the one who had committed the crime.

"A wild animal!" said Mrs. Hito. "What could it have been? Is it still out there?"

This was the oddest part of all.

"If it's a wild animal, then it couldn't have been me!" Takumi thought with a great sigh of relief. "But then why was I on the ground right next to him? Had I been sleeping there? Why didn't the animal get me too?"

Takumi's mother had her hand on her lips, wide-eyed at the screen. Then she turned to him and said, "Look, Takumi, don't you ever go out alone again. EVER." The last word she shouted, and Takumi could make out a note of panic in her voice.

"Well, this is certainly shocking, and not something that we think could happen in our own little community." The news reporter was back on, a professional-looking man with light brown hair and a large chin. "While we don't know who or what did this terrible crime, we do know one thing - unless you're the parents of the boy who was tragically killed and whose name has not yet been released, it's probably best not to worry about it too much and to not let it affect our lives."

"WHAT!" Takumi's mother shouted.

"- nonetheless, a number of schools in the Bear Creek community have been closed for the day, with concern for the safety of the students and staff there in mind. For more of the latest news and reports, keep watching Channel 5. I'm Ryan Royama, and now we take a break for our sponsors."

"That's absolute lunacy!" said Mrs. Hito. "'Not let it affect our lives' - how are we supposed to do that? The murderer might be looking in the window right now!" She made a fearful glance behind her.

Takumi's school, Bear Creek Middle, had been included on the list of closed schools. Normally he would have been rejoicing, but the events of the last hour was nothing to be cheerful about. For one thing, even if he wasn't the murderer - and that was something he still wasn't sure about - that meant there was still a killer out on the loose, whether it was man or animal, and that was hardly anything to be happy about.

The day was a long, weary, and confusing one, with Takumi constantly debating with his mind just what had happened the night before. To pass the time he read some of his books, tried to get a head start on the next chapter for math class, and watched some boring television - his mother absolutely forbid him to go outside even to get the mail.

In the afternoon Mrs. Hito called her son downstairs; they had finally released the name of the murdered boy. Takumi already knew it.

"Hiroshi Watanabe, age twelve," said the newscaster. It displayed a picture of him, and Takumi felt a mixed wave of hatred and satisfaction. The boy who had made fun of his tears the day before was now dead.

"Takumi! He went to your school. Did you know him?"

"Not really," Takumi replied, emotionless. "I saw him in the hall occasionally."

"Oh, I can't believe something like this happened," said Mrs. Hito, shaking her head and cupping her hands sadly. "Those poor parents! Oh, I hope they find out what happened to him and who killed him."

"Yeah," said Takumi, looking blankly into the eyes of the recently killed boy. There was nothing inside them that indicated that it was necessary for him to continue living. He had caused trouble for people on earth and he would not be missed.

The night was a sleepless one for the whole town, especially for Takumi, who could not make sense of it all. In between his thoughts of guilt and confusion, his mother kept inviting him to sleep on the floor in her room, but he refused. He tried to relieve himself of shame, trying to convince himself that he couldn't have been the murderer . . . he just didn't have the ability to kill another human being. And though sometimes he wanted to see someone dead, he didn't really have any malicious intent. He didn't really have plans to kill them.

I'm not a murderer, he thought. I'm peaceful.

And somehow he eventually drifted off to sleep. But he had no peace, he would not have peace for a long time.

"I had an idea that this would happen. I knew you couldn't be trusted, Stone."

"I - I'm sorry, Shadow. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to happen."

"Of course you didn't mean for it to happen! Nobody wanted it to happen! But it did, and that's all that matters."

There was silence.

"Why didn't you watch him more closely? You can't just use anyone! But we all know why. No matter how unbalanced he was, you still would have chosen him."

"This was just an anomaly," Stone said.

"An anomaly? An anomaly? How can you say that? He goes berserk right after we give it to him! This is not good, Stone. Not good at all. This had better be an anomaly. Otherwise, the only option we have is - death."

"D-death? You're not serious!"

"I'm serious. More serious than you were about being low-key. A murder by some wild animal! This will have the conspiracy theorists going wild. And might I remind you that this particular area has their attention?"

"Yes," said Stone. "I - I understand."

"Fortunately, we have Scavenge here. He will do his part. And you, Stone, you will have to do yours."

Scavenge nodded, and Shadow turned to the fourth member of the group, a woman.

"Seek . . . have you monitored his stress levels?"

"Yes. They are falling, much lower than they were before the transformation. We shall see if they will be heightened tomorrow . . ."

Shadow nodded. "If they are, Stone, you must be ready . . . you must be ready."

Suddenly Takumi felt heavier, and the four people disappeared as though he was waking up from a strange dream. Takumi would have dismissed it had the four people not visited him in his dreams the night before. Lots of strange things happened to Takumi, but recurring dreams were not one of them.

It was odd how sometimes his mind worked. Whenever he would wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, interesting thoughts and ideas would come to him, and they did this night.

The wild animal. He had seen that wild animal the night before. It was some sort of dragon. Could there be a creature like that living in the forests? Perhaps Takumi went to sleep while he was out on his walk and dreamed it all? No, that couldn't be the case, because if it was a dream, the boy wouldn't be dead. Maybe Takumi just witnessed the murder while he was going to sleep . . . or maybe . . . Takumi had been the dragon. He murdered the boy while he was a dragon. That would explain the claw marks . . . and the blood on his hand earlier in the day . . .

Though this seemed a logical, if bizarre conclusion, it did nothing to give him peace of mind. If I really did do it, Takumi thought, then I am the murderer. But how? I don't remember a thing about being a dragon . . . does that make me innocent? But what about the dragon? How did this happen?

But these sudden revelations had tired his brain and drained him mentally, so he quickly dozed off.

"Takumi! Takumi!"
Takumi sprang up from his bed within a second of hearing the shout. He breathed hard and heard his mother's voice.

"Are you all right, Takumi?" she asked.

"Um . . . yeah, I'm - fine," Takumi said, slightly confused. "Mom . . . what's wrong?"
His mother sighed and stared out his bedroom window, as though she were waiting for something.

"I - I want you to be on time for your group," she explained.

"My - group?" Takumi asked, this time more confused than ever.

"Yes. You'll have to go back to school today, and they're assigning adults to guide children to their bus stops. Most of the parents are just dropping their kids off at the school . . . I - I wish I could do that, Takumi, but you know how busy I am." She said these words in a tone of voice that sounded as though she really cared, something Takumi rarely heard. "You're going with Mr. Felters. I ... I've packed all of your school things and I - I made you some breakfast."

Takumi stared hard at his mother's face, then looked down at the covers of the bed. His mother never made him breakfast.

His mother gave him a sincere look, and her eyes seemed like they were about to well up with tears. "Just come home safely, Takumi. Come home safely."

Takumi hated his bus stop, especially the kids he was forced to share it with. He hated Mr. Felters more, if only because he was a dork who always found the time to talk to Takumi's mother, who was polite but in no way reciprocated his advances. She had no reason to. He was a fairly chubby man with brown hair and worked in the sales department at the local shopping center. He always wore glasses and a turquoise shirt, and was the opposite of the "cool uncle". He had no friends, to be quite blunt, but always seemed oblivious to the fact that no one liked him. This was exemplified by his almost constant smile and his friendly wave, which he gave now to his "group".

"Hello, kids," he greeted, beaming at them. "Now now, there's no need to be frightened. Nobody's going to hurt you!"

Mr. Felters' words were anything but reassuring. A few kids stared hopelessly down at their shoes, probably wondering how very unfortunate it would be should the murderer decide to attack them; Mr. Felters was not a believer in violence.

As they walked along, Takumi wondered what the look on their faces would be if they knew that he had been the murderer. He forced a small grin on his face, but then it became a frown when he began to think of two nights ago. Then he felt sick and ashamed.

I'm so confused, he thought. How could I have murdered somebody? I'm only thirteen years old! It just doesn't make any sense. But lately logic and natural laws seemed to have no meaning; life went on with everyone in the dark.

The group came to a sudden stop when they reached a large sign.

"Winter Fields," Mr. Felters announced, and he frowned slightly. "But let's go down this road here - it's a little shortcut." He winked at the group, and he skipped across the street and began to walk in that direction.

It turned out that Mr. Felters' "shortcut" was really a "longcut". Takumi knew why he had avoided Winter Fields. Winter Fields was the area that he had been in when he transformed to that dragon and murdered the boy. Obviously Mr. Felters was trying to keep the subject out of the kid's minds, but it was quite obvious that he was worried himself, as he kept looking around with a troubled look on his face.

"Whoa!"

That was the cry of a boy about Takumi's age, maybe older, tripped and fell down on the sidewalk.

"Ow!" the boy groaned, holding his arm.

For some reason, perhaps the same reason why he grinned at the thought of being the murderer, Takumi laughed, which he tried to stifle. There was just something funny about pain being inflicted on one of his classmates through something as stupid as tripping and falling.

The boy who had tripped - who Takumi did not know very well but knew he hated - did not find it funny at all.

"What are you laughing at, queer?" the teenager asked him.

"Sorry," Takumi said, but him being angry at him only added to the humor of this scene, especially since everyone was watching him now.

"What, you think that's funny?" the boy demanded. "Do you think it'll be funny when I kick your ass?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys." That was the voice of Mr. Felters. "Let's not fight, okay boys?" And he separated both of them, but it didn't stop them from staring in anger at each other. Takumi didn't like it when people threatened him; he felt strongly like defying dumb Mr. Felters and giving the other boy a punch in the nose.

Then, a strange thing occurred.

Both boys began to glow - Takumi a red color, and the other boy in blue.

And then, he could feel it happening again. The beast. It was all coming back. The claws, the wings . . . everything.

The other boy was transforming too. Where once was the boy that had fallen was a large snow leopard. It had sharp fangs and looked like something from out of the Arctic region.

The two glowing animals stared in hatred at each other.

A scream echoed through the air. It came from the small group of children that watched the glowing figures, the group that Takumi and the other boy had been with. They ran away in fear, hardly thinking, running for their lives. However, there was still one person in the middle of the two glowing figures in the scene - Mr. Felters.

The man stared in wide-eyed horror at the large dragon and the ferocious snow leopard, looking from one to the other - as if in some kind of surreal dream.

The dragon opened his mouth and spewed fire.

The snow leopard countered with an ice beam.

Caught between two overwhelming attacks, Mr. Felters jumped into the air, but he was not quick enough. The fire struck him on one side, the freezing ice on the other, and he fell to the ground, ruined.

The two glowing figures prepared for battle. And with an extremely powerful force, both animals sprang high into the air and charged at each other . . .

Next time on Digimon Genesis . . . FIRE AND ICE AND NAOKI

As always, be sure to review! If you don't, I'll be grumpy.