The cheery sun-beams of the scorching Sol merrily filled the school lab without caring what sort of discomfort they were causing to the students. The unpleasant feelings in that case were, sadly, both physical and mental. The science lab felt even more like an oven than the other rooms- pristine white walls, unnaturally glistening pearl-colored floor tiles and panoramic windows made seemingly just to torture the poor souls stuck in there on a hot day. Not only that, but the big windows were a constant source of false promises for the teenagers locked up for the day in Shinjuku High School.

As the increasingly hot September day slowly kept on rolling over, the students' frustrations were steadily reaching critical levels. Whatever amount of adrenaline and curiosity they had harbored when they had entered the building, it had been quickly and cruelly drained away by the mundane rhythm of school and left to die in the stifling air. The main predicament of the students seemed simple at first- the day was way too hot for anyone's taste so they wanted to stay inside and sip one cool lemonade after another. Alas, many of the imprisoned students soon realized that the school was not the fresh-aired haven they had been seeking. And so, dozens upon dozens of young adults had spent the majority of the day lustfully staring though the mockingly open windows, watching the pigeons slowly get roasted outside, and knowing all too well that the only way of escaping Sol's wrath was actually venturing into it and outside their stifling cage.

One such disgruntled student was Alexander 'Xander' Yamashita. The black-eyed boy was currently laying on his part of the desk and occupying himself with what many others had chosen to do while waiting for their teacher- nothing. The spiky fringe of Xander's auburn hair was making it somewhat difficult to discern whether he was awake or napping. Then again, if someone listened carefully enough, Xander's heavy sighs filled with frustration showed it was the former and not the later.

His day had started the worst imaginable way possible- with the visit from the denizens of a world parallel to Earth- the Digital World. Alexander had liked to think that he had left that part of his life behind forever. He liked to think of it as some foolish childhood fantasy, a game of pretend he had believed in too much once ago. Truthfully, after years of force-feeding his brain such thoughts and slowly starting to realize the jaded reality of adult life, Xander had been almost ready to dismiss it completely. Nothing more than an unrealistic dream of a silly child believing that there were discernable black and white parts of life. That must have been it. That he wanted to believe.

And he almost had, until Leomon and Ogremon had showed up on his doorstep that morning. Alexander had been blunt with them and had shoved them out of his life before some part of him dared to start believing in such a foolish childhood illusion once again. He had done his duty years ago. According to him, whatever mess had the Digital World gotten itself into yet again, it was somebody else's problem. Besides, in his opinion, he was too old for the job anyway.

Xander let out another sigh and looked tiredly around the room while tugging his collar and loosening his tie for the umpteenth time that day. Whatever small part of his class was not trying to escape the grueling heat in Dreamland was busy with a dozen different activities. Many of the girls had already discovered that they could check the status of their make-up, at least the one that had managed to fly beneath the dress-code's radar, directly in the unnaturally white and reflective floor tiles.

Many more were busy fanning themselves with their notebooks, the most blatant example being Nishimura Kaito who had also put his legs on his desk and had unbuttoned his whole shirt. A lot of the girls were currently swooning over his chiseled body, earning him a ton of nasty glares by Jiro for hogging all the female attention.

The Okawa himself was in a heated, and overly one-sided, checkers marathon against his friend Rikuto. The young Maeda had managed to win over half a dozen games due to Jiro being distracted by Kaito being a distraction for the girls. Xander's gaze left his desk-mates just as Rikuto won yet another game and focused on the back of the plump boy from Odaiba currently sitting besides Kaito.

The fella had ended up next to the Nishimura by accident but didn't seem to mind it. The heat was taking an even heavier toll on him- that much was obvious by the expansive patches of sweat on his shirt. But the boy with short curly hair didn't seem to notice anything around him- so lost was he in his grilled cheese sandwich.

Xander's roaring stomach made him envious of the other lad's ingenuity to bring some food to school. At least he had to wait just this class before lunch break.

And if their teacher wasn't going to show up, why at least not get something to eat while waiting for the bell? That traitor was probably somewhere inside the cool, air-conditioned teachers' lounge. Or he had completely forgotten about having a class to teach. Xander wouldn't have been surprised by that in the least. Considering the teachers he had already met, forgetting about them would actually score pretty low on the boy's strangeness scale. Let's just say that after their gorgeous homeroom-slash-math teacher who was a complete klutz, the paranoid gym teacher concerned that they wouldn't be ready in case of sudden warfare and their hippie of a history teacher, Xander was sure that the school had a 'crazy only' policy when hiring staff.

And just then the door suddenly burst open. After several seconds, probably for a dramatic purpose was Alexander's guess, their science teacher walked in.

After only five minutes the overly bald man with a messy graying goatee that had probably been some kind of blond once, managed to make quite the impression on the class. For the short time he had been in the room, Mr. 'It's Herr!' Blitzenheim had managed to win the contempt of his students for a record time.

Indeed, the beer-belly of a teacher had managed to whack Kaito's legs off the desk with his crooked walking cane, confiscate Plump Guy's sandwiches and throw them out of the window and accuse Jiro of being a delinquent because of his 'obviously' dyed green hair. And that in the span of only four minutes and a half. The rest thirty he spent fixing Xander's 'slouched and offending' posture. Oh, and by the way, Jiro's hair was actually a natural green hue.

But it got really interesting when Blitzenheim passed by Willis' desk while ranting about the discipline of students.

"I will not allow disobedience or breaking the rules in my class, students! Nor will I tolerate displays of arrogance. We will all obey the rules in this room and respect the chain of command. If we all do that, nothing will go wrong and you will not have to meet me after school for disciplinary purposes. It is all really simple. In my time-"

"When was that? When the Great Wall of China was being made?" mockingly asked a voice seemingly coming from where a very pale Willis was standing "Judging by that wild mane on your head, pops, you were probably one of the guys donating hair for checking if there were gaps between the bricks."

Blitzenheim froze on the spot and slowly faced the foreign boy. The teacher plastered a Cheshire grin on his face and announced for the whole class to hear before the chalk-white Willis could even defend himself.

"Indeed, I expected that. Every year there is always some delinquent who thinks the rules don't apply to him due to some reason or another," the teacher lowered his voice and leaned closer to the blond boy's sweating face "Detention, my dear rascal. After school, here in the lab. I will not tolerate such things in my class," arrogantly smirked the foreign teacher before standing upright and announcing once again to the rest of the class "May this be a lesson for the future pranksters in this class. You have been warned."

Just as the aging men resumed his sinister walk around the room, the cocky voice spoke again before being hastily silenced.

"Oooh, such originality. Detention and writing lines after sch- oomph!"

Blitzenheim glared at Willis once more and the boy, whose face was rapidly losing color, just flashed a hopeful innocent grin. The teacher let out an almost theatric 'humph' and shook his head before calmly saying:

"Congratulations. You just doubled your detention."

The rest of Science class was spent in almost total silence- save for Kaito occasionally growling 'hnn' when Blitzenheim passed by. Willis made sure he didn't stand out any more for the duration of the class and Jiro, along with many others, shot daggers at the teacher's back whenever he turned around. The guy with dark curly hair from Odaiba kept looking out of the window from where his sandwiches had flown out even more lustfully and with a bit of sorrow on his face. Xander couldn't help but ask himself whether the mocking voice had been really silenced just when he saw Willis kicking his backpack.

"Just one more class- one more- and we are home-free!" almost shouted Jiro and collapsed onto his steel chair at one of the cafeteria tables. The boy with short dark hair across of him groaned in agreement, only for the third student at the table to painfully remind them:

"You do realize that this is only the first day of our annual nine-month imprisonment, right?"

Rikuto chose to only groan again at Xander's comment, leaving Jiro to point out an accusing spork at the auburn-haired boy.

"You need some positive thinking, mate. Otherwise you'll end up all depressed and miserable- like him."

"Hey!" Rikuto protested with what strength he had left. Alas, the hand he was leaning on slipped due to his rapidly sweating face. The young Maeda could only groan for the third time after ending up face-first into the mashed grey gooey… substance filling his tray. "I hate my life."

"What, no elaborate ancient conspiracy of someone manipulating you to place the trey there just to make sure you fell right into it?" quipped Xander in a vain attempt to cheer up his friend.

"It's too hot for that," was the only answer he got from the boy whose head was still buried inside his 'lunch'.

The Yamashita absent-mindedly patted the back of his friend and Jiro had trouble not bursting out laughing. With a fourth groan Rikuto announced he was going to the boys' room to remove the unknown grey substance from his hair. Speaking of which…

"Great. And here I thought I had left the mystery meat behind in Europe," sighed Xander and turned a sporkfull of mystery meat upside down. The grey substance stuck to the spork like glued and bounced up and down in midair.

"Yeah! What gives with the crappy food?" joined in on the complaining Jiro. In response the Yamashita pointed at the announcement hanging above the cafeteria double doors.

"Western School Food Student Week"

"Crappy food, crappy project name," the green-haired boy shook his spork threateningly "Honestly, when I find out who's responsible for this I'm gonna-"

Just then Jiro was cut off by the arguing of two voices close behind them. Xander raised a single eyebrow when the bickering duo neared their table.

"Great! Because of your stupid project we are late and there's nowhere to sit! Remind me again why I agreed to help you, sis?"

"Oh, shut it, Hiro! As the youngest member of the Student Council, they expect from me to come up with a proper project and oversee its completion."

"And you came up with the grand idea of droppings for food?"

"Argh, you're impossible sometimes!"

It was then that the girl- one of Japan's natural bluenettes- spotted the nearly empty table of Xander and Jiro. She swiftly took hold of her brother's hand- a boy slightly taller than her and his incredibly spiky hair the same dark blue color as hers- and dragged him into the table's direction. Jiro, who had also heard the squabble, was about to turn around and give the one responsible for the mystery meat a piece of his mind. Oh, he did just that. Only to come face to face with the smiling, gold-eyed girl with dark blue hair falling down to the middle of her back.

"Excuse me, are these seats taken? Because me and my brother can't find any other place to sit."

Xander could only see the disarming smile of the newcomer and the back of Jiro's head from where he was standing but what was happening inside his friend's mind was crystal clear to him.

A cute girl had willingly asked if she could sit with them. With Jiro. Who would've thought- the warnings of their former classmates had apparently somehow missed this poor soul. Alas, before Xander could say something and avoid his green-haired friend from embarrassing them both, Jiro kicked into overdrive.

"But of course! A pleasure to meet you, my fair lady! I am Jiro, Okawa Jiro. And may I ask what your name is?"

In Xander's opinion, 'cheesy' didn't even begin to describe it. The surprise was that the girl actually shook Jiro's hand and introduced herself.

"Uhm, I'm… I'm Ishikawa Natsuki. But just Suki is enough…"

Allowing Jiro to use the shortened version of her name? Either she was mental or had already written her will, the Yamashita thought.

"…and, uhm, a pleasure to meet you as well."

Then again, probably a will, Xander concluded.

"Oh, no," Jiro sighed theatrically "the pleasure is all mine."

"And I'm Takahiro," announced Suki's brother after forcedly putting down his tray on the table with an audible 'clank' "A pleasure," almost grunted the gold-eyed boy and glared at the greenhead hitting on his sister and then at Xander for good measure. Takahiro took the seat next to Jiro, making sure that he was between the Okawa and his sister.

"Uhm, can I sit here, too? Everything else is kinda taken," asked out of nowhere another voice. To Xander's displeasure it turned out to belong to the blond American boy from his class… what was his name? Ah, yes, Willis, remembered the Yamashita after the newcomer introduced himself to the others. The auburn-haired boy eyed the foreigner's backpack carefully, like it was a ticking bomb.

And just when Xander was thinking things couldn't possibly get worse- or more crowded- one Nishimura Kaito plopped on the last free seat next to Willis. The delinquent promptly ignored the questioning looks that everyone was giving him and leaned back on his chair, putting his hands behind his head.

"Excuse me?" Suki asked with a bit of disdain in her stern voice.

"That was the last free seat in the cafeteria, princess. Cool off your engines, you'll get premature wrinkles with all that glaring," let out a laugh the Nishimura, all the while watching the bluenette with a single open eye.

"Thank you for your concern but I think I will turn out just fine," Suki declared with a smirk and bridled up, looking at Kaito with clear disdain this time "And could you please button up your shirt? You'll get in trouble if a teacher sees you like this."

"Thank you for your concern," mockingly echoed Kaito "but I think I will turn out just fine. And besides, princess, if you find my body distracting, you'll have to wait. The line starts waaay over there," and, as if for emphasis, the blond teen put his legs on the table.

"Like I could be interested in a… a delinquent like you!" snorted Suki in quite the unlady-like matter.

"Sooo… what do you think of the food?" she asked the others and turned her back on Kaito as much as she could from her seat.

"Way past inedible," immediately quipped Takahiro.

"I've socks more food-like than this," snorted Kaito.

"Junk food, I understand. But junk for food? That's just pushing it," added his two cents Xander.

"Uhm, it probably contains all the food groups? Probably?" muttered Willis while pondering for something nice to say.

"Deee-licious!" nearly shouted Jiro and the ever-stoic Kaito almost fell off his chair when the greenhead stuck a sporkfull of mystery meat into his mouth. Alas, actually eating it was another matter. The grey goo clung to his teeth and nearly glued his mouth shut. After a lot of painful chewing and making faces like he was having contractions, Jiro finally gulped and flashed Suki an ear-to-ear grin.

Good old Jiro, Xander thought. Just when you were sure he had hit rock bottom, the greenhead just kept digging with glee. But to Xander's surprise, the surprises themselves didn't seem to end.

"Heh. Don't think such a pretty girl could be fooled by your stunts, pal," chuckled Willis and flashed a disarming smile at Suki. The bluenette's cheeks turned rosy at the sudden attention. Jiro narrowed his eyes at the foreigner for hogging the spotlight. Takahiro kept stabbing his portion of mystery meat with increasing frustration. And Xander just mentally slapped himself.

All day long he had thought that the blond was an insecure introverted boy with some secret possibly- just possibly- connected with Digimon. And now this charming, confident Casanova appeared out of nowhere?

The Yamashita boy didn't know why he suddenly felt more irritated than ever. True, he never really expected anything special out of this day. But at least the Universe could have let him have one normal first day of high school, right? But no, it had to suddenly be the hottest day of September in decades, Digimon showed up at his doorstep, he had just met possibly the meanest teacher in his whole life and the whole day he had been keeping an eye on a guy that possibly had smuggled a Digimon into the building. Not only that, but his quiet lunch with his friends, crappy food aside, had been suddenly turned upside-down, becoming something vaguely looking like an episode of a bad sitcom. And somehow Willis' last comment irritated him even more. That sudden suave voice, the posture, the confidence! What, he didn't think others could sweet-talk, could bend the truth or talk their way out of a nasty situation? The hell of it, his father was a corporate lawyer, Xander thought, lying, bending the truth and sweet-talking were in his genetic makeup! The words left his mouth before the auburn-haired boy even realized he had opened it.

"Yeah, but Willis," Xander quipped and looked at the others' reactions from the corner of his eye "you seem to forget that you are not talking just to a brainless beauty here but to an educated smart lady. I doubt your badly hidden compliments would work as well… pal."

A sense of satisfaction filled him for a moment when he noticed Suki's blush deepening. Jiro looked somewhat betrayed and Willis smirked, ready to retort with a comment of his own, but Takahiro's sudden outburst quickly silenced the table.

"Will all of you stop it already?" barked the blue-haired boy and tossed the spork aside "Stop hitting on her like she's some… some easy bimbo or something!"

"Easy?" laughed Kaito "How'd you know, you've tried Princess or something?"

With a roar that grabbed the whole cafeteria's attention, Takahiro lunged at the Nishimura, forcing them both on the floor. Suki screamed and pleaded her brother to stop and a crowd immediately gathered around the two boys battling for dominance on the floor tiles warmed by the day's heat. Sadly, for Takahiro at least, it wasn't much of a battle- Kaito had soon pinned the gold-eyed boy down and was bombarding the Ishikawa with one swift and painful punch after another. Willis and Xander, probably because they felt guilty at playing a role in Takahiro's outburst, ended up the ones barely able to pry off Kaito from the other boy. Somehow, Takahiro still had some fight left in him, because when Blitzenheim appeared out of nowhere, Suki was still clinging to her brother and trying to stop him from jumping into the fray yet again.

The foreign teacher eyed the tattered students in front of him with disdain. Suki's normally long straight hair was disheveled, with strands sticking out left and right. Takahiro looked like ran over by a freight train and Xander and Willis were barely restraining a very angry Kaito whose nose showed no signs of stopping its bleeding. Only a stunned Jiro was still at the table, a spork in his trembling hand, and was only able to mutter 'what the hell did just happen now'.

A smirking Blitzenheim gleefully declared:

"Well, Mr. Beckenstein, it seems you are going to have company after school after all. Am I to assume that you showed those four how to take my warnings about discipline to heart?"

After the sudden silence that had descended upon the cafeteria upon Blitzenheim's sudden ghostly appearance, the hall once again erupted into a cacophony of shrieking voices belonging to various students who tried to explain the situation.

"He insulted my sister! I've no fault that this…"

"What? But I was the one that helped stop that gorilla here from making some Ishikawa paste! That's ridicu…"

"I was just helping, too! Come on, Mr, err, Herr Blitzenheim, three detentions on my first day? All by the same teach…"

"D-d-did you just say detention? You can't put me into detention! They'll throw me out of the Student Council! And the Literature Club and… and… I suddenly don't feel very we…"

A still stunted Jiro, who was still clutching his spork, just silently mouthed to the boy with damp hair that had rejoined him at the table 'don't ask'.

"Terriermon, what's gotten into you today?" came an angered, hastily hushed voice from one of the stalls in the boys' room "Because of you we'll have to spend who knows how much time here instead of going home!"

"Home?" mockingly echoed the strange creature standing on top of the toilet seat "You call this home? Are you really sure that you didn't hit your head when we- Maker knows how- ended up here?"

"You perfectly know what I am talking about," whispered Willis and pursed his lips "We don't know a single thing about this place and you just have to be your usual smartass self and annoy the people around you."

The creature, which looked like a cross between a rabbit and a terrier dog whom someone had painted creamy white with green undertones, knitted his nonexistent eyebrows together as if deep in thought and answered with a mockingly childish voce.

"Heh. You said 'ass'."

Terriermon's human partner buried his fingers into his unruly blond hair and barely restrained himself from screaming. After counting to ten and taking a deep breath, Willis was about to try reasoning with the creature once again but the bunny-dog hybrid cut him off.

"Look, you said it yourself this morning, we've been in freakier situations before," shrugged Terriermon and scratched his head at the base of his single small horn "this could end up some kind of illusion. Or just a plain dream. Or an alternate reality or something. Maybe you've just followed my advice and we both went out on a wild party and got so terribly drunk we can't even remember how your parents took us back and why and when we've moved to Tokyo. Heck, maybe you even took my advice and finally got la-"

Before even Willis could make his partner stop with the ranting, the dog-bunny hybrid suddenly narrowed his beady black eyes and let out a low menacing growl at the direction of the stall's closed door. The blond teen carefully put a reassuring hand on his partner's back to make sure he didn't burst out and potentially expose them. Willis opened the stall's door just enough so he could take a peek outside. The restroom was seemingly empty, there was only a… a girl next to one of the sinks. Dismissing Terriermon's reaction to being edgy just because of their unusual predicament, Willis shook his head and stepped out to tell the girl that this was the boys 'room. Alas, he had already stepped forward when he noticed that the girl wasn't dressed right- gothic lolita style was certainly not part of the school's dress code. But that was not the only thing that was off about the strange girl- she was pale, way too pale for even one with her choice of style. Her blond hair, stylized in two short pigtails, seemed like it was graying prematurely. And while asking himself why the girl was acting so scared, shivering and whispering something to herself, Willis noticed that the crooked mirror above the sink showed no reflection.

Splash.

The boy's foot went down, but instead of the cold floor that was there mere seconds before, he found only water. Cold, murderous, black water that whispered overwhelming promises of suffocation, damnation, a way out of all his problems… Willis grew nauseous as all light fled the place, leaving nothing but shallow, dull grayness behind, nothing but shadows and dark water embracing a shivering girl and a scared boy.

The blond teen dared not move, lest he really fell into that ocean of still, malevolent water beneath him. And amidst the mocking smell of salty air, which one could breathe in near the seaside, and the sound of dripping water, a voice spoke.

The most gruesome one he had ever heard. Gurgling, inhuman, unearthly… the voice spoke of death and damnation, of murder and blood, of suffering and… of doubt. And when the awful shrieks and gurgles spoke of the doubt, the boy's fears grew tenfold and the suddenly raging water seemed to echo the voice's words.

"Useless… that's what you always thought, is it not? Foolish little Willis, so useless, useless, USELESS!"

The rampant water threatened to devour him and for a fleeting moment Willis bid farewell to his life. But the dark ocean around him just as suddenly subsided, becoming once more nothing than a seemingly shallow puddle beneath his feet. The voice spoke again and Willis' heart nearly burst when he recognized his own voice, twisted and deformed, hissing and gurgling at him. A single cracked mirror was standing on his right.

And from there his reflection was flashing him a toothy Cheshire grin. And with the voice's each word, the reflection withered away- in the end becoming nothing more than the reflection of a seventeen-year-old who had been aged to a hundred for mere moments, grey hair falling out on patches and a pair of glassy dead eyes edged deep into the pristine white skin the only thing showing that the thing in the mirror had ever been alive.

"When they needed you, when they could have used your help, you weren't there. They made a change. Changed the world for the better. And what did you do? Wander about with your little digital friends doing nothing! USELESS!"

"And when they were saving both worlds, what did you do? You grew greedy. The others had only one, single… precious. You had two and yet you wanted more. Tried playing God, that you did. And what did you do? You failed, created an abomination that nearly cost the life of millions, that cost the life of your friend! USELESS!"

"And even when they came, came to solve your problems, what did you do? Made things difficult for them! Nearly got them killed yet again! And after that you only observed… again and again you did nothing good, caused nothing but harm! But you kept your head high, did you not? Counted as one of them, revered as one of them… but nothing more than a useless pretender. USELESS!"

"And in the end, what did you do? You showed your heart to me. Your fears, your doubts… your life. Everything belongs to me now. You. Are. Mine."

A pair of clawed hands shot out of the still water, taking hold of Willis' ankles and dragging him down to his doom. He tried to fight but the strong webbed hands were relentless- and inch by inch he was pulled down. The waters promised to make him forget, to take all the pain, all the grief and doubt away. Promised oblivion. And the girl just kept whispering into the corner…

"TERRIER TORNADO!"

Another figure appeared out of nowhere- a white-and-green blur, spinning like a top and pushing the hissing waters away, flushing them out along with the cursed reflection, the cold webbed hands and the blond girl. Willis fell to his knees and gasped for breath, suddenly finding out that his heart had been beating too close to its limit. Terriermon looked at his partner over his shoulder and, while trying to hide the fear in his voice, grinned.

"Y'know, Willis, I think we can rule out the wild party option."