Keyo, Red Angel of Hope: As ever, I don't own digimon and all fan characters are not to be used without permission. Notes from Raven and I are at the bottom.

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Chapter 3: Break! Pt 2

Threat from the shadows, the battle against Eight!

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"Primal Claw!"

"Slash Ripper!"

The two rookies launched forward again, only to be sent flying back into the walls by DarkTryannomon's Iron Tail attack, Dainya running over to her partner, while Cait thumbed through his a set of brightly coloured disc, the stat modifier discs, the same sort he had used to power up Komodomon in the first battle with Tyrannomon's purer form. Eight, in true form to villainous standards, had vanished deeper into the temple.

"Lupmon!" Dainya cried out.

"I see bright lights Dainya…they're all sparkly…" The wolf uttered, head spinning.

DarkTyrannomon roared, rushing at Komodomon once again, its memories of defeat seemed to motivate it to focus upon the smaller lizard, and it had no reservations regarding its new power, its mighty claws sending dust and rubble flying in the air as the impacted with the ground, Komodomon rolling out the way of each of the coming strikes, the gap getting smaller each time.

"Primal Claw!"

Dainya watched as her partner launched onto the Virus Types back, ignoring her own fatigue and damage and clinging on as best she could, causing DarkTyrannomon to buck in an effort to throw her off, forgetting Komodomon for the moment. When the mammalian Digimon was finally thrown, the dinosaur's head swung upwards and it stumbled backward before it could pursue the dismounted rookie.

"Dainya! Leave this to us, you go stop Eight!" Komodomon cried, his body glowing a light red from the stat modifier and smoke wisps trailing from his jaws from the last attack.

"But…" Dainya began, before Cait cut her off.

"Dainya, if Eight's as good as you said he was he will be able to break into the game. We killed this guy once, we can do it again but I don't know how fast Eight's going to be able to do…whatever…hackers do." He gave her a rather embarrassed looking smile. "So you gotta go slow him down."

"C'mon Dainya!" Lupmon staggered upright, swaying a little from hit point loss. "We can take im', if Komodomon says we can…" The wolf sank to one knee, prompting her partner to dash forward, a white disc with a red cross falling at her feet.

"Use that. We'll catch up soon, don't worry." Cait smiled back at her, before returning his attention to his own partner, currently dodging Fire Blast attacks, and pulling a pair of discs from under his cloak, one red, one blue. "Stat modifiers! Power up, speed up!"

Running down the hallway with the restored Lupmon, Dainya caught a glimpse of the red blur that was Komodomon driving his slash ripper attack home on DarkTyrannomon, his rotation far faster than before as his claws dug in again and again, before being thrown back by an Iron Tail attack.

---

Behind her visor, Tanya was starting to sweat, even though she wasn't really running, she could feel her pulse beginning and she was even getting that sick, dizzy feeling she got when she had to run in P.E. She really didn't like running.

She was very nervous, she'd only just started playing the game and now…this! She didn't know how to put it, something big was happening that could threaten the entire game, and she had just been trusted to try and save the day. In the shows nothing this big ever happened this fast!

Well, okay. So in season one they got attacked by a Kuwagumon and Shellmon in the same day, Seadramon too if he popped up before midnight, but the point stands that the Devimon didn't just pop and go 'here's my evil plan' and then do it right there and then.

"Dainya! I can smell him!"

Swinging her vision round, she looked at her partner. That was right, she wasn't plain old Tanya, here she was Dainya and she had Lupmon here with her, and Cait and Komodomon believed they could do it. She hadn't known them long, and that they would place their faith in them…

"Lets go Lupmon!"

That they would place their faith in them, after so short a time, it gave her confidence. And so, trying to focus on that good feeling rather than the terrible insecurity that she was about to go up against a hacker of public infamy, she and her partner continued their pursuit.

---

In a large chamber filled with sarcophagi and old computer towers, and in some cases, a mixture of the two, lit by a single central torch, Eight Ball stood, his arms waving about, conducting an unheard orchestra as his real self worked at the keyboard, the eyes of the avatar looked hazy, looking at a world beyond that of the game. He paused suddenly, arms still held high above his head.

"How nice of the Dune Wanna-be and dragon mutt to give us some along time."

Dainya scowled at the slander of her new friends, beside her Lupmon crouched into a combat stance, ready to leap forward.

"I won't let you damage the servers!" She proclaimed, do her best to look dramatic and imposing without turning into a Sailor Moon parody. "I haven't played until 3 am yet and I'm not going to let you stop me!"

"Yeah!" Lupmon contributed.

For a few moments, Eight fought against chuckling, containing the noise as best he could in his throat, waiting until he had subdued the urge before speaking.

"My dear, you are very amusing. But if you intend to persist at being such an annoying little itch…" He turned to face her, his eyes cold and narrowed. "Then I will have no option but to scratch you."

"How?" Asked Dainya, her stomach continuing to give off warning twitches. "We haven't so much as seen your Digimon since we got here."

"Ah. But my dear," Eight straightened out again, his grin now something vicious and Dainya's stomach did a full flip. "that just happens to be his special ability."

As if appearing from nowhere, a large fist suddenly sped through the air on an extending arm, crashing into Lupmon and sending her flying as Dainya cried out her name, the inky black arm retreating into the shadows.

"One of the principle basics of every game is to be able to think ahead of your opponents, and exploit every advantage you have. My Digimon is capable of moving through the shadows, where he cannot be seen, or heard, or smelt." He gestured towards the single torch flickering in the chamber, then to the darkness and shadows that surrounded them. "I'm afraid no matter how cute you are, a newbie like you stands no chance against us.

Pulling herself back up, Lupmon's eyes trailed around the room, her body tense as her claws flexed in anticipation, a feral look in her eyes as she watched for the next attack, focusing on the walls around her, the dark niches generated by the decorations but there was one shadow she didn't watch, her own. As soon as she turned to face the torch, her shadow reaching out behind her, the Digimon struck, a fist lashing out from her shadow and slamming into the back of Lupmon's skull, grabbing her before she fell forward and hurling her into the far wall before withdrawing once more.

"LUPMON!"

Dainya was beginning to panic. Komodomon and Cait were wrong. She couldn't handle this, Lupmon was having the pixles beaten from her, they were going to bite the dust here and Eight was going to screw with the system. Who was she to think she could compete with him? The man had hacked and wrecked the system of a top computer company with ease; she was just a nerdy, geeky high schooler…

"DAINYA!" Lupmon cried, getting smacked across the room again by the hidden assailant.

She shouldn't have been getting distressed. Lupmon was just a computer program, just a bit of fun made up of 0s and 1s. But she really didn't seem like that, feel like that. Rushing out to her partner, she knew she couldn't really do anything, this body was just 0s and 1s, and wasn't able to fight or defend against Digimon attacks, but she wanted so bad to help. Grabbing her beaten partner, she wanted to do her best to shield her, the next fist blow closing in.

Then vanishing in mid air as the shadow it stemmed from vanished, the room filling up with light as torches on the wall lit up.

"Ember Fang!"

The streak of flame crossed the room again, lighting up the opposite row of torches, before lashing out at the back wall, depriving Eight's partner of almost all shadows.

"Cait!"

"Komodomon!"

The adventuring pair stood in the corridor, the red lizard looking a little worse for the wear after his brawl with the Dark Tyranno, but none the less grinning eagerly, his slit eyes focused on Eight.

"Sorry we're late guys. It took us awhile to give our buddy back their a remedial lesson on extinction." Cait grinned.

"Nice line. Are you going for cheesy super hero, or testosterone filled action star?" Eight smirked.

Komodomon was about to go for what he hoped would be a witty retort, when he noticed Eight's meagre shadow seeming to grow longer, before it began to rise, a creature pulling itself out, a pair of unsettling glowing eyes on a slick ink black head, great wings opening out from the back. Dainya pulled out her Digivicescanning the previously unseen foe.

Name: Eclipsemon

Level: Champion

Type: Virus

Attacks: Shadow Cross, Nightmare Rave.

The Digimon did not speak, only stirring dust with it's wings, it's luminous eyes glaring at those that stood before it. Cait chuckled a little and pulled out his digivice, the shape was the same as Dainya's with the small square central screen, but where Dainya's had a blue central body with white buttons and surrounding grip, the body of Cait's was black with red detail. A red glow, like a fire, emerged around his hand, which seemed to gently flow into the digivice.

"With the pounding we took going up against DarkTryranno, we can't afford to hold back here." The light surrounding his hand suddenly surged, vanishing completely into the Digivice as Cait held it out towards his partner. "Komodomon! Digivolution!"

The light burst forth from the small screen on the digivice, shining out as a large sphere of red energy covered Komodomon, who vanished within, his voice then ringing out through the chamber.

"Komodomon Digivolve to…"

The sphere shattered, blowing sand out around it as a new form stood in Komodomon's place. A much larger body now, and wings emerging from where the black lines had been on the Rookie form, the body hunched as if unsure if it were a biped or quadruped, the claws so much larger now, the training belts now replaced with thick chains, manacles sitting upon his ankles.

"DRAKEMON!"

Name: Drakemon

Level: Champion

Type: Vaccine

Attacks: Dragon Burn, Impact Claw.

The large dragon cracked his knuckles, fixing his green eyes on Eclipsemon, his tail swaying behind him.

"Time to turn up the heat." He seemed to almost growl, his voice having dropped an octave and a half into a much gruffer tone.

"So the little candle turned into a campfire." Eight Ball sneered. "But you've forgotten one important thing, all fires burn out, but the darkness is eternal!"

Cait was about to make a point regarding night giving way to day and how dark ran away from light and all when the shadow Digimon suddenly began to move, clasping it's clawed hands together.

"Nightmare Rave."

Eclipsemon's words seemed to have almost been whispered to himself, each syllable clearly pronounced in a cold, malicious voice as he pressed his palms together. His wings spreading, darkness seemed to just materialise before him, taking on a copy of his shape, sans the glowing eyes. The triad of 'Raves' crouched into attack stances, before springing forward, rushing at Drakemon. As soon as it was within reach though, the dragon shot an arm out, the claws fingers reaching out and puncturing the Rave's head.

"Impact Claw!" Drakemon cried as the Rave exploded, his left arm swinging up to tear through the second in a similar manner, before the third landed a blow on his chest, before being ripped apart by both claws, a second wave already coming.

Crouched beside Lupmon, Dainya watched the two champions pit their strengths and abilities against one another. This was Komodomon and Cait being serious. In battling Tyrannomon and his resurrected form they had held back, using stat modifiers to make up distance between them, but now he was lashing out with his own strength, and against a foe who could be considered very dangerous. A Digimon that could move through shadows, and a player who was trying to break into the game itself, this was as real a threat as they could get here, and she wasn't able to do anything but watch as Eclipsemon summoned a large wave of Raves to rush Drakemon, preventing him from advancing.

"Dragon Burn!" The dragon type countered, launching out a barrage of fireballs that tore through the copies, more coming to take their place as each was lost, the tide of foes advancing upon him as they came at a rate faster than the they could be shot down.

"It's like a Hydra!" Cait exclaimed, shifting into his cloak. "Stat Modifier…gah!"

The speed disc was gone, used up in the battle with DarkTyrannomon, leaving him unable to give his partner the edge he needed. Eight grinned in satisfaction as the Raves once more arrived in close combat space, and began trying to pin Drakemon down.

Eight's grin irritated Dainya, no, infuriated. He was acting like a villain from the anime. Pitting an obviously stronger foe against Lupmon, but still attacking from the shadows, wearing Komodomon and Cait down so they couldn't fight properly, using horribly cliché sounding dialogue…surely he couldn't get away with this? Drakemon's cry as he damaged himself incinerating one of the attacking Raves, and Cait's frustrated expression indicated very clearly, that he very possibly could.

Looking to Eclipsemon and his partner however, she noticed something. Even though he was just sending copies in, the Digimon seemed to have to keep his focus to generate the constant waves, remaining perfectly still, and Eight appeared to be watching the dragon, a hand under his trench coat in case a disc was needed, keeping his mind on the enemy before him, to the point where he had stopped his efforts to hack in order to support his partner. They were completely oblivious to her.

So she whispered to Lupmon.

Clutching one of the doubles, Drakemon swung it around in order to bat back the oncoming foes before unleashing his Dragon Burn to wipe two of them out, another rushing in at him and meeting an Impact Claw, before one of the downed ones leaped upon him, keeping both of his arms, the fight preparing to fall into a brawl. Eclipsemon would have overwhelmed him with the Raves, but a fast, furry object suddenly appeared in the virus' field of vision, a claw pulled back.

"Primal Claw!" Lupmon cried, striking Eclipsemon in the face, knocking him back and disrupting his summoning. As the champion fell back, Lupmon pulled air into her lungs. "Howl Buster!" She cried, releasing it in the sonic blast that knocked Eclipsemon back, the living shadow emitting a painful sounding grunt.

Dainya smiled in satisfaction. Eclipsemon and Drakemon were pretty big, and Drakemon's attacks were generating a fair amount of flashes and smoke, and she realised, that with her size, Lupmon would have no problem weaving in and getting a blow in, a strategy that had worked perfectly to disrupt Eclipsemon's summoning.

As Eclipsemon pulled himself up, he saw that the Raves he'd sent out had now been torn through, and Drakemon was launching towards him, propelled by powerful legs. Lupmon, rebounding as she landed, leaped forward as well.

"Payback!" She and Drakemon cried, clawed arms rearing back.

"PRIMAL…"

"IMPACT…"

"CLAW!!!"

The two attacks landed, the force sending Eclipsemon flying backward where he crashed into the wall. Before he even tried to get up, however, he clasped his hands together once more.

"Nightmare Rave!"

A trio of Raves rushed at the pair, Drakemon moving to shield Lupmon, taking into the blows laid in by the doubles bladed fingers. Leaping onto his back, Lupmon barraged one of the Raves with her Howl Buster, knocking the doubles back, allowing the dragon to rip his arms free and tear through two with his claws, and roast the third, but looking through this, they could see 4 more Raves standing in a ring, the original standing in amongst them, Eight saddled in his arm, the pair sinking into the shadow generated by the doppelgangers.

"Well this was a fun waste of time." The hacker sneered. "Enjoy the treasure brave adventurers, and pray our paths do not cross again."

"Dragon Burn!" Drakemon cried, unleashing a rush of fireballs at the Raves in an effort to stop his foes escape, his eyes slits once more, Lupmon's fur bristled and growls emitting from within her that fast changed into a howl as she leaped through the smoke left from the obliteration of the Raves, her primal claw meeting hard stone as he pray vanished, but she still rained blows, before breaking into digging, only stopping when Dainya called out to her.

"Lupmon, Lupmon! Calm down." Hands placed on her shoulders, snapping the wolf back to reality. "C'mon, we still have treasure to find don't we?"

"Oh yeah! Treasure, treasure, treasure!"

Sighing, Cait seemed to be staring down at his hand, before the now reverted Komodomon leapt upon his back, throwing an arm around his shoulder.

"C'mon Cait, treasure ho'!"

Sighing at this new distraction, Cait dropped his hand back under his cloak.

"You guys have terrible priorities." He sighed, his other hand coming out as a blue panel appeared before him. "I'll just pass on an alert to the moderators and then we'll get going." The adventurer smiled in a pacifying manner at the over eager Digimon, as Lupmon cheered, her mood completely restored from the feral rage of before, now pulling Komodomon around in a ridiculous dance. Finishing his report, Cait allowed the screen to vanish before speaking. "Okay guys, I figure we have enough time to do a little treasure hunting before the Moderators lock this place down."

There were cheers from the rest, Lupmon's energy infecting the others. Cait's attention suddenly snapped to the floor as a small black object knocked against his foot, the others racing off in their enthusiasm, picking it up, he frowned in annoyance as he gave it a very brief inspection, for it was an eight ball, the kind you found on a pool table.

"Oh that's just cheek." He shook his head, discreetly adding it to his inventory before turning his attention back to his comrades. "No, wait! You're going the wrong way!" he called to the three of them, setting off at a run to try and catch up. "You could set off…"

A loud 'bang' filled the area as a cloud of smoke poured from the corridor, filling the chamber.

---

"Not bad for your first day, neh?" Cait smiled, as he and Dainya sat upon the stone steps of the Eniac Ruins, bags of loot at their feet, the treasure hunting had been reset to it's intended difficulty as with Eight's departure the traps had, as Dainya had swiftly discovered, been re-activated.

"I'll say!" Dainya beamed. "But, I was puzzled by something."

"Oh?"

"Eight said he was trying to get into the game's servers. But he was already able to resurrect Tyrannomon, and he was able to turn off the traps in the ruins! That's gotta require some sort of big… access…thing." Her hands moved, generating the image of a box as she tried to get her point across.

"I see what you mean…in any case, the moderators have been informed, so they can keep watch on the area. It would suck if we chased Eight off only for him to come strolling back in again."

Dainya nodded in agreement, watching as Lupmon bounded over to her.

"Dainya, Dainya!" She called. "Komodomon says I'm strong enough to be his follower! And that I get to call him Aniki from now on!…what does Aniki mean?"

Dainya gave her partner a somewhat blank look, as Cait suddenly got up and began pursuing his partner.

"Oi! Komodomon! Do you think you're Masaru Daimon or something! Get back here you wannabe Yakuza thug!"

Dainya laughed as the red lizard, dragon, thing, fled his human half, laughing and throwing back excuses and boasts of his own strength. Looking down at Lupmon who was joining in laughing, though maybe not quite fully understanding it all.

'Isn't it amazing,' she thought, 'how alive the Digimon seem?'

---

A man wearing a suit looked down at the Ruins, a large Digimon, it's body partially hidden by the large cape upon his shoulders, stood behind him, green eyes gazing somewhat blankly down into the valley. He was a fairly large man, broad shoulders visible through the suit he wore, he remained silently, until a second caped Digimon appeared, he turned to watch the Gallantmon descend from the sky, letting a man in an identical suit drop to the ground. This man was somewhat slighter in appearance, and his hair more fashionable, and he was lacking a beard, his manner was also a little looser than his stiff counter part.

"Evening Kuan, Omnimon." The new comer waved, the bearded man, Kuan, grumbling as his partner was greeted.

"I don't know why you do that when their just programmes. What's the report?"

The younger man shrugged before delivering the information.

"Apparently Eight Ball was making another effort to get into Yggdrasil. He was trying to use Eniac Ruins as a sort of, starting point, I dunno. Whatever it was, it would be easier for him to hack from there than anywhere else."

"And why didn't we know he'd be here?"

"Because his account doesn't seem to show up until he starts hacking. Bit like his name, y'know, can't touch him until we have to."

"And some players stopped him?"

"Serendipitous." The young man shrugged, Kuan only glaring at him.

"Don't be so casual about it. We got lucky, and I don't want that being the case again. Eniac Ruins are now locked down, and I want you to get to work on finding that pain in the ass before he strikes again!"

"You got it boss."

Kuan turned back to glare down at the ruins as his associate left with Gallantmon, now surrounded with an invisible wall to keep players out, and another to trap any hackers…no, a particular hacker, should they get in, the Ruins were more like a tomb.

"Keh." Kuan spat, turning and walking away, Omnimon following dutifully behind him.

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Metal Raven: Sorry for the lack of notage last week. I had to perform Pirates of Penzance about once per day, and there really wasn't much to say that I can't say this week with more detail. Oh, and to the Dragon fan who replied, we were NOT doing you a fan service :P

Eclipsemon is my own design. Basically, take a Neo Shadow Heartless from Kingdom Hearts 2, make him stand more upright (lose that hunch pose), and then give him wings, and that's who you got (We can't give you this easy of a description in the story, because we hafta be "artistic"). I also gave him a bit of Chaos from Sonic Adventure (extendo-grab and melding into his element), except with shadows instead of water.

I named the character Eight Ball out of my philosophical views on the eight ball as an omen of death.It's the last ball to go in (symbolyzing the end of the game, or life), and if you put it in prematurely, you lose the game, or "die". For some reason though, I keep seeing him in Ibuki's getup from Naruto than the WW2 outfit (Though they're both cool)

And now that I've bored you with my opinions, enjoy Drakemon's failure to stop Eclipsemon! You knew it was gonna happen.

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Keyo, Red Angel of Hope: Okay, technically this is on time as it isn't past midnight where Raven lives.

This chapter sees the first example of digivolution. While the style of the light flowing into the digivice is similar to the Digi-Soul from Savers, it's really just an artistic point on an idea that you all want know about for ages. We also have the first appearence of the moderators, who it seemed rather fitting to pair with Royal Knights. Kuan is actually taken from the user name of a very good card player I met online, though I still have to read the Chinese tale he got the name from himself. In reference to both the card player and the man from the legend, it fits the character.

Drakemon, as with Eclipsemon, dates back to the Digimon role-play where Raven and I first met. He was the champion form of my character's partner, who originally was a mammalian Digimon based upon Quilava from Pokemon named Scorchmon. His physical shape, I recently realized, is similar to that of X-Veemon, which makes sense as they're both humanoid dragons, but I designed Drakemon before I saw Veemon Digivolve.

This chapter was a bit of a pain as CrazyEight made a lot of good points when he sent me his proof notes, which entailed some thinking to fix. Again though, areas of this that didn't seem to make sense are meant to be that way. There were also more comments about how cliché Eight-Ball sounds some times, which I testify to being Raven's fault as he comes up with a fair amount of Eight's dialogue.

It's a pain though, there are things I want to say but can't until we get further in.

There was no alternate title for this chapter, but if anyone can think of one I'd be happy to hear it.