Thank you for all your reviews/favorites/alerts! Although I did not reply to reviews lately, it still brings a smile to my face when I see it! Makes me want to upate even more~~ I know I haven't updated in a while but juggling both work and school from Monday to Friday is quite a chore I'm often feeling too drained in the weekends to do anything...=x

I should really be studying for a test tomorrow...but it seems that I have more motivation to upload this story instead ^-^ Oh, the ideas/inspiration that just come up during this period, makes it too irresistable xD

Hehe...with this story uploaded, guess it's time to get back to studying...-_-


Chapter 3:

"Digimon Capture Complete!" Tagiru swiped his crimson digivice, "Yes! Another digimon to my collection!" The gogglehead jumped in joy and as he and Yuu returned back to the human world. Both Gumdramon and Damemon have returned immediately into their respective partners' xros loaders, before anyone could get a glimpse of them.

"Seriously...are you going to act like this everytime you hunt a digimon?" Yuu sighed. Both he and Tagiru had been out hunting a digimon that has been causing problems in the streets nearby their school. The digimon, an elecmon, was apparently, using its powers on any electronic it sees, causing the said electrical item to go haywire and thus causing a problem to the people. To anyone who had been on at least one digimon hunt, would have known straightaway that an elecmon was 'easy picking'. However, it proved more than that as the Elecmon had been quick-witted enough to outsmart the boys and their digimon until it accidentally tripped over Gumdramon's tail and eventually got captured.

"Yup! This means, being one step closer to surpassing Taiki's collection of digimon!" the teenager skipped around in joy, before coming to an abrupt stop, "Speaking of Taiki-senpai, where did he go?"

"He said he had some errands to run and asked us to go ahead with the hunt..." Yuu sighed in exasperation, "If you had stayed on for about 2 seconds, you might have heard him say that..."

"What did you say..." Tagiru growled in annoyance, while Gumdramon merely sighed from inside the xros-loader, knowing full-well that an argument is about to break out.

As Yuu opened his mouth to retort, a loud voice in the distance caught both teens' attention.

"AMANO YUU!"

The voice happened to belong to a guy by the name of Tsurugi Zenjirou. Yes, the same guy who had constantly challenged Taiki to a kendo rematch, which the latter constantly declined and the one who fell head over heels for the now popular idol, Amano Nene, Yuu's older sister. At the speed Zenjirou was running at, one can really wonder what was it about that made the teen run that fast.

In a matter of seconds, Zenjirou reached both of them, panting hard as if he had run a marathon. Once regaining his breath, Zenjirou grabbed Yuu by the shoulders, startling the younger teen, "Have y-you seen the news?!"

"What sort of news?" Yuu raised an eyebrow, wondering what sort of news he is referring to exactly.

"THIS!" Zenjirou exclaimed before holding up a newspaper article. Tagiru who happened to be 'excluded from the conversation' peered over the blond teen's shoulders and his eyes widened upon laying on the article headline, or more specifically the picture featured in the article.

"Company Successor & Rising Star Idol: Aonuma Kiriha and Amano Nene...DATING?!" Tagiru exclaimed the last part as he read the headline out loud. He opened and closed his mouth repeatedly like a fish gasping for breath when it's out of the water before recovering and turning to face Yuu.

"Your sister is dating Kiriha?! Since when?!" Zenjirou cried, while Tagiru nodded in agreement. Yuu could only chuckle weakly and step back from the two eccentric teens, there's no telling how they would react if he gave his answer.

"Now, now, you two..." he began, resulting in the 2 teens leaning in closer and him backing away further, "it's true that my sister is dating Kiriha-san but I only got to know it a month ago when she spoke to me over the phone. Believe me I was as...surprised as you are at that time." It was partially true, though Yuu had known for about a couple of months already. Since the battle against Quartzmon, he had noticed that his sister and Kiriha had gotten much closer and pretty protective over each other. Initially, he tried teasing his elder sister about it but she kept denying it until one day she actually confirmed it.

"Nene-san! I've never get to tell you my feelings!" Tagiru cried, slumping in defeat.

"Ah! I've confessed to you and you didn't return my feelings..." Zenjirou too slumped, his 'manly' tears pouring out of his eyes.

Yuu stared at this dramatic scene speechlessly, torn between wanting to tell them 'I told you so' or something along these lines or just let them be. At the same time, he was trying his best to hold back his laughter. Both Tagiru and Zenjirou looked very much like a pair of comedians who have lost the 'heart' of a beautiful lady, who in this case is Nene. Yuu wisely opted for the second option of leaving them alone, knowing that with this dramatic pair, things can be rather unpredictable. Unfortunately, he couldn't hold back his laughter and burst out uncontrollably, causing both guys to look up at him teary-eyed. This made the blond laugh harder.

"Damn you, Yuu..." Tagiru growled

Yuu was about to react but soon his eye caught a white light in the distance, initially, he thought that it was sunlight but then his eyes widened as he noticed that the light was getting closer and was picking up speed. To make things worse, it was heading towards their direction.

"RUN!" Yuu turned and ran at top speed.

"Oh yes, Yuu. You better run..." Tagiru cackled, failing to notice the light that was heading towards them.

"Yuu's right. RUN!" Zenjirou tugged on the boy's sleeve making him to start running as well.

"Ok, you go left and I'll go right" Tagiru grinned maniacally.

"Tagiru-kun, I would love to agree with you, but at the moment could turn back and LOOK AT OUR CURRENT SITUATION?!" Zenjirou cried, obviously freaking out.

Finally, Tagiru turned and looked. It was barely a full second that he turned back, the teen started running forward at top speed, crying out "Let me through" at the same time. Zenjirou, for a moment, was amazed at how fast the younger teen could run, started to slow down. Soon, his senses alerted him to the current danger he was in.

"Ah! This is no time to be amazed! I'm not going to be the first one to get shot by the beam!" the older teen cried, picking up his speed as well, closing the gap between Yuu and Tagiru. Just with Airu and Akari, the light had sensed that their speed has increased and sped up as well, engulfing them just as easily.

Once again, the light disappeared and left no trace of the teens being there. The street bustled on with its usual activity


In another part of the city, Taiki strolled along the pavement on the way home of completing some errands for his mother. As he strolled, a light constant breeze kept blowing, perfect as the sun was sweltering high above in the afternoon sky.

Taiki's mind randomly wandered through various thoughts and imaginations before deciding to settle on the questions about the clockmaker. The ever mysterious clockmaker had revealed about his identity as Bagramon, it left an unsettling feeling in him. Although the digimon claimed that he wanted to try 'protecting the world this time', Taiki felt that there might be a double meaning to his words.

"I wonder what his motives are..." he mumbled aloud to himself.

"What are you thinking about? Taiki?" Shoutmon's voice floated from his xros loader.

"Shoutmon!" Taiki looked around briefly before answering.

"What's on your mind? You seem rather distracted..." the digimon king asked, "is it about digimon?"

Once making sure that there was nobody looking, the gogglehead took out his xros loader, "I guess you can say that..." he replied as he sat down on an empty bench and began telling the latter about the clockmaker's revelation and the ambiguous comment he made. Having matured over the years and being the digimon king, Shoutmon listened patiently to his partner until he had finished, with no questions asked in between.

"Okay...so you mean to tell me that THIS MUCH HAPPENED AND YOU'RE ONLY TELLING ME NOW?!" Shoutmon exclaimed, momentarily startling his partner. For a moment, it had seemed that the digimon king had returned to his old self when he first met Taiki.

"Like I've said, I wasn't sure until recently." Taiki defended.

"But...are you sure that you're not reading too much into this? I mean Bagramon might have really turned over a new leaf." Shoutmon reasoned.

"That's why I have not told anyone yet...who knows how would they react...particularly Tagiru." Taiki sighed.

"If you put it that way, I guess you'll have to keep a closer eye on that old geezer...but only when I'm with you, I don't really want that incident to happen again." Shoutmon said finally. It had been a scary experience, when Ryoma had stabbed Taiki without any warning. Even though he managed to block the full stab that was meant to be delivered to his partner, Shoutmon feared for his life especially when blood started seeping through his shirt.

"Sure, Sh-!" Taiki's voice suddenly faltered and then followed with a surprised shout.

"Taiki! What's wrong? Taiki! Answer me!" Shoutmon cried through the xros loader, becoming more and more worried as no reply could be heard from the teen. Determined to get out to see what was wrong, the digimon king pushed with all his might, trying to get out of the xros loader.

Upon breaking free with ease, Shoutmon looked around for any sign of Taiki, hardly noticing the change in the surrounding environment.

"Taiki!" he exclaimed upon spotting his a little way off, unconscious, but otherwise okay. As soon as Shoutmon reached him, he briefly checked to see if there was any injuries and sighed with relief after confirming there was none, save for a couple of minor bruises.

"Taiki" Shoutmon called as he shook the boy gently.

"Ugh...Shoutmon?" Taiki moaned, still slightly dazed.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I think so..." Taiki hand went up to his head while the other held onto Shoutmon as the digimon helped him up. "Where are we?"

It was only then did Shoutmon take in his surroundings. The bustling city he had expected to see was nowhere in sight and instead, it was replaced with a grassy meadow that seemed to stretch on forever. No wonder it was much easier to get out of the xros loader...why didn't he realize it earlier?

"Shoutmon, are we..."

"Yeah. We're no longer in the human world but the digital world." Shoutmon confirmed, he had a bad feeling about this.


"My generals! Status update report! The humans are being sighted in the digital world!" a troopmon reported to three figures standing in the shadows.

"Perfect! Now run along and commence the plan! The time of revenge has come Kudou Taiki!" one of the figures stepped out into the light, revealing himself to be Tactimon.

"Hmm...? There are some newbies too, time to get back into action!" Blastmon added, now fully grown back to his original form.

"Don't get too excited, Blastmon. We've got plenty of time to play with those brats and the generals as well"

"Please, don't get too complacent, my three generals. You don't want to be making the same mistake as the last time, won't you?" a voice echoed through the room.

"No, my lord. We'll do everything to make sure everything goes according to plan." Tactimon bowed respectfully towards the sound of the voice, this action was also mimicked by blastmon and lilithmon.

"Good, report to me regularly and make sure to give the kids a warm welcome..."

"Yes, my lord" all three generals were smirking evilly, each having their own plan to present their 'welcome'.

"With them unaware of what's going on, restoring our former glory will be a piece of cake!" Blastmon roared as he left the room, leaving only Tactimon and Lilithmon in the room.

"So Tactimon, I've heard that you've been given another mission other than this one..." she started.

"Oh? You need not concern yourself with that, since you'll need your utmost concentration...in order not to make any blunders like the last time." He replied coolly before stalking out of the room.

"That Tactimon! I'll be sure to get back at him! With him out of the way, I'll be the top general" Lilithmon was clearly not satisfied with the samurai digimon's answer at all and stalked off to her room.

Once entering her quarters, she pointed at a digimon, "You there!"

"Yes, ma'am!" the digimon, a pipismon, saluted her.

"Go find out what other mission that Tactimon has and report back to me once you find out something." She ordered.

The digimon bowed and left the room.

"In the meantime, I'll just go take a look at my prey..." she strode over to a water basin and waved her hands over it, her smile widened as soon as the water showed an image of her target or rather, targets.

"Don't worry, little ones. Lilithmon is going to spend time playing with you and you won't be bored." Lilithmon taunted as she peered through the water basin until the image fully faded away.


"Fresh report, all the players are now in the digital world." Clockmon reported as he waddled into the room. It had no lighting or furniture, the only source of light came through a small dusty window. To sum it up, the room looked almost like a prison.

"Good. Now, all we have to do is to watch how the story unfolds from here..." The old man replied quietly, leaning forward from his seat.


A/N: And that's all for chapter 3...what I can say is that this chapter had turned out very differently from when I've first drafted it...Yep, I've changed lots of things in the chapter as I typed it out. How did you like it? Good? Bad? Average?

This chapter sort of sets the plot in motion, lots of questions were raised:

Whose voice do you think that spoke to the three generals?

What is the extra mission that was given to Tactimon?

Who did Lilithmon see in her water basin? What does she have in store for them?

The clockmaker and his digimon, friend or foe?

So many questions and all of them will be answered in later chapters...

I'll try to get another chapter out as soon as I can though I can't be sure when...but don't worry, I won't leave this story hanging.

Please do leave a review/favorite/alert! ^^