Edit: 10/5/11: Oops, just found an inconsistency that I have now corrected, along with a typo. Her's the updated version. Also, Chapter 4 should be coming out soon, but I'm alternating between it and another chapter far off in the story.

Hey everyone! Sorry for the 2 month delay. School has kept me fairly busy, and I've been suffering from writer's block. I have all of the major ideas and concepts for the story in my head, but the minor details are surprisingly difficult to come up with. Because of this, I would like to apologize in advance for the shortness of this chapter. I would like to ask your help so that this story can remain as good as the first two chapters were. If you have any suggestions or comments PLEASE review or send me a message to let me know. I am well aware of my flaws as a writer, and am always willing to consider suggestion or different ideas.

For all of those action buffs out there, I must ask you to remain patient for just a little longer. The next chapter will most assuredly be more to your tastes, but this one is necessary, and it made sense that this one should be first.

Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon, nor anything associated with it. I only own the idea and plot for this story. All credit goes to Toei Animation for the original show, and Saban Entertainment for the dub.

Chapter 3: The Longest Night

Izzy, TK, Kari, Cody and Yolei all felt the familiar sensation of falling as they entered the digiport. After a brief moment, the sensation vanished and they hit the ground face-first. Izzy was the first to stand up. Brushing the dirt off of his clothes, he looked around at where they had landed. The area appeared to be some kind of meadow, and nothing looked familiar to him. The entire area was dark; it was obviously nighttime in the Digital World as well.

Behind him, the others were picking themselves up as well. TK rose and offered a hand to Kari, which she took. "I guess we're a little out of practice," she commented. They used to be able to land normally, but it had been so long that they had obviously forgotten. Giving a frown, she glanced around them, "Hey, where are Gatomon and Patamon? They were here just a moment ago when we contacted them."

"We're over here!" someone cried out. The voice was muffled, but TK still managed to identify it as Patamon's.

Another voice sounded out, "Yeah and we'd like it very much if you could get off of us!"

Kari smiled at the sound of Gatomon's voice, but Yolei's face turned pale as she realized that the voices were coming from underneath her. She rolled over to reveal the two digimon. Patamon and Gatomon sprang over to TK and Kari and leaped up into their arms.

"Yeah, we're glad to see you guys too," said TK.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your reunion guys, but we've still got a job to do," reminded Izzy. "Davis and Ken are going to need all the help they can get. And my suspicion is correct, then the rest of the Daemon Corps is going to be back along with SkullSatamon."

"How on earth is that even possible?" questioned TK. "I thought that if digimon were destroyed in our world then there was no way for them to return to Primary Village to be reconfigured."

Izzy shook his head, "That's according to what we know, and that's still nowhere near as much as I'd like. But remember, that barrier can be circumvented. Just remember MaloMyotismon."

Mention of him made the entire group cringe. That name brought back some memories which were best left forgotten.

Izzy prodded at the group again, "But enough of that for now. We can't waste any more time, so let's get moving." Everyone nodded but stopped when they realized that they didn't know where to start looking. Izzy shuffled embarrassedly; that crucial fact had skipped his mind as well. However, Kari spared him from any humiliation by taking the initiative, "Where are the others Gatomon?" she asked.

"If they're where we last saw them, then they're a fair ways into these woods," replied the catlike digimon.

"Lead the way then," said Izzy. Gatomon hopped out of Kari's arms and stalked towards an edge of the clearing. The rest of the group followed her closely as she seemingly vanished into the forest. Inside the brush, the darkness seemed even more intense. The moonlight from above refracted and split into a thousand tiny beams of light that provided the sole source of illumination. TK looked up and noticed that many of the leaves on the trees were turning brown. That wasn't the only odd thing. Every other time they had come to the Digital World they had almost immediately seen some other digimon besides their partners, but tonight there hadn't been any others that he'd yet seen.

He decided to see if his friend could explain this oddity, "Hey Patamon, where are all the other digimon? I know some of them are probably sleeping, but I would have thought that we'd have seen some by now."

"It's the darkness," replied Patamon.

"What, they're all afraid of the dark?" said TK in an amused voice. "Isn't it always dark at night?"

The normally happy and carefree Patamon gave him a serious look, "There hasn't been any sunlight for two days. The only light comes from the moon and stars, but those look like they're beginning to fade. We're the only ones who ever come out now. We've tried to talk to some of the other digimon, but they refuse to come out."

TK looked around again. He had assumed that it was dark due to it being night, but now that he observed further, the darkness wasn't really darkness at all, at least not in the way it was in the real world. There was no light, true, but it wasn't the inky blackness of night either. Instead, it appeared to be a dark shade of grey. He'd only seen that color before one time, and he didn't want to dwell on that memory.

Lost in his observations, he failed to pay attention to where he was going, and ran right into a tree. His head glanced off, but he managed to remain standing. In front of him, Kari turned around and looked at him. "Are you alright?" she asked.

"I'm fine. I guess I just need to pick on trees my own size."

Kari smiled at his pathetic joke, but TK saw something different in her eyes. Is that fear? He shook the thought from his mind and focused on not running into something else.

Ahead, Gatomon came to a stop, in front of a massive tree. 'Why is she stopping here?' wondered TK. At the front of the group, just behind Gatomon, Izzy was staring intently at the tree. After a few moments his mouth dropped open. "That's impossible! How could it have gotten from File Island to here?"

"What on earth are you talking about Izzy?" asked TK. "How could what have come from File Island?"

"This tree," responded Izzy. When he saw that TK was still incredulous, he clarified himself, "When we first went to File Island Tai and I were attacked by Kuwagamon. We followed Koromon and Motimon to get away, and they led us somewhere to hide. It was a huge tree in the middle of the woods that looked the same as any of the others, but they told us that it was the hiding tree. I wasn't sure at first, but now I'm certain that this is the same tree."

"So, what's so special about it that it's called the Hiding Tree?" asked a still skeptical TK.

"Well, when you approach it—"

Izzy's was interrupted as the front of the tree shimmered and seemingly disintegrated, revealing Tentomon, Hawkmon, Armadillomon, Agumon, Gabumon, Biyomon, Gomamon and Palmon. Most of them were asleep, but Tentomon was standing right in front of the entrance. "It took you long enough Izzy," chided Tentomon.

Izzy grinned, "Sorry pal. It's been so long that I'd forgotten that the laws of logic don't really matter here. Besides, how do you expect me to instantly remember something that I saw one time over ten years ago?" Before Tentomon could answer Izzy continued on. "Anyways, my question can wait for later. We've got a big problem on our hands now. SkullSatamon apparently decided that he wanted a rematch and is causing all sorts of havoc in Odaiba. We needed to get all of you guys so that we can be ready if any more trouble arrives."

Tentomon's face remained as emotionless as always, but his tone conveyed his attitude just as well, "You think you've got problems Izzy? The entire Digital World is literally under shadow, and we have no idea what's causing it!" He gave a harrumph, then spoke again, this time in a more resigned tone, "But, it's not like we've been able to do much of anything here. I'll go wake the others."

A moment later all of the other digimon were gathered outside of the Hiding Tree. Izzy quickly began to fill in the rest about their current predicament, "Alright, as Tentomon may have told you we have the slightest bit of trouble back in our world. SkullSatamon has reappeared and is as dangerous as ever. But, even as bad as that is, my theory is that something bigger is behind his reemergence. It shouldn't have even been possible for him to return, because his data was destroyed in the real world, and if he can come back than it's safe to assume that any of the other digimon that we've destroyed might be back as well." The others nodded, seeing that Izzy's conclusions were a real possibility. Izzy continued, "Tentomon told me about the situation here, but can any of you tell me anything else about it? We can't promise anything right now, seeing as we're on kind of a tight schedule, but We'll be glad to help once our situation is resolved."

Agumon cleared his throat, apparently a little bit nervous, "Well, Tentomon probably told you everything we know, but there's something that I have kept to myself."

The other digimon stared at him in shock. "If you know something else then why didn't you tell us?" queried Biyomon.

Agumon shuffled his feet guiltily, "Well, we've had enough to worry about, and I just didn't want to be the bearer of more bad news."

Izzy now had a look of visible concern on his face, "Well, now you've admitted it, what more information do you have? It could be extremely important."

"Well, when the darkness came, I decided to go and see if Azulongmon knew anything about it. I searched for over a week, but I couldn't find him. It seems as though he has simply disappeared."

The digimon stared in shock, while Kari, Cody and Yolei gave looks of concern, and TK's face hardened a little bit. Izzy gave a frown; from what Gennai had told him, Azulongmon and three other digimon were supposed to be some kind of guardians of the Digital World. The last time they had disappeared was when Apocalymon and the Dark Masters had appeared. If they had gone silent again, then that meant that this problem was even worse than his most dire calculations. We can't worry about it right now, he thought, we have enough trouble on our hands at the moment. We can investigate it after our immediate problem is dealt with. Holding up a hand to calm everyone, he announced his decision, "Azulongmon's absence is disturbing, but we'll worry about it after things settle down back in our world." The rest of the group nodded, seeing that there wasn't much that they could do in response to Agumon's news. Izzy gave a sigh of relief that the others weren't going to protest his decision. "Now that we've settled that, we need to get a hold of Tai, Matt, Sora, Joe and Mimi. There's a TV terminal near here that we can use."

Yolei's jaw dropped, "How can you know that there's TV near here? You don't have your laptop, nor any other way of finding their locations."

Izzy smiled, "Now really, did you think that I just sat around doing nothing whenever you guys went to the Digital World? I spent my time memorizing the location of every access terminal so I'd be prepared for something like this."

Yolei's eyes widened, "Really? Are you serious!"

Izzy's smile broke into a snicker, "Did you really believe that? I'm not that obsessed. The terminal is about ten feet behind you, in front of a bush." Yolei flushed red with embarrassment at being so gullible, and the others had a short round of laughter. However, they soon remembered that they still had a job to do.

Izzy walked over to the television set and knelt down next to it. TK had been holding something in, and he finally decided to come out with his question, "How are we going to get to the others? The

TVs have always sent us back out through the same computer that we used to get in."

Grinning, Izzy replied, "Don't worry, I found a way to bypass that some time ago. Do any of you have your D-Terminals?"

TK, Kari and Yolei groaned; they hadn't used their D-Terminals for a long time, as there had become easier ways of communicating, such as texting. Cody, however, gave a nod, which was both shocking and yet also unsurprising to the others. He walked over and handed it to Izzy.

"Thank you Cody. I assume that you know what I'm going to do?"

The others looked confused, but Cody just gave an excited grin, "Of course I remember, I just didn't think we would ever get to actually use it."

Seeing that the others had no idea what was going on, Izzy decided to fill them in, "Some time after you all defeated MaloMyotismon, I got the idea that relying on our point of entry as our only means of escape was a hindrance. Cody and I studied the coding on these terminals, and figured out a way to manipulate the addresses of various locations so that we could come out at any location that we wanted. All I need is some kind of device to set the proper coordinates."

He stood up and turned to face TK, Kari, Yolei and Cody, "Now, there's five of us and five others to get together. Thankfully Mimi is here in Japan for a beginning of summer visit, so it'll be easier to get a hold of her. Since I have no where idea where she's at though, we'll have to use her phone which should work just as well. Now then, Yolei, I want to get Mimi, TK, you get your brother, Kari, you'll find Sora, and Cody, you can go to Joe. I'll fetch Tai, since we've been friends for so long. When you've found your person then we all need to meet back at the Convention Center unless it's obvious that the fight has moved elsewhere. Hurry as quickly as possible; if that means digivolving then that's fine, but try to stay as discreet as possible."

The group nodded, and Izzy quickly found a wire that was attached to the television. Hooking it up to the D-Terminal, he punched in something and the TV set began to glow. "Yolei, this is Mimi's location." She nodded and stepped into the light, where she was sucked out through the TV screen. He did the same for TK and Kari, although the two of them were reluctant to part from each other. Nevertheless, they knew that they had a greater duty at the moment and went through the gate to their assignments. With only Cody and himself remaining, Izzy decided to give the younger boy a chance. "You feeling up to trying it Cody?" he asked. Cody gave an eager nod and Izzy handed him his D-Terminal back, "Just punch in the address for Joe's apartment. I need your D-Terminal to get to Tai, so I'll get it back to you later." Cody nodded in acceptance and hurriedly punched in the address. As the light on the TV glowed again he exhaled audibly and stepped in, leaving Izzy alone.

For a moment Izzy stood in silence, pondering on what was to come. The night's events had been thrust upon him, and he was uncertain of what the results would be. The Digital World was obviously threatened again; the strange darkness made that all but certain. This time however, the first sign of trouble had appeared in the real world and that was what bothered him. Even when Oikawa had triggered trouble from the real world it hadn't affected it until long after the Digital World was under siege.

Giving a sigh, Izzy put his concerns at the back of his mind. There wasn't time to worry about them at the moment; he would consider them later. He plugged in Tai's address and took a confident step into the light. He had a job to do.