Episode 7. Hell Freezes Over


Laelapmon looked around, shivering on the spot. It was cold, and she was alone, in a strange place.

All around, it was pitch-black, the darkest night she'd ever experienced. Above her, the twinkling stars were the only light in this strange place, devoid of any other creature, or scenery. She found comfort in the stars, and focused on them, in an attempt to get her mind off of the overwhelming sense of dread and foreboding still growing in the pit of her gut.

Time seemed to tick on for eternity, before a change in the endless expanse of stars caught her attention, and had her reeling back in surprise. A giant red rift, full of swirling cosmic dust, ripped across the night sky, and what seemed to be four oddly placed suns, giant stars of fiery gold radiating out heat.

It's only when she looked again, did she realize it was a giant face in the sky glaring down at her, the giant, jagged red mouth seemed to form a swirling vortex that was trying to draw her in, as the whole sky seemed to distort and warp and bulge out towards her... the sky literally beginning to descend down over her, the rift-mouth making a gut-wrenching cry that made her feel horrified and ill.

Turning, she began sprinting off, every foot step leaving sparkling ripples on the black surface of wherever it was she was running on. It felt like she was wading through sticky treacle, or like her body was being weighed down on... It took all of her willpower just to keep running, until she seemed to run out of ground, and found herself plummeting over an invisible edge, into a vast, darkened void, which seemed to get brighter and brighter the further she fell...

Waking with a jolt, Laelapmon sat up, trembling all over violently. She was in Amy's room, still partially buried under the blanket, right where she'd crashed out asleep on getting home. Amy wasn't present, and the small dog digimon wondered why Amy was up so early, since it was still rather dark outside... and also why it was so cold inside the apartment.

She tried to shake the feelings of anxiety and paranoia that had happened in the dream... it had felt so real, in a way that had terrified her badly. But it was just a dream, or so she kept reminding herself as she started to untangle herself from the folds of the blanket. The little white digimon decided the best thing to take her mind off of the nightmare was to busy herself with other things.

Checking the clock, Laelapmon's suspicions were confirmed; it was around 5am in the morning. Amy never got up this early unless something was bothering her, or she had a bad night. Padding out, Laelapmon's first and foremost priority was to check on her partner.

"Amy...?" Laelapmon called, coming out into the lounge. Amy was sitting at the terminal built into the wall, D-Drive in hand. "What's going on?"

Amy looked over to her digimon, unable to hide her growing concerns. She'd drunk through two mugs of coffee to perk herself up and get warmed up. She was wearing at least two thick woolly sweaters and her heaviest coat, as well as two pairs of her warmest jeans and thick woolly socks and slippers just to stay warm.

"Sometime during the night, there was a heavy blizzard... the heaviest there's ever been. The news has been calling it a 'mini ice-age', and everyone is snowed in..." she murmured, pulling an extra chair up to the terminal for Laelapmon to sit on. As Laelapmon read the news report on the terminal, Amy continued keeping her updated. "The power only just came back on, it was out for hours... and the heating is still broke. The power and gas companies equipment failed because of the extreme weather... The water lines have actually frozen over..."

Laelapmon thought back to the previous day. The Resistance had mentioned something about the weather, too...

"Wait... Amy, didn't the Resistance say they were looking into this, too?" Laelapmon asked, looking from the screen to her partner. "They said they were investigating into it, or something?"

"Then as I suspected, this blizzard IS the work of a digimon..." Amy sighed, pulling her coat around herself some more. Even with the layers of clothing she'd built up, the cold was still too over-bearing inside the apartment. "I knew it... this weather is just too extreme and unnatural to be anything else. I had my suspicions because of just how sudden this was... Over the night, the snow just kept rapidly building up... the entire ground floor, the snow is up past the door... even if we could get out, we'd need to dig ourselves out just to get free."

Laelapmon felt nervous, and not just over the nightmare she'd had. What if the blizzard didn't stop? What if they couldn't get out? What if the heating never came back on? It was cold enough, but if it got any colder in here, Laelapmon feared the worst for Amy and the other residents.

"Nobody's been able to get out... we can only last so long in here..." Amy murmured. "I've been trying to contact the others, but they haven't responded yet..."

Both of them sat in silence, Amy trying over and over on her D-Drive fruitlessly trying to get through to someone - anyone - for help, and to see if they were okay. Eventually, Joey managed to pick up.

"Amy? I've been trying to get through for the past hour..." Joey's voice sounded through the speakers. He sounded tired, and his voice was shaky from the cold.

"Same here..." She replied. Finally hearing another person's voice in this nightmare seemed to bring her a little short-lived comfort. "I can't get through to Marina or Darren, either. The weather has caused the power to die, so that made the entire building is in security lock-down... We can't even leave... Even though the power is up, the doors are still locked up, and the metal shutters are over all the windows."

There came a short pause, where everyone was shivering in their freezing homes, before Joey managed to take a deep breath and respond.

"Don't worry about this, I've been cracking away at the security code all morning so that I can get to your side... with any luck, I'll be done soon, and I'll be over as soon as I can."

By time it was 7 am, a gruelling 2 hours after Laelapmon had first awoken to the mess of a situation, the door suddenly unlocked itself and slid open with a mechanical whirr and click, as a 'test'.

"My door opened on my end," Joey called out over the D-Drive, "if I did this correctly, yours should be open, too."

Amy stood up from her seat and went over, peering out into the hallway. Every other door was still closed. It was eerie and quiet in the halls, the only noise being the blustery icy winds outside, and there was chilled air seeming to pour in from the vents in the hall, which had her hastily retreating back inside.

"Mine is, too... but the others are closed." Amy replied, standing beside Laelapmon, and stroking one of her ears to help soothe them both from the anxious feeling that had been plaguing both for hours.

"It'd take me too long to open each and every door manually... besides, I think it would be safer on the other residents if they didn't go fleeing off into the streets... there's no telling what's out there right now." Joey murmured back in concern, rubbing his chin.

"You have the same thought? That a digimon is behind all of this?" Amy enquired. She felt certain this was beyond normal, it truly couldn't be anything other than a digimon, everything pointed to it being the work of one. Even the Resistance had been concerned about it enough to look into it, which had been proof enough.

"Yes... it couldn't be anything else, could it? We need to contact the others, and make some form of plan. This can't go on any longer, Amy, or everyone will be in grave danger, worser than we're in now... I'm coming over. Let's start strategizing."


Everything was dark and empty at the city's largest airport. There were no employees, no tourists, no people at all.

Out on the runway, the aeroplanes were parked and abandoned, buried under snow. The blizzard had ensured nobody at all would be at work today, or even leaving their homes.

In the largest, most open area near the waiting area where people would have waited for their flights, there were now amassed a sizeable group of digimon - enough to make a small army. There must have been no more than 100 in total, gathered in silence. Various icy digimon, mostly being SnowAgumon, SnowGoburimon, Frigimon and Mojyamon.

Ahead of the large group sat a snake woman, lounging sideways on a bench, her long serpentine tail sprawled out part-ways up the row of seats before trailing off onto the floor. Her green snake-like hair was constantly moving, the heads constantly peering around and always keeping watch, allowing her to see all around, even though her own eyes were covered by wrappings, except for a third eye on her forehead, which remained closed.

This was Medusamon, and she was the leader of this group of motley digimon, and she lay in waiting for her second-in-command to finish scrutinizing a map of the city nearby.

"Any ideas from where we go from here, sir?" a SnowAgumon asked said second-in-command standing at his side. The digimon he was addressing was the huge bird that had been responsible for burying the city under heavy snow, and ensuring their upcoming journey would go uninterrupted.

"We'll need supplies, of course." Sastrugamon, the large bird digimon, replied. His bright yellow eyes never once leaving the map. "We came through with barely anything to last us, after that damned Ikkakumon destroyed our last food storage hut..."

A Digital Gate had opened up in Medusamon's lair, back in the digital world. It had opened up right in the basement of her former fortress, and linked to an older and unused hangar that needed repairs right at the end of the runway, and had thankfully gone unnoticed by the humans. After scouting it out for a few days, she and Sastrugamon had hatched a plan to come through.

The Gate had been a blessing - a huge risk, but a blessing nonetheless - as it had allowed them to escape otherwise certain defeat, and death itself, where they had been in their last defence against the infected Ikkakumon that had single-handedly eradicated their otherwise large army down to absolutely pitiful numbers now.

The spread of the strange virus-like 'growth' had swallowed up the entire other-side of their mountain home, causing many surviving digimon not eaten up by the growing wave of darkness to seek shelter at their castle. Leaving the fortress was not an attractive option. At first, the pair had been planning to invade the neighbouring castle on the mountain range in the distance opposing theirs, to escape the steadily creeping threat behind them, and ensure more safety against the growing number of digimon who were slowly falling ill to the effects of having a 'dark zone' so close by... and then the worst had happened.

A digimon so far gone with infection it no longer seemed to be capable of rational thought or logic appeared and began destroying everything in sight. A siege had occurred, with many of their number fighting day and night at the gates trying to keep the ungainly beast at bay, those not dying in battle falling due to exhaustion or starvation; practically fighting their way to their graves.

As one barricade began to fall, another was hurriedly raised, everyone on their side getting pushed back. When there were hardly any digimon left to fight, everyone abandoned post, grabbed what they could, and retreated into the castle... but even the thick wooden doors weren't going to hold for long, as their tireless foe continued to ram and smash harpoon after harpoon at the doors. On the second day of being trapped inside the castle, the cracks were really beginning to show, and they felt on the dawn of the third and final day, it may have been the last any of them were to live... their followers were losing hope, and fearing the worst.

Sastrugamon had gone on the eve of the second day to hastily begin his freezing assault on the city, covering every inch he could reach under snow, as fast as he could, in readiness of their arrival. And on the third day, they seized the opportunity and ran with it- and now, here they were. Many of the troops were still in shock, starving and nervous from being in such an alien setting compared to home. And it was he and Medusamon's duty to see that their remaining followers were safe.

"This, right here!" Sastrugamon suddenly announced, tapping his beak against the map. He'd been reading the various 'hot spots' for tourists, since they tended to be big and important places, fit for huge numbers to visit, and he'd found the ideal spot for their group. "The largest shopping mall in the city. There should be plenty of things there for us to take for ourselves. Food, lodgings, equipment... if we're going anywhere, it would surely be wise to go here, no?"

The big bird seemed pleased with his find, but nearly jumped out of his feathery skin when he felt Medusamon rest her head against his wing, leaning right up against him. She seemed to relax more feeling his soft feathers against her smoother skin, considering that she'd been very stressed out previously.

"I knew you would find us a spot, my dearest Sastrugamon." she sighed, her voice soft and sweet. Her tone was normally sharp and icy towards the others, but around Sastrugamon, she was a much warmer creature. "You believe this 'mall' thing to be an oasis in this wretched city?"

Sastrugamon's snow-white face was now a very bright shade of pink, having his boss by his side like that. It was no secret with the rest of the forces that he was deeply inlove with Medusamon. He turned his head away shyly, before affirming his selection.

"Y-Yes, my lady Medusamon..." he began, coughing to clear his throat of his stammering, which always occurred without fail in her presence, "I know about some human things, and... their 'malls' are where they sell a great deal many useful things... clothes, food, equipment and other supplies... they are huge, as huge as our fortress perhaps, so our forces will have plenty of room... From there, we can figure our next course of action, how we will reach the islands out at sea for us to start over..."

"We should make a start on mapping out a good route, then..." Medusamon replied, looking over the map, tracing along a road with her finger tip. Sastrugamon glanced down at her, where he was much bigger, and nodded his head in agreement.

"F-First, my lady Medusamon... I think I should take a look around out there... the blizzard should've been strong enough to keep the humans out of the way, but there's the matter of... that company."

He was of course referring to Arch Angel, and with nothing more to say, he set off. Medusamon, however, stayed behind, trying to plan the route to the mall. But knowing he was going to be spending time apart from her, keeping check of things from the sky, on his own, made her heart ache.


"Kai." came the voice of Denimon, who was speaking rather low, into Kai's ear. "Kai, it's snowing."

"Mmmh..." groaned the young man known as Kai. He shifted around more, so that his back was now facing Denimon, before he irritably mumbled a reply, trying to drift back to sleep before he was woken up any further,"Go away... do you have any idea what time it is...? I've got work in the morning..."

Kai briefly blinked at the digital clock on his wall just above his bed with bleary eyes and took in the time; 5 am precisely. Sighing in frustration, he slipped his eyes closed and hoped Denimon was done trying to pester him.

"I know that, Kai-cha." Denimon replied using an affectionate nickname of sorts in response, "but it's snowing really bad out, and Marina wants you to- Kai? Kai!"

The big blue dinosaur prodded the 20-something's shoulder, on not receiving any response at all, and aside from a soft grunt, Kai remained still. Several more proddings ended up causing Kai to pull the duvet up over his head, to dull the sharp jabs from Denimon's claws, and block out any more annoyance. He felt the best thing to do was to ignore the reptilian fiend and hopefully he would leave, however, this was not something that was going to happen, it seemed.

Denimon leaned forward, tugging the bedsheet down a bit, repeatedly calling out his name in his most annoying voice ever, since that usually worked. He wound up climbing up onto the bed, with it's heavy, stripy duvet and began to jump up and down on it.

"Kai! Kai! KaiKaiKaiKaiKaiKaiKai!" Denimon yapped, clapping his paws and stamping his feet, sending pillows bouncing around haphazardly across the mattress. Kai's eyes snapped open and before the irrepressible lizard even saw him coming, the disgruntled guy was on him, wrestling him about. After getting caught up in a headlock, Kai growled several expletives at him, and booted him off the bed.

"Disturb me again you little brat, and I'll kick your ass!" he growled, straightening up his bed before getting back in angrily and hiding his pale-haired head back under the covers.

Denimon rubbed his sore nose and neck, which ached from being wrestled, but he wasn't going to let this stop him. Creeping to the end of the bed, he lifted up the end of the duvet, exposing Kai's sensitive feet, which the sneaky dinosaur knew very well did not like being tickled. However, he was going to go beyond tickling and get both revenge, and a sure-fire way to wake the cafe-worker up for certain.

Licking his lizardy lips, Denimon leaned his head forward- and promptly began to lick the soles of Kai's feet.

"WAAAAARRRGGHHH!" Kai shrieked, jumping up like someone'd just dumped a scorpion on him, and fell right out of bed onto the floor, bumping the back of his head on the rug and taking half of his bedding with him. When his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, and he woke up properly, he was met with Denimon's crocodile-like face grinning down at him like a cheshire cat.

"Got you, Kai-cha." the dinosaur smirked, before beginning to tug on his tamer's brother's arm. "You gotta come downstairs, we're like, snowed in, and there's no heating!"

"Why the hell didn't you tell me this before?" Kai growled sorely, rubbing the back of his head. He seemed to suddenly register that it was pretty damn cold in here, now he was fully awake, and more aware of his surroundings.

"Because you're an ignorant pig-headed poop and kept ignoring me." Denimon replied, smirking once more. Kai sighed, refusing to take the bait for another argument, which usually occurred on a daily basis whenever the two were home at the same time. Kai did not like Denimon, and Denimon did not like Kai, and the two were always insulting one another, and using any excuse to have a fight... even if it drove Marina up the wall with stress.


A little while later, Kai came downstairs, accompanied by Denimon. There'd been a second short-lived fight between the pair, of Denimon not understanding Kai's need for privacy on getting dressed, which had resulted in the 'free-loading snot-nosed brat' of a dinosaur getting wrestled and shut out of the easily-annoyed young man's bedroom so he could get dressed in peace.

Marina was sitting with Darren, who had stayed over for the night, at their home terminal, both looking worried. Marina had been extremely late getting home due to a meeting with her manager, and Darren, who had kindly escorted her home, had wound up staying over since the weather had taken a turn for the worst, and Darren lived virtually on the other side of town. Both had been stressed out, where the manager was still not going to let them forget about their running out on Marina's VIP guests on the night of the concert, and had been with a hair-trigger temper since then.

Kai felt frustrated. He wanted to be the one she turned to, like in the past... but now, if things were bothering her, she either confided in Darren, or... the creature. He glared down at Denimon bitterly from the corner of his eyes, and growled slightly under his breath. Ever since the incident, back when he and Marina had been kids, Denimon had been with them ever since, and their lives had never been the same since.

"So, someone mind telling me what the hell's going on with the crazy weather?" he asked, breaking the tense silence that had been gripping the room. He was wearing one of the spare bathrobes in a bid to keep himself from feeling the freezing air that had hit him rather hard on waking up properly.

"The blizzard that came out of nowhere last night has practically buried everyone and everything inside. We can't open the front door because there's a wall of snow burying us in..." Darren called over, from where he was checking several things on the terminal. There must have been at least ten windows open displaying various news readings and reports.

"The power isn't exactly back, everything is pretty much dead. It took us ages setting up dad's spare power supply just to power the terminal..." Marina sighed, before shooting Kai a side-long glare, "if someone had bothered to come down sooner, say, someone who knew how to set up the power supply, we could've got up and running sooner..."

Kai seemed slightly taken aback by her frustrated tone, his already annoyed mood dipping down into frustration. Denimon seemed to instinctively back off from his side, to avoid becoming the target of a further clobbering.

"Hey, I didn't know, okay? I only just found out about this crap just now!" he growled back, in an increasingly annoyed tone. However, on seeing Marina's expression change to one suggesting guilt for having had a go at him, he hastily made the effort to calm down. He didn't want to explode at his sister, now was not a good time for arguments. "...What are you guys doing on there, anyway? What's so important you used the power supply for the terminal, instead of like, the kitchen, or the something?"

Both of the tamers paused from checking the news, and looked at each-other awkwardly. Due to Kai's deep-seated loathing of Digimon, and what they were about to tell him, they instinctively felt, would not go down well.

"We... needed to get in contact with some of our friends..." Darren mumbled, finding it difficult to keep eye contact with the other male.

"U-Uhh... the ones we met recently, at the cafe near the concert hall..." Marina muttered, stammering slightly in nerves. She had been only half-facing Kai, where she'd been following the information on the screen, and trying to bury her nervousness over this inevitable confrontation, "A-Amy and Joey, t-the ones with..." she could feel her voice growing softer and more strained, "t-the ones with th-the Digimon... b-because, we discussed this, a-and only a D-Digimon could cause something this b-bad... a-and we were going to t-try to find a way to stop it..."

The following outburst from her short-tempered older brother almost made it seem as though his anger would cause the very house to come down around them from the impossibly aggressive snarl that escaped his lips.

"WHAT?" He shrieked, and in no time at all, had crossed the room, an taken a hold of Marina's shoulders, turning his younger sister around to face him. She froze, all the colour seeming to drain from her already pale face on seeing the absolute intense fiery rage building up in his eyes, as his face steadily flushed so red with anger she thought he'd turn purple.

"What the HELL did I tell you about this, Marina?" He yelled, shaking her roughly, "Do you seriously not care about your safety? I told you to stop getting involved with these creatures, and anyone that has anything to do with them! If there's really more people out there, then let THEM deal with this crap! I won't have you doing this, putting your life on the line for such stupid and reckless reasons!"

Marina was trembling, shaking all over both from his grip on her shoulders, and her growing guilt and upset on being grilled mercilessly like this by her sibling. Her vision had grown so blurry from tears she could barely make his face out any more, where everything had gone misty.

Darren had been trying to hold back, but on seeing and hearing all this, and Marina's growing visibly more and more upset by this, could stay out of things no longer. Standing, he pushed Kai back, and stood between the pair defensively.

"Kai, please, calm down." Darren instructed the other, still anger-consumed male, whilst placing a hand reassuringly on Marina's shoulder, "That's enough."

"Don't butt in, Darren!" Kai snarled back angrily, balling up his fists. Marina caught sight of this, and his increasing aggression, and clung to Darren's arm fearfully; she had visions of her brother trying to smash Darren's jaw in. It would be the first time her elder sibling had beaten someone up over her, either. "You're a bad influence on her, what the hell kinda bodyguard are you, anyway? Actively going out with her on these stupid 'monster hunts'? You should be encouraging her away from that dangerous stuff!"

"Now, you listen here-" Darren started, stepping forward. Kai seemed to be implying that he did not care for Marina, or take his duties, both as her bodyguard, and her friend, or her safety, seriously.

"Please stop this!" Marina yelled, this time being the one to place herself between the pair, "Stop it right NOW!"

She stared tearfully from one to the other. Both were breathing rather deeply, Kai's coming out more shuddery from his already very angered state. The pair of them continued to stare each-other down angrily, glaring intensely, with Marina still trying to shield one from the other.

"Kai... please, this is so serious... I don't do these things because I have to, but because I want to..." she murmured insistently, trying to keep her voice soft and calm, "People could be hurt, or die, if we ignored wild digimon appearances, or just assume that just because there are 'other tamers' that they will step in... you know that's not the case, or else we wouldn't even need to do it in the first place..."

Kai backed off, still glaring, and still red-faced from frustration. He leaned off against the wall, his arms folded defensively across his chest, avoiding their gazes. Denimon and Elfinmon ducked back behind the sofa, which the pair had retreated behind the moment things had kicked off, for fearing of making things escalate even worser than they had, considering most times, just the sight of them goofing off or being too close by set him off.

Marina carefully approached her older brother and stood before him, peering up at his face. She wiped the tears from her eyes, and took hold of his hands in hers, clasping them tight, her thumbs affectionately stroking across his fingers soothingly.

"This time, especially of all times, we can't sit out... we can't assume things will 'just get better'... a digimon has caused this blizzard, and everyone is at risk, all the time it's out there..."

Kai seemed to be letting this all sink in, and the anger in his expressing slowly dissipating away, and being steadily replaced by growing fear and worry.

"Because what if it doesn't go away...? Then what? This blizzard will worsen, and people will begin freezing to death, trapped in their homes... this can't go on, Kai... we have the means to stop it, so we choose to, for everyone and everything we hold dear..." Marina finished, moving in to hug her brother.

Darren crossed his own arms, watching carefully, if just to be sure Kai wasn't going to fly off the handle. Instead, Kai seemed to hesitantly wrap his arms around Marina, and cling onto her tightly.

"G-God dammit, Marina..." Kai murmured, resting his chin on the top of her head, "I just... why does it have to be you? I don't... I don't want anything to happen to you..."

He kissed her forehead, and the two held on together a little longer, overcome with their emotions. Darren approached, and patted Kai's shoulder reassuringly.

"Kai..." Denimon suddenly spoke up, approaching from he and Elfinmon's spot from behind the sofa. Kai stared down at him in silence, as the big blue dinosaur stood before them.

"Kai-cha, I've been with you two since you were both real young... and I've always protected Marina, and you." He started, bowing his head humbly, "I love Marina, very much, and I always will. As long as I can be by her side, I won't ever stop loving, or protecting her. She's my family, just as much as she is yours, you know! So... please have a little more faith in all of us?"

Kai said nothing, for a brief time. Marina eventually pulled back, standing beside Denimon. She placed her hand on Denimon's head and patted him affectionately. She trusted in Denimon completely, and always had done, since their very first meeting together... but that same meeting had left Kai completely distrustful, and with a hatred of digimon that had lasted all these years, up to now. It was evident he could never like digimon, but she needed him to trust in at least Denimon... he was her partner, after all, and very important to her.

"What... what do you plan to do, then?" Her brother asked, straightening back up, "I can't... stop you from going, but like you said, if you guys don't do anything, then..." he dreaded to think of the outcome if nobody bothered to intervene.

"We're going to meet Amy and Joey, and try to take down the Digimon causing the blizzard..." Darren spoke up. Elfinmon had bounded over to his side, and clambered up him like a cat to cling to his shoulders. "That's the only way this will stop. We discussed this, and it seems like there's no other option."

Neither Marina nor Darren had been told about the Resistance. Amy and Joey did not want to give them any false hope, in-case the Resistance ended up unable to stop this mess themselves, let alone turn up to fight for the city, and since they had no way of contacting them, wouldn't be able to confirm anything.

"Fine, then." Kai sighed huffily, glancing aside, "I'll let you go, but on one condition..."

"What's that?" Marina inquired, gazing up at him curiously,

"You take me with you."


It was now around 8am, and everyone was just now leaving. Around half seven, Joey and Amy had managed to make contact with them, and everyone had made the plan of the others coming over to help get Joey and Amy out of the apartment block, and everyone head off from there to take down the threat.

Everyone was currently exiting the house in a rather unique way, wearing the warmest winter-wear they could find.

"It's not too late to change your mind, Kai..." Marina murmured, as Darren helped her down the last steps of the ladder.

The front door and downstairs windows are covered by hardened snow, and too much time would have been wasted trying to dig their way out. Instead, Kai went down to the basement and retrieved a ladder, hauling up onto the top floor, and setting it down out of the landing window, which opened up furthest and had the most space to let everyone through.

"No, don't even try to talk me out of this. Besides, if the heating is out, I'll freeze inside, anyway. At least this way, if I come too, we've got more supplies because of having an extra pair of hands, right?" Kai replied, lowering down the second of three sports bags down. They'd geared up like they'd been prepping for an actual mission in the Arctic, rather than a travel through town. They'd be forgiven for this, though, considering the entire city right now might as well have been the Arctic, for the harsh, frozen, barren streets, devoid of any life at all, and freezing cold.

"You don't even have a digimon to protect you..." Marina argued back, now taking her turn to help Kai down the last few steps. He had the last bag slung across his back, and something else currently tucked under his arm.

"I don't need a digimon to protect me, I can protect myself, see?" her big brother grinned, pulling the baseball bat from out of his arm. He didn't play it much, any-more, but it had been autographed by one of his favourite players, and it was a metal alloy bat, very strong, and very durable, and he felt it would suffice as a weapon. "I have this nice sturdy bat!"

"Ehehehehe..." Elfinmon giggled from behind Daren, "Kai-cha will really fight off digimon with that bat?"

The little green fox-like digimon and his dinosaur companion both burst into a fit of giggles, trying to imagine Kai fending off champion level digimon with a mere metal baseball bat, like some proud hero.

"Kai-cha sucks at baseball, he's too shy to even reach 'second base' with his cute manager at work!" Denimon commented, making light of poor Kai's working relationship with his manager at the café, which made the young waiter's face flush red in anger and shame, and had him bonk Denimon on the head with the tip of the bat. "Owwie!"

"That's what you guys will get if you piss me off !" Kai snapped, pointing the bat from Denimon to Elfinmon, to get the point across more. Both digimon squeaked and hid behind Darren, who sighed, but managed a little smile.

"Aww, that's no fair, though, besides, you're already pissed off!" Elfinmon dared to reply, peering out from behind Darren's leg. He squealed like a piglet on getting a bop in response to this, and then almost knocked Darren over trying to hide underneath Denimon.

"Shuddup!", came the final growl from Kai's mouth. He glared sorely off to the side, folding his arms. Marina was checking through the supplies one last time before everyone would set off into the frozen wastes of the formerly bustling metropolis of Neo Tokyo... or at least, what was still visible of most of it.

"Right, we've got dad's spare first aid kit, a roll of bandages, dad's spare torch and compass, some blankets, food, flasks of water, our D-Drives, Kai's PDA, dad's swiss army knife...", the idol singer muttered, mostly to herself, before zipping the last bag back up and straightening up, "We should have enough food and water to last us a few days, weather permitting, that is..."

"How long do you think we'll be out here for? Or how long do you think it'll be to take down the digimon responsible for this crap?" Kai enquired, sounding concerned.

"We can't say. Nothing that's happened before has happened on this scale..." Darren spoke up, where he'd been keeping check on the digimon pair, who were currently playing patty-cake off to one side, "I'm guessing that whatever caused this is strong, or didn't come in alone."

Kai and Marina both looked up. They hadn't taken into consideration that there could be more than one digimon causing this, and given the wide area of effect, it seemed a bit over-blown and thorough for one single digimon to need this much city covered in snow... not that any of them had even the faintest inkling of reasoning behind this attack on civilization, but piecing theories together, it truly didn't make sense for one digimon to be doing this much just for itself.

"Great, so you're telling me there could be, hell, I don't know... gangs of them about?" Kai replied, rubbing the back of his head. Darren lifted up one of the bags, the one with food, up and hung the strap over his shoulder, so as to stop the digimon from keep pestering him for snacks or enquiring when it was time to eat.

"More or less," Darren replied bluntly. He passed the bag with the folded up double bed sized blanket to Marina. It had been a miracle they'd found a bag big enough to fold over and squash the blanket inside, but in-case they needed to crash out somewhere, they needed to have some way of keeping warm besides trying to light a fire.

"Are you really sure you want to go through with this, Kai?" Marina asked her older sibling, looking over her shoulder, as she and Darren were starting to head out, "I won't hold it against you if you back out, you know. This... isn't a game... I know that. But I just worry, where you don't have a partner digimon..."

Kai stooped and picked up the last bag, slinging it over his back. He was determined to stick by them, and help protect his sister in any way, and if there was going to be more than one digimon on the loose, he wasn't going to sit in an empty, cold home, wondering if they were alright, or what was happening.

"Well, you can stop worrying, because regardless, I'm coming along." the elder of the pair called, jogging through the snow to catch up with them. "And there isn't any digimon out there that'll make me change my mind!"

Denimon and Elfinmon both sniggered behind him, before Kai shot them a fiery glare over his shoulder, causing them both to squeak and promptly zip it. Marina giggled up ahead. Despite the anxiety growing inside her, she felt somehow more at ease with her brother's confidence in them all, rather than before, where he seemed consumed with worry and doubt.

But they needed to get this done; to meet with Amy and Joey, and then track down the culprit of the weather phenomenon and put an end to it.


It was mid-day, now. It had begun to snow again, but not as heavily as it had been before. The small trio of humans and two digimon were checking the D-Drive's city map as best they could make out, for what felt like the umpteenth time today.

"I'd say another two or three hours walking and we should be right outside Amy's apartment." Darren commented, shifting slightly where he'd been lugging a heavy bag over the same shoulder since they'd left.

"Ugh!" Kai cried in dismay, "Why'd you have to have friends that live on the other side of the known universe right when we need them most, huh?"

Marina rolled her eyes at her brother's sarcastic remark and tutted her tongue at him, something he hated. She closed the map on her own D-Drive and picked her bag back up, pointing off towards the south east, using the compass for direction.

"If we keep going this way, we should virtually bump right into the building," she explained, leaning against Kai's shoulder, and looking up at him with a small smirk, "Sure you can handle the trip until then?"

Kai glared sorely down at his sister, but did not come back at her with a snappy retort, instead choosing not to take the bait. Just as everyone began to start off again, the two digimon, who had been doing nothing but goofing off and messing around in the snow, decided to take their antics to a whole new level.

Kai was the butt of the joke once more, as he felt himself get smacked in the back of the head by a rather solidly-made snowball, which got all over most of his hair and down the back of the neck of his jacket.

"DENIMON!" He yelled, turning on his heel and pointing angrily at the blue dinosaur, "I KNOW that was you, just then! You're the only one with paws that can grip and mould stuff!"

Denimon rubbed his chin, cocking his head to the side, looking a picture of innocence. But the disgruntled cafe-worker knew different. The devious little dinosaur was beginning to push all the wrong buttons right now, and took glee in every instance where he 'rustled Kai's jimmies'.

"What~? Did something happen, Kai-cha?" Denimon asked, in a sweet little voice, batting his eyes at Kai, claws clasped together against his reptilian chest, "My, my, you're so cute when you're angry!"

"You won't find me cute when my foot is embedded right up your stupid little a-" Kai growled, before being cut off, as a snowball flung from Elfinmon caught him square in the jaw, giving him a mouth full of icy cold snow.

"You were saying about me not being able to throw snowballs?" the naughty little green swamp-fox called, before he and Denimon started dancing around like little savages, high-fiving each-other victoriously. However, both the digimon's laughter turned to squeals of fright when their angry snow-covered victim began dashing towards them, brandishing his baseball bat.

"Kyaaah! Maririn! Help! Kai-cha has turned into a digimon-batting psychopath!" Denimon yelped, stumbling through the snow in a squeaky-panic, "I'm too cute and blue to die!"

"I have so much to live for, me and Deni-den-den haven't eaten the gut-buster mega-sandwich from Burger Palace yet!" Elfinmon added, constantly bashing into Denimon by accident from the side.

Kai managed to jump both Denimon and Elfinmon at the same time, and all three began play-wrestling in the snow, kicking up clouds of white all around them. Darren and Marina were forced to stop, with Marina already rapidly getting impatient with the trio's lack of tolerance towards one another, before anger finally got the better of her, and she yelled at them, tying to keep them in line.

"For goodness sake! I've seen CHILDREN behave better than you three! God help you, if I have to come over there, and- mmmph?" it was apparantly Marina's turn to receive a snowball to the jaw.

"Aww, put a sock in it, sis. We're just messing around," Kai grinned, from where he was laying on his back with Denimon straddling his chest with Elfinmon running his paws through his hair. Both digimon began giggling again and complimented Kai on hitting the bullseye.

Darren turned, grinning, to focus instead on the street signs. Someone had to pay attention, after all. Just as he concluded that it would be wise to take a turning down this street to make for a short cut, he heard another yell from the trio, and turned, just in time, to catch Marina carrying what amounted to a boulder of snow above her head and crossly dumping it down on-top of the mischievous three who had used up all her patience.

As everyone dusted themselves down from the brief snowball fight, Darren spotted something that made him shiver, more than the chill air around them. Gesturing at the others, who hurried over he pointed ahead, at something large and unmistakeable in the middle of the road ahead, a series of gigantic footprints.

"Well now, what do you make of that, then?" Darren asked, as everyone nervously and curiously approached the large, flat footprint. It was round and disk-like, almost, with three large claw marks up front, with the snow between each print rough, powdery and entrenched, as if something very big and hairy had dragged itself through.

"I have no idea at all..." Marina replied, walking around the tracks, studying them as they passed. She could sense Kai becoming increasingly nervous, he'd never seen paw prints of this size before, and it was making him understandably very tense. She hung back, until he nearly bumped into her, seemingly lost in thought. "Are you alright...?"

"Honestly? No... No, I'm not alright..." Kai mumbled to her, keeping close. He'd drawn his bat again, but now, metal alloy or not, he realized how feeble it would be to try to fight something off as big as the impression these prints gave. "Have you... Have you guys fought anything as big as this before?"

"Yes, we have..." Marina replied. She thought back to the previous fights she and Darren had been in, with their partners fighting stuff that was bigger than most people could ever imagine, the ShogunGekomon coming to mind. She remembered the help they'd received that night, and added, "But our digimon, the ones on our side, and those of our friends... they're capable of getting just as big, too. You remember Denimon's digivolution, at least?"

Kai nodded, but did not vocally voice a reply. He remembered Marinemon, alright. A few times growing up, they'd called on his abilities, when digimon had wound-up in their neck of the woods, so to speak. But this was before he'd found out his sister had been sneaking off by herself with Denimon and purposefully tracking down wild digimon... something she had been doing since the age of twelve, and hadn't stopped since.

"We'll be fine, I promise. We'll get Amy and Joey, and we'll be sorted, okay?" Marina and Darren had yet to be informed that Laelapmon had unlocked her ability to digivolve, so was not filled with the greatest confidence. Dvergamon would be alright, surely, but poor Laelapmon... she remembered Amy and Laelapmon's grief during the fight with ShogunGekomon. Amy hadn't said much, but she knew it was uncomfortable for the pair.

Up ahead, the digimon were doing an investigation of their own.

"Deni-den-den," Elfinmon mewled, padding about Denimon in circles, whilst Denimon stooped low and sniffed each print, "What do you think it is? Is it a Tyrannomon? Is it? Hmmm... could it be Monzaemon?"

"Don't be silly, Elfin-buddy-boo!" Denimon chuckled, without looking up, "It's not the right shape, or size, for them. It smells... like fish. Water... fishy-water."

Elfinmon blinked at Denimon a few times, then lowered his head and took a deep, obnoxiously noisy sniff against the embedded print, before pulling back, holding his nose in disgust. Denimon looked up, to see what his thoughts were on the scent-trail.

"Well, I smell something, alright!" Elfinmon commented, wrinkling his little button nose, "I smell the smelly smell of something that smells smelly!"

After a period of following tracks, a second trail showed up, which caused everyone alarm. It was snowing again, gradually getting steadily stronger, and now, everything seemed to be getting swallowed up in a thick fog which was spreading over the ground.

"Just as we thought, there's more than one digimon out here!" Marina announced, pointing at the second trail, "these seem fresher, and deeper, where they haven't set in properly yet, unlike the other ones."

These new, second pair of prints were a lot more obvious to figure out. They were, without a shadow of a doubt, the undeniable shape of a bird's talons, but on a grander scale, and not as big as the first set of prints. They went from one corner, up along side the first prints, then vanishing around a second corner.

"Something seems real off about this..." Darren murmured, everyone huddling together nervously, at the new discovery. "We get closer to this area, the snow starts up, a fog rolls in, and now, fresh prints..."

"Maybe we're getting close by to the digimon causing the weather..." Marina murmured, staring about. Everything seemed ghostly, almost like they were on the verge of stepping into another world entirely, "It's like something out of a horror story, you know? People going missing in the fog..."

"S-Shut up..." Kai muttered, shivering more. He pulled his fleece-lined jacket around himself more, and shifted his bag over to the other shoulder, standing in more closer to the others. "This is creepy enough as is, without you adding to it, sis..."

The band of explorers followed the second set of tracks, and noticed that the first set just faded off into nothing, completely lost in the brewing snowstorm. It was getting difficult to make anything out, now, and they were having to pick up their feet more to make any form of progress in the increasingly bad weather.

They were now standing at what was formerly a traffic island in the middle of a roundabout, one solitary street lamp in the centre being the only consistently strong light. The shadows of buildings looming high through the foggy streets stood like colossal phantoms, and aside from the faint glow from other street lamps, it seemed grey and gloomy.

A bright flash through the sky, the only colours in this dull, white and grey landscape, caught the attention of everyone present. A glowing trail, almost like an aurora Borealis, shining beautifully in the misty skies.

Marina gasped, awe-struck, her voice caught in her throat. Looking at it, something so colourful and magnificent, painting the sky in a dazzling wave of shifting colours, made her feel emotional, and reaching for Darren's hand, gave it a squeeze.

Darren, who had been staring along with her, was briefly distracted by her sudden hold on his hand, and felt his cheeks pinkening, the sudden rush of warmth to his face in the icy air making the skin of his face tingle.

"An aurora..." Kai breathed, from Marina's other side, "Now I know we can't be on earth any-more... we don't get auroras here..."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that, Kai-cha..." Denimon murmured darkly.

Everyone managed to tear their gaze off of the aurora to stare down at the two digimon, who were responding very strangely to the sky phenomenon.

Denimon and Elfinmon's pupils had become almost catlike, Denimon's head raised as if getting ready to strike, and Elfinmon's fur bristled up, as he let out a soft hiss. Both were completely on edge, and staring straight off down the road ahead. Their senses were stronger than the human trio's, and so they'd picked up on something much faster than they had.

"W-What is it, Elfinmon?" Darren asked, kneeling, beside his digimon, whose back was now arched like a cat's, his tail held high with every hair standing on end.

"Down that street... it's arrived..." Elfinmon hissed cryptically, and before anyone could stop them, he and Denimon were dashing through the snow, down the specified street.

Panicking, everyone began stumbling after them, staggering through the build up of snow, until they saw multicolour light shining through the fog, drawing them forward, guiding them ahead towards their fated encounter.

Everyone came halting to a stop in the middle of a deserted street. The tops of cars and vans stood out of the snow, as more flakes flurried down overhead. On a low building before them, perched on the roof, looking over the crossroads before them, stood a giant, white and blue bird, with a flowing crest of white hair, flowing out behind him. He flapped his wings slightly, snow seeming to flow and circle around him; the snowfall was without a doubt thickest around him.

His glowing gold eyes were matched in brightness only by the rainbow-coloured aura surrounding his immaculate form, and he looked majestic, intimidatingly so. The humans seemed to forget at first that he was responsible for the mess the city was in, where his ethereal appearance had them momentarily captivated.

A snarl from Denimon broke the silence that had fallen over the street, where both sides had been staring each-other down, sizing the other up, and the giant white bird regarded the trio of humans and their digimon coolly, with his burning, golden eyes.

"Guys, quickly, digivolve!" Marina urged, the moment Sastrugamon spread his wings out wide.

Two towering collumns of light burst upwards from the two rookies, shooting straight up towards the sky, briefly dispelling the clouds overhead, in towers of light that could be seen from afar, even with the fog cover.

"Denimon, digivolve to...!"

"Elfinmon, digivolve to...!"

The deafening roar of energy echoing down the empty streets managed to drown out even the growing wind, as data wrapped around both digimon that were rapidly changing size. Denimon's anatomy quickly shifted from his normal dinosaur anatomy to Marinemon's more upright, humanoid anatomy.

Elfinmon grew out his long, fin-like ears and wings, becoming much bigger, but still sleek and graceful. When the light collumns subsided, after bursting apart in a dazzling flash, the two newly formed champions stood where the rookies had previously been, still wrapped in a slowly fading aura of coloured light, as the pair announced their new forms.

"Marinemon!"

"Elvermon!"

Sastrugamon had already taken to the sky, and was circling overhead. Elvermon opened his mouth and shot out his long tongue, straight up at the great snow bird.

"Mire Whip!"

Sastrugamon felt the sticky appendage wrap around his leg, firm and tight, and began pulling down forcibly hard. Struggling to maintain flight, he began to lose altitude, and tugged as hard as he could; it was now becoming a tug of war match between the pair.

Marinemon rushed, grabbing onto Elvermon's tongue also, attempting to help pull down their opponent.

Sastrugamon let out an aggressive shriek, before suddenly using his talons to grip onto Elvermon's tongue, and then flew up high, all the muscles in his body straining to pull up the pair from off the ground, and miraculously enough for him, succeeded. He flipped around, performing a loop-de-loop, swinging the pair around with him, causing them both to cry out.

As the loop finished its turn, Sastrugamon released them, sending them hurtling down towards the snow-covered ground so hard that both digimon left sizeable craters in the frozen ground from the impact.

"Marinemon!" Marina yelled, dashing over to the craters in desperation, with Darren right behind her.

"Elvermon! Are you alright?" Darren yelled down, into the pit. Both the tamers, along with Kai, who had been rooted to the spot in shock watching the battle unfold, finally catching up to them.

Marinemon and Elvermon groaned, painfully pulling themselves up, with Marinemon using his polearm to steady himself. Overhead, Sastrugamon was still on the move, and still silent and focused; no cocky quips or insulting remarks, like their previous foes.

"Urgh... it's difficult to reach him, when he's up so high..." Elvermon groaned, rubbing his nose from the fall. He shook snow off of himself, and in turn, accidentally sprinkled the others present in clumps of snow.

"I can't even reach him at all..." Marinemon muttered, feeling useless. He had no projectile or long-distance attacks, and since he had no means to achieve aerial combat, was effectively confined to just melee on the ground.

"Elvermon, why don't you try shooting him down with Elver Bullets?" Darren suggested, as Sastrugamon finished positioning himself, "A-And do it quick, he's going to attack again!"

The jewel on Elvermon's forehead began to glow, before he spewed out foul-smelling globs of swamp mud, straight up into the air. Sastrugamon dodged swiftly, but the last round caught him in the right wing, gumming the feathers up. The great white bird began to plummet down towards the ground, letting out an aggravated cry.

During his descent, Marinemon seized the opportunity to strike a blow. Sprinting out of the crater, he used his Guan Dao to polevault up high into the air, meeting Sastrugamon on the way down, raising the blade-ended staff over his head.

"Breaker Blade!" the blue dragon-warrior yelled, before bringing it down, slashing into Sastrugamon's chest. With a howl of agony, the crested bird digimon was sent flying, smashing into the ground, and going skidding back several feet, snow being sent up in cloud trails after him.

The human trio held their breath, Marinemon landing down on his feet, weapon at the ready, just infront of them. Elvermon stood at his side, the pair forming a guard to protect their partners, all eyes fixed on the great bird's fallen form.

After a moment's silence, Sastrugamon began to stir. Shaking, he got to his feet, clumps of snow and slush dripping down his body and wings. His gold eyes burned with rage, glaring down the street at them; and just as his foes began to rush towards him, he held his head high, and opened his beak, as the strange rainbow-coloured aura grew and danced around his damaged form.

"AURORA BLAZE!"

This was the first for the entire battle the blizzard-digimon had spoken, and a beam of multicoloured light burst from his open mouth, blazing towards the group. Snow went flying up, the powerful energy blast leaving a deep indent in the ground as it passed, causing the windows of the vehicles parked in the street to shatter, and those directly in it's path to become crushed effortlessly.

Marina was frozen in shock, and to her, it felt like time had stopped. Darren had already gotten out of the way, and realized too late that she hadn't followed him. He screamed at her to get out of the way, but it didn't register in her mind.

She finally seemed to come to her senses when she felt a pair of strong arms wrap around her tightly, her brother flinging himself bodily into her, trying to throw them both out of the way, the two digimon huddling close, trying to form a tight shield against the on-coming beam.

The light grew so bright that the digimon in-front became silhouetted, before seemingly swallowed up whole, and for the siblings, the entire world was lost in a sea of white.


Marina slowly opened her eyes. It was dark, and silent, aside from the feeling of water rushing around her ears. Bubbles rose up around her, an somewhere above her, light was filtering down, fractured through the roughened surface of the water.

A shadow passed overhead. Was it a boat, or something else? She didn't know, and right now, she didn't care.

The water was frothing up behind her, muffled sounding, but fierce. The dark blue atmosphere that surrounded her began to grow cloudy and red with blood. Her half-lidded eyes snapped open, as she felt a growing sense of fear and panic setting in, reality hitting her hard, like she was being slammed into a brick wall.

She couldn't breathe.

Staring fearfully up, she began clawing at the surface, flailing desperately with one hand, the other clutching at her throat. It hurt, everything hurt, her head, her throat, and her chest. The light above began to grow faint, and the frothing, hissing water behind her sounding far away.

This was it. She was going to die.


Darren was on his knees, furiously clawing at the mountain of snow that had buried his friends. His forehead was bloody, and part of his jacket sleeve had been torn, shards of glass from the window of a car he'd dived behind sticking out slightly; but he was so cold and numb, and consumed with worry, to care about that right now.

Elvermon was at his side, barely conscious, and unable to lift his head much. He watched Darren desperately trying to find the others, in total silence.

Finally, something blue poked through the snow; it was part of Marinemon's back. Darren sped up, unearthing more and more of the buried digimon, and with this, spotting Kai and Marina's jackets throwing the snow and debris.

Marinemon's arms were wrapped around the pair tightly, and in turn, Kai's arms wrapped around Marina, with her head buried into his chest. Marinemon was breathing roughly, likely from shock and relief at being alive. Kai was in the same state.

"Oh my god..." Darren gasped, unable to keep the shaking out of his voice, repeating himself several times from shock, himself, "Oh my god... oh my god... Kai, Marinemon..."

Marinemon groaned in a low voice, shifting painfully. He and Elvermon both felt like they'd been hit by trucks. Marinemon's arms were so stiff and sore, he seemed as though he'd be perpetually locked with his arms closed around the pair he had shielded forever, but with a strain, managed to painfully prize himself off of them.

"She's u-unconcious..." Kai stammered, barely able to focus, himself. Marina wasn't responding, and seemed as though she'd passed out, knocked out from the blast. "Please, we need to get some place safe..."

"There's some stores down from here... we should take shelter in there..." Darren suggested. He felt terrible for having not been the one to protect Marina, considering his duty towards her as her bodyguard, and her friend.

He carried her in his arms, where Kai was too weakened from the numbing cold from being buried under a heap of snow, and the digimon were barely keeping up. Nobody had said a word the entire route up the road.

Sastrugamon himself was long gone; after his attack, he had stopped to catch his breath, still hurt from his crash, but after picking the sticky mud off of his feathers and straightening himself up, he'd taken flight, and was likely clear out of the area. He'd seemed desperate to leave, for some reason, even though he'd won- hell, the entire blast had seemed one big desperation attack from him, and he hadn't hung about to check if he'd finished them off.

Maybe he was sure they had perished, or maybe he hadn't cared, but either way, he'd paid Darren no attention when the young man's shock had set in, and he'd gotten a grip on himself and rushed out to free the others from the snow-covered prison.

On reaching the store, Marinemon smashed open one of the half-covered windows, crawling on through. Darren lowered Marina's unconcious body down to him, and Marinemon held her in his arms firmly, his helmet hiding his watery eyes; he felt he had failed her, despite putting his life on the line with Elfinmon for her and Kai's safety.

Kai entered next, followed by Darren. Elvermon was too big to fit through, and the digivolution power, despite his injuries, did not seem to fade, likely because both digimon were too worried about their partners to dare to give in to losing their energy now.

The boys set about looting some supplies in the store, managing to find a health and medical care aisle. Marinemon was sitting over in the corner, having taken some spare blankets from a bedding section and had Marina resting on them. He refused to budge from her side, keeping watch.

Kai's expression was unreadable, he seemed upset, angry... and yet blank, like his thoughts were so disorganized and unfocused. He was staring off into space, and wandering about slowly, lost in thought, muttering whenever he picked up the wrong items for their re-stocking.

He finally broke the silence, after Darren sat down, and the other had begun to carefully remove the glass shards from his arm. Darren was clearly going to need to go to a hospital for this wound, and receive stitches, but with the city at an absolute stand-still, this was not going to happen any time soon.

"I hate digimon..." Kai muttered, to nobody in particular.

Darren looked up at Kai, still unable to read his expression. His head was bowed, and his hair covered his eyes from view.

"I said I HATE Digimon, okay?" Kai suddenly snapped, raising his voice. He moved away, after removing the last glass shard, removing it less than carefully, and making Darren gasp in pain. He moved over to the counter, and began opening a box of rolled up bandages, and opening a cap on a bottle of water, his body tense from frustration.

Darren remained silent as Kai brought the stuff back over, cleaning Darren's wound carefully with the water. It poured down onto the floor, leaving watery-red puddles.

"All they do is cause destruction, and hurt people..." Kai murmured, his voice quietening some. His eyes looked misty, and dark, shadowed over from his hair and the lightless room.

"They're not all like that... Marinemon and Elvermon tried... they took the force of that hit, for you and her..." Darren replied, softly.

"Well, it wasn't good enough, was it?" Kai snapped back, beginning to tie on the bandages, "This... this happened before... ever since that damn day, back when we were kids... things have never been the same."

Darren sat in silence, Kai pausing briefly, the sounds of his roughened breathing being the only sound, until he continued.

"I haven't had a peaceful sleep, or lived a normal life, or gone through a single instance since they entered our damn lives, because I'm fucking scared, you know? The fact my little sister is running around out there, doin' dangerous crap like this... One day, she might not come home... And that... it terrifies me, Darren..."

Finishing on the bandages, Kai pulled back, rubbing his arms. He sat down on the floor by the counter, and opened a second bottled water to drink, rubbing cold sweat from his forehead.

"Marinemon and Elvermon don't mean any harm, Kai... they really do have people's best interests at heart, and want to keep them safe, none more so than Marinemon for Marina..." Darren said, glancing over at the singer, still laying still, with Marinemon ever keeping watch. "It's not Marinemon's fault this has happened..."

"He's the reason she even gets into these situations, anyway!" Kai retorted, glaring across the way at Darren, coldly. "It's because of crap like this they even met, and it's because she 'bonded' with him, or whatever, back then, that means this stuff always, always happens..."

"And just what was it, that happened 'back then', that caused so much pain for you...?" Darren replied.

Kai suddenly stopped, a look of intense guilt spreading over his face. Darren's expression softened, as he went over.

"You're carrying a lot on your shoulders, Kai... a lot of pain..." he murmured down quietly, "I won't hold it against you, if you don't want to talk about it, but... we can't continue on through this, until you get your head cleared..."

Kai glanced aside sadly, leaning his arm on one knee, swirling the water around distractedly in it's bottle, contemplating what to do... should he tell Darren what happened, or not?

"I... I guess the first time was my fault..." he muttered, after a long pause between them both, "we were young, and being stupid, and... too hopeful..."

Taking a deep breath, Kai began to recount what happened, on the day things changed for them forever.


"Stop crying, already! Geez, you're annoying... if you keep cryin', I'll turn around and take us right back, and you won't see Dad, alright?"

Kai sighed, and continued to row. The beach was still in sight, and people could still be seen in the far-off distance, but they'd sailed out too far to swim back, now. Marina was sat before him, wearing her stripy blue swimsuit, sobbing quietly to herself. The deep sea, and the solitude this far out at sea was making her nervous.

"Come on now, Mari..." her big brother sighed, pausing from rowing to pat her on the head, and ruffle her hair. "You wanted to see dad, right? We're gonna come out and see him. I bet he's not more further out, we'll see his boat sure enough, okay?"

This was the second week their dad had been gone from home, out retrieving stuff from a new site he and the rest of his group of Salvagers had found, which had valuable stuff inside, which would be going to a museum for restoration. The pain of missing him had finally gotten the better of the pair, and during a trip to the artificial beach on an island made of restored land, with their neighbour, who had brought them along, the two had finally put the plan in action to sail away and find him.

"'K-'Kay..." Marina sniffled, wiping tears from her eyes. She laid down solemnly, gripping the edge of the boat, and just staring out over the water. Surprisingly, the sea was rather calm today. Kai had been keeping track of the weather all week, and following websites reporting on the sea, waiting for the perfect day they could leave, and today was that day.

"You want anything to eat?" He spoke up, as they drifted on. He patted a small container which had supplies that, naively, would truly only last them a few hours at sea, and not the 'week' they thought they would be travelling on for. They had not thought this through, but at this age, it hadn't occurred to them this was a reckless and dangerous voyage they were undertaking.

And at this stage, too late to turn back.

"Nah... I'm not hungry..." Marina sighed, still moping about on her end of the boat. She dipped her hand in the water, and then the other, until she had her arms from the elbows down hanging in the sea.

The sun overhead was blazing down hot, and both were warm. Because there was no wind, there was no sea breeze to keep them cool, either. Kai pulled out a chilled canteen and drank some water from it, wiping the sweat from his brow. A sudden splash made them both sit up; one of the oars he'd put down during his brief lapse in rowing had slid off the rim of the boat, and was now floating in the open seas.

"Aww!" Kai groaned. He swiped at the oar uselessly, but it was too far out. "Rrrgh! Great, now I gotta dive in and get it..."

Marina sat in silence, watching him. He stood up, and then dived off of the boat rather skilfully. She wasn't surprised, since he'd taken lessons from an early age, and had aspirations of swimming professionally, or becoming a coastguard some day. Marina on the other hand had always been slightly nervous around water, and had only last year learned to swim. She had always been too nervous to actually leave the shallows, and only ever got as far as the middle of the pool, where her feet still touched the floor, and she was up to her chin in water.

Kai broke the surface of the sea, holding onto the oar handle, treading water. He grinned at her as he swam over, and rested the oar inside the boat, joining it with the other.

"What are you gonna do now?" She asked meekly, her hands resting on her knees.

"Goin' for a little swim, what does it look like?" He replied, drifting past on his back as though he were a sea otter, "it's too hot to keep rowing right now, I need to cool off. You oughta come in, too, it's great!"

"U-Um.. n-no way..." she muttered, turning her nose up at his suggestion, "I wanna stay in the boat..."

"Hah, your loss, not mine." He smirked, before vanishing off underwater.

Marina grumbled and shifted in her seat. She waited for a little while, listening to the sound of gulls overhead. It suddenly occurred to her how alone she was, up here on the surface, and she didn't like it. Sighing, she leant down against the edge, and cupped her hands in the salt water, splashing and washing her sweaty, flushed face, to refresh herself.

Kai still hadn't surfaced, and she was getting worried about him, missing his presence.

"Kai?" she called out, looking all around, but he must have dove deep, because she couldn't spot him at all anywhere around the boat.

"K-Kai?" she called again, leaning over the edge, staring down hopelessly into the depths. "KAI!"

Tears began forming in the corners of her eyes. Where was he? What if something happened? Despite her fears, she was desperately tempted to dive into the deep, blue waters, to search for him.

Just then, he broke through the surface, right in-front of her, making he scream, and fall over backwards onto her backside. His arrogant laughter at having scared her made her burst into tears, her hands clasped against her chest, where her heart was pounding away in her chest from the nasty shock.

"Aww, did I scare you, Mari?" he smirked, grinning away at her. He carefully got back onto the boat, dripping wet.

"Y-You're so mean!" Marina sobbed, crying into her hands, "I thought something bad happened to you! Don't you dare scare me like that again, or I'll never forgive you!"

"I wasn't gone that long, geez!" he grumbled, flexing slightly, brushing his damp hair out of his face. "Look, don't worry... I won't do it again, promise... I just wanted to see if I could see the sunken city."

Marina slowly calmed down, and swiped her arm across her face, to clear her eyes of tears. They'd both wondered what the city lost to the ravages of the ocean had looked like, and only their father had ever seen the place first hand. He'd told them many stories of his deep-sea trips before they went to bed... often adding in surreal elements like mermaids and sea monsters.

"I wonder if daddy ever did see a sea monster for real..." Marina commented, after thinking on the subject more. She never doubted her father once. Kai was more sceptical, but one night, he'd come home, nervous and shaken up, and she had to wonder what he'd found.

"I wouldn't mind findin' a cute mermaid, actually..." Kai said, going a noticeable shade of pink in the cheeks, "but ah... y-yeah, I wonder if dad was telling the truth about a sea monster?"

Both of them thought more on it, the night when their dad had come home, shaken up. He'd spoken cryptically, about finding something big, huge. On trying to press him, he'd doubted even they would've believed him.

"That was on the night he found the shiny red stone, wasn't it?" Kai murmured, thinking out loud. Marina nodded in confirmation, remembering about the red stone, too.

"Daddy said the other sailors thought it was cursed, and he regretted bringing it on board... what did they do with the stone?" she asked. That was something they never found out, along with hearing the whole story.

"Who knows..." he sighed, picking up the oars again, "but this isn't getting us anywhere fast..."

Kai's picking up of the oars signified that the conversation was over, and the time for talking had passed, and from that point on, he rowed in silence, focused on keeping track. Marina laid down and decided to take a nap, and her dreams were full of sea monsters, mermaids, sunken ruins, and a shiny red stone which cursed sailors.

When she woke up, the sun was beginning to set, and the beach was now looking small on the horizon. They'd drifted out so far, now, it seemed surreal, like they were floating in the middle of nothingness, of some other world, where sea and sky seemed to merge on the horizon.

Kai had stopped rowing, again.

"Why did we stop?" Marina asked, rubbing her eyes as she sat up. The waves which had picked up slightly and rocked her to sleep in the first place had grown still once more, and she noticed Kai's anxious expression.

"Shh!" He hushed sharply, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, holding up his index finger to silence her from talking any more, keeping his own voice very low, "I saw a giant shadow, and it passed right under us..."

"W-What? W-when?" she whispered back, growing nervous, "y-you're not trying to scare me again, after the talk we had earlier, a-are you...?"

"No... t-this time, I'm serious... something is under the freaking boat..."

Marina slowly inched over towards the edge of their small wooden row-boat. Leaning over the edge, she could hardly make anything out in the sea water beneath their boat. Then she caught sight of it; an immensely large shape rushing right for them.

Screaming, she jumped back, knocking Kai back in the process. A giant blue and purple shark-like creature burst from the depths, smashing the end of the boat apart where Marina had been just moments before, and in turn, over-turning the boat, flinging the two kids overboard, head over heels into the water.

The giant fish-like monster came crashing down with a deafening splash, sounding out a loud roar, as a wall of sea-foam sprayed up on impact after it landed down, sideways, back into the sea.

Kai and Marina began to swim for their lives, in no particular direction, their panic making them swim any direction possible, as long as it was away from the terror behind them.

The waves began to build and grow beneath them, pushing and pulling them about, making their escape difficult. The strange monster appeared again, it's long fins breaking the surface as it rushed towards them, riding the wave. The two kids got pulled into the rapidly growing tube, the lip of the wave curling overhead, and the underbelly of the large shark-monster clearly visible. Both of them gasped, before the wave came crashing down, swallowing them whole, and forcefully pushing them out down under the cold seawater.

Just as it felt like everything was over, a smaller shadow shot past them, smashing into the shark monster head-first.

On reaching the surface again, Kai tried to keep Marina calm, as she was starting to panic and cry, both of them unable to take their eyes off the scene unfolding before them. A small blue dinosaur-like monster had forcibly rammed it's head into the shark's chin, bashing it away.

"I'll protect you! Please, hold on for me!" the dinosaur cried, giving them a reassuring smile over his shoulder.

The shark twisted, batting it's tail into the smaller blue dinosaur, who gripped onto it and held on tight to avoid being batted away, the bigger of the two now beginning to thrash about, making the sea froth and ripple violently. In one of it's more violent twists, it began to create waves once more.

The waves threw the two kids up, and on the way down, another wave caught them, knocking them deep underwater.

"MARINA!" the blue dinosaur yelled, as both kids vanished beneath the waves.


"I'm going to die here..."

That was her last thought, as she felt her head throbbing and spinning. She had failed to reach the surface, and was sinking down.

Something bright, like a falling star, was drifting down towards her. She couldn't make it out entirely, but it was there, within reach. She grasped it, this object which gave out pure light, and a warmth that spread through her finger tips.

She clasped it close to her chest, tightly, over her heart, and began to pray, pray for survival, for someone to save her and her brother.

"Please... Please help us... I don't want to die!"


Kai had been struggling to reach Marina, where he had landed away from her, with the thrashing tail barring him from getting to her. He'd seen the glowing object she was weakly clasping onto, but had no idea what it was.

A bright white light seemed to fill the entire ocean, as the second creature seemed to burst apart, reforming into a bigger, stronger looking one, humanoid in shape, and wielding a weapon. He swam for Marina, pulling her up to the surface, before diving back down, and retrieving Kai.

Kai, despite his terror, felt safe in this being's arms. The bigger creature that had just moments ago been a small dinosaur smiled gently down at him, before they broke surface. Kai choked, coughing and spluttering as he and Marina gasped for breath. She clung weakly to Kai, looking drained and tired, before whispering a thank you up to their saviour.

The shark creature regained it's composure, and twisted back around to face them. It lunged towards them, jaws wide open, glinting, razor sharp fangs displayed, preparing to kill them all.

The kids screamed, clinging to one another in fear, bracing themselves for what seemed like the end...

but the end never came.

"Breaker Blade!"

Their benevolent protector rammed his blade-tipped weapon forward, jamming it into the mouth of oncoming beast of fury. With an agonized roar, the blade was driven in deeper, until the tip of the Guan Dao pierced through the top of the creature's head, and in a burst of sparkling red light, it was no more. Their saviour absorbed this into himself.

"Are you alright?" He asked the pair, after the danger had passed, and the water was calm once more.

"Y-Yeah, I think... I th-think so..." Kai murmured. Marina was so tired, she was too weak to make even the faintest sound. "M-My s-sis needs help... a-and we're so far from shore..."

"Leave that to me." The tall humanoid sea-monster replied, holding them both, one under each arm.

He briefly dove down, and began to swim, something between a dolphin and an otter, a strange technique that somehow seemed to work for this being. As he built up moment, he burst up, high over the sea, the kids clinging to his chest and waist.

As he came down, rather than crashing back into the water, he landed, right on the surface, in a full sprint, and like some kind of basilisk lizard, sprinted effortlessly like this, back to land, moving so fast he kicked up water in sprayed bursts behind him with every step, and just as the sun began to sink down into the ocean behind them in the horizon, they were now close enough to see the beach.

"Can you carry her the rest of the way? I don't it'd be cool if other humans saw me," the creature spoke, after turning and getting them near to some rocks near the shore. He was so tall compared to them, he seemed like a giant. "I'll be with you both from now on, okay? So don't sweat it, if the bad guys come again, I'll be there, alright?"

"O-Okay..." Kai murmured, nodding. Their new friend set Marina down onto Kai's back, so he could piggy back her away back to the beach. He didn't know how he'd ever explain he and Marina's disappearing act, but his head was too full of what had transpired to focus much on it, despite the fact half the beach was crawling with police looking for them.

"Be seein' you later! Take care of her until then... feels like I've waited my whole life to meet her, y'know..." and with that, he took off back into the sea, likely to hide away from the other approaching humans.

Kai stumbled forwards, on hearing someone yelling his name; the frantic neighbour, with their tear-stained face, run hoarse from all the yelling they'd been doing, where the search had been on for them all day long.


"She nearly died... I had to be taken in for questioning, and she got taken to hospital, she was sick for a while after that whole ordeal..." Kai finished, having recounted the entire story to Darren, who had listened on in silence. "That's why I hate digimon... they put her at so much risk... and I can't stop it from happening..."

Marina had slowly come to, half-way through his retelling of their first meeting with Marinemon, who had also listened, in silence, holding Marina close again.

"Tylomon... I wasn't going to let him hurt you, and I don't plan on letting this guy out there hurt you, either..." Marinemon spoke up from the corner. "But as we said this morning... only we can put a stop to this stuff... Me and Elvermon, Marina an' Darren... or else worser things could happen..."

Kai swallowed, coming over and sitting by Marina. She sleepily leant against him, still looking rather drained.

"Kai... please don't hate Marinemon and Elvermon for this..." she murmured, peering up at him with tired, worried eyes. "I'll be alright... we'll get out of here, and get to Amy and Joey's, soon... then there'll be four of us, and we can't lose then, can we...?"


Medusamon bit her lip worried. She and the rest of the patrol had left the air hanger, and were now half-way towards the shopping mall. She was waiting anxiously to hear back from Sastrugamon; he was at least an hour or so late.

A female frigimon tending to her currently rested her big mitt-like hand on her shoulder gently.

"Don't worry so much, ma'am, I'm sure he'll be fine." She said softly, trying to reassure her anxious leader. Medusamon nodded, though still worried. "You care about him a lot, don't you?"

Medusamon nodded again, folding her arms, her cheeks looking rather rosy.

"I care about him a lot... he pulled us through many hardships, way-back-when... I don't know what I'd do without him..." sighing, she pulled away to sit more by herself, using her tail as a make-shift seat.

Frigimon nodded, closing her eyes, a happy sort of expression on her face. "I'm sure we'll reach a land where we can all be in peace. Nobody doubts that, ma'am."

"Thank you, Frigimon..." Medusamon sighed, still waiting patiently for any sign of her second-in-command.

Suddenly, a SnowAgumon rushed up through the nearby throng of amassed troops, looking frantic and out of breath. Medusamon sat up straight, focused on him, as he hurried to catch his breath.

"It's Sir Sastrugamon... he's returned, Lady Medusamon!" he gasped, panting, "he has urgent news, and is damaged!"

Medusamon straightened up promptly, slithering forward quickly, looking urgent.

"Please, take me to him, right away!"

Hurrying through the crowds, they came around the side of the corner-road they were stationed in, and she paused in her tracks on sight of him. He looked roughed up, and rather tired, sore and tense. She gasped and hurried over, hugging into his soft, feathery chest.

"Sastrugamon... what happened...?" she asked, her hands pawed against his chest, her voice racked with worry.

He bowed his head apologetically, blushing slightly over her being pressed against him as she was, her concern having touched him and made him feel better.

"I regret to inform you, my Lady, of an unfortunate development..." he sighed, speaking quietly, "three humans are out, two of them have digimon... they digivolved and engaged me in combat. I was caught off guard, but managed to subdue them, though I know not if they perished or survived, but one thing is for certain, if there are more of these 'tamers' about, I don't doubt we'll be seeing more showing up..."

Medusamon swallowed a lump that had been growing in her throat, her concern over this development being evident. And she knew what was coming. Sastrugamon was so bound to his responsibilities as being the only one who could scout and survey a large area from the air, that he'd be going off again, and what he said next confirmed her fears.

"I must set off immediately, the longer I am grounded here, the more progress potential enemies could be making going un-monitored." stepping past her, he spread his wings, before Medusamon called out to him.

"S-Sastrugamon... you'd better come back safe... so, please be more careful this time..." she murmured, though managing to smile for him.

Sastrugamon nodded in silence, before taking off, his heart beating away in his chest as hard as his wings were flapping.


"I wouldn't be surprised if we saw those giant as all hell footprints again, considering everything else we've been through today..." Kai sighed.

Marina and Darren were hitching a ride on Elvermon's back, and Kai was walking beside them on foot with Marinemon. They'd packed a heck of a lot more medical supplies after what had happened earlier with the attack from the mysterious aurora-making digimon. It had taken another hour just to get this far, but thankfully, the journey had gone without incident.

"Please don't jinx it. We're pretty close to Amy's apartment now, we can't be more than twenty minutes away from them, now." Darren replied. Marina had her arms around his waist, so she could keep steady behind him, since Elvermon sometimes had a bad habit of forgetting he had passengers and often put a spring into his step.

Both digimon were virtually back to normal, aside from scuffs. It was a wonder they held their forms as well as they had done, after the attack. Kai had to wonder if some power like hope and determination between both digimon and their human partners is what was enabling to cling on slightly longer.

"I think we take a right from here, and head down until the turning at the left..." Darren said out loud, after reading the map on his d-drive.

As everyone began to head out, the map screen on Darren's d-drive got interrupted by a warning signal, Marina's d-drive setting off at the same time with the same warning tone. Both digimon paused, tensing up again.

"There's digimon... lots of them, up ahead..." Elvermon growled, bowing down. His two passengers climbed down and dropped off his back, both he and Marinemon stepping forward expectantly, at the ready.

"You had to jinx it, didn't you?" Darren sighed, causing Kai to shoot him a stern glare.

Through the fog ahead, at least a hundred or so amassed creatures had appeared. the d-drives whirred into action as the pair scanned the mass of digimon infront.

Marinemon and Elvermon had been able to readily identify all but one, a green snake-like gorgon digimon leading the entire motley crew.

[MEDUSAMON]

Level - Champion

Attribute - Virus

Type - Demon Man

Family - Nature Spirit, Dark Area

Attacks - Gorgon's Glare, Aegis of Night

A hideous digimon with living snakes as her hair, she is dangerous, and holds hatred of those who deny her the goals she aims for. Beware of Gorgon's Glare, an attack that petrifies all who look into her eyes, turning them to stone.

Medusamon pursed her lips sternly, her hands planted on her hips.

"Hideous? You carry some tacky little devices with you there," she drawled agitatedly, and rather dismissively, "One thing is correct, if you value your lives, you'll back down, now."

She was irked enough from the less than flattering introduction brought on by the d-drives, but she was holding back more rage on the fact that these had to be the people that Sastrugamon had described, three humans and two digimon, travelling together. It could be no other group.

"Why the hell have you done this?" Marina yelled, from Darren's side, taking the opportunity to confront her, considering that, unlike Sastrugamon, she was even bothering to talk.

"That's none of your business, sweetie," Medusamon replied, folding her arms across her chest, "You have five seconds to move aside, or I will ensure you are killed in the stampede that will happen shortly!"

Five seconds passed, and none of the human trio or their digimon budged an inch. As scary as it was, they were so close, and the enemy was right here, on top of this, there was no guarantee this strange digimon would keep her word, and no chance at all at them stopping the harsh weather.

"Fine. I gave you a chance, but you clearly have a death wish," she sighed, yawning away, as if this would be all too easy. "Alright, dears, show them what we do with people that get in the way!"

The large cluster of digimon under her command shot past with a deafening roar, claws, fangs and clubs at the ready.

Marinemon smirked, holding out his hands, as his eyes began to glow.

"WHIRLING DEATH!"

A vast, swirling vortex of magic water opened up right in the middle of the street, causing the first row of approaching enemies to fall straight in and get sucked down, and the second wave, who had seen this coming, trying hard to slow down, but the preceding majority behind them bumped from the sudden halt, knocking many more in. The rookies of those numbers were dragged down to their deaths, with the bigger, stronger ones who hadn't died along with them barely escaping.

"I can fight these guys better than the last one, we're on even ground now!" Marinemon commented, confident after his first attack initiated on the opposing side worked.

The whirlpool slowly flowed away into nothingness, completely subsiding. This time, the bigger digimon came charging first. Marinemon rushed to greet them, with Elvermon by his side.

"Let me clear some out for you, brother!" Elvermon grinned, opening his mouth up wide, "MIRE WHIP!"

The green swamp-beast's tongue shot out, grabbing the biggest Frigimon that was within reach, and used him like a club, smashing him back and forth against surrounding digimon, causing more rookies to burst apart in flurries of data.

Marinemon finished off the rival champion-level digimon with Breaker Blade, both of them carefully organizing their attacks to push back their numbers.

Medusamon however had had enough of this, on the edge of flying off into a deep rage.

"AEGIS OF NIGHT!"

Holding out her hands, two pulsating black orbs of energy appeared over her hands, and as she raised her hands up, so did she raised a shield of energy over as many of her followers as possible, deciding to take charge of things herself, and spare her side any more losses.

She raised two more shields, using them like a police officer's riot shields, beating and forcing Marinemon and Elvermon back, their attacks unable to penetrate through the powerful energy shields.

"I've had enough!" she snarled, until she had her hated foes together in one spot, the digimon taking a more defensive stance infront of their humans. But nothing they would do would save them from what she was going to perform next.

The group gasped in horrified realization, as the gorgon digimon removed the bandages covering her eyes.

"GORGON'S GLARE!"

To be continued...