"It looks like it's gonna appear a bit west of here." Matt shot over to Sasha. She nodded without looking at him and kept pace with Matt as they ran through the field that ran near Matt's house.

The D-Power had long since gone off with gusto, alerting them to the presence of an approaching Digimon with several sharp beeps and flashes. It was clutched in his hand now, the readout screen displaying the positions of he and Sasha as well as their undefined target.

Together they jogged at a brisk pace through overgrown wildlife refuges, along deserted park paths, and under bridges. Occasionally the traffic on a road would be too great and they would have to teleport across to avoid being seen, but for the most part they ran into little trouble.

"It's one PM on a Saturday during a three day weekend." Matt said when Sasha mentioned the low amount of pedestrians. "Everybody's either out of town or at home enjoying their break. Plus there's some "American Idol" episode or something that's supposed to be great coming on right about now." Matt pulled a face and kept running.

"As long as they are not disturbing us."

"Yeah." Matt agreed.

"Any data on our target yet?"

"None. We'll probably get something in a bit, though. We're getting closer."

"Good. Let's finish this before it gets out of hand."

The two of them rounded a small grove of trees in a remote corner of the park and were met by a sea of fog. The misty grayness had seeped into a moderately wooded area, and as Matt let his gaze wander over the blurred edges of the fog he beheld the tips of several eucalyptus trees tentatively poking their skinny limbs through the unnatural visitor.

He pulled his D-Power out of his pocket and proceeded to check the screen. "No info yet..." he muttered to himself.

Sasha seemed to have heard him, for she said in return, "The digital fog tends to hide all but the strongest of signals. There is no real way of knowing what it is we are to face inside until we cross the perimeter."

Matt put on the sunglasses Sasha had instructed him to bring. "What are we waiting around here for, then?" Without another word they strode together and allowed the thick dry fog to wash over them, plunging them into a world where nothing existed but the tree-filled scenery in a five-foot radius.

Matt found himself thinking aloud. "How the hell are we supposed to fight in this? Oh." No sooner than he had finished his question than the fog ceased to obscure his sight. At first he thought they had walked all the way through the fog, but there was no blue sky to be seen.

It was like the eye of a storm; a bubble of air in that ocean of mist that was shockingly clear and still. Other than the fact that it was free of fog, however, there was nothing relatively amazing about the portion of land. Trees stood half in and half out of the digital fog, and there were no real significant land features other than the vegetation they had been in the whole time.

Sasha's eyes picked up movement to their right, and she turned to behold a small, dinosaur-like creature rummaging about in the bushes some fifty feet away, apparently oblivious to their presence. Matt noticed her gaze and flipped out his D-Power yet again.

"Agumon," he read aloud. "A Rookie-level digimon. Attacks with fiery Pepper Breath and claw-slashing maneuvers." At his words, the Agumon perked up it's head and searched for the source of the sound, sniffing the air all the while. After two deep whiffs of the unmoving air, it turned and stood facing Matt and Sasha, growling lowly yet still unsure of what to do.

"Ok." Matt said to Sasha as he kept his eyes on the Agumon. "Be careful, and don't let him catch you off guard. He could be dangerous."

Sasha shrugged off his warnings. The fog was her element, and right now she felt charged and ready to move. She stood loosely on the balls of her feet, itching to dash forward. "I'll be fine, it's just a Rookie. This will be over soon enough."

"Still…"

"Have faith." No sooner than the words had left her mouth, the Agumon leapt forward at them, roaring with its claws raised high. Sasha moved swiftly to meet it in midair and throw the unfortunate wild one into a tree, while she herself landed in the branches of another.

The Agumon sprang to its feet and cried out in a high yet raspy voice.

"Pepper Breath!"

A dully-glowing ball of fire and energy formed in the mouth of the Agumon, and he sent it high ino the leafy boughs of the tree in which Sasha was standing. With an acrobatic bend she dodged the projectile and swung down to the ground.

The Agumon was waiting, though, and it tried to rake her with eager claws as she descended. Sasha dealt one mighty kick, however, that sent the Agumon skidding into the dirt several yards away. This time the return to its feet was rather staggering, and it rubbed the spot where the kick had landed, obviously not too keen on getting within kicking range like that anymore.

This time it sent several of the fiery attacks towards Sasha, who leapt out of the way and ran to her right in an arcing angle. The Agumon tried to keep up with her speed, but every one of its attacks always missed its moving target by a few feet or more.

Finally, Sasha stopped running. The Agumon, not expecting this maneuver, kept blasting attacks where he thought Sasha was going to have been running and thus made the final mistake that sealed its fate. Sasha used the momentary confusion to dart in close to the Agumon, and she wasted no time in doling out another heavy kick to the side of its head. The dinosaur flipped head over heels twice and rolled to a stop on the ground, where it began to sputter and flicker just like the first digimon Matt and Sasha had ever battled. It then disintegrated into hundreds of tiny, colored pixels, which Sasha collected to regain her strength.

And as soon as it had begun, it was over and the fog was fading. The pixels were all gone and the only indications that the Agumon had ever existed were the slightly smoking scorch marks were its numerous haphazard attacks had deigned to land.

Matt, for his part, was impressed. He figured that Sasha was strong, but seeing her in a real battle like that was a totally different experience. Just the way she moved and flowed across the landscape showed her utmost confidence in herself and the fact that she held complete control over everything on the field.

She appeared beside him and he was jolted out of his thoughts. Her breathing was only slightly deeper than normal, and she looked calmer than she had been prior to the fight. She looked at Matt with an air of expectance.

"Well," she started. "What do you think?"

"About what?"

"Everything. This is a taste of the challenges that will fall upon us. This was an easy match, but you can be sure it will not always be like this in the future. Will you be able to handle it?"

"Yeah. It doesn't look like you'll need too much help out there, though. You were incredibly strong."

"It was an easy opponent." Sasha said. The tone of her voice did not change, but she looked off into the trees as though she was caught off guard by his statement. "But there will be many times where I'll need your help. There'll be events that will try everything; your strength, your health, and your willpower. We might face things bigger than both of us, and your life will most likely be put into danger on more than one occasion. Neither one of us can do this alone, but if you don't want to go through with it all, I'll understand. Just tell me."

Matt laughed. "Don't be stupid. There's no way in hell I would ever let myself turn down this opportunity. Dangers or not, I'm in. You're not getting rid of me now." He smiled.

Sasha returned the smile and changed topics.

"So what now? The day is still young."

"Well, you're free to do whatever you feel like, I suppose. If I happen to need you I'll just hit the D-Power. As for myself…" He reached into a pocket and pulled out a handful of homemade stickers. "I'm gonna go leave my mark around town. I'll catch you later, alright?"

"Alright."

"Take care of yourself, then."

Sasha nodded and phased away. Matt looked around him and recognized her outline perched in a tree far off in the distance. He gave a low wave and turned on the spot, striding in a carefree sort of way back to the taller buildings of the shopping complexes. He had a sort of mild tingly feeling all over his body, and he couldn't help smiling for no reason as he walked along.

There was no denying it. He felt good.

Ok, and that marks the end of this update. I hope you liked it, and don't be afraid to review. Let me know if there's anything worth changing in how I write. I'll try to respond if I can. Alright, thanks for reading. Good bye, good luck, and no blocks!