The morning light was pale, barely there. Sunrises in the Digital World were strange occurrences, more for show than anything else. After all, they were not a planet in outer space revolving around a star. They were a planet of digital matter, hardly anything more. It was one of the many faults that Judi kept adding to a list on her laptop. After all, she wanted to remember this experience, as crazy and frightening as it may be; she didn't want to wake up one morning and wonder if it was all a dream.

They had been lucky, really. For one, Judi had her laptop and its charger and they had their wits and their partners. They hadn't gone hungry or thirsty and besides the scare with Minervamon on their first night in the Digital World, there had been no other crazy run-ins with the Olympians. True, there had been the Deva, but seeing as they had not seen another for quite some time, they had mostly let down their guards. They weren't expecting anymore Deva attacks.

(It was perhaps for this reason that Pajiramon's master decided to wait for a second attack on the Tamers. To strike at their weakest would ensure their destruction. He was a cunning master, no doubt, and believed he would make an excellent ruler of the Digital World. The Olympians were playing right into his hands and they didn't even know it.)

By the time the sun was really and truly blazing in the far east, Judi was already up. She had carefully untangled herself from her Digimon and friends and had come to tend to the fire, which had burned low in the night. It was comforting, to have something to do again, rather than to just sit around and wait for the end of the world. She had far too great an imagination to let it run wild on thoughts like that.

The skater watched calmly as bird Digimon flew from the trees, setting out in search of fun and wild adventures. Judi could remember days like those when she and Seger had ran throughout their apartment building and in the field at the park, pretending to be knights in shining armor or princesses or secret agents or ninja-spy-pirate-warriors. Had it really only been a few short days that had turned the two against each other? Feeling a little overwhelmed at the thought, Judi blinked back tears and glanced back at her sleeping friends.

They were shifting in their sleep now, their internal clocks alerting them that dawn had come and gone. Jasmine was the first to roll over in an attempt to get up, pushing herself away from Jarred and glancing at Judi with hollow eyes. They were a unique colour, dark blue as deep and fathomable as the ocean off the coast of Vancouver. Judi had never seen dark blue eyes before and found them as intriguing

"Good morning, Jasmine," Judi said quietly so as not to wake the others. The brunette stared blankly at her for a moment before pushing herself first into a crouch and then to her feet. She stumbled unevenly across the small expanse of grass between them before settling next to Judi and hugging her knees to her chest.

"Hi," she said just as quietly, her voice sounding as hollow as her eyes displayed.

The two skaters sat in silence together, watching the world shift around them as nameless Digimon emerged from their slumbers to greet the day. They all had something to do that day, and it was unnerving in a way that while they would carry on with their lives, the four humans would be travelling to tear down their hierarchy system.

"What are you doing here?" Judi whispered, so quietly she barely heard it herself. She watched Jasmine tense slightly and shake her head, but as Jarred stumbles over and occupies the seat on one side of Jasmine and Liam plops down next to Judi, his head taking a spot on her shoulder, she sighed. There was no way out of it now, for all the Tamers wanted to know what the young, eleven-year-old girl was doing in the Digital World.

"There's a hole, ripped into the sky, in the human world. It brought me here and when I arrived, it felt like I was being torn, like part of me was being snatched away. I felt incomplete for days but only recently I felt whole again. I'm lucky that I found you guys; I was starting to lose hope," Jasmine said quietly, glancing cautiously at the others, her face a mask of her emotions.

"A hole... in the sky?" Liam's words broke the silence that had settled over them, and he spoke for everyone when he asked, shock clearly etched on his face. How could a hole have ripped its way across the skies of Vancouver? Who was responsible for it?

"Seger and Morgan and Sarah would know," Jarred mumbled. "The next town we stop at, Judi, set up the laptop. We're going to need to speak to them."

[Heroes]

Really, it was a long time before they made it to another town. The small group of Tamers lost in the Digital World traveled the whole day without much time for breaks, only pausing to catch animals, the first sign of the real world besides each other. Besides noodles, they really hadn't eaten much else and the sight of the rabbit cooking over their fire seemed to snap their attentions back to the main problem that pressed them. Underneath the thought of overthrowing the Olympus Twelve was the thought on how to return home. How to leave.

The town appeared to them in the dead of night, rising up out of the gloom. It was a small village, made of wooden and mud houses that were clumped together. A fountain in the middle of the square depicted a Digimon that was very human-like, its long dress made out of what looked like foliage and huge wings that Judi had always envisioned belonged to that of Titania, the fairy queen in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Her eyes was hidden behind a band, the concrete of the statue making it impossible to tell what it was made out of, and her hair flowed down her back towards her rear end. It was a beautiful sight, and no doubt spectacular when the water was flowing, but as the Tamers approached it became very clear that the fountain hadn't ran in a long, long time.

"Well, this place really looks like it's in good shape," Terriermon said as he glanced around the town from the safe spot on the top of Judi's blonde streaked hair.

"Oh, be quiet," Judi mumbled. The place really did look like it could use a pick-me-up though. This was not the image of luxury that the previous town had provided the Tamers. "Do you think they'd have an internet connection here?"

Suddenly, the broken shutters of one of the windows slammed open, causing the group of travelers to jump. They looked around momentarily for the source of the noise before their eyes fell upon a Digimon that clearly occupied one of the houses. Staring out at them from the open window ledge was...

"It's like a chocolate version of me!" Terriermon crowd jubilantly, diving off the top of Judi's head and scampering over to the Digimon.

It really did look like a chocolate version of Terriermon. The new figure shared the same body shape and long floppy ears as Judi's partner with the obvious exception of it being completely brown with pink trim. Besides that, the only other noticeable difference Judi saw were the three horns that had split from Terriermon's single a top its head.

As Terriermon drew closer however it let out a rather loud shriek and slammed its windows shut again. The Tamers stood, stony faced and confused as Terriermon slowly sank into a sitting position. "What did I do?" the little rabbit asked and Judi sympathetically scooped him up into his arms.

"That was a little rude," Veemon noted as he bounced up to the front door. "Do you think I should knock or just break it down?"

"Knocking would be more polite," Liam hinted, striding up next to his partner. The blue dinosaur shrugged and rapped his knuckles on the door, letting the sound echo throughout the village.

Two seconds later the cry of, "Vee Headbutt!" and the splintering of a door alerted anyone who had been listening that Veemon had clearly grown impatient.

"Veemon!" Liam roared as he followed his Digimon inside the house, the rest of the group hesitantly following. "I told you to knock!"

"No," the Digimon replied. "You told me that knocking was more polite. I did both. Suck it up."

Liam's face grew a dangerous shade of red but Patamon flew between them just in time. "Cut it out," he said. "The door is the least of our worries at the moment."

The Terriermon-like Digimon they had seen in the window was cowering near the fireplace, its long velvety ears wrapped around itself protectively.

"Hey," Jarred said, stepping forward. "We're not here to hurt you."

The Digimon shivered and attempted to become part of the wall as it shied away from Jarred's touch. It was a timid creature, really, which Judi found odd. For Terriermon's doppelganger it sure had a huge personality difference. While Judi's partner was normally very bubbly and didn't know when to shut up, Judi was sure that you couldn't get this thing to talk if you pried the words out of its mouth.

"What is it?" Liam asked, turning to Veemon as if he would hold the answer. The blue dinosaur cocked an eyebrow at Liam's look.

"What?" he asked. "Just because I'm a Digimon doesn't mean I know who everyone is. He's like what Terriermon said, a chocolate version of himself." Liam scowled and the others mimicked him. The creature was timid, but it might be able to help them either connect to the internet or tell them where they could go to find a connection. However, at the rate they were going it looked like the only thing they would be doing was having a mime contest.

"Step aside, amateurs," Terriermon chimed, pushing through the crowd to the front. He stared the creature down, who seemed to shake even harder, before it burst into loud wails that reverberated around the cramped room. "Whoa, whoa," Terriermon said, his ears folding in on themselves and his hands waving wildly. "Stop! Be quiet!"

"You're not doing it right," Judi heard Jasmine mutter from the back of the room. The blonde skater turned to face her, cocking her head to the side.

"What do you propose we do then?" Judi asked. "I mean, do you know a way to get it to stop crying and to talk?" Jasmine merely shrugged her shoulders, stepping forward and scooping the little bundle of brown and pink fur into her arms. Everyone was quiet as she gently whispered in its ear, and after a few moments it hushed.

"Wow, it's like a miracle worker," Liam mused as he uncovered his ears with his hands. "What'd you do, Jasmine?" The younger girl didn't reply and the group lapsed into silence again.

Perhaps it was just the impatience to contacting the real world, or maybe the fact that it was getting hot standing around in the clay room baked by the sun, but Judi, Jarred and Liam were getting a little anxious. They weren't going to stand there all day, so if this creature didn't have anything to say then they might as well leave.

"Lopmon."

The sound cut through the room like a knife through butter. It had been the creature in Jasmine's arms that had spoken. "My name is Lopmon," it said quietly. "I-I thought that... I thought you were her."

"Her?" Liam asked, scratching his head. "Cause you know, I didn't think Jarred and I looked like girls too much, but maybe I was a little biased." He sent a lopsided grin towards Judi who merely rolled her eyes. Somehow she figured that this wasn't the best time to be cracking jokes.

Lopmon shook her head, closing her eyes and shuddering. "No, no," she said. "The Olympian who rules this area. I thought you were her. This village is all we have and if we don't grow something soon she'll be most displeased."

Each Tamer exchanged glances. An Olympian? If they could figure out who it was and where she was then maybe they'd have a better chance of catching her off-guard. Eliminating an Olympian before reaching Mount Olympus would make their battle infinitely easier.

"Who is she?" Jarred asked kindly as Patamon swooped around their heads. The Tamers stared expectantly at Lopmon, but it only shuddered and cowered away.

"I cannot say," she said as Jasmine set her back on the ground. The chocolate bunny scampered over to the window, hopping up on the sill. "She would have me deleted. But... but I can tell you where she is right now." Lopmon nodded off into the distance and Judi hurried over to the window to catch a glimpse at what Lopmon was motioning towards.

She couldn't believe she hadn't noticed it before because really, the ground was as flat as a pancake and these houses were no skyscrapers. Besides, it didn't even look that far away, easy walking distance and tall as anything was going to get in this barren desert. Who was going to miss a city out here?

"She lives there?" Judi asked, but Lopmon shook her head. The others gathered around them and stared out towards the city as well.

"She's trying to revive it," Lopmon said quietly. "She uses it as a base, to watch over us. If you wish to meet her, that is where you must go. But I wouldn't be surprised if you don't come back. Don't tell her I sent you though. Unlike you, I value my life."

[Heroes]

As Judi predicted, the city wasn't too far away. After leaving Lopmon to cry by herself the Tamers set off; meeting this Olympian was vital if they were to eventually save the Digital World from their reign of terror. Still, as they entered the city between tall and crumbling sky scrapers, Judi couldn't help but feel terribly small. The buildings were so tall they seemed to blot out the sky and the entire city was bathed in grey. There wasn't an ounce of colour anywhere.

"This place gives me the creeps," Terriermon piped up as the group shuffled their way along the main road past empty stores and dusty trash cans.

"You can sure say that again," Liam replied, glancing down a dark alley before shuddering and catching up to the others.

"This place sure gives me the creeps."

"I didn't mean it literally."

The jokes, while stale and dry like their patience, was much appreciated. In a city that looked like it was the epitome of sadness, laughter and happiness were hard to come by.

"What was that?" The group fell silent, staring around themselves before glancing towards Veemon, who had stopped walking and looked around nervously.

"What was what?" Liam asked, but Patamon shook his head.

"I heard it too," he said, flying over to Veemon and resting gently on his head.

"Me too," Terriermon replied. He joined his fellow Digimon while Jarred said, "Well of course you would. Your ears are the size of bed sheets."

"Yuk, yuk," Terriermon retorted. "You're so funny, Jarred." Still, the moment was tense as the Tamers watched their Digimon expectantly. Something had caught their attention and it was making them all a little edgy.

Finally, something caught Judi's eye. It was a flash of green in a sea of grey and it had flickered just around the side alley that Liam had peered down earlier. "Did you see-?" she began, but was cut off as Jasmine let out a terrified shriek.

Whirling around, the Tamers and their partners found themselves staring at the statue from the fountain back in Lopmon's village, only she wasn't a statue anymore. The flowing dress that Judi had noticed before was made up of shimmering colours that changed from a lush green to the many colours of autumn. Her huge wings glittered on their own and her shiny golden hair cascaded in waves down her back. The band that covered her eyes that Judi had noticed before was made of a translucent material that looked almost like ice but the skater was sure that it would never melt or crack.

"Tamers," the lady said, waving a delicate hand through the air. "I could only suspect."

"Who are you?" Liam asked, nodding towards Veemon who took up a fighting stance. The other Digimon followed suit as the Tamers crowded together, Jasmine wedged protectively between Jarred and Judi.

"I am Ceresmon, ruler of plant life," the Olympian replied with a wicked smile. "And also the Olympian who will watch you be defeated. Leaf Vortex!" With a shout, the Tamers dove to the ground as a tornado of leaves erupted from Ceresmon's dress. Their Digimon cowered, continuously crying out as they were battered with leaves.

"Terrier Tornado!" Terriermon's attack slashed through the cyclone of leaves from the Olympian, allowing a clear shot from the others.

"Vee Headbutt!"

"Boom Bubble!"

Almost as if anticipating the attacks, Ceresmon folded herself in the protective cover of her wings, allowing the attacks to hit before she released them, sending Patamon's attack flying back into him and Veemon skidding across the asphalt.

"What can we do?" Judi asked, panicking slightly. "She's ten times stronger than our Digimon. We need them to Digivolve again!"

"That's easier said than done, I think," Jarred replied as their Digimon launched a second volley of attacks only to be treated the same way they had before. "Ceresmon's just too strong. The last time one of us Digivolved they required lots of faith, which we're pretty much out of at the moment."

Jarred was right. They were losing, badly, and Judi knew that as soon as their Digimon were out of the way, they would be next. Maybe it wouldn't hurt, though. Dying had always been something that Judi was scared to think about, but maybe now that they were in the Digital World they were technically data. Then maybe they'd come back to life in the Primary Village like all the Digimon did, but somehow, Judi didn't think that was possible.

"I know what to do," Jasmine said quietly. The boys glanced at her, shocked, but Judi recovered quickly.

"Well, tell us then," she said. "We don't have all day and we need to do it quickly."

Seemingly lit from the adrenaline of battle, Jasmine nodded and stepped forward. "Place your Digivices together in a circle," she ordered. The Tamers obliged, arranging themselves so that Judi's light blue, Jarred's orange and Liam's dark blue D3's pointed towards each other. Nodding approvingly, Jasmine reached into the pocket of her ratty sweater and pulled out a sparkling red card. It looked like it could belong to a trading card game like Pokemon if it hadn't been entirely coated in a red gloss. With a flick, Jasmine sent the card spiraling into the middle of the circle where it seemed to stand straight up between the D3's.

And together, without really knowing where the words came from, the Tamers shouted in unison, "Digivolution Activate!"