Digital Phantom

by ZAFT Convoy

Three worlds coexist side by side yet never interacting; one of life, one of death, and one artificial. Twins Andy and Danny are roped in when an accident occurs and a relative returns from Japan. But the twins are on opposite sides; Danny on the world of death, Andy on the artificial. Can they find out how the three worlds rely on each other? Or will they fall to an enemy in wait?

39. Invasion in Both Worlds

ZAFT: Late update, but what can you do? Thanksgiving is around the corner. :P

DarkFoxKit: Not only that, but next week is my last treatment, hopefully. So that means I'll have more free time to write again!

ZAFT: Yay! :3

Andy: That's good. So now we can do more things in the story. Isn't that right, Takuya?

Takuya: Yep! :D

DarkFoxKit: We all hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving, and a wonderful time with your friends and family. And please enjoy this chapter.

---

(Two symbols, one red, and one blue, spin before colliding and flaring with light as they do so, showing the title)

Digital Phantom!

(Shows three forms in shadow before they are revealed to be Danny Fenton, Sam Manson, and Tucker Foley)

Three worlds, connected side by side

(A swirling green portal is shown, followed by the sky cities of the living world before a computer monitor is zoomed in on, revealing another world of lush greenery through that)

Connections, with many secrets to hide

(Andy Fenton is shown with a small purple fox-like creature, Dorimon, in his arms as Takuya Kanbara appears behind him, a form in shadow behind Takuya himself)

Is one always chosen by fate?

(Danny is shown transforming into his ghost form, Danny Phantom, flying towards a vampiric looking ghost, Vlad Plasmius)

Or can one make their own destiny?

(Andy is shown looking on as his cell-phone transforms into a Digivice, the D-Arc)

Digital Phantom!

(Andy holds up his D-Arc as a heart symbol appears on the screen)

The power is deep inside!

(Takuya holds up his D-Tector before fractal code surrounds him, dissipating as fire erupts from it, revealing him as Agunimon, lunging out from the fire just as Dorimon glows and becomes Dorumon, firing off a metal ball into the distance)

Digital Phantom!

(The metal ball blasts past Vlad Plasmius as he fires off a ghost ray at Andy, who blocks it with his Fenton Rod)

Destiny is unbound!

(The Fenton Rod is smacked away by Vlad, going spinning before Sam, with a small puppy-like creature next to her, reaches up and catches it, a shadowed form with wings appearing behind her, transparent in appearance)

Digital Phantom!

(Sam throws the Fenton Rod to Tucker, who spins it before throwing it at Plasmius, a big bunny-like being with gun-hands appearing behind Tucker, transparent in appearance)

Fight on, without regret

(Shows Takuya looking up from his D-Tector as he makes eye contact with his Human Spirit of Agunimon, who give a smile back and reaches out a hand as Takuya takes it)

Two sides never rest

(Danny is shown reaching for a glowing Digi-Egg, with a shadowed form above it just as an evil version of the shadowed form appears beside Vlad, both transparent in appearance)

Digital Phantom!

(Jazz is shown with the form of Lopmon beside her, a larger, shadowed form behind them both)

Never regret or look back

(Takuya is shown looking up as a ball of fractal code covers his hand, surrounding him before it dissipates to reveal his Fusion form of Aldamon)

Fight on, with victory

(Aldamon fires off a slew of fiery bullets from his cannons, each of those bullets hitting Plasmius before the ghost teleports away, revealing a shadowed form behind him)

Nothing will stand in our way!

(Andy, Dorimon, Danny, Tucker, Terriermon, Sam, Salamon, Jazz, Lopmon, and Takuya all appear with Vlad above them, sneering evilly as all ten look on defiantly)

Digital Phantom!

---

Chapter 39: Invasion in Both Worlds

Back in Amity Park, Danny, Jazz, and Andy were walking home. Ever since the school was attacked by that wolf ghost, the children were sent home early. The teachers gave the students their homework assignments, however, so the students weren't completely free of school. But many preferred being at home at this time of ghost crisis than at school.

"We've got a lot of homework, but we also have a lot of ghosts we need to take care of…" Jazz sighed tiredly, her hair was still a mess.

"You're telling me…" Danny grumbled. "My ghost sense is going off like crazy! I won't be able to get any homework done with that going on!"

Takuya 2 was walking with them, though unlike them, he was full of energy. "I know, so many ghosts makes me uncomfortable, being a being made of digital data."

Andy gave a yawn before sighing. "Okay, we're going to have to plan out what we're going to be doing. I don't want all of us to be too tired to do anything after a while. We might have to do this in shifts, or just rest up while we let our parents handle it for a while."

Danny frowned. "I don't like the idea of our parents handling this. You know how… enthusiastic they can get when hunting ghosts…"

"Yeah, I know," Andy sighed. "But if we keep doing this, none of us are going to be capable of doing much. Not me, not our Digimon, and not you either, bro. You may be half ghost, but you're also half human. You still need to sleep and eat like the rest of us."

Danny had to agree. "Yeah… You're right. Even I will get burnt out. I just don't want our parents to get hurt though…"

"They'll be fine," Jazz assured. "It's the ghosts I'm worried about though."

"It almost feels like we're in the Ghost Zone with this many ghosts here," Dorimon grumbled.

"Not to mention I still can't shake the feeling something just as big is going on in the Digital World. Takuya still hasn't come back yet, and it's been 2 days since he was called…" Lopmon frowned.

Jazz looked down. "But what could be wrong in the Digital World? Shouldn't it be something that can be handled with little trouble?"

"I don't think so." Lopmon frowned.

"Let's not worry about it right now, we have our own problems to deal with," Andy sighed.

"How about we all take a nap, then we figure out what to do?" Danny suggested as they started walking up the stairs to Fenton Works' front door.

"Sounds good to me!" Takuya 2 agreed as Danny opened the door.

But when Danny opened the door, he saw not only their parents, but also Calvin, Kwan, and Paulina there as well. Jazz, Takuya 2, and Andy came up from behind Danny, and stopped when they saw the group.

"What the…?" Andy narrowed his eyes, he was too tired to deal with this crap right now.

"The first official after school meeting of the Amity Park's Ghost-Keteers is now in session!" Jack announced proudly, before Calvin came up to Jack and kneeled down like one would do to a king or a queen. "I dub thee, Ghost-Keteer Member number 1!"

Jack placed a rolled up paper on Calvin's shoulder, as if he was knighting him. Calvin gave a smirk as he looked at Danny and Andy.

Danny blinked. "Okay…? I'll… be in my room, doing my homework…"

Something is off about them… Why the heck would Calvin, Kwan, and Paulina be here? Andy questioned. I highly doubt they would ever be caught dead wanting to be a part of Mom and Dad's ghost hunting squad.

Behind the group, Takuya 2 was tense, shivering slightly. "I… will be upstairs as well…" However, it was not hard to hear the harshness in his voice.

"Come on, kids, why don't you join us while we sing the Ghost-Keteers battle song?" Maddie suggested, looking like she was having as much fun as Jack was.

"Nope," Andy said as he quickly went upstairs.

Danny and Jazz decided it was wise to follow the boy upstairs before the singing could begin.

Takuya 2 followed them, keeping close to Andy and Danny.

Danny looked at his siblings and cousin/copy/clone… whatever Takuya 2 was. "That… was weird…"

"It's not just weird, it's downright out of character," Andy muttered as they went into their room. Jazz followed them even though she had her own room, so did Takuya 2.

Takuya 2 made sure to close the door once they were all in the room.

"Think about it, why would those three, the most popular kids in school, want to come to our house of all places, in order to join the 'ghost-keteers'?" Andy questioned.

"Not to mention how cheesy Mom and Dad were being. Though I think they were just excited to have people interested in joining their ghost fighting team." Jazz rolled her eyes.

Danny frowned. "I don't know… But I think something is off."

Takuya 2 huffed. "I'll say. I sensed something different about them."

"Who exactly?" Andy asked.

"Those popular kids." Takuya 2 clarified.

"I sensed it too," Dorimon said, jumping out of Andy's backpack now that they were away from the public eye. "Something wasn't right with them, it made my body tingle."

"Yeah, same here," Lopmon agreed, hopping down from Jazz's backpack as well. "I don't think they're the kids you know from school."

"How so?" Jazz asked.

"We're not exactly sure yet," Dorimon said. "But it would be best to keep a close eye on them from now on."

"I have to agree. For all we know they've either been replaced by shapeshifters, or ghosts had overshadowed them." Andy frowned. "If it's any of those cases, they could be here to keep an eye on us… or our parents… or maybe all of us."

Takuya 2 growled. "That can't be good." He clenched his fists.

Danny sighed. "So much for a normal week…"

"Normal? You've lost normality the second you stepped into that portal!" Andy snapped, and Danny winced a little. "We can't worry about having a 'normal' week or day, what we should do is find out what the hell is going on with this invasion, and make sure those shapeshifters or ghosts or whatever they are downstairs, don't hurt anyone!"

Danny held up his hands. "Okay, okay, bro! You've made your point! We'll keep an eye on those ghosts or whatever they are!"

Andy sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you. With all this going on, and Takuya being gone dealing with another kind of threat, and all of us getting wiped out from this invasion, and what reason this invasion is going on in the first place, I'm just a little bit of a nervous wreck right now."

"I don't blame you, Andy," Jazz said softly, putting her hand on her brother's shoulder. "We're all a little stressed out right now."

Lopmon nodded. "I understand how you feel, Andy. But we have to find a way to deal with these ghosts before we can do anything else."

"I think your original idea to have everyone rest, then deal with everything else, is a good one," Takuya 2 stated. "I can keep an eye on them while you guys take a nap."

"You shouldn't be by yourself though, what if they catch wind on what you're doing and try to take you out?" Danny asked in concern. "I'm also sure they'll be able to sense you're… well, made of data, and not actually Takuya."

Takuya 2 frowned. "Oh yeah… That is a good point…"

"We can back him up," Dorimon spoke up. "We were able to get a nap in while you were at school, so we're more awake then you guys are."

Lopmon nodded. "Yes. So if anything happens, we can help defend Takuya 2."

"But you two can't digivolve without us, are you sure you'll be alright?" Jazz asked in concern.

Lopmon nodded. "We can get you if we need you. Your D-Arcs will tell you if we are in danger as well."

"We'll keep our D-Arcs nearby then," Andy said. "Maybe after I get a nap in, I can think without feeling like I'm overwhelmed by everything."

Dorimon grinned. "Then get that nap in!"

Jazz nodded. "I'll be in my room in case anyone needs me."

Jazz walked out of the room. Andy walked over to the bed. "Come on, Danny, you too."

Danny nodded. "Okay, bro. I'll be there."

Takuya 2 decided to go and stand by the edge of the stairs so as to not get seen, but also to keep an eye on the people in the living room.

---

Calumon was looking at JP as he was tormented in his sleep. Calumon was currently inside the barrier with JP since he was one of the Digimon doctors working on him. Calumon tried to see if there was a way to see into JP's mind, just to see if he could send the Nightmare Syndrome out, but every time he tried, he was blocked by JP's Spirits. They weren't trying to keep him out because they didn't want him in JP's head, they wanted to keep him out because they wanted to keep Calumon safe from the Nightmare Syndrome. Calumon knew the Spirits wanted to keep him safe, but it was frustrating to not have any ways to interact with the Nightmare Syndrome directly.

"Okay, I think we're all ready now," Takuya spoke up, having had a backpack filled with stuff.

Koji grumbled. "There had better not be any bugs in there for us to eat…"

"Heck no! We'd be eating meat apples if we get hungry," Takuya groaned. "I mostly just packed things like a first aid kit, some mirrors, and extra clothing."

"Mirrors?" Koichi asked.

"Hey, if we're going to set up a trap for the Tapirmon, we need to make sure it thinks it's with other Tapirmon to let its guard down," Takuya shrugged.

Koji smirked. "That's using your head."

Dash snickered. "He tends to do that, especially when in combat."

Takuya groaned. "You're never going to let me live down the fact I just charge in, are you?"

Dash grinned. "Nope~"

Takuya sighed. "Whatever. We should have everything we need for this Tapirmon hunt now anyways. … Um… has anyone seen Tommy?"

Calumon turned to Takuya, sweating a little.

Koichi frowned. "No, I haven't… Where is he…?"

"Wasn't he with us a while ago? Where could he have gone?" Dash scratched his head. "Doesn't he seem to disappear a lot?"

Koji frowned a bit. "Yeah, that has been happening lately. We're going to need his help if we are to catch a Tapirmon."

Calumon gulped, he couldn't just suddenly leave, they would get suspicious.

"Hey Calumon, any luck with JP?" Takuya asked, noticing the little Digimon was looking at them.

"O-oh!" Calumon stiffed. "N-no, sadly not. His Spirits are keeping me out. I think they're worried about me ending up like JP if I tried to interact with the Nightmare Syndrome in his mind."

Takuya frowned. "That sounds familiar…" It sounds like what happened with my Spirits and Danny, except the Spirits didn't know Danny was trying to help at the time…

"Why are you trying to interact with the Nightmare Syndrome anyways? Wouldn't you just fall under if you did?" Koichi asked in concern.

"That's… a possibility, yeah, but if I could interact with it, even briefly, I would be able to get more information on it and how to counteract it," Calumon sighed. "Sadly though, that doesn't seem to be possible."

Koji frowned. "Maybe it's for a good reason. The Spirits wouldn't do something like that if they felt someone could be affected by the Nightmare Syndrome."

"I suppose it was a bit too risky," Calumon sighed again. "Maybe we'll have better luck once you bring back a Tapirmon."

Calumon tapped on the magical barrier before he slipped out of it.

"Have you seen Tommy? We need him before we leave to get a Tapirmon," Takuya questioned the little Digimon.

"Uh… I think I saw him outside earlier. You could probably meet with him out there since you're all ready to go," Calumon answered. "Now I gotta go, bye."

Calumon quickly flew away before anyone could say anything.

Takuya frowned. Why does this feel like Danny all over again? He shook his head. I can't worry about that now. We have a Tapirmon to catch. Sighing, Takuya picked up the backpack. "Okay… let's go meet with Tommy I guess."

Koji, Koichi, and Dash followed Takuya as they went outside of the castle, though they were running since they were in a hurry to get going.

As soon as they were outside, they saw someone wrapped up with fractal code before it was revealed to be Tommy. Tommy was panting, like he had been moving quickly.

"Tommy? Where were you?" Takuya asked as he came to a stop. "We were about to leave without you!"

"Sorry… was… just… practicing my… um… skills," Tommy panted, likely knowing they had seen the fractal code that had him wrapped up when he reverted back to his human form.

Takuya blinked. "So you were training? Why didn't you just say so?"

"It's…" Tommy let out a sigh. "It's not important right now… didn't you say you were ready to leave now?"

Takuya blinked. "Oh! Yeah, I did. We're ready to go catch a Tapirmon. We have things we'll need too. And no, there are no bugs that we will be eating either."

"Heh, that's good to know," Tommy chuckled.

---

BurningGreymon flew to the TV Forest with everyone else riding on him. If he hadn't been working out, he would say he would be breaking a sweat having to carry four people. Koji, Koichi, Dash, and Tommy all had their D-Tectors out, scanning for any possible hidden Tapirmon as they were flying, not wanting to get ambushed on their way to TV Forest.

Thankfully, BurningGreymon was able to reach the TV Forest with nothing bad happening. He came down to land in a clearing, before putting the other 4 down. Once everyone was off of him, BurningGreymon reverted back to his human form.

Takuya, now human again, looked around. "Okay… So where do we start the search?"

Koji frowned. "I don't know, but I would assume we start where you and the others left from a few days ago."

"That's probably a good idea, it seems to be the spot where at least one Tapirmon likes to mess with us," Tommy chuckled.

"Let's just hope we managed to get one and escape without losing another one." Koichi frowned.

Dash sighed. "I hope so too. That would not be good."

Koji looked back with a grunt. "Whatever."

The group began walking through the forest, trying to find the spot where they camped out on the first night. They were also keeping their ears open in case they heard anything unusual. The forest seemed to be unusually quiet.

The group soon found the spot they were looking for.

"Okay, looks like this is the spot we'll be setting up the traps," Takuya whispered.

Koji nodded. "Sounds good. It's open enough for the traps, but enclosed enough to hide them. Not to mention it's large enough to place a few of them."

"Yeah, so let's get started." Dash smiled.

The group took out some ropes and nets from the backpack Takuya brought, as well as the small mirrors. They started to set up the traps around the trees, hoping that they'll be able to catch a Tapirmon. Dash used a little bit of his Spirit's power to cover up the traps with grass and soil. The mirrors were easier to hide in the cover of the shadows, but they needed to remain visible for the Tapirmon to see themselves in.

"Okay, now all that's left is to wait," Takuya stated.

"I should go hide and get ready to jump on one in case our traps don't work," Koichi spoke up.

Takuya nodded. "Okay, just be careful."

Koichi nodded as he turned to do so. Before he did though, he looked back at Tommy. "Are you coming, Tommy?"

Tommy's stomach growled, he hadn't had any actual breakfast since he skipped out on the bug feast. And using his Calumon form, while it didn't eat up as many calories as his other Spirits did, it still did eat up his calories more than if he was human.

Tommy blushed at his stomach's reminder that he hadn't eaten. "Yeah… but maybe I should eat something first."

Koichi chuckled. "You do that. I'll be waiting over by those trees." He pointed at the location where he would be. "Just don't take too long."

"We'll set up a campfire then," Takuya chuckled.

"I'll go with Koichi to back him up until Tommy had something to eat," Koji decided.

Dash smiled. "Sounds good. You two be careful while in hiding."

Koji nodded before he followed his twin brother into the bushes. Dash looked over at Takuya. "Maybe one of us should go with Tommy just to make sure he doesn't get attacked."

Takuya sighed. "Yeah, you're probably right. I think it would be best if you went with. I mean, you have the ability to sense if others are in the area thanks to your Spirits, so that would make you the best one to go with him."

"Okay. You just be careful yourself," Dash said before he stood up and started to follow Tommy.

When Dash caught up to Tommy, it was then the jock realized it was the first time he was alone with the kid. Tommy looked back at Dash, though Tommy didn't seem as nervous around Dash as the jock thought he would, instead, Tommy gave him a smile.

"Hey, want to help me gather up some meat apples?" Tommy inquired.

Dash smiled. "Sure. I don't mind helping with that."

It was a pretty nice stroll through the forest. Tommy led Dash up a small hill that had a pretty big tree where a lot of meat apples were growing.

"There it is," Tommy pointed. "Zoe and I came here to gather up a lot of meat apples."

Dash whistled. "That is a big tree. And it has a ton of meat apples!"

Tommy gave a chuckle. "Come on, I'm sure you can gather a lot with those big arms of yours!"

Dash gave a fake pout. "I'm the football captain back home! Of course I can carry a lot of stuff!" But then he couldn't help grinning in response as well, making his fake pout even more obvious.

Tommy laughed as Dash showed off his muscles by flexing his arms a bit before he began to gather up as many meat apples as he could carry. Tommy started to pick up some meat apples himself.

"I'll take weird tree growing meat apples over insects any day!" Dash remarked.

"Me too," Tommy agreed. "Come on, let's take this back to the campsite."

As Tommy and Dash were heading back, Tommy decided to ask the jock a question. "You said you're a football captain, right? You must be quite popular at your school."

Dash frowned a bit. "Yeah, I am. But… popularity isn't all it's cut out to be. The school I go to has the popular kids, but they tend to pick on the nerds, or those they see as losers." He sighed here. "I was once one of the worst bullies, but after someone helped me, because I was being bullied myself, I began to change my ways. And well… after a while, I had apparently changed enough to be considered worthy of wielding the Spirits of Wood, and being a Legendary Warrior."

"Yeah? That's good. I'm glad that you were able to turn away from your bullying days," Tommy commented. "Though… why do the popular kids want to pick on others?"

"I'm not really sure myself. It's been an unspoken rule for as long as I could remember," Dash admitted with a sigh. "It wasn't something we ask, we just do it. If we don't, we're seen as becoming too soft and not worth our position."

"That's silly," Tommy huffed. "You've earned your spot with or without picking on the other kids. Besides, the Legendary Warriors are made of kids who are usually picked on themselves, or are just ordinary nice people."

Dash blinked. "Huh… Does that mean you were once picked on yourself?" He then realized that sounded insensitive. "Oh… Sorry. I didn't mean to say that."

Tommy frowned, but shook his head. "Yeah, I was picked on a lot. A lot of kids my age were. To some extent, I do still get picked on at school, though it's not as bad as it was a few years ago."

Dash sighed. "Well, that got awkward fast…" He rubbed the back of his neck. "But, it's good to hear you're not picked as much anymore."

"It's not your fault. I'm just glad to hear you've turned over a new leaf yourself," Tommy remarked. "You can't stop bullying, but you can at least stop yourself from hurting more people."

Dash smiled. "That's nice to hear. I will admit, it feels… better to help others and to not be a bully." He then frowned. "Unlike some of the other popular kids."

"Yeah… I'd imagine just because you change, it doesn't mean others would," Tommy agreed. "But hey, if you were able to change, maybe the others could do so if given the right push."

Dash smiled a bit. "It's nice to hope for that, but it won't be so easy."

"Never said it was going to be easy." Tommy gave a small smile. "I had a couple of bullies who changed because of what happened 4 years ago. They were in the Digital World, but they didn't have Spirits. I was able to save them from a nasty Digimon. They've been my friends since then."

Dash blinked. "Wow. That's nice to hear. And to think, all it took was saving them." He then chuckled. "It sounds like they realized you were the braver one and they realized it the hard way."

"Pretty much." Tommy laughed.

The two of them soon made it to the campsite where Takuya was waiting.

"Hey, glad to see you're back," Takuya greeted. "Was getting worried you might've fallen asleep or something."

Though Takuya said it as a joke, he was actually worried about them being hit by a sneaky Tapirmon.

"Nah, we're fine, Takuya," Tommy chuckled. "I kept an eye on Dash to make sure he was safe."

Takuya chuckled as well. "Good to hear. Did you find any meat apples?"

Dash grinned. "We found a whole bunch of them!"

"Awesome! Let's get them cooked so we can have a proper meal." Takuya smiled.

The three of them sat around the campfire Takuya made. Being the Warrior of Flame, fire came pretty easy for him. They had their meat apples on a stick while putting them near the fire.

"So I was thinking… what do you think will happen if that Dreammon catches all of us?" Dash asked. "Is there a reason why he would want us out of the other thousands of Digimon he's catching in his Nightmare Syndrome?"

Takuya frowned. "I don't know. It could be because the Legendary Warriors are seen as the protectors of the Digital World. I mean, we did defeat Lucemon, so that is a very big target on our backs."

"Well, you guys did, I wasn't around when you fought with Lucemon," Dash sighed.

"Still, you do hold the Spirits that helped in that battle," Tommy pointed. "I'm not sure what Dreammon is hoping to accomplish by doing what he's doing, other than what he told us, but I can't help but feel it's more than just because he wants to."

Takuya frowned again. "Yeah, that seems like it could be the case. There's no way it is just because he wants to. He did mention something about being recognized by his creator, whoever that is. Do you think that could be the reason why?"

"But why would his creator want the Digital World to be plunged in a world of nightmares?" Dash questioned. "It doesn't make much sense."

"I suppose it depends on who the creator is, and why they made Dreammon in the first place," Tommy commented thoughtfully. "I guess with the Celestial Digimon gone, and Lucemon being no more, the Legendary Warriors are technically the strongest known Digimon in the Digital World."

Takuya groaned. "Great… Now we have an even bigger target on our backs!"

"Oh wait… I guess there are the Royal Knights, but… most of them are either hidden or babies right now…" Tommy muttered thoughtfully.

Takuya blinked. "You know there are more Royal Knights, Tommy?" Up until I met with Agumon, and Bokomon told me, I thought Crusadermon and Dynasmon were the only Royal Knights.

"Well… yeah, I mean… I doubt there would've only been two Royal Knights, right?" Tommy sweatdropped.

Takuya frowned. "Yeah… that does make sense. I think the majority of the Royal Knights just… weren't able to defeat Lucemon, so maybe they were also turned into Digi-Eggs."

Tommy frowned a little, seeming to want to say something, but kept his mouth shut.

"Regardless, we're still the ones being targeted, so we need to be more careful," Dash spoke up. "But I'm sure we'll be okay. If you guys were able to go through everything you did 4 years ago in this world, I'm sure we'll be able to defeat Dreammon and wake everybody up from their nightmares."

Takuya smiled. "Yeah, you're right. We can and will defeat Dreammon."

"Hey! Are you guys going to eat your meat apples before they burn up or what!?" They heard Koji's voice calling.

Takuya gaped before he lunged for his meat apple and pulled it off of the fire. "Okay… Koji has a point. We really need to keep an eye on these things before they get burnt. I don't want to try a burnt meat apple…"

Tommy and Dash had lunged for their meat apples as well, quickly pulling it away from the fire.

"Good idea. Cooked insects might be better than burnt meat," Dash chuckled. "... Maybe."

Tommy rolled his eyes. "Let's not find that out."

The small group began digging into their meal. Tommy was feeling a lot better after having eaten. The sun was starting to go down as they were chatting and eating. There were still no signs of any Tapirmon however.

Takuya looked around. "Okay… I think either the Tapirmon are hiding and waiting for us to fall asleep, or we may have to find a way to lure them out because they know we are in the area."

"If the Tapirmon know we're waiting for them, how else could we lure them out?" Dash asked. "I get the feeling Dreammon is controlling them, so anything he knows, they would know too, right?"

"That is how hiveminds usually work," Tommy agreed. "Dreammon did say the Tapirmon lost their free will when he came into the Digital World."

Takuya frowned. "Then what do we do? We need to catch a Tapirmon, but if they aren't coming out, how can we get one?"

Tommy crossed his arms as he thought for a moment. Takuya wondered if Andy would figure something out, until he realized that Tommy had been acting like their tactician since they started on this whole mission. It was unusual, Tommy had always just been the brave little kid when they came into the Digital World 4 years ago, a tactician was the last thing Takuya would've described Tommy as. While 4 years was a bit of a long time, it shouldn't have been long enough for someone to just change like that, unless something happened to them.

Okay… Tommy is acting quite a bit like Andy is… At least, in terms of thinking tactically. It's a bit scary… Takuya thought to himself.

"I think I might have an idea," Tommy spoke up just as Takuya finished thinking to himself. "You might be right, Takuya."

"I… am?" Takuya blinked, wondering what he was right about.

"The Tapirmon may be waiting for us to fall asleep. We would be much easier targets then," Tommy stated. "So… perhaps that's what we need to do then."

Takuya blinked. "Huh?! Are you serious?!"

"Calm down, Takuya, maybe Tommy has an idea," Dash spoke up.

"Just hear me out," Tommy said. "We won't actually fall asleep, but we have to act like we did if we want to draw out any Tapirmon out of hiding. We may also need to do something flashy to get their attention just in case they're unaware we're even here."

Takuya frowned. "Like a spirit evolution? The light from that can get quite bright."

"Yeah, a spirit evolution, maybe show off an attack or two, then change back and 'fall asleep'," Tommy answered.

"Just a note, it might be best that Takuya sits this one out, because his fire would easily burn the forest," Dash spoke up.

Takuya pouted. "I have better control over my flames than that!"

"I'd rather not take any chances if we don't need to," Dash grumbled. "I'm the Warrior of Wood though, so this is pretty much my domain. I'll be the beacon to lead the Tapirmon to us."

Takuya sighed. "Okay, fine. Just be careful. Koji and Koichi are still out there."

"Don't worry, I'll be able to sense where they are, so I know not to aim an attack there," Dash reassured. "Another reason why I'm volunteering for this. I would cause the least amount of damage."

Takuya chuckled. "Then go ahead."

Dash held up his D-Tector as the tan digital form of his first Spirit appeared visible on the screen of his D-Tector as he held up his hand with the fractal coding around it. He swiped the D-Tector over the coding, calling out the familiar phrase he would come to know by heart. "Execute! Spirit Evolution!" His clothes ripped away as his body became digital, and the process began. Coding surrounded him as the power of the Spirit flowed into his body. Dash felt his body increase in strength and power as he felt his skin become more like wood and he felt his senses increase in sharpness and sensitivity. His eyes turned a golden color as he finally landed, crying out his name as he did so. "Arbormon!"

Now as Arbormon, he looked up at the sky. "Blockade Seed!"

Arbormon shot out several glowing seeds from his mouth and into the sky, making sure it would be easy for anyone to see, before the seeds began falling back into the forest. The seeds were either absorbed into the forest, or dissipated.

"Think that's good enough?" Arbormon asked after a while.

Takuya frowned. "I hope it was. That… was quite flashy for sure."

"Then we make our beds, lay down, and hope for the best," Tommy remarked. "We have traps everywhere, we also have Koji and Koichi hidden to keep an eye on things. I'm sure we'll be okay, but keep yourself on guard at all times, even if you're trying to look like you're sleeping."

Takuya nodded as Arbormon reverted back to his human form of Dash. "Okay, let's get to 'sleep' then." Takuya said as he began to arrange some leaves on the form of a bed.

When everyone had their makeshift beds ready, they all laid down in it. The campfire was dim and small, but Takuya kept it burning so the Tapirmon would still be able to see their reflection in the mirror. It was tense for all of them as they closed their eyes and waited. Their hearts were beating in their chests, each of them worried that if they fell asleep, they would only be greeted by endless nightmares.

While the others pretended to be asleep, Koji and Koichi were watching the group with tense bodies.

It was quiet in the forest. Though the longer the silence, the more anxious everybody was feeling. They were starting to wonder if the Tapirmon would come at all, or if maybe the Tapirmon were already there, surrounding them, waiting for them to let down their guard before they strike.

However, before they could start spiraling down into paranoia, they heard something moving between the trees. Ironically, this sudden noise made everyone relax. They now knew a Tapirmon was likely nearby now.

Koichi looked around. "Oh boy… We're definitely not alone…"

"Yeah… but now the question is… how many are there?" Koji whispered.

Tommy, Dash, and Takuya peeked open one eye, waiting. If they so much as heard the word 'nightmare' or 'syndrome', they were going to move quickly.

A shadow started floating closer to the group, but then stopped when it reached the mirrors.

Looking around, Koichi paused. "I'm… not sure. But I think there are at least 5."

Koji frowned. "That's about our number right now." He noted in a whisper.

"Look, one of them stopped by the mirrors," Koichi whispered, pointing at the shadowy figure that was floating by the mirrors. "This could be our chance to try to catch it while it's distracted."

Koji looked ready to pounce on the shadowy form. "Let's do it then…" He crept a bit closer, trying to remain as silent as possible.

Koichi had one of the nets with him. They couldn't afford blowing their cover by spirit evolving now, they would have to do this the human way.

The Tapirmon was looking at her own reflection. She did always think she looked better than the other Tapirmon, and these mirrors proved it. She would totally make a much better pack than being on with the other Tapirmon, but what the boss wanted, the boss got. She looked over at the humans who were 'asleep', completely defenseless and unaware of the nightmare she was going to trap them in. Tapirmon grinned to herself before she started to slowly float closer to the group of 'sleeping' humans.

"Now!" Koji and Koichi jumped the unsuspecting Tapirmon, and trapped her in a net.

"We got a Tapirmon!" Koichi exclaimed.

The other three quickly stood up from their beds.

"Great, now let's get the heck out of here before-" Takuya began to say before they suddenly found themselves surrounded by clouds of darkness.

Koji and Koichi quickly ran to the others, carrying the net that had the trapped Tapirmon in it. They were all back to back.

"We need to get out of here now," Dash hissed.

"But how can we get out of here?" Takuya asked. "If we try to fly, we are easier targets, if we try to tunnel away, we could get attacked by another inescapable Nightmare Syndrome, and running through the clouds is not an option."

"We have to try something, or we're going to get caught either way," Koji hissed.

"Maybe we should split up," Dash suggested. "Two could go underground, while the other three go into the air? They might be surprised and hesitate enough to let us get away."

Takuya looked at Dash. "Are you sure that could work?"

The clouds of darkness were getting closer to them.

"Do you have any better ideas, Takuya?" Dash questioned.

More Tapirmon began to show themselves, they were the ones using the Nightmare Syndrome surrounding them.

"No, I don't have any other ideas." Takuya admitted. "Okay. We'll split up."

Dash and Takuya took out their D-Tectors.

Takuya invoked the power of his Beast Spirit. The red outline of his second Spirit roared and appeared on the screen of his D-Tector as he invoked a ball of fractal coding on his left hand. Takuya swiped the D-Tector over the coding and called out the phrase he knew by heart. "Execute! Beast Spirit Evolution!" He felt the primal power of his Beast Spirit flowing into him as his clothes ripped away and his body became surrounded by the coding. Takuya cried out as the power flooded into his body. His body grew in strength and power as well as size, with red, yellow, black, and white armor forming on his body. A tail extended out from the base of his spine as two large orange wings appeared on his body. His head became like a dragon's almost, but not exactly, and the top of his head was white. His eyes turned sky blue, but had a feral edge to them as well. He landed, crying out his name. "BurningGreymon!"

Dash took out his D-Tector as the dark green Beast Spirit roared before appearing on the screen of the tan and brown device. He invoked the ball of fractal coding on his hand before swiping the D-Tector across the coding. "EXECUTE! BEAST SPIRIT EVOLUTION!" Dash cried out as the coding surrounded his body. He could feel his skin becoming bark, with the leaves forming on his back. A tail sprouted from his spine as his body took on a quadruped form, and the leaves around his neck formed as well. Finally, the coding vanished as he landed, swishing his tail around before calling out his Beast Spirit name. "PETALDRAMON!"

"Better decide who's going where now!" Petaldramon quickly said.

Tommy went over to Takuya, Koji, who was carrying the captured Tapirmon, also went to Takuya out of instinct than anything else. BurningGreymon picked them both up. Koichi jumped onto Petaldramon's back. There was no time to think, no time to question if this was a good idea, no time to ask if they should've stuck together, they only had time for action. Petaldramon burrowed underground with Koichi while BurningGreymon quickly flew up high with Tommy and Koji in his claws.

"It's coming!" Tommy called out.

BurningGreymon looked down, seeing the Nightmare Syndrome was starting to fly up towards him. It was time for some evasive maneuvers.

Taking action, BurningGreymon flew in a sharp turn to the left before he did a slight dive, then climbed at a sharp angle before weaving right. Tommy and Koji had to hang on tight to keep from falling as BurningGreymon was doing his best to get away from the Nightmare Syndrome.

BurningGreymon was able to fly out of the forest. The Nightmare Syndrome tried to chase him, but since Dreammon wasn't nearby, they eventually had to stop chasing BurningGreymon. They were strong, but not endlessly strong that they could chase them even being far away from their owners.

"Looks like the Nightmare Syndrome stopped chasing us," Koji noted.

BurningGreymon looked back. "Yeah… I hope the others are safe like we are."

BurningGreymon kept going until they were out of the forest entirely, he looked down, seeing something was tunneling out. They noticed it was Petaldramon, he was crawling out of the hole with Koichi on his back.

"Hey… I think they're okay!" BurningGreymon noted as he saw the two, looking no worse for the wear.

"Hehe." The Tapirmon in the net grinned.

"Wait… why is this Tapirmon grinning?" Tommy frowned, suspicious.

Koji felt a tingle run down his spine, one that he did not like. It felt like the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end, and he had a chill in his gut. His eyes were wide as he looked at Koichi and Petaldramon, a feeling of dread coming up on him.

Koichi stood up from Petaldramon's back and jumped off of him. He looked up at BurningGreymon. "What's wrong? Why don't you come down here? Don't you want to make sure we're alright?"

Koji shook his head. "No… Don't do it…" He looked shaken up.

"Why not? What's wrong, Koji?" BurningGreymon asked.

Koji looked worried. "I… something's wrong… It's… hard to explain but… I feel like… something is off… Like Koichi is… not himself…"

Tommy frowned as he looked down at Petaldramon and Koichi. Petaldramon had been unusually quiet since they surfaced, he wasn't looking up at them either. Tommy squinted his eyes as he looked at Koichi. It was a little hard to tell from where they were, but Koichi's eyes looked… lifeless.

"Takuya… we need to get to Seraphimon's castle, now," Tommy whispered urgently.

Hearing Koji's words reminded BurningGreymon of how Andy had described what he felt when Danny had something happen to him, and with Tommy's urgent warning to him, he had the feeling something was wrong and that he needed to get out of there.

"Don't leave… after all, isn't leaving what caused me to become Duskmon in the first place?" Koichi asked.

Koji was hit hard by those words, his heart clenched. Koichi held up his dark D-Tector. The purple digital form of his first Spirit appeared visible on the screen of his D-Tector and he formed the ring of fractal coding on his left hand. He swiped the D-Tector over the coding, calling out the familiar phrase he knew by heart. "Execute! Spirit Evolution!" His clothes vanished as his body became digital, and coding surrounded his body as the power of the Spirit coursed through him. Grey and gold armor formed on his body, his strength increasing as well. He seemed to grow in height, and his eyes opened to reveal them a reddish color. He landed, forming a staff in his hand and a shield in the other. With two swings of the staff, he called out his name. "Loweemon!"

"Koichi! No! Stop this!" Koji frantically yelled.

"I won't let you abandon me again, Koji! Not ever again!" Loweemon shouted.

BurningGreymon looked down at Lowemon and Petaldramon. "Koji, we have to leave… They're under the influence of the Nightmare Syndrome."

Before BurningGreymon could fly up, however, Petaldramon buried his two tails underground. "Thorn Jab!"

Large tree roots and vines came up from the ground, quickly grabbing onto BurningGreymon's body, preventing him from flying. Loweemon jumped onto BurningGreymon, heading straight for Koji.

BurningGreymon grunted as he tried to escape the vines. "NO! Don't!" He was very tempted to use his Wildfire Tsunami to break the vines, but with Koji, Tommy, and the Tapirmon on his body, he couldn't take the risk of hurting them.

Koji gasped as he jumped off of BurningGreymon and began falling. But still, the boy wasn't taking this lying down. Koji grabbed his own D-Tector as he was falling. Pulling out his D-Tector the boy was quick to act next. He held up his D-Tector and the white digital form of his first Spirit appeared visible on the screen as he formed the familiar fractal coding on his left hand. He swiped the D-Tector over the coding, calling out the familiar phrase he knew by heart. "Execute! Spirit Evolution!" His clothes ripped away as his body became digital, and the process began. Coding surrounded him as the energy of the Spirit entered his body. His eyes became red as his hair shortened and turned almost platinum in color. A white helmet covered his head as white and blue armor covered his body. He grasped the familiar beam sabers and swung them a few times before clasping them around his waist and firing off his arm laser. "Lobomon!"

Loweemon was falling towards Lobomon with his spear. Lobomon quickly summoned his laser swords to block the incoming attack. Both brothers fell to the ground.

"I'm weak, I will always be weak, I could never be the hero. Why? Why do all of you judge me? For every move I make, I can tell, you will always judge me, always waiting for me to just snap and go back to my bullying ways," Petaldramon hissed quietly.

BurningGreymon looked down at Petaldramon. "No… I'm not judging you. You've… You've been working hard to change. And it shows. Why else would the Spirits of Wood choose you to wield them? You've been getting better as a person, not worse!"

"The Spirits of Wood terrorized people, he's just as big as a bully as I was!" Petaldramon snapped. "Why is it always me? Why am I destined to be like this?"

Petaldramon let out a frustrated roar before he began to pull BurningGreymon down with his Thorn Jab. Tommy grabbed onto the Tapirmon.

"I'm getting off of you, Takuya," Tommy said to BurningGreymon.

BurningGreymon nodded. "Okay… Just be careful, Tommy."

"You too," Tommy said before he jumped off of BurningGreymon's shoulder, still holding onto the Tapirmon.

Now with Tommy and Tapirmon off of him, BurningGreymon could now burn off the vines that were holding him.

Relieved he wouldn't have to hurt Tommy now, BurningGreymon began to channel his flames into his body. "Wildfire Tsunami!" The flames coursed out from the gaps in his armor and around the vines, burning them away and allowing him to spread his orange wings once more.

Petaldramon growled. "If I'm always going to be the villain of the story, then I might as well embrace it! Leaf Cyclone!"

BurningGreymon was surrounded by a tornado of sharp leaves. Thinking fast, BurningGreymon spun around and began to fire his arm cannons. "Atomic Corona Blaster!" The cannons fired, unleashing a slew of red fiert bullets at the leaves as he spun around in the air, setting the leaves ablaze.

BurningGreymon felt a bit off balance after that, though Petaldramon was hissing in pain from the fire. Still, Petaldramon wasn't going to go down that easily. He brought out leaves around his wounds, which were quickly healing up. Petaldramon had always been quite the threat 4 years ago, but in the hands of a proper Legendary Warrior, he was even tougher.

Regaining his senses, BurningGreymon shook his head before he looked back at Petaldramon. "Okay… I won't be doing that move again…" He muttered to himself.

Lobomon and Loweemon were fighting each other sword to spear. Lobomon didn't want to hurt Loweemon, but Loweemon had no such reserves. Lobomon knew he couldn't reason with Loweemon while he was in a nightmare state, but he still wanted to keep trying nonetheless.

"Please stop, Koichi. We're brothers, don't you remember?" Lobomon begged.

"I remember. But I also remember you abandoned me!" Loweemon shot back, venom in his voice.

This hurt Lobomon's heart more than any of Loweemon's attacks ever did. "No, I never abandoned you… you're under the influence of a Nightmare Syndrome!"

"You did abandon me, just as you were going to abandon me again!" Loweemon hissed as he thrust his spear at Lobomon's chest.

Lobomon let out a cry as the spear seemed to pierce through his armor.

Then something surprising happened, Loweemon stopped his assault on Lobomon, and pulled his spear out. Loweemon's eyes, though still glazed, did widen in horror. "I'm… so sorry… Koji…"

Loweemon suddenly fell to the ground, reverting back to Koichi.

Lobomon panted, looking at his unconscious and sleeping brother. His chest armor had not been penetrated thankfully, but the dent was quite painful. He knelt down and picked up Koichi, feeling bad for fighting his brother. But he also felt the emotional pain that had come from Koichi's claims of being abandoned.

"Don't worry… Koichi… I promise, we will… find a way to… get you out of your nightmare…" Lobomon promised.

Meanwhile, BurningGreymon was having trouble fighting against Petaldramon. All their sparring sessions had paid off, though in Petaldramon's favor it would seem. Petaldramon knew all of BurningGreymon's moves, and not only did he dodge and heal himself, but he was attacking relentlessly, while BurningGreymon was trying not to hurt Petaldramon too much. His flames could end up seriously hurting Dash if he wasn't careful.

Tommy was watching from a small bit of distance, he knew he had to do something before this got out of hand. The Tapirmon was grinning.

"What's wrong? Afraid to leave me alone? Think that I would escape?" Tapirmon asked.

Tommy glared at the Tapirmon. "No. I didn't want to have to get involved, but this fight needs to come to an end."

Tommy took his D-Tector out of his pocket. The light green digital form of his first Spirit appeared on the screen of his D-Tector and he formed the familiar ring of fractal coding around his left hand. He swiped the D-Tector over the coding, calling out the familiar phrase he knew by heart. "Execute! Spirit Evolution!" His clothes ripped away as his body became digital and the process began. Coding surrounded him as the power of the Spirit flowed into his body. He lost his hair and his body became white as snow. His fingers became like paws almost and he gained a more cub-like appearance to his body. Green chest armor formed on his body and his feet gained green and red boots. A headband that had the image of a bear on it formed on his head, and he gained a shoulder pad on each side, but one was red while the other was grey in color. He slid down and landed as a mushy pile before he reformed and grinned, calling out his name. "Kumamon!"

"Oh? What's a little teddy bear like you going to do? I'm surprised you didn't go for your much bigger and stronger Beast Spirit," Tapirmon snickered.

Kumamon looked at Tapirmon. "If I was in my beast form, I couldn't do this. Crystal Breeze!"

Kumamon froze the Tapirmon in ice, hoping that would keep her from escaping. Now sure the Tapirmon wouldn't be able to escape, Kumamon hurried to the battle between BurningGreymon and Petaldramon. Hang on, Takuya, I'm coming!

BurningGreymon was feeling a bit exhausted now. Even though he had good stamina, against Petaldramon and his healing, it was getting difficult.

Petaldramon was getting ready to attack again, when suddenly… "Crystal Breeze!"

Petaldramon's glazed eyes went wide as his front leg was suddenly frozen. Then another one of his legs got frozen. Then another one. He growled and struggled.

Kumamon was running underneath the behemoth that was Petaldramon. Petaldramon managed to use his one free foot to stomp on the icy bear. However, Kumamon's body was liquified, so Petaldramon's stomp didn't hurt him too much. Then Kumamon had his liquid body jump over Petaldramon's head. The body suddenly turned into a giant icicle tundra.

"Frozen Tundra!" Kumamon's sharp ice body slammed into Petaldramon's neck.

BurningGreymon saw the Warrior of Ice making his attack, and his eyes widened. "Kumamon! Be careful!"

Petaldramon threw off the bear, who landed on the ground nearby. Kumamon liquified his body again, before returning it to normal. Petaldramon growled as he broke the ice on his feet and began to storm towards Kumamon.

Seeing the charging Petaldramon, BurningGreymon sprang into action. Fire coated his body as he flew at Petaldramon. "Drag Fanger!" The charge impacted Petaldramon, sending him stumbling back from Kumamon's location.

Petaldramon let out a shout of pain from the burning impact, his body writhing around as it burned. Kumamon ran over to Petaldramon, taking out his Launcher. "I'll cool you down! Blizzard Blaster!"

Kumamon shot out rapid snowballs at the burning Spirit of Wood, cooling off the flames. Petaldramon groaned, being hit by both fire and ice weakened him greatly. He groaned as he laid there on the ground before he was covered in fractal code, turning back into Dash.

Panting, BurningGreymon slide-evolved into his Human Spirit form and cautiously approached the unconscious Dash. Agunimon knelt down and gently nudged Dash, but all he got was a groan.

Kumamon sighed in relief, glad that the fight was over before any real damage could be done. "We should go…"

At the same time, Lobomon came staggering over while holding onto the sleeping Koichi. "Yeah… we should. Both Dash and Koichi are under the Nightmare Syndrome…" He was panting slightly, and he had a good-sized dent on his chest armor.

Kumamon rushed over to Lobomon, seeing the injury, but stopped himself suddenly. He frowned, realizing that if he wanted to help Lobomon with his injuries, he would have to expose who he was as Calumon. Kumamon decided to go over to where the Tapirmon was. He was relieved to see she was still there, frozen. He picked up the frozen Tapirmon and the net. "I still have the Tapirmon. If we hurry, we can get back before anything else happens."

Lobomon nodded. "Let's do that then…" He hissed at the pain of his injury. "I don't know how long we could keep fighting if more Tapirmon come this way…"

Agunimon nodded in agreement. He hoped these two would be the last of their friends to fall to the Nightmare Syndrome.

---

It was lunch time at Casper High in Amity Park. Takuya 2 had kept an eye on the three 'kids' in the house, but they didn't do anything other than chat with the Fentons about ghost fighting. They had to leave eventually though.

Andy had noticed that despite the town being invaded by ghosts, the ghosts didn't seem interested in really hurting anyone. They caused a lot of trouble, and property damage, but they hadn't done anything to the humans themselves, as far as the boy could tell. There hadn't been any news of people suddenly going missing, or found dead or injured somewhere. Although the property damage and the chaos the ghosts were causing was definitely a cause for concern, it wasn't an emergency that they had to sacrifice their own health and sanity over. They mostly rested yesterday, and were going to go over a plan at school the next day, which they planned to during lunch.

Unfortunately, they didn't expect the Fentons to be at school as well.

Maddie was waiting when Danny, Andy, Jazz, Sam and Tucker came out for lunch. "Alright kids, hurry up and eat your nutritious meals!" Maddie said to the students through her megaphone.

"Oh crap!" Andy quickly backed away the second he saw Maddie standing there with the megaphone.

Danny cringed. "Oh boy…"

Jazz looked like she wanted to either forget she was related to these people or she wanted to hide in a hole.

Maddie turned to them and smiled. "Hi sweetie! Here's a nutritious bag lunch! … Where's your brother?"

Maddie was still speaking through her megaphone, letting the entire student body hear her as she was talking to Danny, who would've turned invisible by now if it weren't for the fact his parents were ghost hunters. Andy was being smart and decided to hide out of sight from Maddie by going in between Tucker and Sam. He put his finger to his lips, making sure they got the message to keep quiet.

Sam and Tucker nodded, not even saying a word. Jazz didn't see Andy, but she had the feeling he was nearby, just hiding.

Danny looked at his mom. "Oh! Uh… Andy will be out soon. I can give him his lunch when he gets here."

"Great, you do that, sweetie!" Maddie grinned as she gave Danny another bag lunch that belonged to Andy.

"Move, move, move," Andy whispered.

The group quickly walked away from Maddie and headed to an empty table.

Now at the table, Tucker and Sam moved aside so Andy could sit down. "Wow, Andy. I didn't think you would be one to hide like that." Sam joked.

"When it comes to having your parents at your school, you take whatever measures you can to avoid embarrassment," Andy grumbled, keeping his head low at the table as Danny passed him his bag lunch.

Danny chuckled as he sat down. "It's fine, bro. Mom didn't see you."

"That doesn't mean she won't see me eventually…" Andy grumbled as he took out a chicken sandwich from his bag lunch, a container of yogurt, a box of apple juice, and a spork for his yogurt.

Danny had pretty much the same thing in his bag lunch.

Then Jack drove up his Fenton Assault Vehicle into the area before he turned on the portal Ghost Shield to cover up the school. Jack came out of the RV and shouted in the megaphone. "This portal Ghost Shield only has enough power to last for 15 minutes! So chew, chew like the wind!"

Danny was looking somewhat nervous as he ate quickly.

Sam noticed this and became concerned. "Danny? Are you okay?"

"No. Why would I be?" Danny asked as he ate quickly some more before he ate something he shouldn't have. "Just because the town is on high alert, our parents are at our school, Takuya is in the Digital World doing who knows what, and-" Danny was eating his yogurt before he pushed the entire spork into his mouth, and accidentally swallowed it. "-I'm eating so fast I swallowed my spork!"

Andy, who was also eating his yogurt with his own spork, saw that. He stopped in mid bite, before he silently moved his spork over to Dorimon. Dorimon happily ate up the metallic spork. Andy would rather Dorimon eat his spork than swallowing it himself.

Danny turned his arm intangible before he reached into his stomach and pulled out the spork. "There we go."

Dorimon saw that and gave a disgusted look. "Is he going to eat with that even though it was in his stomach?"

"You probably don't want it, Dorimon. It's been contaminated…" Andy whispered.

Dorimon's eyes widened at that. "G-good point."

"Well how are you going to eat your yogurt now?" Jazz asked Andy.

"... Uh… lick it?" Andy sheepishly grinned.

Jazz sighed before she handed Andy a spoon. "Use a spoon at least…"

Dorimon snickered at the response. Andy just grumbled.

"So what are we going to do about that wolf ghost?" Sam asked.

"We're going to try to talk to him," Andy said. "He seems like he needed help. Though he was speaking in a language we're not familiar with."

Tucker perked up. "What did this language sound like?"

"I only heard him say 'silvi' or something like that," Danny answered.

"I SAID KEEP CHEWING!" Jack shouted at them, which caused them to quickly start scarfing down their food.

"That sounds like Esperanto." Tucker said as he set down his sandwich.

"Esper… wawa?" Sam blinked, never having heard that language before.

"Esperanto. It was a language developed in the late 1800s, it was originally proposed to be a universal language, but it died out." Tucker explained. "Now nerds use it to talk to other nerds mostly."

"So that's the language I hear you using with Mikey sometimes," Andy noted.

"I'm very interested in that, how did it become something only nerds use to talk to each other?" Jazz questioned.

"It just never caught on I guess." Tucker replied with a shrug. "I don't know the details on why it died out, just that it did. Though we nerds thought it would be useful to have a language that no other people know about so we could warn each other if a bully was coming nearby or something. It's also good to keep our secrets."

"We may have to learn how to speak that at some point ourselves…" Danny noted.

"But for now… we did discover something helpful," Andy spoke up. "Digimon can understand the language just fine."

Tucker blinked as he processed this information. Then his eyes went wide. "Of course… Being made of data, Digimon can understand any language since most cultures and nations use computers to communicate!"

Jazz's eyes went wide. "Really? Wow! This is amazing! I wonder how that affects a Digimon psychologically to be able to understand any language…"

"It makes it easier to understand any language and culture," Salamon remarked. "I couldn't say if it really affects us any differently from you though."

"At least we don't have to worry about not understanding someone because they speak a different language," Lopmon chuckled.

Sam smiled. "Yeah, and we can use that to our advantage if we are to find out what that wolf-ghost is doing here."

"Yeah, but that wolf ghost could be anywhere," Terriermon noted. "How are we going to find him among the hundreds of ghosts that are already here?"

As if on cue, a blue mist came out of Danny's mouth. Though the Digimon didn't shiver due to having already sensed a lot of ghosts all day and night.

Danny looked around. "I think we got our answer…" He muttered, looking around for the ghost. "Because I think the ghost is here…"

"But we're inside an anti ghost shield, how could the ghost be here?" Tucker asked.

Andy looked back at the RV for a moment, then suddenly it broke down, the device that made the ghost shield suddenly broke off, shutting off the shield.

Danny saw Andy looking back at the RV and groaned. "Oh no… The ghost took out the ghost shield!"

Jack began to cry a little, seeing his pride and joy had been destroyed while Maddie was trying to comfort him. Then suddenly, the wolf ghost came up from under the ground, and floated up there while everyone looked up in surprise.

"Well… we found our wolf ghost…" Andy grumbled. "In public… where our parents are."

Suddenly, the wolf ghost let out a cry of pain, the collar around its neck just shocked him. There were a few ghosts not too far away. One of them looked different from the other soldier ghosts. He had purplish skin, an eye patch on his left eye, and had spiky arm bands near his wrists. He wore a red cape and had camo-patterned pants on as well as combat boots, and he had a cyan tail as well. His other, uncovered eye was red, and he had sharp teeth. On his head was a bandanna or head covering of some kind as well. He was holding a remote and pushing some buttons.

The wolf ghost looked at them fearfully before he started flying away.

"Get him!" The red cape wearing ghost shouted, who was likely second in command of these soldiers since Andy was pretty sure Walker, who had likely reformed by now, was still in charge.

The wolf ghost hit the table they were using, causing Andy's sandwich to hit his face, and Jazz's yogurt to slam into her forehead.

Jazz grumbled as she reached up and pulled off her yogurt container from her forehead. "We need to help that ghost wolf. It looks scared."

"Yeah… yeah, I'll get right on that…" Andy groaned, rubbing the food off his head and shirt. "Ugh… Danny, maybe you should go on ahead. The rest of us aren't exactly… well equipped to catch fast flying ghosts."

Danny nodded. "Okay, bro." He then turned and ran to hide behind a tree so he could transform. "I'm going ghost!" The white rings formed on his torso before splitting horizontally and moving up for the upper ring and down for the lower ring, showing his Phantom form. His eyes were now ectoplasmic green and his hair was white as snow.

Now as a ghost, Danny flew up into the sky to catch up to the other ghosts. What he didn't notice, however, was that Jack was training a new kind of weapon on him.

"One blast and you'll find yourself teleported back to the empty dimension you call home," Jack stated as he began to power up the bazooka.

Jazz and Andy, seeing this, quickly ran at their dad, all but tackling him. This caused Jack's aim to miss Danny and hit the other soldier ghosts instead. They were quickly sucked into a ghost portal before it disappeared.

Danny blinked. "Whoa… Portable Ghost Portal… That's new…" He had barely come to a stop and avoided it, so he was a bit shaken up.

Jazz couldn't believe it. "Okay… that is a bit scary…"

"Jazz, Andy, be more careful! I know you're scared of the ghosts, but you should be watching where you're running to," Jack scolded.

Jazz gave a sheepish smile. "Sorry, dad…" That was close...

I'm considering having Dorimon eat that bazooka… Andy pondered.

Danny flew after the ghost that was still chasing after the wolf ghost. The ghost chasing the wolf used some kind of device that sent out some kind of purple ectoplasmic rope that wrapped around the wolf's tail, shocking him. Danny frowned before he dove towards the wolf ghost. Danny punched the ghost that was hurting the wolf ghost, making him spin around, causing the ecto rope to get caught up on him. Then Danny shot a ghost ray at the rope, cutting it off of the wolf's tail. Danny then grabbed onto the rope and sent his own ghostly energy into it.

Andy looked up and was surprised to see Danny turning the ecto rope green with his own ghost ray, and the ghost that was chasing the wolf got zapped by the rope. The ghost let out a scream before he suddenly vanished.

"How the heck did he do that?" Andy questioned. "Could he do that before? Did he know he could do that?"

Jazz blinked. "I… don't know. That is a neat trick though."

"Hey, this is no time to be standing gawking! They're landing," Lopmon pointed out.

Jazz blinked, seeing the two ghosts were indeed landing. Well, Danny and the wolf ghost were anyway. "Let's go see if Danny's okay."

"Be careful with the wolf ghost, we don't know if he's friend or foe yet," Andy spoke up as he followed Jazz to where the two ghosts landed.

Danny was looking at the wolf ghost, who was looking back at Danny curiously. "I'm a friend… uh… you know… 'friend'?"

In response, the wolf-ghost wound up giving Danny a big fat lick to the face.

"Danny!" Jazz and Andy came running over.

The wolf ghost growled at them, stopping them both. Dorimon hopped down from Andy's backpack and let out a growl of his own.

"Don't hurt them, they are with the ghost boy," Lopmon spoke up, hopping down from Jazz's backpack.

The wolf ghost stopped growling as he looked at the two Digimon. He said something that the humans didn't understand. The Digimon, however, understood perfectly.

"Yes, yes, we're here to help you," Dorimon answered.

"Why would you help me? You two are Digimon, are you not? Aren't our two species enemies?" The wolf ghost asked in Esperanto.

Lopmon nodded. "We may be, but we will not let someone get hurt, even if they are a ghost."

"If you're willing to help me, then I don't care what you are. Just get me away from Walker and his soldiers. You may call me Wulf," The wolf ghost stated.

"Uh… 'Wulf'? Isn't that like calling a human 'Human'?" Dorimon questioned.

"I like to keep my name simple and easy to remember," Wulf answered.

Lopmon looked back at Jazz and Andy. "So his name is Wulf, and he's on the run from Walker. That's about all we got from him though."

"Maybe we should take him somewhere safe and ask him about Walker," Andy suggested. "In case you haven't noticed, this isn't the most-"

Just then, Jack Fenton came popping out of the brush. "AHA! Now I've got you!" He declared, only for the Fenton Fisher line to be a tangled up mess. He noticed and began to work on untangling the line. "As soon as I get this untangled, you two beasties are going down! And… Jazz? Andy? What are you two doing here with these ghosts?"

"We're… just… checking them out," Andy said.

"You know… to prepare ourselves for… future ghost hunting…?" Jazz smiled sheepishly.

"No! Don't say that!" Andy hissed.

"Wait… really? You two are interested in ghost hunting!?" Jack all but boomed happily.

Jazz realized her mistake and tried to correct it. "You know… in case we get attacked. Not that we are really interested like you and mom! It's just more of a side thing so we aren't caught off-guard."

"We should probably leave," Danny sighed before noticing a red laser dot pointing at his chest. "What's this-"

"Move!" Andy yelled suddenly as he tackled his brother down to the ground.

Danny's entire body felt cold and light, something Andy hadn't noticed before whenever Danny was in his ghost form, it disturbed him a little how easy it was to knock Danny over, due to how light his body was. They both hit the ground just before a large blast of ecto laser went right past them.

Jazz dove to the side as well, shoving Wulf to the same side she was diving to. The large ecto-laser hit the ground, creating a large crater from the impact. Jazz looked back and felt her face pale. "Oh crud…"

"Jazz! Andy! What are you two doing with these ghosts? Get away from there, they're too dangerous!" Maddie scolded, holding an even bigger bazooka than Jack did and was still able to carry it around just fine.

Jazz looked at Maddie before looking at Wulf. "We'd better run…"

Maddie was about to demand that Jazz and Andy get away again before something loud disrupted her thoughts. She tried to see where the sound was coming from. Dorimon and Lopmon could see it was Salamon using her Puppy Howling to distract the adult Fentons.

"Now's your chance, take Wulf and get out of here! We'll meet you at Tucker's place later," Andy whispered to Danny.

"Why Tucker's-"

"Do you really want to bring a ghost fugitive to our house?" Andy asked.

Danny nodded. "Right… Okay. I'll do that." He got to his feet before taking flight and grabbing hold of Wulf, fleeing the area with him.

With Danny and Wulf gone, Salamon stopped using her howling attack and quickly went back to Sam who quickly picked her up and put her in her backpack. Andy and Jazz quickly picked up their Digimon partners as well.

"Jack! We better do a sweep around the school, there could be more ghosts here. One tried to melt my brain with a loud burst of ghostly noise," Maddie warned her husband. "And stop using the Fenton Fisher if you're just going to tangle yourself up!"

Jack pouted. "But it was not tangled when I grabbed it!" He protested. "I think a ghost did it!"

Maddie looked at her two kids. "We're going to have a talk about this when we get home."

"Y-yes, Mom…" Andy gulped. And Takuya thinks I'm evil?

Jazz felt nervous, as she never got scolded due to her diligence and following the rules, so this was a first for her. "O-of course, Mom…" Oh man… Who knew being involved with Digimon and ghosts could be so complicated…?

Andy went over to Tucker and Sam when Jack and Maddie began to look around the school. "Tucker, we're going to be meeting up with Danny and Wulf, that wolf ghost, at your house."

Tucker blinked. "My house? Why-" He cut himself off as he remembered what the Fentons did for a living. "Oh… right. That makes sense then."

"Thanks for distracting them Sam, Salamon," Jazz said gratefully.

"It's the least we could do," Salamon remarked. "It's… painful to see one's parents hunting their own child, even if they don't realize it."

Jazz then froze. "Wait… Mom said a 'ghost tried to melt her brain with a loud burst of ghostly noise'. I think she thought Salamon's Puppy Howling was a ghost attack."

"It's not that surprising," Sam sighed. "They likely don't know anything about Digimon. For all they know, all the Digimon sightings were just ghosts."

"They should have an idea there's more than just ghosts around, especially after that incident with ShadowSeraphimon," Andy pointed out. "But… I have to admit… it's been a while since we saw any Digimon in this world, other than you guys of course."

Jazz frowned. "Yeah… That is odd…" She began thinking. "Could it be tied to the crisis in the Digital World that Takuya had to go help with?"

"It might be…" Lopmon frowned.

"I wish I knew what was going on in the Digital World in our absence." Salamon frowned as well.

"Should we go back there and check?" Terriermon suggested, also worried since he had served in the military to try to keep the Digital World safe before.

Andy looked up for a moment. "Let's focus on one thing at a time first. We have a ghost problem we need to solve here first. After that, and if Takuya still hasn't returned, we'll go to the Digital World and see what's going on there."

"I agree with Andy, Takuya can take care of himself in the Digital World. He's got friends there helping him too, I'm sure. For now, we're needed here," Dorimon added.

Jazz nodded. "That's a good plan. We take care of these ghosts first, and then go help Takuya in the Digital World."

"Then we better head to my place soon," Tucker sighed. "I hope Mom and Dad aren't home right now…"

"Too bad my parents are home all the freaking time, otherwise I'd say we take the ghost fugitive to my place," Sam grumbled.

Jazz gave a sad smile to Sam. "We can't have it our way all the time, you know."

"When is it ever?" Sam frowned.

---

With the chaos going on at Casper High, it was easy for Andy and his friends, including Takuya 2, to sneak off to Tucker's house. Tucker's parents weren't home right now, so it made it easy for Tucker to get Danny and Wulf to hide in the attic.

"My parents never come up here, so it should be safe to hide out here for a while," Tucker explained.

Jazz nodded. "That's good. But now what? Do we get that collar off or something?"

"That collar is likely what's keeping Wulf from truly escaping Walker and his goons," Danny grumbled.

"Well, now that we're here, maybe we can ask Wulf if he knows anything about what's Walker trying to do by sending all his soldiers into our world," Andy suggested.

Jazz looked at Lopmon. "Why don't you ask Wulf, Lopmon? You can clearly understand this Esperanto language, so it should be easy for you."

"Very well. For the sake of convenience, I will be the translator for Wulf and the rest of you," Lopmon decided as he hopped down from Jazz's lap and landed in front of Wulf. "So tell, Wulf, do you know what Walker, your captive warden, is up to here?"

"I'm not too sure, since I do not speak the same verbal language as he does," Wulf answered. "Though as ghosts, we do have our own unique way of communicating universally. Walker did not give me a lot of details. He mainly told me if I used my ability to claw myself, and him and his soldiers, into this world, this town specifically, he will free me from this collar."

Lopmon frowned at the information. "So he never mentioned what he needed your ability for?"

"He just told me to go into this world and cause a bit of havoc. He also told me to sniff out the unusual ghost boy, though when I first saw him, I couldn't tell which boy it was," Wulf stated, looking particularly at Andy and the now obvious ghost boy floating next to him.

"So Walker wanted you to find Danny Phantom is what it sounds like." Lopmon noted as he looked at Danny as well. "But why bring all of his soldiers here for one ghost boy?"

"He said something about wanting to turn this world into a prison for the ghost boy," Wulf replied. "But that is all I know about it. You have to understand, I was desperate to get this collar off. I didn't know much about the ghost boy,, but I wasn't happy about it. Ghost children are very valuable in our world. So few could produce children of their own. I came back to look for the ghost boy, but I didn't realize Walker's assistant, Bullet, and his soldiers were around the area."

Lopmon frowned again. "It sounds like Walker is hoping to make this town Danny's prison somehow…" He mused in concern.

Jazz became a bit worried. "But how could this Walker plan to do that?"

"Wulf doesn't know, but we may have the pieces to the puzzle, we just have to put them together," Lopmon stated.

"So what we do know is that Wulf apparently has the ability to claw his way into this world and the Ghost Zone," Dorimon spoke up. "And Walker had been using this ability to bring his soldiers here to create chaos and havoc."

"Ironic for someone who's so deadset on following the rules." Terriermon rolled his eyes.

"That would be a hypocrite, Terriermon," Salamon informed.

"But why would that turn this place into a prison for Danny? Sure it would make things a lot harder for him, and us, but I wouldn't say it would be a giant prison for him," Tucker questioned.

"There's likely more to it than just causing trouble in Amity Park," Sam noted

Jazz nodded in agreement. "There's never just one reason. If you think about it, maybe this could be some part of this Walker ghost's obsession."

"What do you think, bro? You've been pretty quiet," Danny asked, seeing his brother was thinking.

"I'm not sure yet, but it sounds like this might be a multiple step plan," Andy said.

"What do you mean?" Tucker questioned.

"Like… how step 1 is to cause chaos and panic with his soldiers, step 2 is bringing Wulf out here to sniff out Danny, and so on," Andy listed. "Likely there's a step 3 and onwards before his plan is complete."

"I just want to say, remember those kids who were at your house the other day?" Takuya 2 spoke up. "And how weird they were acting?"

Andy furrowed his eyebrows. "Could that have been related to one of Walker's plans?"

Jazz frowned. "If the kids at our house were acting odd, do you think they were overshadowed? I mean, there's no way the popular kids would just come over, right?"

"If they are overshadowed, then Walker must not want Danny to know he's there," Andy guessed. "But I can't think of why yet. This whole plan seems convoluted."

Lopmon frowned again. "I think it's odd yes, but then again, ghosts don't seem to be predictable. We should keep an eye on Walker's goons to see what they have planned."

"Where do you think they are right now?" Sam asked. "Think they might be back at Fenton Works playing 'Ghost Keteers'?"

"I doubt it. Mom and Dad will be patrolling the city all night," Jazz answered.

"They could be at the school. I doubt they'd want to go home to the kids' they're overshadowing house. They'd have to deal with their parents and all that," Takuya 2 pointed out. "The school is the next best thing for them."

"I have to agree." Sam noted. "The homes of the popular kids would be out because their parents would know if something was wrong. School on the other hand, is a larger place with more people, so that means less people to notice their odd behavior." Sam's eyes then went wide with realization. "Or that could mean more victims to overshadow as well!"

"Maybe we should go storm the school," Terriermon suggested. "Like how you do in that video game to save all the kids from the nasty parasite monster!"

"You play too many games," Lopmon grumbled.

"Besides, these are ghosts, not parasite monsters, how do you plan on fighting those?" Dorimon pointed out.

Tucker looked at Terriermon before looking down in thought. "Terriermon has a point. But at the same time, we need to be stealthy. We can't just barge in there. We need to gather information before we take action. I mean, this is a ghost army we are facing down. We need to act carefully."

"Perhaps we should send in one or two people at the school to try to get information or analyze the situation," Salamon spoke up. "A small group is less likely to get caught than a big one."

Danny nodded. "That's a good idea. But now the question is, who do we send in the group to the school?"

"I think that you're probably one of the best candidates, bro," Andy spoke up. "As a ghost, you have better stealth than any of us here. You can go invisible, fly fast, and go intangible."

"That's true," Takuya 2 agreed. "Who would be better at stealth than a ghost?"

Danny blinked. "But I'm the one Walker is after! If I go, his goons may find out where I am!"

"And if any of us goes, they'll find us due to our Digimon partners. And unlike you, the rest of us can't fly, go through walls, or go invisible," Jazz pointed out. "You have the best chance of outrunning them if you are caught."

"If it will help, Danny, Dorimon and I will go with you. Dorugamon is the only Digimon here who can fly if needed, so at the very least, I'll be able to ride on a fast flying Digimon if we need to make a fast getaway," Andy stated.

Danny smiled. "That would be nice, bro." He then frowned. "But Walker may mistake you for me, so I want you to be extra careful if we do go as a group."

"Walker… did think I was you, didn't he?" Andy remembered. "Maybe we can use that to our advantage."

Danny blinked. "Oh? How so?"

Dorimon blinked. "I gotta hear this."

"If Walker does see us, he would be confused as to who to go after," Andy said.

"But if he sees you flying on Dorugamon, wouldn't he just know you're not Danny?" Sam pointed out.

"Not necessarily. Danny can make it so it would look like I was flying if he was holding me invisibly. He would be close enough to me that the ghosts wouldn't be able to tell his ghostly aura isn't coming from me," Andy noted.

Dorimon was snickering at the idea while Danny blinked. "Hmm… That… could actually work. Ghosts don't seem to know twins when they see them, at least, as far as we know, so we can use that against them."

"But it'll be easy to tell if Danny is in ghost form since he does look different enough in that form," Lopmon pointed out. "Not to mention the ghostly aura he's putting out makes it unmistakable that he's the ghost boy they're looking for."

"That's where the invisibility comes into play," Andy said. "Danny… listen, this is what we'll do…"

---

"I don't know, bro, I still don't feel like this is the best idea ever. You could get seriously hurt," Danny Phantom said for the upteenth time as he was flying towards the school with Andy riding on Dorugamon.

Andy was wearing his own hazmat suit, though surprisingly enough, his usually black hair was currently white. Andy's hazmat suit looked identical to Danny's black and white hazmat suit. "It'll be fine. This wig that Sam put on me fits like a snug bug, so it won't fall off so easily. And this spray paint on my hazmat suit should keep the other ghosts fooled… as long as I don't get it wet."

Danny frowned. "I still think this is a bad idea." He then sighed. "But, if you think this will work, then let's at least give it a try."

"We're coming up to the school now," Dorugamon announced.

"Alright, go ahead and land, Dorugamon," Andy instructed.

Dorugamon did as instructed and landed just outside the school. Andy swiped a degeneration card on his D-Arc, letting Dorugamon return to his In-Training form, Dorimon.

"There, this way as less data, you're less likely to get sensed," Andy said as he picked Dorimon up into his arms.

Dorimon frowned. "That's true, but I don't like this idea myself. You never know what could happen."

Then Dorimon paused, remembering how Andy had visions of the future, even if the boy would keep denying it. "Do you?"

"It's a risk I'm willing to take. It's either that or let Danny go on his own or put someone else in danger instead," Andy sighed. "Or we do nothing and let Walker get away with whatever it is he's planning."

Dorimon sighed. "I guess we'll just have to hope for the best then…"

"Okay, bro, hang on," Danny whispered as he picked up Andy, turning them both intangible as he flew into the school.

Following his ghost sense, Danny flew through the dark school. Andy couldn't help but notice how much creepier the school was at night.

Danny looked around before coming to a hover and setting Andy down carefully. He made sure to not land himself, lest he make any noise. "Okay… we should be good to go now…" Danny looked around again. "This place is creepy at night. Makes me wonder if the school itself is haunted, not just locker 724."

"Of course the school is haunted," Andy whispered.

"Really? What makes you say that?" Danny asked.

Andy looked at his ghostly brother, raising an eyebrow. Danny looked down at himself, seeing his own ghostly self, and the fact his legs were currently a ghostly tail instead of legs.

"I meant by other ghosts, not me…" Danny muttered with a sweatdrop.

Dorimon had to stuff his small legs into his mouth to keep himself from laughing out loud.

"Considering how often this school had been attacked by ghosts, or had ghosts already inside it like Spectra and Bertrand? I would say yes still," Andy replied.

Danny sighed. "Okay, let's just get this over with… I don't want to be here longer than necessary, bro."

"There's a bit of light over there," Dorimon pointed out with his little legs.

Andy looked at where Dorimon was pointing. Sure enough, there was a door into a classroom that was wide open, and there was some kind of eerie blue light coming from it. They also heard voices coming from the classroom.

Andy had a shiver go through his entire body. "Suddenly I feel like I'm in a horror movie…"

Danny rolled his eyes. "Welcome to my world, bro." He then made sure to hover over to the door slowly, turning himself invisible so as to not get seen.

Andy quickly made his way over to the door. He slowly peeked through the door along with Dorimon. They were surprised to see Calvin standing in front of a group of people, not just students, but adults too, including Mr. Lancer and Principal Ishiyama. What was even creepier was the fact they weren't using the school lights, they were using torches that were burning unnatural blue fire. Andy was convinced now more than ever that he was in a horror movie.

Of course I had to live with a family of ghost hunters, one of my siblings IS a ghost, and now I'm seeing some kind of ghostly meeting with people they have possessed! … Well technically overshadowed, but still, it's very disturbing! Andy inwardly gulped.

"Okay, is everyone clear with the plan?" 'Calvin' asked as he looked at the assembled group.

"Yes," 'Paulina' said with a sinister smirk. "It should all go down tomorrow after the town meeting."

Andy frowned before he felt something tapping his shoulder. Andy normally liked keeping a cool head in tough situations, however, he was already on edge with how creepy everything was, and with all these ghosts that had clearly overshadowed these people, one could forgive Andy for reacting the way he did.

Andy gave a scream as he jumped away from the tap, which turned out to just be his invisible brother, unfortunately this also caused the other ghosts to notice him.

Every ghost possessing a human had their human host stand up and give sinister smirks at poor Andy. Andy looked at all the ghosts that had all stood up, their eyes glowing red as they stared him and Dorimon down. Dorimon's golden eyes were wide as tears of fear came down on his cheeks.

"... Uh… hi?" Was all Andy could say before 'Calvin' suddenly grabbed the front of his hazmat suit and picked him up, hitting him into the chalkboard. "Oof!"

'Calvin' sneered before his body suddenly fell to the floor, revealing the white ghost with green eyes that Andy had seen before in the Ghost Zone. "Gotcha punk!"

The other overshadowed people were laughing.

Somehow, Andy was less scared of Walker now that he revealed himself outside of Calvin's body. Something about Calvin being overshadowed was far creepier than the actual ghost himself.

Walker sneered at poor Andy. "How does it feel to have no place to run, no place to hide? I'm gonna turn your whole world against you, and not just the human world, but the Digital World soon as well, and by the time I'm done, you're gonna beg for the safety of my prison."

"Walker, maybe you don't remember, but I was the one who made you explode," Andy remarked. "Shall I remind you?"

Dorimon gave a devilish grin as data surrounded him. Dorimon digivolved into Dorumon, which Walker immediately recognized as the Digimon that had blown him up back at the Ghost Zone a few months ago.

"You… You're the Digimon that nearly destroyed me!" Walker frowned before his sneer came back. "Well, this will be very interesting, since I could turn your world against your digital pet as well."

"What's your plan here?" Andy asked. "You're trying to turn this world against Danny?"

"You don't need to know the details," Walker stated. "But perhaps I could use you against your own brother~"

Dorumon jumped and scratched Walker's face, making him let go of Andy quickly.

"You leave him alone!" Dorumon exclaimed before he then bit down on Walker's arm, hard!

"Come on, Andy," Danny whispered, grabbing onto Andy's waist and began to fly him out the window.

"Dorumon! Come on!" Andy called out to his partner.

After Dorumon gave Walker one more kick to the chest for good measure, he ran over to the open window and jumped out, using his little wings to fly after Danny and Andy.

Walker looked up, anger on his white face as his solid green eyes blazed with fury. "Don't just stand there gawking at me! Get him!" Walker roared as he pointed after the three fleeing figures.

The other overshadowed people flew out of the classroom to give chase. Walker took over Calvin's body again, and had him fly out as well to join the chase.

Danny was still invisible as he kept flying while holding onto his brother. The other ghosts only saw Andy. They could also sense the ghostly energy Danny was outputting, but they thought it was coming from Andy. Andy had been right, the ghosts were completely convinced Andy was Danny Phantom right now.

Danny didn't like the plan, but it seemed to be working so far. "What now, bro?" Danny whispered to Andy.

"Keep flying for now," Andy whispered back. "Dorumon, it's time for a little bit of exorcising!"

Danny chuckled. "You know, bro, you can make some good witty banter when you want to."

"Oh shut up," Andy groaned before he got his cards and D-Arc ready.

Dorumon, seeing what Andy was doing, turned around in midair to face the incoming ghosts, or rather, the overshadowed humans.

"Alright, now!" Andy then held up the device and his card. The card spun before Andy caught it in two fingers, looking up from the shadows. He then held the device over his head, the card slot facing down towards his head. He stuck the card's edge into the slot and dragged it through, the card being pulled towards the right side of his body and the device towards the left side of his body. "Digi-Modify!" Andy called out. He pulled the device and card apart from each other. "Etemon's Dark Network activate!"

Dorumon summoned several black wires from the ground around the school that immediately came up to the ghosts flying towards them. The wires wrapped around the ghosts, trapping them as well as shocking them a bit to keep them from being able to concentrate enough to go intangible.

Dorumon grinned as he saw that. "It worked!"

Unfortunately, there were more overshadowed people still flying towards them.

"Not enough!" Andy frowned.

Dorumon yelped as he quickly flew after Andy. Danny flew up higher, trying to get further away from the other ghosts. It was then Andy noticed that the sky was currently a blood red color, and it was also a full moon tonight. The time of day showed that it was currently twilight, but the blood red sky made him very uneasy.

Danny looked back at where Andy was looking and frowned. "Why is the sky red with a full moon when it is twilight out?"

"I don't know! Maybe some of the ghosts made it red? This isn't important right now, just keep-" Andy gasped when 'Calvin' suddenly flew up in front of them, grinning evilly with his eyes as red as the sky.

"Oh crap…" Danny muttered. "This is so not good…" He looked around, seeing a few other ghost-overshadowed people coming up from behind them.

"You're not getting away, punk!" 'Calvin' snapped as he flew right at Andy.

Dorumon flew in front of Andy quickly. "Metal Cannon!"

Dorumon shot out an iron ball at 'Calvin's' face, knocking him away.

"Hey… Calvin is going to be alright after this, isn't he?" Andy asked in concern as he saw 'Calvin' falling.

"I think so." Danny replied. "Ghosts can give their hosts they overshadow fast healing and higher endurance. But… I'm not sure to be honest. I'm just guessing…"

"More are coming! We have to keep moving!" Dorumon spoke up.

Danny flew down with Andy, and Dorumon was moving to keep up. 'Mr. Lancer' and 'Ishiyama' were now coming after them. 'Mr. Lancer' managed to get a hit in by tackling Andy, this caused Danny to accidentally let go of his brother, and released his invisibility. This caused 'Mr. Lancer' and the other ghosts to look in shock and confusion at the appearance of another ghost boy.

Danny looked at himself, realizing they were no longer invisible. "Uh oh… Looks like the jig is up..."

Then Danny realized he had let go of Andy, and Andy was currently falling. Danny gasped and was about to go after his brother when a mechanical claw grabbed his chest and zapped him. Dorumon dove after his partner while Danny was dealing with the overshadowed Ishiyama.

"I got you, Andy!" Dorumon shouted as he reached out his claws towards the back of Andy's hazmat suit, grabbing it quickly. "Gotcha!"

"Thanks, Dorumon," Andy said in relief.

Dorumon wasn't able to carry Andy far as he was, but he could at least glide them down to safety. Unfortunately, however, the confused overshadowed ghosts were also going after him. As Andy had predicted, they weren't sure which brother was the actual Danny Phantom, so they were splitting their group to go after each one.

"Looks like Danny is on his own from here," Andy noted, seeing that an overshadowed Paulina was coming after him.

'Paulina' flew at Andy, grabbing him and Dorumon as she flew them over a building.

"You won't get away from me!" 'Paulina' declared as she held onto the front of Andy's hazmat suit. "You or your digital pet!"

"Awesome, just what I wanted, for Paulina to say that to me," Andy hissed before he moved his feet under 'Paulina's' stomach and pushed her off of him, her grip wasn't on as tightly as she thought, because he was able to kick her off.

Dorumon flapped his wings harder to keep them from hitting the building that 'Paulina' had them almost up again. Unlike Danny, and Takuya when he was in his Digimon form, Andy was completely human, and he was not as durable as they were. If he hit the building, especially at the speed they were going, he could be seriously injured.

Dorumon was able to keep them from hitting the building, but 'Paulina' was not so lucky, as the overshadowed teen was thrown against a billboard with the image of the mayor on it and the words 'Say yes to Amity' on it.

Dorumon managed to fly them to the ground, however as soon as they landed, an overshadowed Kwan landed in front of them. 'Kwan' was holding some kind of neon green baton in his hand. From the corner of Andy's eye, he saw Danny landing on the side of a building, duking it out with another overshadowed person.

Huh… guess ghosts do give gravity the middle finger… Andy noted.

'Kwan' began to spin the small green baton in his hands in an effort to intimidate Andy and Dorumon.

Dorumon stared in disbelief while Andy decided to make a better use of his time than to show off. He swiped another card on his D-Arc. "Digi-Modify! Frigimon's Icy Breath activate!"

Dorumon took a deep breath and let out the Icy Breath onto 'Kwan', freezing the overshadowed boy into an icicle almost.

With 'Kwan' currently frozen, Andy looked up, seeing a larger group of overshadowed people flying towards him. "Okay, I think it's time we leave now."

Andy held his D-Arc to Dorumon. "Digivolve, quick!"

Dorumon nodded as the words 'DIGIVOLUTION' appeared on the D-Arc's screen.

"Dorumon, digivolve to…" Dorumon was surrounded by fractal code as he felt the energy of Andy's will fill him. His skin began to peel away from his face and head, then his stomach and his tail was last to lose the skin. But as he regained his skin, his claws and legs came back first, then his wings came back with skin, flaring open to reveal their larger size, his tail swung around once as it regained the skin, and then his head and face were last to regain their skin. "Dorugamon!"

Now as Dorugamon, Andy hopped onto the Champion's back, and Dorugamon opened his wings before flying up into the sky.

"Head over to Danny," Andy instructed. "We have to get him to leave too before he gets overwhelmed by these incoming ghosts!"

Dorugamon nodded. "You got it!" With a flap of his wings, Dorugamon was airborne in no time and making his way over to where Danny was having to fight the overshadowed principal and Mr. Lancer.

"Danny! We need to get back to Fenton Works and put up the Ghost Shield!" Andy called out to his brother. "There are more ghosts coming this way! We can't handle them all!"

Danny looked back at his brother. "That's exactly what I was thinking! Let's scram out of here!" With that, Danny took off towards Fenton Works, hoping to get away from the ghosts that were now after him.

Dorugamon was right behind Danny. Dorugamon was a very fast flyer, he could easily keep up with the ghost boy. Andy looked back, seeing the overshadowed humans chasing them in the air. The other people they were fighting with earlier, like 'Paulina', 'Calvin', and 'Kwan' were also coming after them.

Andy looked into his D-Arc. "Jazz! Come in, Jazz! Do you read me?" On Andy's D-Arc screen, what looked like an odd symbol appeared. One circle side was larger than the other, with a smaller circle inside the bigger one, connected by a line to a smaller circle.

"Andy? What's wrong?" Jazz asked. "And why did a heart appear on my D-Arc screen?"

"Nevermind that right now! Listen, Danny and I are coming in. We have ghosts, well ghosts overshadowing people on our tails right now! Get the Ghost Shield ready to go up!" Andy quickly instructed.

"Okay, Andy. Just get in before I press the button." Jazz replied. The symbol faded as Jazz hung up.

"Jazz should put up the Ghost Shield as soon as we get in the house," Andy informed Danny.

"Good! Let's hurry!" Danny said.

Danny and Dorugamon flew faster as the ghosts were getting closer. Andy was ready to use another card if he had to, but he was already tired, he hoped he wouldn't have to. Luckily, they had made it to Fenton Works. Unluckily, Dorugamon would not be able to fit into the door.

"Danny! Grab hold of us!" Andy called out before he swiped a degeneration card on his D-Arc.

Dorugamon gasped as he suddenly degenerated into Dorumon again. Danny, seeing this and hearing Andy's instructions, quickly flew down and grabbed onto them. He then turned them all intangible as he flew into the house. Danny wasted no time getting into the lab where Jazz was waiting with Lopmon.

As soon as both her brothers and Dorumon were back in the house, Jazz hit the button for the Ghost Shield, activating it over and around the house. As soon as the shield was up, the overshadowed people slammed into it, the ghosts inside their bodies unable to pass through.

Danny looked out the window to see the ghosts were just staring back in annoyance. Danny then turned back to his human self before closing the curtains so he wouldn't have to look at the overshadowed people anymore.

"Looks like it's working, they can't get in," Danny said in relief.

"Yeah… but we can't exactly leave with this town being filled with people who are overshadowed with ghosts." Andy frowned, who was with Danny as well. "There are too many out there, more than we thought… and without Takuya here helping us… I'm not sure what our chances are… I hate to say it, but Takuya is the strongest one we had here…"

Jazz came up from the lab. "Did the ghosts leave?"

Danny looked back at Jazz and sighed. "Yeah, they left us alone for now. But there are way too many ghosts to handle, at least for all of us who have Digimon partners, and me…"

"We're going to need to do something soon." Andy frowned.

"Why? Did you find something out?" Lopmon asked.

"We didn't find out a lot, but from what we've heard, something is going to happen at a town meeting tomorrow," Dorumon stated.

Jazz blinked. "Huh? What does that have to do with all these ghosts?"

"I don't know, Jazz, if I did we would've solved this crisis by now!" Andy snapped.

Jazz winced, and Andy frowned. "Sorry… I think most of my nerves are shot after the creepy vibe and the chase earlier…"

Jazz sighed. "It's okay… Anyone would be on edge if they were in your situation." She said reassuringly.

"Yeah, you actually jumped and screamed when I just tapped you," Danny reminded his twin.

"I don't blame him," Dorumon sighed. "There were a lot of unnatural vibes going on. The ghosts can give off this atmosphere that makes the living feel incredibly uneasy and restless. It probably didn't affect you as much because you're half ghost yourself."

Danny rolled his eyes. "Haha, very funny, Dorumon."

"What's funny? I wasn't joking." Dorumon frowned. "Look at how Andy reacted back there. He's usually pretty calm and collected, even in tough situations, but he completely lost his cool when you just tapped him at the school. What does that tell you?"

Danny sighed. "I was being sarcastic. I know ghosts can make the living feel on edge and restless."

"Is that true?" Jazz frowned. "But we fought with a lot of them the night before."

"Fighting them is one thing, but actually sneaking around in what feels like their territory, inside other humans especially, can wear on a person's mind," Lopmon spoke up. "When you fight with them, you're not thinking about that, you're just focused on fighting."

Andy sighed, and rubbed his head. "I'll have to keep that in mind the next time I try to sneak around a place full of ghosts… It was like I was a mouse scurrying around in a den of lions. I felt bad for the poor mouse."

Jazz frowned in thought. "This is a very interesting development. I will have to make note of how humans feel around ghosts."

"Not just that…" Andy looked at Danny for a moment. "We might have to see if half ghosts give off the same kind of vibe too."

"Come on! I'm too tired for this! Don't start analyzing me now!" Danny complained.

Jazz chuckled and rubbed Danny's hair in an affectionate manner. "You know we're just teasing you, right little brother?~"

Danny just pouted.

Though Andy was genuinely curious about Danny's biology, it was more out of worry and fear than scientific curiosity. Andy gave a sigh. "Dorumon and I will be in the living room if you need us."

Before anyone could say anything, Andy walked downstairs, Dorumon frowned before he went after his partner.

Dorumon looked up at Andy as they made their way to the living room. "Is something on your mind?"

"I finally know why I still get uneasy chills around Danny when he's in his ghost form… It's not just the fact he isn't human anymore, it's also because his half ghost nature naturally creeps me out. I hate feeling like this around my own twin brother," Andy sighed softly.

Dorumon frowned. "That must be hard… But, I don't even want to know how Takuya feels when around Danny, given his ability to become a Digimon."

Andy gave an expression of thoughtfulness before sighing. "In a way… Takuya isn't all human either. With his Spirits, sometimes he seems to act more like a feral animal, especially when his emotions get the better of him."

Dorumon shook his head. "Well, that got depressing quickly…"

"Sorry… these were things I've been keeping at the back of my mind for a while," Andy sighed. "I guess this experience just brought them back up."

Dorumon gave Andy a concerned look. "You're not worried or scared of me, are you?"

Andy looked at Dorumon before giving him a small chuckle. "You? Nah, you're my partner, and you were always a Digimon. I guess I'm just… not sure how being a Digimon or being half ghost affects a human being or their psyche. Call me a worrywart if you must."

Dorumon chuckled at that. "You wouldn't be my partner if you weren't such a worrywart, Andy."

"Heh… well, I need to change out of this hazmat suit… get it washed before Mom and Dad sees it… and take off this wig," Andy sighed.

---

Danny and Jazz frowned when Andy walked away earlier.

"Is he okay?" Danny asked.

"He's your twin brother, have you noticed anything bothering him lately?" Jazz asked.

"I guess you could say that, yes, I have noticed Andy has been jumpy lately." Danny sighed.

"Around the ghosts in general or…" Jazz paused as she looked at Danny, seeming to not want to finish her statement.

"Or you?" Lopmon finished for her.

"Just… in general I guess." Danny shrugged. "I mean, he was on edge the whole time we were in the school. But… the way he jumped when I tapped him makes me think it's not just the ghosts. I am worried Andy might be feeling more uneasy around me as well."

Jazz frowned a little. It hadn't been that noticeable, but Andy did seem to be looking at Danny a little more cautiously lately, but it was easy to ignore due to everything else that had been going on.

"What about you, Jazz? Do I make you feel uneasy?" Danny suddenly asked.

"What? Oh… I haven't really thought about it much," Jazz admitted. "Honestly, I was just happy you would tell me your secret, and that I could help you in your battles. I was also trying to help Lopmon get through some of his… darker thoughts about his past."

Danny sighed. "I guess I can take that as a 'no' then. I wonder if Andy feels more uneasy around me because I am his twin and I am half ghost."

"Well, twins are said to share the same soul," Jazz remarked. "I think Andy said something about a link you two have? He didn't really go into detail about it though. That might be what's been making him more… sensitive around you."

"Twins are very close beings, even Digimon twins. Terriermon may not technically be my twin, but we are pretty close, even despite what had happened before," Lopmon added. "I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case with Andy and you."

Danny smiled a bit. "Heh… That makes some sense. I didn't even know Digimon could have twin siblings."

"Oh yes, there are some rare cases that an egg could hatch twin Digimon," Lopmon remarked. "There's an old story about a Terriermon and a Lopmon, they were partners with a kid named Willis. But then the Lopmon was infected by a virus that turned him evil, and he began hunting down Willis and his own twin brother Terriermon. And… ah… well, I guess the story isn't that important. The point is Digimon do have twins."

Danny blinked before sighing. "At least you know what I mean I guess. I just… sometimes feel like Andy is pushing me away because he is uneasy."

"Is he though?" Jazz suddenly asked.

"What do you mean?" Danny questioned.

"Andy let you overshadow him when you two came to recuse me when Lopmon and I accidentally… uh… merged I guess. If Andy wanted to push you away, he wouldn't have let you do that," Jazz pointed out. "I think Andy isn't trying to push you away, more like he's trying to understand you, even if he's scared of what he might find."

Danny sighed again. "That is true… I just… I don't know! I don't want Andy to feel scared around me! He's my twin brother! I don't want him to feel that way!"

Jazz sighed sadly. "I get the feeling Andy doesn't want to feel that way either."

"Hey… how about we all turn in for the night? It's been a long day, and we need to prepare whatever it is that Walker ghost is planning for tomorrow," Lopmon spoke up, hoping to break the tension.

Danny sighed again once more. "Yeah, that would be best. I feel like I need some sleep, and maybe it would do Andy some good too."

---

Titanic X: ZAFT: The bug meal was quite funny. XD

DarkFoxKit: I'll be honest, it was something I added in last minute just to be funny.

Ct7567Rules: DarkFoxKit: Yeah, the episode is called Public Enemies. I remember watching a lot when I recorded the episode way back then. I liked the idea that Danny Phantom was now known to the public, when before, he was unknown except to a few people.

ZAFT: I will update the Gundam Seed story more often now that things are calming down. :)

Luna Lillyth: DarkFoxKit: The episode is called Public Enemies. As for your guess… heh, well, I won't say anything to it, but it is very likely to happen that way.

ZAFT: You can never tell what twists we will take~! :3