Mammoth Mountain, CA, approx. 10 years after Owikawa's defeat...

A 17-year-old girl sat at her computer desk, one foot resting inside an open cabinet, the other resting on its toe beneath her chair. She absently flipped back her amber-colored hair with one hand and continued tapping away at a keyboard in front of her. On the bed beside her, a silver-and-gold Turkish Van cat curled contentedly on a pillow. Beside the Turkish Van sat something akin to a large, yellow, toothed frog in tiger skin. Cy the Gabumon watched the girl's computer screen intently, her clawed feet dangling over the edge of the bed.

"Sarie, why are you looking for a way into the digital world when you could just buy a ticket and go there?" Cy asked the girl.

"Why should we pay a hundred bucks a pop just to go somewhere we should be allowed to go for free?"

Cy looked as if she were about to object, but just sighed and shrugged her blue-striped shoulders instead. "All right, but if you get caught..."

Sarie looked back at her Gabumon, half-exasperated. "Cy, have I ever gotten caught?"

"Well, no... but Izzy Izumi almost caught you!"

Sarie snorted derisively. "That nerd's so full of himself, he couldn't catch a wormmon, much less the Ryu."

Cy shook her head. "Talk about overconfidence..."

"What?"

"Nothing..."

At that moment a ball of brown-and-white feathers hurled itself at Sarie's head, squawking raucously. "Sariesariesarie, cheesecheesecheese!" It babbled insanely.

Sarie pried the ball of feathers from her head and held it out in front of her, not at all amused. "Savior, how many times have I told you, no cheese after dinner!"

"Zerglingfedittome, itwasveryverygood! Getmoreeasymac!"

"Zergling! You fed Savior easy mac??!" Sarie roared.

Zergling stepped through the doorway, elegant on her two raptor-like hind legs. Sharp inner toe-claws clicked irritably on the wood floor, and her spine-covered tail swished angrily. Her arched, raptorial neck bristled with extended spines, and her blue-green eyes were narrowed viciously. "I didn't feed it to him, he stole it from me. That's not the point I came down to make, though. We've got a visitor."

"What sort of visitor?" Sarie asked, quickly typing in an away message into her computer's instant message system.

"I don't know, but it's certainly not the pizza man. I don't think it's human."

"All right, let's go."

Sarie and her digimon padded upstairs to the front door where a very tall, skeletally thin being clad in a full-length black robe stood, leaning on a staff made of some polished white material. Sarie shuddered in revulsion as she realized that the staff was made of the twisted, broken leg-bones of a Birdramon, bound together with strands of Mammothmon hide. The being's breath came in wheezing, foul-smelling gasps, and when he spoke, his voice was like a thin whisper. "I seek the final three." It gasped, leaning towards Sarie.

"What final three?" Sarie coughed, backing away from the foul-smelling creature. "And who are you?"

"The final three elements," the creature intoned in a sing-song voice. "Shard of ice from the arctic queen's cannons, spine of dragon-lord's helm, blade of the ninja king! Restore the death-lord's power, let both triplets run red with blood! Fire consume earth, earth reduce sea to dust, sea drown the highest peaks in rage! Hark, angel-three! Thy doom is at hand!" The foul-smelling being cackled insanely, waving its macabre staff in the air.

"Sir, I don't know what you're talking about." Was what Sarie wanted to say, but instead archaic phrases crossed her lips, a challenge to the bone-wielding skeleton. "Leave, death-lord, for the Angel-three live still and shalt not add to they foul power. The child of fate will bring thy doom to thee."

The being stopped cackling abruptly, and his whole manner changed. With a roar of rage, he vanished. In his place stood a massive Machindramon, cannons powered and locked onto Sarie. "I serve the death-lord! I will spill the blood of the enemy!" It roared.

"Over our dead bodies!" Spat Zergling, beginning to glow a bright white. Savior and Cy did the same, and the three began to change shape.

"Zerglingmon digivolve to Malizerdramon!"

"Hawkmon armor digivolve to Shurimon!"

"Gabumon warp-digivolve to Weregarurumon!"

Zergling now stood three stories tall, and her head was encased in a smooth helmet of silver armor. Her spiked tail was wrapped in a spiral of gold, and her hand-claws had lengthened and fused into long, razor-sharp blades. Hawkmon had used the power of the digi-egg of sincerity to become Shurimon, a samurai digimon with coiled vines for arms and legs and vicious four-pointed shrukins for hands and feet. Gabumon had digivolved past her champion form into Weregarurumon, a deadly werewolf digimon with tattered jeans, spiked bracelets, and a nasty disposition. All three faced Machindramon fearlessly, teeth and blades bared.

Machindramon let loose a barrage of white-hot, heat-seeking missiles at the three digimon. Savior deftly dodged one missile and flung one of his star-pointed blades at it, exploding it high above the house. Cy stepped to one side of the second missile and grabbed it before it could re-target her. Snarling, she flung it high out into nearby Mammoth lake. A small tsunami wave knocked over several beach huts in the explosion, soaking vacationers. Zergling blocked the third missile with her bladed hands, then deactivated it with a short static burst. Then all three faced Machindramon, powering up their attacks.

"Garuru kick!"

"Twin Stars!"

"Tail Strike!"

All three attacked in unison. Savior's two shrukins hit Machindramon squarely in the chest, slicing through several hydraulics. Cy's clawed foot smashed into the mecha digimon's head, knocking him over. Zergling's tail strike was the final blow, rendering Machindramon senseless.

"Way to go, guys!" Sarie cheered as Savior and Cy returned to their rookie stages and Zergling returned to her champion stage. "Now I think we'd better get back inside..."

"What if he wakes up?" Cy asked, uncertainly prodding Machindramon's still form.

"We'll be long gone by then."

"Where are we going?"

"The digital world." Sarie said, heading back inside.

"What about your parents?"

"We'll leave a note."

Zergling shook her scaly head as she followed Sarie inside. "I don't think this is a very good idea..."

Just as Sarie sat back down at her computer, a bright silver something smashed through the ceiling onto the bed, leaving a massive hole in the bed's mattress and nearly scaring the fur off of the sleeping cat. The silver object then rose from the mattress, glowing and unearthly bright silver-purple color. The object was shaped like half of a globe, one side colored purple and covered in a soft, rubbery material. The other side was silver with a rectangular display screen in its upper half. The lower half had a few purple, oval-shaped buttons lined up in neat rows, and a curious symbol was etched into the lowest half of the circle. The symbol looked like a half-closed eye with a triangular pupil and three long lines extending from its lower half, one from the upper half. Sarie reached out and grabbed the object, which felt warm to the touch. When her hand touched it, the object began to glow a brighter color and let out a high-pitched whistle. All three of Sarie's digimon began to glow and, as the whistle grew higher in pitch, they grew taller.

"Cy crest-activation digivolve to Diregarurumon!"

"Savior crest-activation digivolve to Holy Falcomon!"

"Zergling crest-activation digivolve to Matriarch Zerdramon!"

All three had reached new, much more powerful stages then they had previously been able to achieve. Cy had become something like a Garurumon, but with 3-foot-long canine teeth and silver-blue armor plates covering her hind legs and chest. Two cuffs of the silver-blue metal encircled her front wrists, and these sprouted long, knife-like spines that covered her front paws. Silver earrings dangled from her long, tattered, striped ears and thin metal rings covered her neck like ancient African tribal jewelry.

Savior had grown in size to massive proportions. He was six feet long now from beak to tailtip. His razor-sharp beak was like an eagle's; The paired wings on either side of his back, four in all, were tapered and elegant like a falcon's. His main and secondary coverts were a blinding white, and the feathers darkened from there to a deep, molten silver at the tips of his primaries. Beneath those wings were a pair of muscular, gold-armored lions' paws. His hind legs were like a bird of prey's, with huge 1'2" talons at the ends of his long, scaley toes. His tail was broad with silver tips to each feather. Lightning seemed to crackle around him, beneath the feathers on his back, and through his talons and claws.

Zergling had grown larger; She was almost 15ft tall now. Triceratops-like horns thrust out from above her narrowed, blue-green eyes and from above her flared nostrils. Two huge, dragon's wings fanned from her back, and her tail's spikes had lengthened to 2ft each. Her hands were broad and covered in spiky scales, and her claws were dangerously sharp.

Sarie was in awe. Her three digimon almost frightened her now, with their jaws snapping and energy rippling from their skins. The necklace she always wore, the only piece of jewelry she owned, rose from the neck of her shirt and began to glow also with a bright light. The intertwined figures within the circle of the necklace seemed to move and shift positions until they resembled a wolf, a raptor, and a hawk. Then the jewel at the center of the necklace took on the same curious eye design that was on the half-orb. Almost without thinking, Sarie lifted the half-orb to her computer screen and yelled, "Digiport open!"

Suddenly she was rushing along in cyberspace, the numbers 0 and 1 flashing by in endless streams of data. Beside her she could vaguely feel the presence of her three digimon, but realized that they, as well as she, were now computer data. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the transfer to the digital world stopped. Sarie fell with a thud into the top of a tall tree, sending leaves and Kunemon running for cover. Beside her hovered Savior and Zergling, and Cy stood on the ground beside the tree, grinning openly.

"We thought you'd be along soon." Came a voice from somewhere nearby.

"Who's there?" Sarie asked, struggling to right herself in the tree. A branch beneath her snapped, though, and she fell with an ungainly thud into a pile of fallen leaves at the base of the tree.

"I'm the 'nerd who couldn't catch a wormmon, much less the Ryu', to quote you," came the voice. Sarie, utterly mortified, turned to stare in openmouthed horror at Izzy Izumi.

"I-i-izzy! Umm, that wasn't me! It must have been some... err... other person! Yeah, maybe my sister!"

"...you don't have a sister."

"Oh, yeah... please don't arrest me!" Sarie cried, groveling to Izzy.

Izzy sighed, exasperated. "We don't arrest people smart enough to access the Digital world. We hire them. Besides, you're a digidestined, and therefor destined to come here on your own anyway."

"Wait, I thought everyone was a digidestined now. I thought you and the other eleven were the last 'true' digidestined."

"Obviously, we weren't. Not everyone gets three digimon, and even fewer have crests and the power to incite digivolution. Right now, you and us twelve are the only crestholders out there."

Sarie picked herself up off the ground and brushed dead leaves from her jeans. "Why was I chosen, then?"

Izzy shrugged. "None of us know how true digidestined are chosen. Some of us think it's pure coincidence. I, however, disagree. I don't know what causes people to become true digidestined, but I don't believe it's pure coincidence."

Sarie mulled that over for a while, one hand on her necklace in a gesture she always used when thinking. "One more question," She said after a few moments. "Who was that foul-smelling skeleton, and why was I brought here in the first place? Things look calm to me."

"We don't know all about the skeletal digimon, but we know a few things. It refuses to name itself, and it has the power to call up digimon from anywhere, at any time. The digimon it calls are all much more powerful than their normal counterparts, and once the skeleton finishes with them, they die. So far, none of these dead digimon's data has been reconfigured."

"But data can't be lost, only reconfigured, I thought."

"So did I, but it's obvious we were wrong. Someone's deleting digimon, permanently, and it'll destroy the whole digital world if it's not stopped."

Chapter 2

The number three

"So tell me again, why is three so significant?" Sarie asked Izzy as they walked towards a huge pyramid rising out of the digital world's jungles.

"Well, think about it. At one time, before we found out about you, the number of digidestined was a multiple of three. If you don't count Kari and T.K. because they were digidestined in the second group, there were six of us first. Then we added three true 'new' digidestined: Davis, Yolie, and Cody. The addition of Ken brought our number to twelve. You have three digimon, so there's another occurrence of three. Also, we've discovered a strange phenomenon. There are three linked digital worlds, and three linked real worlds. There's also a Dark Digital world, and there are three of those as well. We found the words 'Three times three' carved on the walls of these temples, but we can't decode the rest of the words."

"I'm pretty good at languages, maybe I can help." Sarie suggested.

"Maybe. Um, you might want to have your digimon go back to their rookie levels. It's a little cramped in here." Koushirou said, stepping through the low stone doorway.

Obediently, Cy became Gabumon, Zergling became Zerglingmon, and Savior became Hawkmon. Then Sarie and her digimon followed Koushirou into a tight, cramped, dark hallway. Dust stirred up by their footsteps caused Cy to cough, since she was so low to the ground. Sarie picked her up and carried her, now completely unable to see. "Zergling, how about some light?" She said quietly.

Zergling opened her jaws wide and formed a ball of flame in her mouth. She took the fiery orb in both claws and held it high above her head, providing illumination. Koushirou turned back and grinned guiltily. "Sorry, I forgot that you might have trouble in the dark. We've been down here so many times, we don't need light. There's a chamber ahead with torches, though. The others are waiting there."

After a few more minutes of walking in silence, they suddenly came into a massive stone room. Sarie had noticed that the passage they had just come through sloped downward slightly, so this room was beneath ground level. The room was at least as large as the pyramid's base: so huge that she couldn't make out the far wall in the gloom. One corner held thirteen stone chairs, and torches flared in wall brackets above the heads of eleven of the thirteen digidestined. Seated on the floor or on their owner's laps were the digimon, all at rookie stage except Gatomon who was perpetually a champion.

Tai Kamiya stood to greet Sarie, Agumon by his side. "And here's our newest and youngest member. Have a seat, Sarie. We were just talking about you."

"Thanks," Sarie said quietly. She had never actually met any of the digidestined, who were all somewhat of a legend. They were all there: Yolie and Ken Ichijouji; Davis, the famous noodle chef; Kari Kamiya; Takeru, or T.K., Ishida; Matt Ishida; Cody, the feared and famed defense attorney, who had kept many innocent men out of jail; Mimi, producer of a famous cooking show; Joe, the world-famous digimon doctor; and Sora, as well as Tai and Izzy.

"Someone seems slightly tongue-tied." Matt observed. Sarie blushed furiously; Matt had always been her favorite digidestined by far.

"Do you blame her? A half-hour ago she was trying to hack into the Digital world, and all of the sudden she's here with the twelve most famous digidestined of all time!" Davis shouted.

T.K. rolled his eyes. "He hasn't changed."

"It doesn't matter. We're all equals here, and we've got to work together to beat this darkness." Cody observed.

"Do you think this skeleton could be somehow a creation of a dark spore?" Ken asked quietly.

"I wouldn't discount that possibility," Koushirou said.

"Maybe Daimon's back from the Dark Digital world," Kari suggested.

"Could Daimon have been reduced to that emaciated figure she saw?" Tai asked.

"Maybe. We don't know what long-term residences in the Dark Digital world can do to a being."

"Enough speculation," Joe said suddenly. "Shouldn't we check out Sarie's fighting style so we won't interfere with each other if something comes up?"

"That's probably a good idea. I don't think we have the option to work out kinks in the plan if something bad does come up suddenly," Tai reasoned.

"Wait," Sarie said, rising to her feet, "What do you mean, 'kinks'? I fight just fine! My digimon defeated a Machindramon in a few seconds just half an hour ago!"

"Hey, don't get indignant. What I meant was, with 15 powerful digimon fighting all at once, we need to know how each of us fights. That way we won't end up negating an ally's attack," Joe said placatingly.

"All right," Sarie said, grumbling slightly.

"You'll be fighting a sort of illusion. It'll fight back, and it can hurt you, but you won't actually be fighting something real," said Koushirou, setting a grey metal square about 3 inches a side on the floor in the middle of the cave. "Now, do you have any preferences in what to fight?" He asked.

"No, just give me the biggest, baddest digimon you've got in that thing. We can take care of it," Sarie said boldly as her three digimon came to stand in front of her.

"She asked for it..." Koushirou shrugged. Then he turned to the other eleven digidestined, grinning. "Should we give her Sataskullmon?"

Tai grinned back. "Sure, she asked for the worst monster we've got."

Koushirou pulled another 3x3 grey square from his pocket. "Skullsatamon!" He roared, hurling the square towards the other one. As if by magnetism, the two squares joined perfectly in a stack. A bright red glow shone from between them, and suddenly they began to float apart, still directly above each other. From that glow came a red-boned skeletal figure with black, tattered wings and a glowing staff. Its white-on-black eyes narrowed evilly as it stepped from the glow. The two squares immediately fell back to the floor with a clatter.

"Cy crest-activation digivolve to Diregarurumon!"

"Savior crest-activation digivolve to Holy Falcomon!"

"Zergling crest-activation digivolve to Matriarch Zerdramon!"

Skullsatamon laughed insanely and flipped back from the three deadly digimon. "Nail Bone!" it roared, firing millions of needle-like bones at the three digimon. Zergling easily deflected them with her wings, then shot a huge, blue-white fireball at Skullsatamon.

"Matriarch Fireball!"

Skullsatamon reeled from the blow, but recovered quickly and attacked Zergling again. "Nail Bone!"

The attack came to quickly for Zergling to dodge, but just as the needle-sharp bones were about to hit, a flash of silver-blue dashed in front of Zergling and deflected the attack.

"Dire Shield!" Roared Cy, encasing herself in a glowing blue energy shield. Skullsatamon roared in rage as his attack was again deflected. Just as he was about to launch another attack, a ball of silver-and-white feathers smashed into him. Before he could get up, a golden ball of energy hit him squarely on the chest.

"Angel's Ramming!" Cried Savior.

"All together now!" Sarie shouted, bringing her hand up. Her fist burst into silver flames, momentarily blinding the other digidestined and Skullsatamon.

"Generation Howling!"

"Dove hunter's cry!"

"First Leader's Striking!"