A/N: As FFN goes on a heat wave, Tajeri Lynn the Extremo Luchadore is helping you guys cool off with another hot chapter! But first, he shall speak of a few replies from the fellow reviewers of the last chapter….

Make no doubt about it; Susie is 17 and she's lisping. But hopefully, that last chapter does provide a little new light on Susie's persona. Hey, who says kids should stay kids anyway?

Heyo, Digidestined of Courage! I really love "The Ancient Prophecy" from JCA. You've easily got those characters down pat. Can't wait to see you finish it, amigo!

Digimon is property of Toei Animation and Saban Entertainment. That said, Tajeri Lynn shall back off as the show begins!

Phase D: Taught and Tight

Well, it's time that I start ending the dilly-dallying from this half hour break, though I must add that it doesn't feel like half an hour, but way shorter. That's kind of funny, don't you think? Back at Shinjuku Elementary, a half-hour break would be a godsend next to freshly made luncheons at the cafeteria. But now, half-hour makes me wonder how much growing up has truly reversed my old ways of thinking. Gee, my little blue watch reads 11:52pm…Only eight more minutes before I drive back to Hypnos and meet this new employee. Hope she's a hottie. Oops, better not think that way in front of Rika Nonaka. Even if we're great friends, she never stops trying to read my mind.

Uh, I forgot to tell you, didn't I? Sorry. I'm sitting on this neat little seat at Plucky Boy's, a little 24/7 burger joint just blocks away from Hypnos. With most of Shinjuku asleep, the traffic is safe as I drive, and best of all, Rika works at Plucky Boy's, she's a cashier and then some, so she always knows I'm ordering the same order of those exotic peanut-butter sandwiches. I feel so sticky when it comes to her. Uh, oh…maybe that sticky feeling's coming from that peanut-butter.

Rika's life so far has been said to be my life's counterpart, though I hesitate to ever mention the "c" word. The loss of Renamon devastated her and she began losing confidence in being the "Digimon Queen", even through her teenage years. But what got her worse was her mother Makino's abrupt….passing. Makino was at a fashion show when the 9.0  Trembler struck, and the show was tragically close to the epicenter….So now Rika lives with only her beloved grandma, Hata Seito, who does her best to keep Rika the happiest girl in the household, and I know Hata has often succeeded.

Rika says she hates her job and is glad that she only has to work during the weekends. She tells me that her co-workers would squirt the ketchup and mustard at her when she's leaving, and she gets pissed. She swears one day she's going to be on the Wanted List because of them, not that she actually would be, she's too nice to actually be that. I'm kind of sorry for her, but at the same time, I'm kind of jealous of her. She's having the harder time and I'm going relatively easier and getting more than she'd ever dream. No, wait. Scratch that 'ever' thing. I'm sounding like she doesn't have a chance, and that's not what I intend to think. Rika's being the tough girl that she is, and I'm so proud that she's still tough. I kind of cower in the face of unfriendly, teasing people, and…that's what happens when you've been baking in the friendliest neighborhood of West Shinjuku. Now, "friendliest" isn't around anymore. But Rika still is…

"Takato?" Rika spoke, her lilac eyes watching her childhood buddy.

Takato turned from his train of thought. "Yes, Rika? Oh, good sandwiches, as always."

"And to think they're the simplest things on the menu," mused Rika, hands laid on the cashier. She was a more fuller woman, her figure resembling that of her mother's. However, her once onion-headed batch of orange hair was now arranged so many locks shot above like spikes on a pineapple! (Not a good hairstyle? Write on your review what the style should look like!) The style was quite pretty…for a rebel… "How's things looking with Janyuu and the digimon?"

"Most of it's top secret, but since you're always one for keeping secrets, I'll let you in on something. The Digital World? It'll only take another month for us to recover it."

"Oh, wow, a month? That long? It's been ten years, Takato, and I'm already feeling like a crabby old woman who's about to die! Only Grandma's around to remind me I'm not."

"Yeah, I know it feels forever. And I know how close you and Renamon were."

Rika narrowed her eyes and showed her cold lips. "Don't even start mentioning the girl-on-girl jokes you keep making!"

"I didn't say that!"

"Well, you might've been!"

"Heh, heh, heh…" Takato chuckled nervously. "Um, Rika, um….I think it's time for me to go, um…Loved the dinner…See ya…."

"Now wait, Takato," Rika half-sang the sentence. "You're always asking for the doggie bag, and don't say you don't need it because you didn't finish two of the five sandwiches. Such is you to escape me when I'm getting the better mouth."

Takato sighed, a puff of air expelling out of his mouth. "Alright, Rika, you win. Can I have the doggie bag?"

"Please," Rika spoke back.

"Pretty please?" Takato said, bowing his knees dramatically over the ruffled Plucky Boy's trademark mat, clutching his hands before the orange-haired cashier.

"Okay, Takato, geez, now you're acting like a Romeo talking to a Juliet," Rika chided, silently pulling a bag next to her. "Though if I were Juliet, I wouldn't follow Romeo's example."

"Hey, you'd never know."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Uh nothing," Takato smiled as the bag was given to him. He wrapped the sandwiches in napkins and threw them into the bag. "See ya?"

"Yes, now I could say 'see ya'. And one more thing, Takato."

"What is it, 'Digimon Queen'?" Takato eyed her closely.

"Don't kneel on the trademark mat. A lot of sick people tend to vomit there," Rika spoke in her typically vacuous manner, before dropping the act and making a few chuckles.

"Ah, yuck!" Takato looked at the legs of his khakis, soaking wet from the mopping done on the mat.

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"Takato, you're a few seconds late," Yamaki spoke up as the boy made his reentry to Hypnos . "Where have you been?"

"On a little wet spot.." Takato mumbled embarrassingly while he wiped his shins with a towel that he promised to bring back to Rika.

"Hmm…" Yamaki stared at Takato, not approving of Takato's new fashion sense. "Well, Takato, the new employee just came here. She's programming right now, adjusting a few algorithms that'll speed up our objective."

"Where is she programming?"

"Right over there, Takato," Janyuu pointed a finger at the individual. Takato turned, and he went "Gah!" in awe at the non-digital sight.

The woman was in her 30s, Takato knew this because she was only in her 20s last time he saw her, and last time was almost 10 years back. The new recruit donned a standard Hypnos garb, much as the one donned by Yamaki's spouse and partner at work, Riley. She had maintained that long brunette hair that dribbled down to her waist, and her face still had those alert brown eyes, the small nose, and her chest…Wait, where'd that come from?

"Takato, what is it?" Janyuu warily asked his shocked stepson.

"That's……that's Ms. Asaji!" Takato spoke, lower jaw still gaping.

"Perceptive boy, isn't he, Janyuu?" Yamaki smiled at Dr. Wong.

Janyuu straightened his faltering glasses up his nose. "Takato…You…know this recruit?"

"Not just do I know her, I went to classes from her. I knew her math homework was from some other dimension!"

"Other dimension?"

Takato refocused on the elder scientist to define his enigmatic expression. "Other dimension, as in near impossible to figure out in this dimension?"

"Well, Takato, good news," Janyuu patted the shoulders of Takato's pseudo-leather jacket. "Not just is Nami Asaji going to help you restore the Digital World, but she won't have to assign you any math problems anymore, and I'm telling you, Takato, her computation skills are as sharp as a knife!"

Takato lowered his eyes in sarcasm. "Yeah, sharp as knife…" he perked a boyish smile, "and dull as gray."

"Dull as what?!" came that creepy and reprimanding tone.

"AHH!" Takato screamed, and he turned over to meet Asaji, who herself gasped quite loudly at seeing him. "Asaji, I'm sorry! Please don't put me in some kind of detention!" Takato ruffled his sugar-brown hairbreadth.

"Takato Matsuda? Here?" Asaji softened, watching her former student backing up from her. She looked at Yamaki. "You didn't tell me Takato knew about this place."

"He doesn't just know about this place," Yamaki replied. "He works here." The Hypnos leader paused to wipe smudges off his sunglasses. "4 years of experience. Knows the Digital World left and right, most of it…Goes well with the dental plan and insurance plan. Misses Guilmon like a father misses a son…I think you know the tip of his qualifications by now."

"Takato..it's been quite a while, I mean, and yet, you're not that much different."

"Well, um, I'm kind of taller, and things have been looking pretty girl, I mean, pretty good. Heh, heh," Takato shrugged his shoulders, wiping his lab coat for no real reason. "It's good to know you're on board."

"I bet. Do you still know your one, two, threes? Or do you still call them the three, two, ones?"

"Alright, enough babbling between you two," said Yamaki. "I hate to break up introductions, but the Digital World has no time to stop for nothing, even if it's Valentine's Day in September."

"What are you talking about?" Asaji asked, scratching her long hair.

"Figure it out yourself, cause I've got to-ARGH! URR!" Yamaki dropped his sunglasses and collapsed onto the floor like he was shot by an assassin. Asaji turned across the Hypnos lab, wondering who just got Yamaki, but Takato and Janyuu dropped everything and was pinning down the screaming, convulsing Hypnos leader.

"Takato, what are you doing? You're supposed to help him!" Asaji knelt towards her former student.

"I AM helping him!" Takato then called louder to Riley and the other scientists. "RILEY, YAMAKI'S HAVING A SEIZURE! GET AN AMBULANCE NOW!"

"Oh my God!" Riley handed her cell phone to a colleague, who grabbed it and dialed numbers without question. She then thrust open a case with a hypodermic needle, and she scampered down the echoing stairs and came to the side of her psychotic husband Yamaki, whose irises were rolling away from the sights of his rescuers. Riley planted a palm on the side of Yamaki's shoulder and jabbed the needle ever carefully. She loathed stabbing anything to her husband, but whatever hurt came from the needle was all third rate to the pain swelling within him.

MTs were on Yamaki's side in no time, and they carried him out on a stretcher before carrying him via an emergency chopper. Everything felt like seconds when it was really minutes, but once Yamaki was out, the time slowed again.

But everyone wished it still moved fast. That way, Yamaki would not have to suffer so.

Riley watched the departing chopper from a window, and bowed her head on it, sighing quietly as not to express any weakness before the other workers of the Hypnos Project. She shared Yamaki's prideful demeanor, and was not willing to drop it so long as Yamaki lived. "Alright, everyone!" she ordered calmly, "Back to your positions! Report whatever you can salvage about the Digital World."

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At Takato's post, Asaji was tapping a ball-point pen lightly over the keys on the keyboard right before her. Takato was busy adjusting a digital camera, one intended to scan wide portions of the digital hemispheres where Guilmon, Renamon and company were residing. However, he couldn't shun his eyes from seeing Asaji looking…guilty, of something. The tapping was more from being stunned than being focused on those algorithms Takato couldn't possibly read in another hundred years.

"Asaji," Takato began speaking. He turned back to the camera and shut the lens in case he smudged it while having this conversation. "You've got to punch in the coordinates for Z3. I can't go anywhere unless you do that."

"………"

"Asaji…" Takato spoke irritated. It was not liked him to stalk around anyone who wasn't listening to him. He usually thought the person got burnt out and needed major peace, which was earth's rarest resource. But Asaji, he had known her not to be the peaceful one, so dropping the old act kind of scared him.

"Takato…I'm sorry out there."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry I didn't know Yamaki had that. And even then, I didn't try to keep him down or do anything about that."

"Don't be sorry, Asaji. This was the first day on the job, and Yamaki's a little unprofessional for keeping his problem to himself and his wife. Yamaki will be fine. It's not been the first time that's happened to him."

"Then how long did he get that, and why?"

"For about four years, I can't quite remember, but I think it was four years. The 'why' part, I'm not sure, and I don't want to ask Riley about that, cause she's the next authority in line after Yamaki."

"Oh…So unfortunate. I'm grateful no student of mine was stricken while I was teaching….And Takato, Yamaki kind of dropped this when he collapsed," Asaji held up a red zip disk, with a label sticker but no words etched on it. "Can't I give this back to Riley at the very least?"

"Nah, keep it. Riley is in P.O. mode, and she doesn't want to meet anything resembling her husband's seizure," he then whispered to the teacher's ear, "even our words. So let's just get this job done and get Guilmon and everybody else out into the earth."

"Okay, Takato," she whispered and slid the disk into Takato's plastic disk box, shutting the lid and rolling the ball-point pen behind the monitor. "Don't mind keeping it there?"

"It's okay. I don't forget so easily."

"Okay." She set her hands over the keys and typed rapidly, about a hundred words per minute. "Time for the mathematician to play us another song," she spoke as the keys emitted the loudest, most curious sounds resounding through the lab of the Hypnos Project.

To Be Continued….

Not much? I know. But I'm doing mucho duty, writing for all sorts of people. Hope you amigos like this! Adios, until then!