Guardian Algorithm

by Fizzy 13

1st in my NS Series: Set 5 years after D-Reaper, Takato is recruited by a covert government organization known only as NS-8 and on the first day, wonders why Rika works there, when she allegedly died in an accident 5 years ago. Chapter 8 Uploaded!

8. CHAPTER 8

AN: This is going to include what you might take as a pointless sub-plot about a disgruntled naval officer and his fleet, but who even cares about that? Preparation for the raid on Xabercom. Kari loses her head. Literally. What the hell she's doing in this fic in the first place. What MacLeod really is.

newb: Thanks for keeping in touch… I really needed the encouragement.

FAX: That's really touching, you know… thanks a lot. I never thought anybody would go through the hassle of reading the entirety of what I'd posted so far. Now I know I can continue this thanks to everybody, especially you.

Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon, I do not own anything here… except maybe the Agency. The concept of immortal people running around and cutting each heads off in dark alleys/corners/places (in general) to gain possession of each others' power until only one is left belongs to Gregory Widen (in layman's terms, Highlander). I consider part of this chappie as sort of a tribute to him and his great idea. The US Carrier Battle Group Kepler is completely fictional, so are all of its crewmembers. Stanley Darington being President is as unreal as Pinocchio since Bush miraculously won himself a second term. Besides, putting non-fictional, non-historical people into fics is ILLEGAL! Okay? Good… now that we got that settled, can we get on with the fic now?

Falling Hawks and Latina Bambinas

Briefing Room, NS-3 Headquarters, Catacomb Level 4 - The Frauenkirche, Munich

Thursday, 1413 Hours, Local Time

The unforgettable sight - of the thousands of corpses that have been embalmed and buried over the centuries - lingered in Rika's eyes as she crossed over from the medieval dark and dank of the subterranean catacombs beneath the Frauenkirche into the modern design of NS-3's primary. Being a German term, not many foreigners really understood what 'Frauenkirche' was, moreover what it had to do with the 'Church of Our Lady'. That it was simply how the locals preferred to call it, a nickname that certainly had much more convenience than saying the whole four words repeatedly.

Built from 1468 to 1488, Frauenkirche and its twin onion-like domes that rested atop the two symmetrical towers on the west side of the cathedral - built in the flamboyance of the Gothic style - have, over the ages, become the very symbol of Munich itself. A mere two blocks southeast of this awesome structure was an even grander sight to behold; the heart of the city, the Marienplatz square, which contained the Gothic Old City Hall, built in 1470, and the neo-Gothic New City Hall, which was constructed at the end of the 19th century. Two of the main streets that connected to the Merienplatz led to the Karlstor and Isartor gates, which have been around since medieval times.

All in all, Munich was one of the Federal Republic of Germany's cultural, commercial, and religious centers, not to mention the capital of the state of Bavaria. Its position on the Isar River, around 25 miles north of the Bavarian Alps, provided the best trade routes in the immediate area. One of its more tragic - and certainly more popular - stories revolved around the time when the Olympic games were held there, where Arab terrorists crashed the party by kidnapping and/or slaughtering the Israeli athletes who had come to compete. It was another grim reminder that nobody was safe when it came down to the terrorism issue. That was basically a summary of what Virgin had told the NS-8 Operative about the place. Nonaka ambled into the Briefing Room once Virgin's Western European Persona had confirmed her identity by means of DNA scanning.

She had met the Director himself earlier, a friendly elder by the name of Schubert von Felnickstein, who just happened to be praying at one of the, more or less, candle-covered altars in the church proper. There was something about him that just made whoever he met at home with having a short conversation. After a little chat about the Frauenkirche's history, the NS-8 Operative was instructed to talk to Brother Rhickt concerning the 'Mortuary Problem' that the church had 'deep' underground. "You never see how something like that could possibly connect…" The Digimon Queen eyed the main entrance just in time to notice the friar's chocolate colored hood gently waltz out of the door and back into the catacombs.

She sat down in one of the chairs, getting a feel for the place. Nothing new, really, in terms of style. This scene might as well have been taken from inside any office building in any modern city, judging from how plain the view was. Nonaka was currently dressed in the typical gray suit that went around so often these days. She could swear she saw eyes checking her out back there on the city streets. After all, what kind of sick woman would wear such an outfit with such a hairdo? The suit never did go with the stiff ponytail. She sighed and shook her head just as a blonde walked in and dropped into the seat opposite of her.

There was an air of familiarity around that girl. Those emerald eyes struck the NS-8 Operative as something that she'd seen before, the only question being as to where she saw them. At least she got to choose her working clothes and dressed as any - European? - 16-year-old would. Fastened to her head was a lavender ski cap, giving Rika the impression that she was one of Sora's long lost relatives or something. Further down was a horizontally striped blue and white midriff - It's French, isn't is? Bust emphasis says it all… B? or C? - encased in a lavender sleeveless jacket, finishing off with a matching purple skirt below. Where had she seen her before? Nonaka's cerebellum operator grabbed a cartoon mallet and smashed open the piggybank of visual memories that resided in her head. It was then that the Digimon Queen noticed the man who was sitting silently at the head of the table, chair turned away from the conglomeration of glass, steel, and silicon as he read a copy of some random Shakespearean book.

It is said that all humans have a rather sub-psychic connection with each other, depicted by the fact that if ever somebody stared at you for an allotted period of time, sooner or later, you'd sense this and begin searching for whoever was spying on you. And so this fact's credibility was reinforced as Nonaka's gaze triggered the receptors in the man's brain, causing him to turn around and close his book, gently placing it in front of his terminal. Rod Sloane ran a hand through his slick black hair and eyed the red head. "Rika Nonaka I presume…" he beamed, "I'm Rod Sloane, NS-3's Deputy Director." The accent told her everything she needed to know. He was a Brit.

Sloane had quite an impressive record. Five years in the Royal Air Force (RAF), seven in the Special Air Service (SAS), another six at the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), formerly known as MI-6 (Military Intelligence Section 6), and the last decade or so at NS-3, have each contributed to his experience and credibility as a soldier and commander. His current rank, Lt. Colonel, a mere two ranks away from General, spoke for itself. "I assume that you're ready to do this? The rest of the team should be here shortly and we'll be able to begin soon enough. In the meantime, I would like to introduce you to your team leader…" he gestured to the blonde, who was now smirking, as though she had anticipated some sort of reaction from the NS-8 Operative.

"Izumi Orimoto, this is Rika Nonaka. Rika Nonaka, Izumi Orimoto." The two exchanged glances. "We call her Zoë for short. She's from Italy."

"It's interesting, don't you think?" Rika was the first of the two to speak.

"What?" Orimoto didn't quite get that remark.

"That you're from Italy yet your name sounds Grade-A Japanese." It was the queen's turn to smirk. Mind games was one of the things she'd learned from those long nights of talking to Virgin just for the heck of it. Ask a question, spike a comment, whatever, and wait for your opponent's reaction. Although there was the problem of confusion that the Id posed… whatever it was doing right now. "Are your parents descended from Japan or did your father go there on a business trip?"

It was quite a confusing topic indeed, but the younger of the two could catch up quite a lot, if not just a little. "Actually, I've got dual citizenship. I'm both Japanese, and Italian. Ethnically speaking, however, I'm from the same homeland as you."

This answer was startling. Nonaka didn't see that one coming. Damn! Everybody wants to be like Mimi…

"You see, my parents," she trailed off into a whisper, "Or at least the 'here' equivalent of my parents…" Zoë's volume went up again, "They go to Italy frequently on business trips, naturally, taking me with them. We usually stay in Tokyo's Shibuya district, although this year, things are pretty busy. They're quite active in the trade. My mother's a fashion designer, you see… and dad's into marketing."

"Shibuya, eh?" It was around then that the fundamental question hit her. Why was she recruited in the first place? A Tamer, most probably. If so, however, where was her partner? Could it be possible that she was recruited for some other talent or reason? "Okay… but explain to me why you were recruited in the first place. From your age group I can tell it's probably because you're a Tamer. Correct?"

"Eh…" Orimoto fumbled for words in her pocket of vocabularies, "Something like that… I don't have a partner, though…"

That's an interesting concept… "Well, what do you have, anyway?" That slightest tinge of familiarity with this girl was still gnawing at Nonaka's consciousness. Where had she seen her before? Where did she hear that name before? Why did that short reference to family business trips seem to her as if she knew it all along? Who the hell are you, Orimoto? Perhaps Rika had acquired Alscheimer's Disease or something...

Orimoto's hushed answer was overshadowed by the advent of two boisterous men who looked like they had just come from a bar. One had the hair, nose, and eyes of a Frenchman, verified by his accent and the terrible English with which he spoke to the other, a blonde, the accent of whom proved him to be Irish. The two stole a glance at Rika, whose eyebrow was raised at the pair in utter surprise and confusion, then shifted their gaze to Sloane, who was shaking his head disapprovingly at them, and finally, to Zoë, who was looking back with a single line for an eyebrow. They quieted and sat down in opposing seats.

Sloane snapped his fingers right then, apparently to get everybody's attention. "Well, now that everybody's here, allow me to finish the introductions." The NS-3 Deputy Director gestured to the Frenchie, "This is Jean Paul Turois, your communications specialist. He's had six years working with NATO as a spotter. He might seem a little annoying to you at first, but let him do his job, and he'll do his best to help out with yours."

Turois smiled at the redhead with all the charm he could muster. He wasn't 20 anymore, that was certain. He was something more on the lines of two-past-thirty, but that didn't stop him from trying. Girls have been his thing ever since Primary school, and he was far from through playing his little game. "I am pleased to see that the Orient has raised some lovely roses, and so, I am greatly honored to meet you, mademoiselle." The Frenchman threw a flying kiss in Nonaka's direction.

This hadn't shaken her usual icy composure. After all, sweet talk wasn't the kind of thing that really got to her core. She needed something big… something dramatic… something like -

CLICK!

The sound of a pin being ripped out of a parent grenade brought her attention to the Irishman, who was smiling, the familiar metal ring between his teeth, as he held the coarse, oblate form of a grenade in his right hand. Rika's initial reaction was to dive beneath the table, but, seeing as the Irishman didn't seem to do anything to get rid of it, figured it was a dud and sat back to watch.

"Kevin's the name… Kevin Murphy."

It was at this point that Sloane decided to remark on this astounding prankster of an operative, "Lieutenant Murphy was one of my… eh…" The NS-3 Deputy Director stammered for words, "Colleagues, at the SAS. He specializes in-"

"Blowin' things ta smithereens." Murphy interjected, spitting the pin into one of the many garbage chutes that lined the table. "And if yer thinkin' what I think yer thinkin', lassie, then yer thinkin' wrong. This grenade ain't a dud. 'Tis quite live, it is." The grenade soon followed its pin down the chute. "Ya see, it's got a delayed timer-" The loud roar of an explosion far down below was heard - "That gives it another ten seconds or so before things get really heated up."

Most underground NS Cells had a very effective waste disposal system, in the sense that they didn't really need to call in the dump truck. Most trash that went down those chutes suffered fates similar to what Luke Skywalker and company experienced inside the Death Star's trash bin. For the convenience of some people who didn't see Star Wars, it was the scene that popularized the "Trash Compaction Chamber of Doom" scene, complete with a creepy monster that plowed through the murky depths of the heavily polluted sewage. To put it simply, most underground NS Cells had a trash compaction chamber that, on trash days, cranked up to squeeze a maximum of about a hundred or so tons of garbage into the size of an average TV set. The compaction panels were composed of something like fifty tons of titanium steel, backed up by several hundred thousand Newtons' worth of force. Definitely more than enough to crush that much trash. It would take far more than a simple grenade to even scratch such heavily plated structure.

"And I suppose you were the one who thought of doing that with an outdated frag grenade?" Nonaka was amazed at Murphy's seeming adoration of things that went boom. Still, it could be that the reason demolition experts remained in their field for extensive periods of time was because of that. The fragmentation grenade was practically from the same generation of explosive as WWII Potato Mashers, hence, it was the third oldest known explosive in the world, to dynamite, that is. What wonders modern ingenuity had done for such a weapon! Convince them it was a dud, then, when they drop it and start laughing, boom! Goodbye, Charlie!

"Well, it took some work, and certainly lots of time…" The Irishman smirked, "But it was worth it." Murphy tore his jacket open to reveal probably something that only the movies dared to show. Strapped to his torso and the inside of his jacket was every kind of conventional explosive available. Dynamite, hand grenades, fragmentation grenades, HE grenades, C4, firecrackers, ball bombs, bottles of nitroglycerine, WWII 'Potato Mashers', even a pouch that contained gunpowder. Kevin Richard Murphy, NS-3 Dem-Op Specialist, was a walking, talking, real life human bomb. From the looks of things, he seemed more fit destroying government buildings and killing children with those blokes at the IRA than doing these things with a UN-Administered Agency.

Sloane cleared his throat to get everybody's attention again. "We all know why we're here today, correct? Well then, let me begin briefing you." That was when an aged businessman-type stepped through the door. He appeared respectable enough, although his powder white hair looked like it had better days behind them. The untrimmed mustache, taken together with the rest of his facial features, would give anyone who didn't know any better the impression that Einstein had risen from the dead. There was an air about him that made everybody silent as they watched him slowly, calmly, and quietly traverse the distance between Sloane and himself.

"Zat von't be necessahy, Mishta Shloane," he was referring to how his assistant was about to stand up and hand the seat over to him. "I vill shtand heah und zee how jhou fair in a bhiefing."

Sloane wasn't used to giving briefings, and his former calm had merely been a façade, which would've worked, had not von Felnickstein entered the room. "Right…" the NS-3 Deputy Director answered with a tinge of British sarcasm. Calmly enough, he reached for a remote control on the table and tapped on one of its keys, bringing a picture of Cameron MacLeod - and those cold green eyes - to the display screen. "As you all know, last night, our colleagues over at NS-4, with assistance from the ever helpful teams from NS-8, uncovered the identities of some of the formerly anonymous Agency directors, as well as one of their developing schemes. Cameron MacLeod, CEO and direct descendant of his namesake ancestor who founded the Xabercom weapons R&D conglomerate, has been chosen to further a so-called "Commac Project" at his headquarters just outside London."

Sloane touched another key, resulting in another frame appearing on the screen; this time showing a bird's-eye-view of the Xabercom Compound. It was a large complex consisting of at least a dozen buildings, three large hangars, and a runway, presumably for military aircraft testing. The entirety of the little village was surrounded by 30-foot-high walls at least six feet thick. The only entrances were fortified in a way that even the guardhouses were a little too much even for a military installation. In the meantime, Murphy had produced a cotton swab and was currently cleaning his right ear.

Multitasking people were amazing indeed, but even in this kind of situation, was it possible to do so? Sloane didn't seem to bother as he switched frames to an isolated little structure within the bounds of a chain link fence surrounded by several heavily armed guards and English countryside.

"Just to tell you, we asked our good friends over at the SIS to do a little research on Xabercom's security system several months ago to ensure its safety from anybody who might try to break in and steal any untested ion-based weapon of some sort." He coughed at the irony of the fact that they were the ones who were going to break in. "I must say that… as an expert in assessing security systems, theirs is second to none. We're talking about hidden cameras in almost every corner, laser tripwires for silent alarms where you least expect them, and, of all things, a maze-like structure that could and would easily confuse anybody except employees… and their fast-acting security team."

"So what's it got to do with that little shack out in the middle of nowhere?" Nonaka was surprised at the tenacity and professionalism of Orimoto's question. On one part, she was the kind who wanted to get to the point. On the other hand, however, she wasn't cutting Sloane any of the slack he expected from his first briefing.

"MacLeod's father, Lucas, figured that the best kind of power supply would be a hidden one, hence preventing the possibility of anybody cutting the power to the compound." Sloane flinched somewhat at the statement. He knew much more than just that. He knew that Lucas MacLeod had been dead since 1142. He knew that Cameron MacLeod had been running around for the past 830 years or so, furthering whatever personal goals he's had ever since. He knew that he'd been evading suspicion by pretending to die every now and then and emerging as his 'son' a few years later. But what could Sloane do? That was his style, let him play it that way. After all, his only duty was to watch these people do their thing, whatever it was, without any interference whatsoever, and record it in the databanks, which have existed for millennia on hand. "So he had several of his most trusted subordinates cut a clearing in some woodland about ten miles south of the main compound and build Xabercom's main power generator there. This thing was designed to give out three times as much power as the entire facility requires because the current runs through three separate power lines on three different routes to the distribution generator in Xabercom itself. If one is cut, it won't affect the complex because the other two are still pumping away. However, SIS's research indicates that if you take out the generator itself, the power will go out with a 10 minute or so delay until the backup generator goes online."

Sloane wiped his brow, which was sweating despite the air conditioning. "The loophole in MacLeod's plan was that he expected somebody to cut the power then go over to the main facility. He didn't consider the possibility of somebody cutting the power while a secondary party waited just out of sight of the guards for the lights to go out. And that's exactly what we're going to do. We'll have an SIS black op team, accompanied by our very own Kevin Murphy," Murphy grinned. Joy, another demolition job… "Raid the generator and kill the lights, while you little girls steal the CD containing the schematics for the Commac Project. Remember that once it's lights out, you have ten minutes to get in, grab the disc, and get out. Turois will provide navigational support, taking care of your little problem with Xabercom's maze-like internal structure. Any questions?"

No further questions were asked.

Shinjuku District, Tokyo

Thursday, 2348 Hours, Local Time

There was nothing like cruising at a thousand feet above the concrete canopy of the city at around Mach 0.7 in a 35-million-dollar F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter, and that was exactly what Lieutenant Thomas "Bogey Hunter" Brigman was doing at the moment. Although the rank didn't sound much, the US Naval Lieutenant was the equal of a Captain in the Army, Air Force, and Marines. He was currently wingman for this routine F-117 fly-over. These aircraft didn't originate from some distant American airbase in the Japanese countryside, though. No, they had come from straight off the coast of Tokyo bay; to be more precise, from the USS Kepler, flagship and only aircraft carrier in the nine-vessel United States Carrier Battle Group Kepler, which had been on assignment to patrol the skies of Japan for terrorist activity for the past six years. Apparently, the 9-11 attack of 2001 had triggered a mobilization of all the branches of the American military, including the Navy, to go forth and seek out terrorists within all of its allies and enemies. Japan, of course, had proven itself to be one of the former. After all, why else would the Commander of the Pacific Fleet Marine Force base the third marine ground division and first aircraft wing in Okinawa?

For Brigman, all he'd ever experienced in this country was a practice bombing run or two, and - he shivered at the memory - the D-Reaper incident. This night, however, was as quiet as the rest before and after, all 2000+ flights during that period turning up empty handed. As usual… he thought in either utter disappointment or concealed relief as he switched frequencies to the Kepler. I guess it's time to report in… "This is Bravo-Zero-Two to Tango-Oscar-Niner, come in Tango-Oscar."

"We copy, Zero-Two," came the disembodied voice of one of the bridge's anonymous operators, although he could somehow tell who it was. "How's the weather out there?"

"Nothin' out 'ere but clear skies and moonlight, Meiyers." Brigman answered, his disappointment and/or relief manifesting itself in his voice, "This is our fourth re-sweep of the city. Any more and we'd probably run out of fuel. Face it man, the terrorists just aren't biting tonight…" Or on any of the nights they sent us out. "Why don't we just call it a night and send the Raptors out before the sun comes up or something?" Brigman could hear Meiyers' voice mix with another's, presumably the OIC - Officer In Charge - for the night flights, Commander Dillon Gavan, in some sort of conversation.

The operator came back a moment later, with not exactly an answer Brigman would've preferred, but was, more or less, satisfied with, "Commander Gavan wants you to do just one more sweep of the Shinjuku Ward, then you can come home, Zero-Two. Tango-Oscar, out." Bogey Hunter's radio went dead with static, causing him to switch back to the squadron's frequency.

"Can you believe this?" Lieutenant Matthew "Foxtrail" Hurrt's voice burst forth from the transceiver. "Bush sends us here telling us to always stay fully alert and expect major terrorist attacks on our overseas installations, and what the hell do we get so far? Diddly Squat, Ironheart! Diddly Squat! And now Darington's left cleaning up the old fart's international mess! I mean, you think Bin Laden would try another 9-11 here? The tallest building's forty stories high, dammit! Forty goddamned stories! I'm telling you, it's the earthquakes! They scare terrorists away!"

Brigman shook his head. Hurrt was the 'Ranting Swede' of the three, always complaining about something, although lacking the said cartoon character's accent. From the sound of things, he was having a nice little chat with the squadron leader, a Lt. Commander Eric "Ironheart" Clawes, your typical, jolly bastard. "Okay, break it up, you two. Command says to make one more sweep of the Shinjuku Area, then we can turn tails."

"Finally!" Clawes announced with a trace of exhaustion in his voice, "Alright, boys, take the elevation down to two hundred feet over the rooftops. After we fly over the target area, make the turn around and let's skedaddle." Brigman did just that.

"I'm telling you guys, save for a few Yakuza gigs the marines bust every now and then," Hurrt Rambled on, "There hasn't been a shit of terrorist activity here for the last six years! Our trip here was worthless!"

"You do have to admit, though," Brigman cut in, "The Japs weren't kidding when they made those Godzilla movies. The place is just crawling with monsters…"

"Yeah, those Di-gi-ta-mon or something…" Hurrt thought in wonder, "Incredible what you can do with computers these days, eh? You can even make your own real monsters!"

"Of course there was that other thing… just a few days after new year 2002? Remember that thing?" Brigman chimed in. He'd had a few personal experiences with the nightmarish conception he was alluding to. "That D-Reaper is sure as hell gonna be my worst memory of this place."

"Oh yeah." Clawes tried to recall that time, "You flew a B-2 over that thing, right? While them "Digimon-kids" was fightin' it?"

Brigman was one of the six daring souls who tried their hands at piloting B-2 Spirit Stealth Bombers and dropping electronic/radio wave jammers into it. Each of the mysterious black birds had two-man cockpits, allowing space for up to the allotted number of pilots. "Heh… closest I ever got was a few hundred feet when we swooped in and laid down our payload of electronic radar jammers."

"What was it like?" Hurrt was probably looking for something new to rant about.

"Like someone dumped several thousand tons of strawberry, orange, and grape flavored Jell-O smack dab in the middle of Tokyo! Made me so sick I hurled on the flight deck when I got back…"

"Hey, guys?" Clawes wanted his shot. He was taking it. "Wanna hear the rest of my joke?" Brigman had told him to hold the rest of it back when he reported in to the Kepler. It would be most sensible to finish.

"Sure, why not?"

Clawes smiled as he took the shot. "Okay, so I tells him," he continued in the ridiculous Texan accent he used for joking, "To get his stinkin' shriveled wiener outta mah face and stick it into someone else's!" The trio of fighter pilots started chuckling at the punch line that only they seemed to understand; that was until a rude beeping sound on Clawes' console disturbed their conversation. Cutting the chatter, he turned to see what was going on, although his ears had already told him all he needed to know. Visual contact had merely established more problems, as he, in a panic, brought the radio back on, for a more serious reason than congenial babble, "LASER LOCK! BREAK! BREAK!" This exclamation, however, seemed a moment too late as his voice was drowned, that very second, in both a sudden burst of static, and the thundering roar of his F-117 igniting into a ball of fire care of a high powered laser that seemed to come from somewhere on the ground.

"Jesus H. Christ!" Brigman did the most logical thing and made a 180-degree turn in order to buy him time to find out just what exactly shot his friend down. He made another smooth turnaround over the canopy of buildings, getting just what he wanted to see in view of his infrared sensors. What had turned up next utterly shocked him even more. He was staring at something straight out of his favorite game from the 'Blow Some Stuff to Hell With a Giant Robot' genre, Mechwarrior. "Mad Cat…" he mumbled to himself as he armed his missiles, knowing very well that the Kepler would give permission to return fire anyway.

Hurrt, however, Ranting Swede that he was, was by-the-book enough to follow SOP and radio their parent aircraft carrier for support, "Mayday! Mayday! This is Bravo-Zero-Three to Tango-Oscar-Niner reporting Code Lightsaber! Repeat: Code Lightsaber! We are under attack by hostiles with laser weaponry! Zero-One is down and out! Request permission to engage!"

The voice that came back through the radio was calm, as though they knew what was going on all along. Of course they do, you Chickenshit! Satellites! "Copy that, Zero-Three. Permission granted. Just stay frosty out there, you hear? Friendlies are en route to your vector, ETA eight minutes." That statement, however, didn't seem to reassure the pilot at all as he armed his own missiles and took lock on the strange machine that loomed overhead.

"Showtime, partner…" On a bench several rooftops away, Ryo Akiyama reclined, eyes glued to a pair of infrared binoculars, apparently having nothing better to do than watch this little spectacle he had set up thanks to the Agency's knowledge of the United States' Military system, as well as the said superpower's overseas activities. It was time to show them just what he and his buddy were capable of doing, even when put up against the only United States military aircraft that hadn't been shot down ever since it first came into service… until now. F-117 Nighthawk indeed… he thought as he increased the magnification level to what he considered a comfortable view. "Nothing like front row tickets to the ultimate humiliation of American 'Air Superiority'."

Bridge, USS Kepler, Kepler Battle Group, Tokyo Bay

Thursday, 2355 Hours, Local Time

With the deafening roar of their thrusters burning behind them, the last of ten pairs of F-22 Raptors - they were on full alert, of course - catapulted off the massive aircraft carrier's deck and into the night sky above Tokyo bay. It was an awesome - yet at the same time gloomy - sight to behold; the pride of seeing the American military spending its best on its best - accompanied by the fear that several of those brave men might never step on the deck ever again. Planes and pilots are two very different things, Vice Admiral Sean O'Harren reminded himself as he gulped down a Styrofoam cup's worth of three-in-one cappuccino. The former were replaceable… the latter were unique to the world.

He was in command of the USS Kepler, one of the latest aircraft carriers to come into service - just at the end of 1999, to be exact, designed to be a true flagship for any naval battle group. Its sheer size alone, approximately 1500 feet, was intimidating, and allowed it to carry over a hundred-fifty units of aircraft, most probably a large assortment of fighters, helicopter gunships, transport choppers, etc., which could be deployed at any given time. Majority of this multitude of vehicles remained on the second deck, just beneath the runway, for maintenance purposes, and were brought up via cargo elevator at the rear of the vessel. He wasn't proud of it, but it was a gigantic improvement of command from his last post, the USS Callahan, an aging destroyer from the early 70's that was twice as hard to maintain as the Kepler, which was almost thrice as large as the former. It was truly disappointing to see how even modern tools could not cure the problem of the decay and decrease in durability that followed age. She was, however, a good ship, and deserved her retirement. That was one more thing the vice admiral was thankful for.

"Give me the current flight status, Commander Gavan." O'Harren was a short, stocky man from Dublin, Irish in blood but American in spirit. His height of 3'5" might not have been what someone would consider intimidating, but he was intimidating whenever he wanted to, and height had nothing to do with that. It had, however, along with his orange hair and beard (he insisted it being auburn), earned him the highly inaccurate nickname "The Leprechaun", inaccurate for he was far from jolly and lax.

"Both the F-22 and Apache Squadrons are airborne and en-route to the Shinjuku district. ETA to rendezvousing with Bravo Squadron is three minutes." Gavan, on the other hand, was the kind of "man in uniform" that the military-marrying women chased after: high cheekbones, properly combed dirt blonde locks, gorgeous blue eyes, 6-foot frame, muscular but not too buff… Yet it was ironic enough that he was taking orders from somebody who was most probably a descendent of the little green men who were said to have pots of gold waiting at the end of the rainbow, wherever that was.

The commander scanned the satellite photos of their current adversary, a towering 45-foot hulk of what appeared to be some kind of metal out of some kind of video game. Its reverse-jointed legs and "walking tank" design fit perfectly into the "mech" robot category, probably first shown in Robocop as Enforcement Droid 209 and popularized further by the "Mechwarrior" franchise. "Whoever designed this thing certainly wasn't at his peak of creativity…" It was practically a direct rip-off of Mechwarrior's Clan Mad Cat Omnimech, right down to the last missile pod.

Sixteen good men… Sixteen, dammit! O'Harren remembered counting the names on the list of his pilots who were shot down during the D-Reaper's occupation and were now either missing, or dead. They went down on his watch. Vice Admiral Sean "The Leprechaun" O'Harren never lost a bird. That was the first striking blow to his ego; saying that he wasn't perfect; that he made mistakes; that he needed to be ready to take the blame for the loss of their lives, but more importantly to his greedy capitalist superiors, that millions of dollars' were lost with each downed aircraft. He didn't bother with the planes. They were expendable, unlike his pilots - men who were, as far as God in all his glory was concerned, irreplaceable. Those days were over, however. He'd learned from his mistakes. Surely, their opponent this time around wasn't so formidable as that mass of computer data… was it?

"Squadrons Lima and Foxtrot have the target on radar," Meiyers reported from his place on the console. "Orders, Admiral?"

"Tell all squadrons to engage at will!" O'Harren's rage escaped from him in all of its terrible desires, namely to destroy the enemy. "We'll see how our mysterious giant robot-"

"Mech, sir…" Gavan corrected.

"Whatever - fairs against the full might of the United States Navy!" The sight of two sleek, black silhouettes in the night sky approaching the flight deck disturbed the flaming atmosphere that the good admiral's speech had set up. "What the bloody hell is that?"

It was then that his question was answered unknowingly by an incoming radio message, "Tango-Oscar-Niner, this is Bravo-Zero-Two with Zero-Three covering rear, requesting permission to land and engage in PMCS." Preventive Maintenance, Checks and Services… a handy little acronym, for those who were too tired to waste their breath on the words themselves. Apparently, Lieutenants Brigman and Hurrt had made it back alive.

So the casualty count's still at one for the night… But the fight's only begun, alas. "More are bound to go down…" The vice admiral solemnly watched the two lonely black birds descend onto the makeshift runway after their request was granted, like wedded eagles landing in a newly made nest. F-117's were a fine example of the application of the pinnacle of US stealth technology, employing the best of Lockheed and Martin's technicians for quite a few decades' worth of research and development. First used in Operation: Desert Storm, the F-117 Nighthawk had never gone down in its entire service history. This was the first time for such an outrage to happen - which was bad enough; and again, it just had to happen on his watch, making it even worse than it already was. His stay in Japan had tarnished his once spotless record - again!

"Sir," Meiyers went, "The Lindsey and Ashley are requesting permission to use their turrets and Tomahawk Missiles in bombardment to support the planes… course of response?" Aside from the Kepler itself, the two other 'Big Berthas' of the battle group were the Battleships Lindsey and Ashley, both heavily armed from stem to stern with an assortment of heavy, light, long range and short range weapons. They were also loaded with a few dozen marines for fast action amphibious assaults. Battleships were the mobile fortresses of a fleet and were usually the flagships of battle groups, with the exception of carrier battle groups, where emphasis was put on the aircraft carrier instead.

"Are they mad?" O'Harren retorted, "The artillery in those turrets would clear an entire city block if misfired!" He couldn't risk another slip-up to occur at the last few months of his stay here. He was at the home stretch, the threshold of relief, and another disaster - one that would most likely involve civilian casualties - would label him as one of the most infamous naval commanders in America's history. Holly's battle group was going to be sent to relieve them and would arrive in three months, more or less, and that was exactly how much longer he had to hold on. Tomahawks on the other hand… Precision is power. "Tell them to forget the turrets, but give the okay on the Tomahawks. That's it…"

"Aye, sir…" Meiyers got back to work. He sent the reply over and less than five seconds later, the sparks of cruise missiles being launched from the two battleships off port and starboard could be seen, at least a dozen in number. This was going to be an interesting fight. Another message crackled through the transceiver. "Sir," he piped yet again, "We just received a transmission from the Japanese High Command. General Yagami's ordered a F.A.S.T. (Fast Action Security Taskforce) Division to provide support. They've already set up a perimeter within a one-mile radius of the target. Yagami's also saying that he's called in an air strike. They're gonna napalm the thing."

"Ridiculous," O'Harren scoffed at the idea, "Fire won't do so much as burn that thing's paint job. Tell him to call the strike off. It won't do any good anyway." It then hit him. Fire might scratch its paint job… but a full-powered laser would burn it to a crisp. The only question now, is where I can get a - of course! "Commander Gavan, what can you tell me about the status of the Star Wars Project's unit D30-P7?"

"You mean the Satellite Defense Platform which never got its weapon's power output regulator installed?" Gavan knew a little bit of what was being done in the heavens above him, and was the best person on the ship - in the entire battle group, even - to ask such a question. "I think it's still up there, although the only way to gain access to it is to transmit its control codes up there via satellite uplink. And the only way to get those is to get to the President. Why? Are you planning to fire it or something?"

"Something like that…" O'Harren smirked that dirty smirk he always had whenever he had a devious idea in the progress of realizing itself. He was going to give that monstrosity double of what it had given him at this point. " Ensign Meiyers, get me the Pentagon."

Oval Office, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C.

Thursday, 1100 Hours, Local Time

"Mister President, it's General Kytell of the Pentagon. Line Two," the Secretary chimed in.

It was another day at the White House, more or less. President Stanley Darington had just gotten off Line One with the Director of Central Intelligence, who had notified him of just what the hell was going on in Tokyo. He had to admit, he was probably too stupid to notice that Bush had left one hell of a mess from his Middle Eastern and anti-terrorism campaign. Perhaps, at the time, he saw it as a responsibility to clean it up? Quite possibly… "Kytell? I wonder what he wants. Put him on, Stacey." The sound of a click was followed by the President's voice as he took the initiative to start the conversation, "Darington here…"

"Mister President, we are having one hell of a situation in Downtown Shinjuku…" Darington could tell that Kytell was from Texas, mainly because of his accent, and usually cowboy outlook on things. Ideas like "In Vietnam, we shot anything that moved which we didn't have any radio contact capabilities with."

"Yeah, I know… the DCI just told me about it. How's the battle group holding up?" That sounded a little bit too lax. I wonder how Kytell's gonna react to that…

"Sir, they just reported casualties. An F-117 Nighthawk and a couple of F-22 Raptors have been shot down so far. But that's beside the point." Kytell paused to recollect his thoughts. "The point is, they won't be able to take that thing down with that kind of firepower. Vice Admiral O'Harren, however, has a little idea about how we can compensate for his shortage of weapons."

"What do you mean?" More firepower? Ridiculous. The Kepler Battle Group was an example of what the Navy would call 'everything they've got'. And to some extent, it was true. It was a battle group comprised of all the elements the Navy had. Destroyers, battleships, PT Boats, an aircraft carrier, a company or so of marines, all military aircraft lesser in price than that of a B-2 Stealth Bomber, what more could one ask for? They had enough firepower to overthrow your average banana republic with ease and then some. What could Kytell be talking about?

"Sir, remember last year's report on the status of the SDI satellite defense system? You do know, of course, that they're still working on it in secret."

"Yes…" He thought about it. Three dozen or so of the myriad of satellites currently orbiting the planet were armed with an assortment of space-based weaponry: lasers, hypervelocity "railguns" cannons, microwave emitters, new and untested weapons… But none of the railguns were active yet, and microwaves wouldn't do much against a "mech." Furthermore, the laser-armed satellites were fitted with power output regulators to eliminate the possibility of the "Independence Day Scene" occurring, where one of them would misfire and destroy the White House with their sheer power output. The only thing they'd be able to destroy would be oncoming ICBMs that threatened America's safety. Lastly, nobody knew how powerful those new weapons were outside theory. "But I don't see how-"

"Remember the profile on D30-P7?"

"Look, General, I've got a lot of things to do today and you just haven't set up an appointment with me." Darington replied with a hint of exhaustion; and to think it was still another hour before lunchtime. "Just get to your point."

"Well, Mister President, D30-P7 is scheduled to have its power output regulator installed next week, and right now-"

"It's the last SDI Satellite Platform that can duke out enough damage to hopefully destroy that thing that's terrorizing Tokyo. And it's armed with one of the new weapons, making its first use an ideal testing session to see just how destructive it can get without firepower suppression. Am I right?"

"How'd you know that?"

Darington smiled. "The situation is too predictable, General. It's a good thing O'Harren remembered that. But… how does this concern me?"

"Mister President, you're the only man on the planet who has the control codes for every SDI satellite defense platform. O'Harren needs you to give the control codes and permission to use D30-P7 if he's going to destroy that thing!"

"Now I see your point… very well. If that's the case, then I'll call him myself." Darington was a reasonable man, all the more why he was able to take over after the other two presidential candidates, namely Bush and Kerry, died in a freak accident of ridiculous proportions. Sadly for him, though, his term was near its close and his current impression was a man who was elected to his seat to do nothing more than clean up the - as Hurrt would put it - international mess that Bush made with all his "War on Terrorism" campaign during his term. Not that the Darington Administration was happy about the current president's impression either. They were doing everything they could to help with that crisis, but nothing seemed to work.

"Thank you for your time, Mister President." Kytell put the phone down.

Darington switched his speaker on, "Miss Angstrom, please get the bridge of the USS Kepler on Line One. Note that any incoming calls while I'm on that line will be put on hold until I finish."

"Yes sir," the response was quick and professional, "Connecting you to the Kepler via Pacific Comsat Network."

It was then that Darington heard a ringing on the other end of the line. Let's just hope those birds last long enough for this to work…

Bridge, USS Kepler, Kepler Battle Group, Tokyo Bay

Friday, 0015 Hours, Local Time

"Name your conditions, Mister President, and I'll work with them." Vice Admiral Sean O'Harren could almost feel the tension of the conversation driving him numb. After all, he was talking to the, politically speaking, most powerful man on the planet; a man who held the fate of the world in the palm of his hand and could destroy it with the very words that would come from his lips during one of the direst situations conceivable. "As long as those codes get here in time."

"I assure you, Admiral, the codes will arrive shortly." President Stanley Darington's voice boomed out of the speaker. "The first of my conditions is simple. You realize that, officially speaking, SDI is neither under development, nor in operation. I'd like you to keep it that way, despite of what you're going to do. Whatever happens, you and your crew must keep silent concerning this." If the public found out that he was supporting the continuing development of the Star Wars Project long after its official 'abandonment' date, senator Hillman would probably win against him in a landslide victory during the next election, another five months away. Darkhouse had warned him about this, but did he listen? Why should he listen to that crazy bastard anyway? Vice President Alain Darkhouse was arrogant and self-righteous. Who cared if he was the direct descendant of a highly renowned Venetian official? He didn't have the humility his forefather probably possessed, although he was certainly as wise.

"Military Secrecy?" O'Harren looked around the bridge and took a good long stare at each of his subordinates' faces. None of them would talk about it and avoid court martial - or even discharge from the navy. "Our lips are sealed. None of this information will leave the bridge."

"What of the other crewmen in the battle group?" It would be best to play it safe, hence, ensuring none of this leaked out.

"Your orders are mine to give out, sir. They won't say a thing and get away with it." O'Harren paused. "And the other conditions?"

"My second condition is this: Hit it as hard as you can. I don't care what happens to the satellite because I'll have NASA take care of that. As long as that thing gets wiped off the face of the Earth, that's good enough for me."

The Vice Admiral smiled. The man was just as enraged as he was. "Sir, we just lost another apache!" Meiyers reported. "Casualties are getting worse… that's a total of eight for tonight." It was incredible enough that in the span of 20 minutes, he had lost half the total number of planes and pilots downed within the three-month D-Reaper period. He definitely needed to retire when he got home. It was doubtful that his pension would cover his debts to his country… and men.

"That, I am already arranging for." He nodded at Meiyers, who had just started to decode an encrypted message received from an unknown source. Those smartasses at the NSA were good for their reputation. The most advanced encryption and decryption technology on the planet was at their fingertips. The world's largest satellite-uplinked eavesdropping facility was also at their command, in the form of several hundred dishes in a heavily guarded installation in the middle of the Mojave desert. Maximizing the potential of that base gave the NSA the power to listen in on a daily average of 257 million phone calls, 15 million radio transmissions, and countless emails, trying to decode any underlying messages within the said means of communication. They had probably encrypted the control codes to ensure that the Russians or Chinese or any other antagonist nation didn't get their hands on what was currently the most dangerous satellite in orbit.

"Of course… One last condition, Admiral…" Darington was somber, now; probably one of those blatantly fake patriotic moments of his. It was going to be another nationalistic speech, wasn't it? O'Harren could swear he heard the 'Star-Spangled Banner' being played somewhere he couldn't tell, but was very close by. "I want you to remember why you're doing this. It's neither for me, nor for the Japs. It's for the boys you're supposed to be taking care of. It's for the nation you serve. It's for every last one of those fifty stars you see on the flag on your desk every day. Remember that. It's for America, and nothing but America."

"Aye, Mister President. For the red, white and blue it is…" the communication line was cut a moment after that. "Status of the control codes?"

"We've decrypted 85 percent, sir. And we're in luck, too." Meiyers grinned in anticipation, "Satellite Traffic Intel indicates that D30-P7 will be passing over Tokyo in two minutes. We'll have a perfect shot once it gets into its optimal firing position."

"Good to hear that, Ensign. And the birds?"

"Lost another two Raptors while you were talking to the President."

"Dammit! That's ten! Are the Tomahawks doing any good?"

Gavan brought a thermal image onto main screen. Large blue blobs were appearing and disappearing all over the scene, while the aircraft were also emitting little blue streaks that all seemed to be attracted to the target for some reason. Vulcan cannons, O'Harren surmised. Off both bows, sparks could still be seen blasting out Battleship cruise missile bays. "Apparently, nothing we're throwing at it is doing any good whatsoever. This thing's got heavier armor than a bomb shelter fit to withstand a nuclear blast and its subsequent fallout!"

"Code decryption is at 100 percent, Admiral," Meiyers butt in. "Satellite should be in position in one minute. Orders?"

"Upload the codes and order all birds to fall back in 45 seconds." A malfunctioning tomahawk whizzed past the bridge and into the water just meters to off starboard, rocking the massive vessel as it detonated underwater. "AND TELL COMMANDERS CARTER AND REISS TO QUIT IT WITH THOSE GODDAMNED CRUISE MISSILES!"

Another ensign got to work on the latter while Meiyers carried out the former, "Aye, sir. Control codes are Delta-Five-One-Tango-Hotel-Sierra-Tango-One-Romeo…" The sheer silliness of the code amused him. Convert the numbers into their alphabetical equivalent, read it as a word, and we have 'Deathstar'. They don't call it the Star Wars Project for nothing…

Three-hundred miles above Tokyo, D30-P7 had just finished locking its sights on the monolithic mech standing in the heart of the Shinjuku Ward. Its solar panels had picked up enough power over the past few years to support a highly charged anti-ballistics photon beam placed on it just for the sake of protecting the United States. The fact that its target area was heavily populated didn't seem to disturb the onboard AI one bit. After all, global coordinates indicated that it was an ocean away from the US western coast and several continents away from the eastern seaboard. If it didn't care about anything else but shooting down ICBMs that were heading for that certain area of land called the United States of America, why should it care about the puny people that lived in that city?

The only thing that could possibly disturb its current operational sequence, namely targeting and eliminating that iron giant, was a ballistic missile on a course for US soil. And at the moment? Its sensors picked up none. So far the better. One of the later designed and constructed of the SDI 'Defender-Thirty' series, it was the seventh to be armed with a Photon Projector instead of a standard Laser Gun, hence the code name D30-P7. It didn't fire concentrated laser beams, but instead hurled massive amounts of super-intensified photons - light particles - at missiles ensuring a higher damage area without sacrificing destructive power just to make sure it didn't miss. In a world where nuclear weapons were a common commodity on the global black market, a nation with a high possibility of being attacked could never be too careful.

Power output regulators stabilized the photon charging sequence to ensure nothing bad would occur. Four diamond-shaped solar panels surrounded the core area, where just about everything else was located, giving some eyewitnesses who'd spot it on clear nights the impression that the aliens had a thing for making money as well. Its firing system was in the middle of its startup sequence.

Solar Cell connection completed. Light Amplification rate at 1734 original intensity. Estimated total Solar Cell power consumption: 100 Gigajoules. Status of Power Output Regulator: Not Applicable. No Power Output Regulator detected. WARNING: High risk of power overload and structural decay. Recommend installment of Power Output Regulator prior to continuation of firing sequence. WARNING: Overriding safety system might cause software confusion. Are you sure? Y/N. Safety system overridden. Power levels at maximum efficiency. Arming Photo-Projection Chamber.

A roughly cylindrical appendage, with a diameter of approximately twenty yards, extended from the center of the core area, taking pinpoint aim at the blue and green sphere below. Its massive opening was pitch black, save for a few glowing orbs that reverberated inside - the photon collection system - and began to unleash massive amounts of light throughout the chamber, eliminating the former darkness. Photon Projector Armed. Photon collection at 75. Initiating countdown: 15 Seconds.

"Yeehaw!" The last missile that impacted onto the mech's surface drew forth the desired reaction. Lt. Commander Jason Daggett cheered for that. This was, of course, in addition to all the other missiles and Vulcan rounds that have been spent on it so far, not one even grazing the thing's paint job. For some strange reason, the continuous bombardment dealt by the Tomahawk missiles had been halted by their abrupt disappearance. That didn't make anything better. So far, this thing was trying very hard to shoot his boys down… and succeeding.

The apaches, on the other hand, had better chances of dodging, them being more maneuverable and all. F-22's were designed for speed and its vector quantities during high-altitude aerial combat, not its close quarters equivalent. It was quite hard dodging bullets and lasers and missiles with all the cityscape blocking their way. This was a fight for choppers, but since Raptors were the Kepler's strong point, so be it. Daggett's radio squawked with Meiyers' voice, "Lima-Zero-One, this is Tango-Oscar-Niner. Please be advised, you are now under orders to make a full retreat. I repeat, fall back now!"

"Reason for such orders, Tango-Oscar? Me and my boys never leave without one." Daggett launched another maverick - his last maverick - at one of the mech's gatling guns. What happened next surprised him. "Hot damn! Would ya look at that! The thing's jammed!"

"You see that dark and gloomy sky, Zero-One? Well in a few seconds, there're gonna be some lights coming down from there. You'll know what I mean if you've seen "Independence Day," And Meiyers knew Daggett had seen "Independence Day". They watched it together one afternoon, and Daggett said it was crap. "So you Brown Shoes had better get yer FUGAZI asses back over the bay ASAP!"

Hearing such a message shook Daggett to the point that he flipped through to the main frequency. "Okay, boys, new orders from hindquarters. Sparky Meiyers says it's time to make the big one-eighty and hit the go button on those afterburners, 'coz this airshow's just been cancelled. I repeat, the airshow's been cancelled." He toyed with his joystick until his plane was facing the bay. REMF… though pretty much senseless in the case that it was an army acronym, that was pretty much how Meiyers seemed to him at the moment. Daggett's F-22 was pursued by several others, choppers falling back at their own pace. The retreat had been sounded.

"Look at that, Ryo! They're leaving! The losers are leaving!" Techmon chuckled. This was merely his ultimate form, and the cheap American losers were already peeing in their pants. Who'd have thought that the most powerful air force on the planet would chicken out on a digimon that hadn't even digivolved to his greatest form?

"That's what happens when you start fights, buddy." Ryo's voice came through the built-in comm.-link. "Weaklings run away. And in quite a hurry, too." He brought the binoculars down from his eyes, which were starting to hurt. This experiment was over. It was a major success. This simply meant that Mechmon was currently the most powerful fighting machine - no, warrior… gotta remember the good old days. He's a warrior! My partner! - the world has ever seen. He just shot down a dozen planes and half a dozen helicopters or so. That, in itself, was an achievement.

The Digimon King reclined on the bench. The night was beautiful and he wasn't going anywhere soon. After all, the next day was his off day, and he was just starting it early. Maybe he'd leave in a couple of hours after getting a little shut-eye. "Oh, and Techmon, you'd better devolve and get out of there before people start thinking you're a new city monument of some sort." No response. "Techmon?"

"Ryo, I'm detecting some sort of temperature disturbance in the upper atmosphere… it's approximately at 3000 degrees Celsius and rising… closing fast as well."

"Say what?" Techmon was right. There was something wrong about the clouds despite the seemingly perfect night. They were glowing a strange ethereal blue. Ryo had read about aliens in the public library some time ago. He never thought they were real, though. But what kind of alien spacecraft emitted 3000 degrees worth of heat? "Tech, you'd better hustle and move now!"

"I'm on it!" It was the exact moment that Techmon reverted to his rookie form when the patch of cloud above him suddenly swirled apart to make way for a pillar of blinding blue light to descend upon the hapless digimon. Mechmon's sensors flared past 3000 degrees Celsius, telling him he'd been hit by a high-powered laser of some sort, searing his protective digital armor and effectively blowing him down into the subway network that ran beneath downtown Shinjuku. Ryo wasn't the slightest bit worried. That armor could withstand anything thrown at it. A mere laser wouldn't possibly be capable of even scratching it. He'd be waiting for Mechmon. He'd be waiting.

"A direct hit, Admiral! We got that sonovabitch right where we want it!" Commander Dillon Gavan reported from what the satellite imaging showed him. The thing's signal had vanished and its entire immediate vicinity was a burning blue on the monitor. It was a bull's-eye if he ever saw one. "Orders?"

"Bravo Zulu, everybody. Now, Ensign, give me the status of that satellite." O'Harren rubbed his beard. In your face, Holly! Let's see you do that during your stay here! Not that I want something like this to happen to this place again… He brought up and finished his fourth cup of instant cappuccino that night. He seriously needed some sleep. The fleet was quiet now, save for the sound of returning fighters and choppers. Total casualties for the entirety of the mess: twenty-six. In one night he'd practically broken his casualty record for his term in the country by ten additional deaths! What was the rest of the Admiralty going to say? He definitely needed to retire.

"Admiral, D30-P7 is pretty banged-up." Meiyers said. "Energy surge from overheating seems to have caused some serious structural decay. She's falling out of orbit and will reenter the atmosphere in T-minus 31 hours, more or less. We can't hope to save her." So much for the Deathstar…

"We'll let the Pentagon take care of their little satellite. That's their problem." Gavan was pretty much a little heartless at that point, yet sensible. That falling star was no longer their responsibility. "Sir, our current problem is to think of a cover story when the paparazzi hunt us down tomorrow morning." No doubt, the media was probably already onto them, and time wasn't really on their side at the moment.

"No need to fret, Commander." The Vice Admiral crushed the Styrofoam cup and threw it into the nearby wastebasket. "I have the perfect solution. Contact General Yagami concerning the media. Ask him to prepare a statement for the press from me."

Wilkins surveyed the landscape. The woods beyond the clearing concealed everything inside from his sight. Above all the bloody shifts that could have been assigned to him, why oh why did he have to end up with the nightshift? Sure, the sun was still up, but very low, practically kissing the horizon. He checked his watch, "Eighteen-hundred-ten hours. Bloody hell." He still had another seven hours and fifty minutes to go, and already he was sleepy. Maybe he shouldn't have woken up in the morning just to watch "Pots and More". But he just had to.

Wilkins had a thing for pottery, and just about anything that could be made by molding clay and baking it in a kiln. In any case, another minute had passed. Time to radio Robertson again. He reached for his walkie-talkie and wondered again why they had to contact each other once every ten minutes or so. Bloody waste of batteries. "All clear so far, Lenny. How are things going on over at your side?" The lack of an immediate response caused a second transmission. "Lenny? What the bloody hell is going on over there?" More static. "This isn't funny, Robertson. If you're trying to play me, I am going to complain to the chief of security about your-" Spat! Spat! Wilkins dropped his radio as he followed suit, falling face-down onto the concrete pavement, completely unconscious.

Lieutenant Donald Hillers smiled at his handiwork as he chambered another round. Those two guards wouldn't wake up for another four hours. When they do, they wouldn't remember a thing. Sunset was an ideal time to strike any target. The guards have just changed shifts, so the newcomers were still adjusting to the darkness. Not that it would help them protect their charge any better. The woods were so thick that the guards wouldn't be able to notice a non-camouflaged Abrams Tank in there even if it were parked just fifteen yards from their patrol route. Besides, the guards here worked for pay. They probably wouldn't even know what they were protecting if it weren't for the high voltage warning and chain link fence. Hillers reached into his earpiece and established a secure com line between himself, the rest of the team, and the command post. "Lone Wolf, this is Pack Leader. The guards have been dispatched. It's your show now, so why don't you bring on the fireworks?"

"Copy that, Pack Leader. Proceeding to target location and prepping the charges."

Hillers spotted six shadows emerge from the tree line across his location and approach the fence. The front most drew a spray-can and emptied it into a circle wide enough for a fairly large man to walk into. After the can's contents were used up, the first silhouette kicked a spot in the middle of the circumference that he sprayed. The area within the circle fell inward and clattered onto the cement until it rested. The SIS team had just used a can loaded with some new laboratory concoction that accelerated the oxidation rate - i.e. rate of rusting - to the point where it was near instant. Lone Wolf crept into the small compound carrying a large knapsack. The charges. "Hope you know what you're doing, Murphy… those C-6s are far more powerful than the plastic explosives you're used to handling."

"How different can they be from C-4s, Hillers? They're still plastic explosives…" Hillers spotted Murphy stick a handful of the stuff to the eastern wall. "Don't tell me I put too much either! The more charges, the better!" Pack Leader watched patiently as for the next minute or so, the team spread out and planted charges all over the facility; under Murphy's supervision, of course. He checked his watch. Eighteen-hundred-thirteen hours. Only three minutes have passed since the op began. It would be over in a matter of moments. Murphy's voice rang through the com line, "Alright, team! Clear out! This one's mine…"

Murphy stepped out of the fence, last man back from the demolition site. This was going to be a blast. He stepped back into the woods and smiled as he flipped the lid off his remote detonator. After the structure blew, they would still go in to check it out just for the hell of it. Lights out, fireworks in… An insignificant fraction of a second after Murphy pushed the button on his remote detonator, the night was illuminated by a brilliant fiery blaze, the explosion hurling thousands of pounds of concrete and assorted construction-grade metals in every conceivable direction. In the distance, Xabercom's usual nightly glow, which, on any normal occasion was almost enough to duplicate daylight, abruptly vanished.

As the cinders, embers, and fires died out, Hillers began contemplating on why he even agreed to have his unit assist Murphy do something this reckless. In any case, it was time to survey the damage and sort through the leftovers - scraps to be more realistic. "Wolf's Lair, this is Pack Leader. Power has been disabled. Freelancer and Fox Queen are cleared for entry."

"Affirmative, Pack Leader," Sloane's voice responded. "Freelancer and Fox Queen have been notified of clearance and are proceeding into target compound. Be advised that entry team and Navigator have broken off radio contact with us to avoid detection. Nice job, Pack Leader. Finish checking the area and return to base."

"Roger that, Wolf's Lair. Pack Leader out." Hillers switched frequencies, "Hurry up and finish the inspection, gentlemen! I bloody promised my son we'd watch the game at Wimbledon tonight!"

Murphy kicked over the last standing wall - hardly even standing - and proceeded to the remains of the power house to check on the interior generator. It was… how did those bloody Americans put it? FUBARed… Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition/Repair. Although the primary generator was toast, the backup generator couldn't possibly have been damaged. It was protected under a concrete-steel mixture of a floor over a dozen feet thick. It was time to see how much longer those lassies, Orimoto and Nonaka, had before somebody went up and said, 'Let there be light.'

The NS-3 Officer's eyes wandered over the primary generator's charred surface; down to the item which the schematics identified as the countdown timer indicating how long before secondary generator went online. Something was wrong. "Two and a half minutes?" The countdown was in its final stage. The blast must have caused some sort of fluke to occur in the electronics. "Is that why Hillers wanted me to cut down on the C-6s?" He switched frequencies to NS-3. "Wolf's Lair, this is Lone Wolf, come in. Sloane I need to talk to you now, dammit!"

Sloane was jerked by the sudden outburst, spilling half of his evening tea all over his suit. Damned Irish bastards… "What the bloody hell is it, Kevin? You sound like the sky is falling over there!"

"Tell Orimoto's team to pull out now! The countdown timer's been scrambled! They only have a little over two minutes before the emergency power activates! I repeat, the countdown timer is several minutes ADVANCED!"

Now Sloane spit out what was left of his cup, officially wasting his pre-dinner tea and rendering his biscuits useless. "I can't! They're on radio silence…" The NS-3 Deputy Director's face became grim. "It looks like they're on their own, Murphy. You've done your part. Now return to base."

"But sir-"

"That's an order, Kevin. And I mean it." Murphy could only comply.

Darkness abounded. It's been that way for as long as he could remember. He would always meet another one of them in the dark. For the most part, they fought there. There were some instances, however, where he would make friends in the blackness, although all of those of his kind he considered friends were already dead. Either by his own sword, or by that of some other, whom he no doubt had already beheaded as well. But right now he knew who he was going up against. There was nobody else left, after all.

Cameron MacLeod smiled to himself as he drew his seventh century katana. This specific one was forged by the great Masamune himself, given to him by his mentor, whom by this time, was also probably dead. He strolled out of the aisles of crates, beams, and whatnot into the clearing of the warehouse. "Come on out now, dear. Don't be shy. Surely by this time you know that it is useless to hide. I know you're in here somewhere. I can feel you. And I know you feel me as well."

He swung his sword around, beheading a non-existent somebody who was hiding behind a nearby shipping crate. Sparks flew as the noise of metal against metal resounded throughout the vast storage facility. "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty…" he teased with a noticeable amount of spite in his voice. From the information he had garnered, this little pest had an affinity to cats. After all, she did have a cat at home. Not the ordinary household feline, mind you, but one of the artificial variety… the talking kind… that stood on its hind legs… and wore gloves on its forelegs' paws… and had a fuzzy purple tail end… and had extremely annoying baby blue eyes that made him want to gouge them out with a blunt ceramic spoon and toss them into a cauldron of boiling oil.

Above almost all things, MacLeod hated cats. A few exceptions which he hated even more were Digimon that resembled cats… and humans who partnered them… and Digidestined who liked cats. Lucky for him, Hikari Kamiya, who was one of what he categorized as exceptions, was like him now. An accident involving a joy ride in her brother's shiny red car and an eighteen wheeler truck on the same bridge as them had made her into what she was today. Now she had to play by the rules… the rules that he'd been following for the past eight centuries. Which meant she had to lose her head… just like everybody else. She was the last one standing between him and the prize… the prize of the game he'd been playing for the past eight-hundred years. It was either his head, or hers… preferably hers.

Too bad her brother died in the crash… from what the intelligence indicated, her brother had the potential to go far in the business world. Maybe with a little guidance from yours truly, he would have become one of the greatest executives in the modern world. Of course he couldn't have survived it. After all, half the car was ripped to shreds, and so was he. Fortunately for her, she was on the side that survived. The explosion, however, killed her nonetheless… temporarily, of course. She had 'come back' for her first time in the city hospital's morgue, changed in ways she could never have imagined at the time.

"Come on, now Hikari. Stop hiding from me. Your childish little charades will get you nowhere." MacLeod slashed at another shadow he thought he saw move; it didn't react. "You know that sooner or later this game has to end. After all, there can be only one." Within sight of the very corner of his eye, something moved. This registered in his peripheral vision, provoking a reaction. He struck at the silhouette, expecting the aforementioned movement to be another trick his mind had been playing on him. His expectations, however, were soon disappointed. To the highlander's dismay, this figment of his imagination fought back, catching him completely off guard.

A teenage form leaped out from the shadows and began to attack MacLeod's katana quite furiously. He fought back, somewhat disoriented from the sudden amount of power that was being fed to his weapon. Stroke after stroke after stroke, he began to recover from his initial disarray and managed to gain a foothold of his own. He returned the following slash with a strike of his own, both blades locking into a draw. For the first time ever, Cameron MacLeod was staring face-to-face, eye-to-eye with Hikari Kamiya, the eighth child - child of light - owner of that accursed Gatomon. She looked back at him with a look he couldn't quite describe, although was very familiar with; that glint in her copper eyes that added to the feel. "What are you staring at?"

"Just like everybody else…" It was the look every other one of his opponents had on his or her face, the look that he was certain everybody else saw in his face. They were eager for the battle, yet, somehow, regretful of its necessity. That was the best way to describe it. A nostalgic outlook on the reality of it all. He pushed her back, only to be struck at yet again, this time, with even more effort put into each stroke. "Lineus has taught you well, Hikari. He must have truly trusted you to have given you the knowledge of how to maximize your sword's fury without sacrificing your balance."

"I've learned enough…" steel continued to duel with steel, saber with katana. "Lineus never told me if you were taught the same." Her next stroke was stronger than the last.

"I learned it for myself." MacLeod answered that strike with one of equal force. "Lineus has never trusted anybody the way he has trusted you. He even entrusted to you his own life. The power resulting from the severance of his head now flows through you; your very first quickening." A dirty grin found its way to the highlander's face, "Too bad he had to give that power to an undeserving little wench such as yourself!" Katana bashed saber, catching Kamiya off guard.

The two backed off from each other after that, a long silence enshrouding the darkened warehouse. For a moment, it was completely quiet. The child of light broke the silence, thrusting her index finger at the older immortal in defiance as her lips parted. "You have no right to insult what he died for!" With that, she redoubled her efforts and charged full force at the MacLeod, who was far more than ready to again begin parrying the following strokes of her saber.

The deadly dance of enraged proportions carried on with the highlander on his defensive. She slashed, he parried, and vice versa. Any spectator would've deduced it to be no more than a stalemate, a deadlock, a log jam. They were going nowhere fast.

Slash - an innocent cardboard box sitting in the way was carved in two.

Parry - this caused quite a dent in MacLeod's katana.

Slash - he dodged as Hikari's saber cut deep into a wooden support beam and came out again, ready to strike once more

Parry - the highlander stumbled on a stool that was behind him but stood up with regained composure almost immediately, blocking the next incoming attack.

Slash - the child of light yelled as she managed to cut her adversary by the torso, although it was but a flesh wound.

Parry - sparks flew as the saber's edge scraped against MacLeod's katana.

He knew he shouldn't have underestimated her. Rage does wonders for the body… It was either that, or the intense adrenaline rush that resulted from it. Time to do a little morale degradation… Slash, "Why waste his time and talents on a weakling such as yourself?" Parry, "Lineus was foolish enough to think that you were capable of surviving on your own once taught properly." Slash, "He might've been correct in factoring your adrenaline into a battle but…" Parry, "You seem to be worse off than he thought!"

Hikari swatted MacLeod's katana even harder this time. "That's it! Your head is mine, highlander!" The swordfight continued without another word as she began to gain the upper hand, constantly driving him back towards a brick wall, hitting everything that fell into the path of her saber whenever he managed to dodge, causing friction-based sparks to fly. If MacLeod didn't do something fast, he was going to lose his head to this little slut… and he could never let that happen. Too much was at stake for such an allowance. This was the final play of the game that was nearly as old as mankind itself.

The highlander thought fast and began to search for the right moment; the point where she was most vulnerable; the split second just after she swung that sword and lost focus in the attack. Her training might have taught her to keep her balance despite her constant assaults, however, her adrenaline was having an adverse effect on it nonetheless. Like… right… THERE! His hands moved, swift and sure, guiding his blade from a parry to a thrust that went straight into her.

The eight child's eyes widened in realization as cold steel entered her being, sharp, precise, and powerful. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the numbing pain spread like noxious fumes throughout her body. Pale brown, neck length locks that should have been flying forward simply hung next to her face, suspended and bent awkwardly in an obtuse angle. The blade's tip, and pretty much of the rest of it exited her torso through her back, smeared a bright living crimson with her own blood.

Saber was dropped as she fell to her knees, staring wearily and somewhat defiantly at the victor, who smirked dirtily as he twisted his wrist, embedded blade following suit. She couldn't scream for the pain, the pain, was too intense, too much. Her universe currently had two centers: her adversary's hating face, and the unexplainably sickening sensation caused by the weapon that, by physical standards, was still within her.

Slowly, he withdrew. She could feel the battle-dented edge scrape against her internal organs, dealing more damage than what had already been accomplished. As soon as its presence left her body, she clutched at the graciously large run-through wound in her abdomen. It stung like hell. MacLeod swerved the blade into what looked like a beheading position, and finally spoke after minutes of silence. "I suppose the best way to disarm your enemy is to run him through. The natural reaction for somebody who's been run through is to get down, either on all fours or his knees, depending on their pain tolerance. I'm surprised you're part of the latter group. We might be capable of living forever, but we can still feel pain. And as much fun as this battle has been, I'm afraid we've reached the point where I have to remind you, my dear Hikari, that there can be only one. Have you anything to say?"

Kamiya looked up at her would-be killer, perhaps for the last time, vision blurred, and uttered what sounded like something she honestly wished would happen. "Someday, somebody is going to come and take your head. It might not be tomorrow, and he might not be one of us, but mark my words, highlander… he will come."

A thoughtful look found its way to his face for a moment before he smiled toothily. "My dear, you seem to have become delusional. Allow me to cure that problem the way we Scots know how." Hikari's head flew off into some darker corner of the warehouse as the bloody katana found its way through her neck. A small pendant-like object found its way to the floor in front of the highlander's feet. This he picked up with a slight interest and examined it more closely, raising it above his head and viewing it from several angles before concluding on its identity. "Crest of Light indeed," he muttered in slight disappointment at what it turned out to be. "Didn't even help her out the slightest bit tonight."

That was when it hit him; a sensation so powerful it was beyond anything a mere mortal could comprehend. Several bolts of lightning began channeling themselves through the Crest of Light and down body, the live current coursing through him with several thousand megavolts of power, more than enough to burn any human. MacLeod and all the others he'd beheaded were hardly human. This was the most intense one yet. But what else could he expect? It was the last time he was going to experience this glory. He raised the crest even higher with his left hand as he supported his right hand with his katana, which he'd thrust into the ground.

Bolts continued to strike the weakened highlander. Light bulbs all over the warehouse exploded from the sheer power as windows shattered and crates were tossed about by an unseen force. The spectacle continued; MacLeod was now reveling in the experience instead of breaking down from the intensity of it all. All this time he had been shouting incoherently, not seeming to notice the mysterious mist-like substance that had risen from Hikari's decapitated corpse and was entering his being. The final quickening was now in full circle. Kamiya's - and Lineus' - power was being absorbed into him. Every last watt.

Then, as abruptly as it had begun, it ended. MacLeod dropped onto his belly, katana lying on the ground, Crest of Light clutched tight in his left hand. He'd done it. He won the game, the prize. He was now the one. The last of them all. In retrospect, he had Lineus to thank for all of this. All the times they'd shared together as teacher and student flashed in his mind as everything else went black.

The next thing he felt was the sensation that he was lying down at a certain angle. Further more, there was a weight over his eyes, which he dispatched of soon enough. What followed was a powerful bombardment of light. And he didn't like that. "Simulation Completud, boss," a scientist in front of him explained. This was no ordinary scientist, however. This was Xabercom's Director of Research and Development, Dr. Ludwig Werner, also one of MacLeod's closest friends. He was one of the few mortal people to know of the highlander's true identity.

"How close was that Sim to the true final quickening?" MacLeod had personally requested a simulation for the final quickening, as something to prepare him for the real deal. All that hubbub he got about Hikari being Lineus' pupil was simply part of the scenario, downloaded by Simaster 4.7.3 into his brain. Where that crazy idea came from? Dreams. For some reason, he had dreams about these fictional characters… morbid ones similar to what he had just witnessed. Although Hikari Kamiya indeed wasn't real, his dislike for cats etc. was. So was Lineus. The latter, however, was already expired. He'd taken the old fog's head himself, not even thinking twice about it.

"Qvite close. I'd eshtimate a point zheho shevun pehshent mahgin of error." More than anything, MacLeod wanted to prepare for the time of the final battle, which, as he could remember, was one or two heads away. And that wasn't so far away. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Highlander was certain that he'd win. He didn't know why, he just was.

"Close enough indeed. How's the R&D on the Commac Project?" he stepped off the platform and fixed his navy blue suit, realigning his dark red tie with his collar. One downside to Sims was the fact that bodily movement and nervous reactions ruffled your clothes no matter how much you were pinned down. Bloody platform. The next thing on his agenda was what Marlon had tasked his Agency Office to take care of: those mechanical nightmares that would soon be on the global black market, sold for billions to the highest bidder.

"Still vorking on za specifics. Jhou know how hard it is to handle somezing ve did not develop ourselves." The klaxons began to sound, destroying the formerly quiet mood of the place. "Hmm… inthudas. Phobably vhy zee pover vent out earlier."

"Perhaps they're trying to steal some of our uncompleted ion-based weaponry. You know how rival corporations enjoy ripping off from us. Even though we already announced our development, once they beat us to our own goal, they'll sell them to armies the world over claiming the stolen research was theirs to begin with… bloody maggots." MacLeod was ill-informed about the incident at the previous meeting and knew nothing about NS-8's spying on their plans for the next year. To him, everything was normal and was not priority. "Get Smith on this." The highlander reclaimed his sheathed katana from the weapons confiscation officer who waited at the door to the lab. "By the way, Werner," he turned around in the doorframe, "Try to finish the new designs and Commacs in a month or two," and walked out.

"Vill do zat." Werner began contemplating on where to go next. His boss was certainly going to be pleased at the development of Commac Omega. Sure, it was just an idea now, but the scientist had great vision and in a month or so, it would probably already be in the testing phase. "Jusht vait till jhou zee my mashtapiece, chief."

To be continued… hopefully…

Not damned good at all… Zoë was finished. She didn't have to see it to know that she was caught between a rock and a hard place. Behind her, the blast doors had shut. In front of her were at least a dozen muzzles of assorted rifles and sub-machineguns, as well as the not-so-friendly-looking security team members who were holding them in the first place. She raised her arms to surrender, dropping her Beretta as she did. There's only one way out of this… She slowly kicked the fallen firearm in the troops' direction, just as instructed by the team leader. If only she could reach her D-Tector.

"That's a good girl," Smith grinned behind his faceplate as he picked the up the sidearm and holstered it. "Now put your hands behind your back, and turn around…"

Perfect! She did as told. Only instead of keeping her hands behind her back, the warrior of wind reached for the D-Tector and spun around again, to face her would-be captors, catching them off guard as she started, "Execute-"

"The little bitch has got a bloody digivice!" How could somebody of his caliber fallen for such a simple trick? Only one concept floated through his head at that very moment. "DROP HER NOW!"

"Spirit Evo-" If ever she managed to finish her statement, nobody would have heard it, as all sound less than a hundred decibels was rendered mute by the combined noise of several different types of rifles and sub-machineguns simultaneously opening fire upon her, armor piercing slugs penetrating the Kevlar suit and lodging themselves within various parts of her body. Izumi Orimoto was as good as Swiss Cheese.

AN: Nope, Takato didn't seem to be of any importance to this chappie, so I skipped him ; This was actually already done by Christmas 2004… just didn't feel like uploading it for some strange reason or another. I'll try to get the next one out this summer. Blargh… must be all these ideas crowding my head. Zoids, Advance Wars, Harvest Moon, Monopoly, Bleedman's Cartoon Network Doujinshi. The only reason I actually convinced myself to post this was simple: I sat down at my computer last night, trying to finish a project for my Philippine Language Class. I started Windows MP, and picked a playlist to listen to while I was working. It just so happened to be the playlist jam-packed with all the Digimon MP3s I had managed to download so far. So what now, you ask? I'm back into Digimon! Now all I need is a good Digimon game to play, coz Battle Spirits I and II don't exactly cut it out for me… I NEED A PLAYSTATION FOR RUMBLE ARENA, DAMMIT!

Oh, yeah, and here are some new militaristic vocabs I picked up when I was conducting research on my term paper… the topic? How Tom Clancy's Patriot Games is related to chess… I barely passed.

Commander - Naval equivalent of Lt. Colonel

Lt. Commander - Naval equivalent of Major

Vice Admiral - Naval equivalent of Lieutenant (3-star) General

FUGAZI- US Military Slang Acronym for "Fucked Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In"

Brown Shoe - Things and people related to the naval aviation community. From the time when brown shoes were only authorized for aviation ratings and officers.

REMF - US Army Acronym for "Rear Echelon Mother Fucker"; a micromanaging, interfering back room commander

Sparky - US Military Slang for anybody having to do with radios and electronics