A/N: Well, I've been meaning to get back to this for a while, but my OCD-ness made me finish the next chapter of Digimon Morphers first. Anywhos, this was finished rather quickly. Wrote it all in three days, although one of those days was shortly after Chapter Four was finished and the other two were after DM's last update.

Disclaimer: Ikaru groaned as he walked down the hallway, carefully side-stepping all the various lasers that would trigger various traps. It wasn't long before he came to the door to the living room, where most of his characters would probably be. As he opened the door, he mouthed the words "I don't own digimon, so if there's one behind this door with a trap…"

Chapter Five: Defeat and Retreat

11:34PM/USA/New York/New York City/WWBC News Studio/Studio 4 (Earth News Nightly)

Shelby stared at the video feed. For a moment, they had seen hoards of Doommon with darkness swarming about them. And then there had been the individual blasts of darkness from all of the Doommon as the digivolved. And now... the screen was black. All of a sudden a serious of white slash-marks appeared on the screen and for a second she thought something had attacked the screen itself. And then the black disappeared to reveal an army of dark paladin-like digimon holding out swords as people collapsed, covered in cuts.

"Apparently the monsters just got more powerful. I'm unharmed, as are most of the people actually inside the building with me, but everyone outside seems to be in critical condition." The voice came over the feed and Felicia signaled the crew to put her in on a split screen.

"What's going on there, Edward? What are those things with swords and why are they there?" She asked, concern more obvious in her voice than she would have normally used.

"Tokyo is under attack. We're not sure exactly why, but I'm here with some people who claim to be from the CIA over there in the US. Their leader, Lynn Smith, is with me, perhaps you can explain, Lynn?" The camera pulled back to reveal Edward standing next to Lynn inside a rather well furnished room.

"They're called digimon. They started out as a government project over ten years ago, some sort of super soldier thing. The project involved creating a virtual world, the Digital World as it was called, and then creating a way to go between the worlds. It was discontinued when they found out that the first person they sent in couldn't get back. Over the years, small incidents have occurred since then. Apparently the digimon had figured out a way through. A single rookie level digimon here, maybe a champion there. All isolated incidents, all taken care of and covered up by my department of the CIA, the Digital Incidents Department. What we have today appears to be related to something that happened a few years after the project was discontinued. A small group of people, about six of them, found rookie level digimon on Earth and befriended them. And then they got sucked into the digital world, escaping after what to them must've been a gigantic and dangerous adventure. And then they went there again about a year later and defeated seven powerful mega level digimon, mega level digimon that commanded an army of lesser digimon. What you're seeing is the army of lesser digimon now digivolved to the mega level. Six of the powerful mega level digimon are here, apparently having recovered from deletion. The seventh was permanently destroyed. This is apparently an act of revenge, because all six of the humans who went to the Digital World are now here in Tokyo." Lynn said all of this with an abnormally calm composure. She looked not at the camera, but instead out the window. The camera zoomed in on what she was staring at. A large black demon digimon of some sort appeared to be hurling chains covered in green fire at two digimon that appeared to be gigantic machines with dog-like features. "Belphemon attacking MirageGaogamon Burst Mode and Jeff Wright." Lynn explained.

"Jeff Wright as in the NFL runningback?" Shelby asked.

"Cut the charade, Shelby. Of course it's that Jeff. We might as well reveal it all. Felicia Livingston is another one of the Digidestined, as we call them, and her partner Labramon is currently Anubismon Burst Mode. Kile Drake, the comedian, is another one. His partner Leormon is currently BantyoLeomon Burst Mode. And there are others." Shelby gasped. Some of the show's crew that was filming her actually dropped equipment.

"Well, uh…." Shelby trailed off. There was nothing else to say. She was lost for words for a moment as the camera showed Jeff or MirageGaogamon getting hurled at the other by the chains. "How about we just show what footage we can get." She said finally. On the other end of the feed, Edward muttered something about seeing what other battles they could get footage of as the split screen went away. The entire screen was now dominated by the image of Blake and SaberLeomon Burst Mode desperately incapacitating and throwing Hellmon at Beelzemon, who seemed to be more focused on shooting at innocent bystanders than fighting off the Digidestined pair.

Shelby tore off her mike and left the set. She tore into the Tri-Mind and searched for a reason for the sudden digivolution of the Doommon. She found one instantly. "Oh crap. What has Dan done…?"

Time Nonexistent/The Mind of Dan Smith

Dan woke up on a slightly warm surface. He found his way to his feet and glanced around himself. He stood on top of a large yin yang symbol, roughly ten yards in diameter. There was nothing else in the room except for a life size statue in the center of the symbol of Arkadimon In-Training, a black shotgun in the white part of the black half, and a white shotgun in the black part of the white half. Outside the symbol was nothing but darkness, giving off the dull roar of chaos taking place some distance away.

"What the hell?" He asked.

"Ah, I was wondering when you'd wake up. Feels like I've been waiting for hours, but time doesn't exactly work like that here." Another Dan walked out of the darkness and into the white half of the symbol. It took the real Dan a few moments to notice the difference, and a few more moments to recognize that there had been a difference made to him as well. This new Dan wore a pure white jumpsuit, so white that if light were to shine on it the reflection would be blinding. The real Dan found himself wearing an identical jumpsuit, only it was a dull colorless grey.

"Who are you? Where am I? How did I get here?"

"Oh, you've always been here, Dan. This is your mind. As for me, well, I have confidence you'll figure it out soon enough." The White Dan replied.

"But if this is my mind, wouldn't I know it looked like this?" Dan asked.

"Oh, most people never actually get to see their own mind. It's more common to see other people's, actually. You can blame my counterpart for your conscious presence here though."

"Your counterpart?" As Dan asked this, yet another Dan walked out of the darkness into the black half of the symbol. Predictable though it was, this Dan wore the same jumpsuit, except in a rich black that if you looked at it closely enough seemed to have some sort of movement buried in it.

"Yes, his counterpart, as the little goody goody likes to put it. I'm just as confident as he seems to be that you can figure out who I am." The Black Dan said casually. Dan hadn't noticed it as much with The White Dan, but both of these other Dans had his exact voice except for slight differences. The white one had a rather kind and humble tone to it that the real Dan lacked. And the black one had a streak of sheer arrogance and not giving a damn that just screamed pure evil. Dan shuddered as the black one continued with a more 'down to business' attitude.

"I've brought you here because, quite frankly, I've decided I no longer need you. I'm taking control." The Black Dan crouched down and picked up the black shotgun as he spoke. Now Dan remembered where he'd heard the Black Dan's voice before. A few moments before he had lost consciousness, the Black Dan had been whispering to him, bringing up old memories, stirring up dark feelings and thoughts.

"You're Pride."

"And that's score one for the powerless one. As I'm sure you'll soon guess, Mr. Nice Guy over there is Humility." Pride replied, calmly checking the shotgun to see if it was loaded.

"You can't do this. We both need him, and you know it!" Humility cried, picking up the white shotgun and holding it in trembling arms. It was clear he was incapable of even firing the weapon, much less capable of shooting it accurately.

Dan was now feeling rather insecure. He reached into his pocket in search of his D-Phone, in hopes of biovolving and gaining at least some power over the sin and the virtue. It was in vain.

"You can't Biovolve here. The only reason you can even do it when you're conscious is because of that little bit of your dear little Arkadimon's data right there." Pride said, gesturing towards the statue in the center as he loaded two rounds into the shotgun. "As for needing him, Humility, I believe you're rather wrong. You know as well as I that Lucemon's death at the hands of Hadesdramon was all my doing."

"This isn't moving from one body to another, Pride! You'll kill us all! You know we need him!" Humility pleaded.

"I NEED NO ONE!" Pride roared, his voice suddenly nothing like Dan's, but instead full of unrestrained evil. He swung up the black shotgun and fired it at Humility. The virtue never stood a chance, and collapsed with blood streaming from wounds all over his face. He was obviously dead.

Dan was now backing up towards the darkness. He knew he had no hope of reaching the white shotgun. He reached the darkness, and while Humility and Pride had walked through it as though it was nothing more than a thick fog, he found it to be a very solid wall.

"And now, to prove I don't need you." Pride continued, his voice still hinting at that surge of evil, but apparently under control now. It was only as Dan found himself staring down the barrel that he realized what the shotguns were: The Twilight Busters.

And as Dan collapsed, as brutally maimed as Humility, Pride began to laugh. The darkness swooped into the symbol and cloaked everything from sight. The sin now had complete control of the Twilight Assassin, whom he now knew to be the most powerful of the Digidestined. And he intended to use that control.

12:45PM/Japan/Tokyo/Above the Streets

Pride would have snarled if the body allowed it. The other Demon Lords had let the attack descend into utter chaos. With a twitch of a tentacle, he got Arkadimon to de-digivolve to Champion, and then he looked around for suitable targets. Deciding there wasn't one target good enough to make an example of; he instead used the Demon Lords' telepathy. "Get down to street level. Now." His command carried enough authority to ensure they did as they were told. And so he watched with utter boredom as Daemon and Belphemon flew down to street level, Leviamon dove under water, and Lilithmon, Barbamon, and Beelzemon dove for cover. The Digidestined looked around in confusion at the sudden retreat, but they wouldn't be confused for long. "God Matrix."

As soon as the words, barely a whisper yet still audible for miles around, left his mouth, tentacles cleared around a circle on the body that began to glow blue. And then the beam of light over fifty yards wide shot out of the circle. As soon as the beam hit a building, binary surged up it back to Pride until the part of the building that was hit was nothing more than a large hole. Pride turned, taking the beam with him, and began to lay waste to the city until no building over five stories tall was left entirely whole. Feeling rather full, Pride once again used the telepathy. "Retreat back to the Dark Realm. We are done here." And then Dan's body wavered and de-biovolved back to its normal state, unconscious. Arkadimon caught it and, driven by some inexplicable desire, dove into the bay with it before going through the still open portal to the Dark Realm. He was swiftly followed by the other six Demon Lords.

12:53PM/Japan/Tokyo/Streets

Wayne coughed as he pushed part of the wall of a building off of himself. As he managed to pull himself out of the wreckage of whatever building's top six stories had fallen on him, he de-biovolved. He glanced around and saw Coronamon pulling himself out of the ruins of another building. "What just happened?" He asked, still feeling the pain of the building falling on him.

"We lost. That's what happened." Wayne turned to see a large musclebound digimon with an axe walk out of the ruins of a computer store, a few of the computers still on and functioning. The digimon de-digivolved into a slightly smaller but still rather large form, obviously its Champion level, and said "I'm Fightermon. And I come with a rebuilding crew."

With that, all the computers that still functioned in the entire city lit up with a blinding light and large number of benevolent looking digimon appeared around the city. Among them were a rather surprised Commandramon, a Gazimon, and a Dracmon. Wayne's jaw dropped as he took out his D-Phone, dialed Blake's number, and said "You've been hiding something from us."