DISCLAIMER: I do not own Digimon, but I do own the plot, and DRAGOON.

Digimon Continuity

Quest for the Digimon

Chapter 4

Problems & DRAGOON

:. Real World - Japan, Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan Towers
Main Control Room

01:27 PM JST

Takato looked around, taking in the interiors of the still quite barren Hypnos Tower. It was pretty much the same, only that wires ran all over the place and that the only very few computers that were up were occupied by busy Monster Makers. There was a time when he would have wondered what they were doing. Unfortunately, his patience was running thin. The long walk from the park did not help either.

Ahead, the only free Monster Maker was waiting, looking definitely more nervous than he had ever seen him before. Janyu Wong quickly approached the coming duo, obviously not eager to wait for them.

Takato's mouth shot open before he could stop it. "Mr Wong, why are you doing this? You guys found a portal and you never even told us. You should have at least told Henry!"

Janyu stopped in his tracks. Perhaps it was the lack of anger in Takato's voice, or perhaps it was the sudden, dangerous silence that befell the room after Takato spoke. The other Monster Makers have also stopped their work, and turned to look at the three, shocked.

"Answer me!" Takato shouted, the very sound echoing on the empty walls that made it more threatening than it actually was.

Yamaki placed a hand on Takato's shoulder, to restrain him if need be, and took the initiative, "Takato, stop putting stress on him, he has enough as it is."

The boy turned on him, and Yamaki took a step back. The look in his eyes terrifying to the extreme. They said pure murder. If Yamaki had any of his wits at that time, he might have compared it to the accounts the other Tamers told him about Guilmon's transformation to Megidramon, and said that their accounts did not do Takato's fury justice.

Now Janyu, upon having the death glare turned away from him, spoke up. "We're really sorry Takato, but we just couldn't tell you. If we did, you could rush to the portal like bears on honey without listening to what we have to say."

Takato turned back to him, but Janyu kept going on regardless. "Takato, I speak as a parent when I say that I don't want you to be in danger."

Takato blinked, and confusion came to his face. "What do you mean in danger? We have gone though the Digital World before, and we came back safely, right?"

Janyu looked to his fellow Monster Makers, who caught his message and resumed their work. With Takato now here, the other Tamers were bound to follow. Then he replied, "Takato, things are different now."

"How?!"

"The last time you had your Digimon with you to protect you, right now, you don't. So how are you going to protect yourself? With the stuff I've seen Guilmon and Terriermon do, I don't think that you can just take a stick and start hitting, can you?"

Takato fell silent. The mentioning of his Digimon once again brought back a flood of memories. He quickly shook his head, trying to snap out of it. That did not however, stop tears from flowing. He diverted his face from Janyu's view. But he already saw the tears.

"I'm sorry Takato, I didn't mean to mention Guilmon," he quickly apologised, looking to the silent Yamaki for help. When none came, he went on, "But I had to emphasize the point. You just couldn't go to the Digital World without protection. Think of it this way, if you... well... die in the Digital World before reaching your Digimon, both of you will never meet ever again..."

He need not go on. Because both were thinking of Jeri, what happened after Leomon's death. The result was the D-Reaper using her. Who knew what the Digimon would do if they went through the same thing.

Takato wiped away his tears, took a deep breath, and faced both men. "So, what have you been doing?"

Yamaki shook his head. It was truly amazing how Takato went for sad to determined in the space of a few seconds.

"Well, we have devised a way to protect you guys... in fact, we are working on it right now." Janyu continued.

Now Yamaki took over. "You remember Grani, yes?"

Takato nodded. It is hard to forget Grani after all it... no he had done...even if I wanted to. He gave me and Guilmon the power to save Jeri from the D-Reaper.

"Well, we have decided to create another one."

Takato kept on nodding his head, mind still in the memories of being Guilmon Mega form, until it registered what Yamaki just said.

"WHAT!" he exclaimed.

"Well Takato, after the success Grani had, we thought it be best we designed another one, this one being capable of more offensive abilities, greater agility, and having a more sophisticated CPU, allowing it to analyse the situation and determine the best solution to it, giving it more advantages compared to its predecessor."

Takato did not understand most of what the older man just said, but all he needed to know was one thing... Grani is going to be replaced. "No way! I am not letting Grani's place be taken over by another one. There is no way I am going to allow this. No way!"

Once again, Takato's outburst had alerted the whole room and all eyes were on them once again.

"Takato," Janyu continued, the true toll of his exhaustion could be heard now, "We're not going to replace Grani. It has done too much, bringing you home from the Digital World, helping you and the others fight the D-Reaper, and sacrificing itself to give you your newfound power. But we can't bring it back. I'm sure Grani would have wanted to be the one to be with you on this... journey. That's why we wouldn't be replacing him. That's why there wouldn't be a Grani 2. He will always be in our hearts. What we are hoping to do is just to have the new DRAGOON become the next in line, like the son of Grani."

"..." Takato could think of nothing to say to that speech. He was half-expecting an audience to start applauding. Still, he managed a "DRAGOON?"

Janyu nodded. Yamaki spoke this time. "DRAGOON stands for Digital Recon(naissance), Assault, Gathering and Optional Observation Network system unit."

"So... where is he?" Takato asked looking left and right as if the machine would hover out of a shadow in the room.

"Well, see... that's the reason why only you are here." Takato's ears perked up. "we're still waiting for him to materialize."

Seeing the still confused Takato, Yamaki instead said, "We're waiting for him to appear in the Digital World so that he can Bioemerge into this world."

"Then why is he taking so long? Shouldn't he be here by now, I mean, Grani only took a few days..."

"Takato, it's not that simple. Grani at that time was only the Ark. At that time, its design was not simpler. We also designed him at that time so that he would be produced as quickly as possible as we had little time. Even as the Ark, it took us four days to design and the processing power of the entire world before he could materialize. Grani became what he was only after he got some of our last minute modifications. Although the DRAGOON now has Grani's old designs as a template, its current design took another week of work before we could be sure it was the best protector. Throw that in with our busy lives, it was amazing that we managed it at all."

"All the more why you should have told us, that way, you could work without secrecy and completed DRAGOON much faster."

"Takato, we already told you why we didn't. Think of what you yourself would have done. A few minutes ago you wouldn't even listen to us, you only thought us as delaying your time. If all the tamers came along, you would overpower us and just go on anyway. By then, not even DRAGOON's enhanced sensors would find you in time to save you from the inevitable."

"Ryo or Henry would know, they would have thought about this."

"Takato, I've watched Henry grow up since he was a baby. I would know him better than you. Listen to me when I tell you Henry is desperate. He would not think this when faced with going straight to the Digital World and finding Terriermon. I don't know about Ryo, although I have heard some very nice things about him from Henry himself, I think that his optimism is faked. Different people have different ways of dealing with things. He probably adopted this attitude because of his time in the Digital World and that has made him hide his feelings just like Rika. Maybe his time in the Digital World also made him think of this, but I'd rather not take the risk with my own son."

Takato sighed. It was clear he had lost this argument. But he was definitely not leaving until he got as many answers as he could.

"Alright then... so, DRAGOON can't take that long, how long more?"

"Takato, you have to understand our situation." Janyu was on the verge of collapse now. Takato probably wouldn't understand what he was about to hear, but he said it anyway. "Now, we don't have the whole world's computers at our disposal. Hypno's servers are still down, we barely managed to reinhabit this building again."

That's true, Mom and Dad said that a lot of people didn't dare return to their homes or shops because they were afraid that some part of D-Reaper was still out there.

"Besides, DRAGOON's current designs would require a lot more time now, and that was assuming we still had the processing power. To make it worse, some of the sponsors for Hypnos have withdrawn. That means we just don't have the money to repair the servers. The people you see here came entirely of their own free will. They are not getting paid Takato. They are paying for us with their own outside jobs."

"So what's stopping you from doing... well... whatever you did to get the world's help?"

"We can't just email everyone to help out again!"

"Why not?" Takato asked in a way that made Guilmon quite to young and innocent dino he is.

"We... The world is still recovering from the incident. If we issue a help email now, the world will go into panic."

"What if I don't care?!"

"Then we might as well have just told you guys anyway, you would receive the email too."

Takato fell silent, taking in all he had learnt. When I first found the portal, I was jumping to tell the others and get inside. Now... now I'm not so sure.

"But, I think the others deserve to know."

"What about..."

"Mr Wong, I'm sure that even if they don't listen to you, they would listen to me. I know Ryo will understand and help me convince the others as well."

Yamaki finally removed his sunglasses, and looked at the goggled boy in the eye. "Takato, can you assure me that none of them who ignore you and go to the portal anyway? Can you assure me that they will listen to you even?"

Takato challenged Yamaki's glare with one of his own. Though it didn't match one of Rika's, it was quite enough to put his point across. "Yes Yamaki, I can."

Yamaki's eyes softened and he replaced his glasses. "So Takato, how do you plan to do it?"

Takato smiled a genuine smile, something he hadn't done since Guilmon's departure. "I've something in mind..."

CLIFFHANGER!!

Lots of free time equals... quick chapter!

Longest I've written so far... so far. Explains quite a lot too. I hope this makes up for my earlier not-so-good chapters.

So, a new Zero-arms is coming out. How do you like the name, not bad huh? I plan on having my profile modified for explanations on the terms I use.

I know you guys are just reading and going. Please help a little. If any ideas come out in my reviews, I will try to add it in.

PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!!