Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon.

Chapter 3: First Date

Suzie had purposely woken up early that morning so she could make a stop on the way to school. She had a bone to pick with Mirei about the scandalous email the fortune teller had sent her the night before. Suzie saw that Mirei's place was open and barged right through the door, with Lopmon perched on her shoulder. The purple-haired witch was still in the process of setting up her shop. There were large flatscreen monitors hung up on the walls, and the surrounding tables and display cases near the wall all had pieces of electronic equipment displayed. The place was looking more like a computer store than a fortune teller's shop.

Meirei was busy placing a white and gold antique phone on her main desk when she saw Suzie walk in. "Oh! I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon, Ms. Wong. How may I guide you today."

Suzie simply stormed up to Mirei's desk. "I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but sending me an email with a link to a dirty video definitely crosses a line!"

Meirei raised an eyebrow. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."

"You're honestly going to tell me that you don't know anything about this?" Suzie asked as she opened the email in question on her phone and clicked on the link it contained.

The pink-haired girl displayed the first few seconds of the video showing and Angewomon and LadyDevimon having sex before hitting the pause button.

Mirei sighed before turning to the white cat who was lounging on one of the display cases near the wall. "I think you're the one who owes Ms. Wong the explanation."

There was a massive puff of white smoke, and the white cat had turned into a young woman with long flowing blond hair and six white-feathered wings on her back. She had on a rather skimpy white bodysuit that left most of her right leg bare and also showed her belly. Around her midsection were two black belts, and there were two smaller belts around her upper right leg like garters. Covering her breasts were two pieces of gold armor that looked like wings, and covering the upper half of her face was a black helmet with a cross on the front and two small white wings on the sides. She also had on a white elbow-high glove on her left arm, and wrapped around both arms was a single long pink ribbon with feathered ends and adorned with writing in the language of the Digital World.

"No way!" Suzie exclaimed. "Is that…the Angewomon from the video?"

Mirei put a hand on her hip. "Well?"

Angewomon crossed her arms. "The whole thing was Lady's idea."

There was a large puff of grey smoke, and the black cat who had been lounging at the base of the same display case had turned into a young-looking woman with chalk-white skin, long silver hair, and red eyes. Covering the top half of her face was a mask made from stitched-together pieces of black leather, and she had on a black bodysuit that was made of the same material and also stitched together. Her left leg and left arm were mostly bare, and a torn piece of the bodysuit on the left shoulder was sticking upward, baring a face with two red eyes and a stitched mouth as if it were a separate living creature. On the right breast of the bodysuit was a white skull, and wrapped around her right forearm. The woman's hand was unusually large and bore fire red claws and a red bat-like marking on the back. Hanging from her back was a tattered torn black cape that was more like a pair of wings. This woman was Angewomon's opposite number, LadyDevimon.

"Oh please, it's not like you didn't enjoy it," LadyDevimon told her counterpart.

Mirei let out a heavy sigh and turned back to Suzie. "It appears I'm going to have to change my email password yet again. I deeply apologize for their behavior."

"So…those two are your Digimon?" Suzie asked, bewildered.

"I thought there was something weird about those cats," Lopmon remarked.

LadyDevimon floated over to Suzie. "So girly, did you enjoy the show Angel and I put on for you last night?"

"I…whether I enjoyed it or not isn't the point!" Suzie answered, her face bright red. "You don't send people stuff like that!"

"I deeply apologize if Lady and I caused you any distress," Angewomon told Suzie. "But we were only trying to help."

"And have fun doing it," LadyDevimon added.

"Just how the hell was seeing a sex tape supposed to help me?" Suzie asked.

LadyDevimon chuckled. "By making you realize the truth about yourself. When you came into the shop yesterday and Mirei told you your future, I had a feeling you hadn't accepted a very important part of who you truly are."

"So…in order to help me, you thought it was important for me to see a video of you eating Angewomon out?"

Angewomon blushed and looked away. "You don't need to go into details."

LadyDevimon took hold of Suzie's chin with her right hand. "You shouldn't deny your desires, girly. That sort of path can lead to ruin."

Mirei put a hand to her chin. "I can't say I approve of the way they tried to help you, but Angel and Lady do make a good point. Denying the truth about yourself will only bring you ill fortune."

Suzie backed away. "But…it can't be true. Okay! So maybe I like girls! But I was never this way before! Maybe something happened to me during the Crimson Plague incident, or…"

Lopmon hopped off of Suzie's shoulder. "Mind if I get in on this conversation?" He turned and looked the pinkette straight in the eye. "Suzie, I've known you for a pretty long time now, and there's something about you that I've noticed but never said anything about because I didn't think much of it. You've never seemed all that interested in boys."

Suzie opened her mouth to argue the point, but she suddenly realized Lopmon was right. She had never been interested in boys. A few times in middle school boys had asked her out, but she always turned them down because she never felt any sort of attraction towards them. Plus whenever her friend, Miki showed her some new video or poster of some boy idol and asked if she thought they looked hot, Suzie would admit they looked handsome, but their looks never really set off any sort of spark in her. Then in contrast, whenever Suzie would think of Jeri, and then more recently Alex or even just the idea of girls having sex with each other, that really got her motor running.

Suzie fell to her knees. "Holy crap. So…I guess I've always been this way? But, isn't that wrong?"

"I don't think there's anything wrong with you," Lopmon told her. "I mean sure, there are just some things about humans I'll probably never understand, but I don't think there's anything wrong with you liking other girls. Besides, you're clearly not the only girl who's like this, because from what I've seen, Alex really seems to like you too. What I'm trying to say is, you should just be yourself, Suzie. Because if you're not, you'll just end up being pretty sad."

With a tearful smile, Suzie petted the three-horned rabbit on the head. "Thanks Lopmon. I needed that."

"Well, I'm glad my companions and I were able to provide you with guidance, albeit in a rather 'unconventional' way," Mirei spoke. "But now I think I should ask, what do you intend to do now?"

Suzie picked up Lopmon and rose to her feet. "I think…I'm going to try asking Alex out. I mean, she is supposed to be the 'handsome prince' I was supposed to meet in your fortune, right?"

Mirei smiled and nodded. "Very good. You've decided to walk the path clearly laid out for you. Feel free to come to me again should you ever lose your way."

Suzie nodded and left the shop with Lopmon. Mirei watched them through the shop's front windows as they headed for school.

"Mirei, will everything turn out okay for Ms. Wong and her 'prince'?" Angewomon asked.

"It's hard to say," Mirei answered as she adjusted her glasses. "What I can see is that Ms. Wong and her 'prince' will soon face a very difficult trial. Whether or not either of them can pass this trial will decide their ultimate fate."

It was just past 1:00 PM as Henry and Terriermon entered Hypnos HQ. The night before, Henry had called Colonel Sato to set up an appointment about perhaps joining the special team she was forming. Upon the duo's arrival, the receptionist at the front desk took them directly to Colonel Sato's office. Henry couldn't help but notice that the office Sato was using had once been Yamaki's but he decided not to say anything about it.

Sato put down the document she was reading as Henry walked into her office with Terriermon on his shoulder. "Ah! Young Mr. Wong. Thank you for reaching out to me last night."

Henry nodded. "You should know that I haven't yet decided one way or another about whether or not to join this team of yours. Also, my friend wanted to make a few things clear with you before I sign up to join anything."

Terriermon nodded and hopped off Henry's shoulder onto Sato's desk. "Hi. I'm Terriermon, Henry's partner. We sorta met during the big meeting last night, but you kinda ignored me and all of the other Digimon there."

Sato raised an eyebrow. "Hello."

"Henry and I are both interested in what you're doing, but we thought we should make sure you knew that us Digimon are intelligent living creatures."

"Takato and some of the others were concerned that you only see Digimon as dangerous animals. In fact, that's kind of how Yamaki and his people saw them as too at first. My point is, Terriermon and I aren't going to sign up for your team if all we're going to be is some Digimon kill squad."

Sato smiled. "I understand, and you didn't need to convince me of anything. I know that Digimon are intelligent creatures. Killing them is something I'd rather not do. If I created any misunderstandings, I apologize. The reason I was so harsh in the meeting last night is because I wanted to make it clear to you all that the way you tamers did things just isn't going to cut it anymore. You have to realize that this world has been changing."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe you and your friends haven't realized this, but there have only been more and more tamers showing up ever since the D-Reaper incident was resolved. Today, there are thousands of tamers all over the world, perhaps more. A lot of them are kids, but there are quite a few who're your age too, and unfortunately, not all of those tamers use their Digimon for the benefit of society."

With those words, Sato opened a drawer in her deck and pulled out a file folder, which she placed on her desk for Henry to look at. Henry picked up the folder and started looking through its contents. Inside the folder were several dossiers on young men and women about Henry's age, all of them tamers.

"What am I looking at?" Henry asked.

"All of those are tamers who are now considered wanted criminals," Sato explained. "They've been using their Digimon to commit various crimes. The number of them is fairly small, but it could easily get bigger. Plus these are just the outlaw tamers we have in Japan. There are others all over the world. Interpol has started putting together a special registry for these outlaws."

Though, shocked, Henry closed the folder and calmly placed it back on Sato's desk. "Why didn't you tell any of us about this yesterday?"

"Because the matter is still top secret. If the public knew people were using Digimon to commit crimes, there'd be mass hysteria. Every government in the world has realized this, so they've been keeping as much of this matter secret from the media as possible. It's been fairly easy since many of these crimes have been happening in cyberspace. Whenever a tamer has committed a crime here in this world, we've been able to cover it as just another wild Digimon attack. But the fact is, we can't keep a lid on this forever."

Henry finally sat down in one of the chairs in front of Sato's desk. "It never even occurred to me that people might use their Digimon to do bad things."

Sato nodded. "And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Certain governments have been exploring how to use Digimon for military purposes. It's been rumored that the Americans have had some sort of special program going for the last decade or so, though nothing's been confirmed. Plus think of what most terrorist groups would do if they had Digimon that could do their bidding."

Henry looked Sato right in the eye. "Why are you telling me and Terriermon all this?"

"I've read the files Hypnos has made on you and all of your friends, and you seem to be the most rational and level-headed member of the group. In fact I think you're the perfect person to lead the team I'm putting together."

"Me? The leader?"

Sato rose from her desk. "Follow me. There are some people I'd like you to meet."

Henry did as instructed and followed Sato out of the office with Terriermon. The three of them got into an elevator at the end of the hall, which went up three floors and opened to a spacious executive lounge. Sitting in the middle of one of the orange couches in the room and chewing a piece of gum was a girl in her late teens, wearing a purple hoodie with a short white skirt and black knee-high boots. Her right hand was currently fiddling with her phone, and from this Henry could see that her nails were painted pink and back. The girl's her long black hair was dyed with red stripes.

Sitting next to the girl on the left side of the couch was a short green bipedal creature that looked almost like a cross between a lizard and a plant. Growing atop its head like a tuft of hair was a large purple-red flower. Henry instantly recognized the creature as the plant Digimon, Palmon.

"Mr. Wong, I'd like you to meet Miku Aino," Sato introduced, indicating the girl on the couch. "Age nineteen. She was originally classified as one of the outlaw tamers I told you about."

Henry looked at the girl known as Miku. "What exactly did she do?"

Miku blew the gum she was chewing into a bubble and popped it before answering Henry's question. "Nothing big. My Digimon and I busted into some high school servers to change grades pull a few pranks."

"Since her crimes were considered fairly minor, I convinced the authorities to give Ms. Aino the option of working for us instead of going to prison," Sato revealed. "I'm hoping our work will help straighten her out."

The Palmon that had been sitting next to Miku walked up to Henry and Terriermon. "Hi! I'm a Palmon, but Miku calls me Fern. You can call me that too."

"Nice to meet you," Terriermon responded.

Henry gave Miku a dubious look as she blew another bubble. "Is every other member of this team going to be a semi-reformed criminal?"

"Not all of us, my man," a voice answered. "Most of us are fine upstanding pillars of the community."

Henry looked in the direction of the voice, and standing in the doorway of the lounge washroom was a tall young man with dark hair styled in a pompadour, which was running a comb through. He wore a red leather jacket with a white shirt, black jeans and a pair of white boots. A pair of sunglasses hung from the front of his shirt collar. Standing by the doorway as if standing guard was a short green goblin-like creature with a large noseless face and spiky brown hair. The creature wore a brown leather vest and tattered brown shorts, and in its left hand it held a large club with four large nails in the top.

"The name's Gen Ushio," the young man announced as he put away his comb. "And the guy watching the door here is my main man, Goblimon."

"Hope you're not too dazzled by our sheer presence," Goblimon remarked as he gave them a fanged grin.

"Mr. Ushio is something of a hero in his home town," Sato revealed. "He and his Digimon saved several people from a burning high-rise."

"I think I read something about that," Henry recalled.

"The story was all over the news for weeks," Sato added. "Due to their heroism, I felt like I should reach out to them to join this team."

"So, are you the new tamer who's signing on to join the Colonel's squad?" Gen asked as he and Goblimon approached Henry.

"I'm certainly considering it," Henry answered. "To be honest, I still have some doubts."

"At least you get a choice, whoever you are," Miku remarked. "For me and Fern, it's either this or the slammer."

"Mr. Wong…Henry," Sato spoke. "I'm glad you're not rushing into this decision. It shows the level of maturity you have compared to those friends of yours. But I can tell that you and your little friend, Terriermon want to help make this world a better place for both humans and Digimon. Joining this team is the best way for you to do so. So what do you say?"

Henry looked to Terriermon for a moment before finally looking back at Sato. "Fine. Terriermon and I are in."

Sato smiled. "Then as of now, the three of you tamers here are the first official members of Taskforce D."

School had ended for the day, and Suzie was waiting on the roof of the building in the hopes that Alex would show up. Earlier that morning after they had arrived, Suzie had asked Lopmon to deliver a message to Alex to meet her up on the roof once school had ended. The idea was that Lopmon would use Kotemon as a second go-between to deliver the message. It had been five minutes since the bell had rung. Just as Suzie was starting to wonder if Alex would actually show up, the redhead emerged from the door to the roof.

"Hey there," Alex greeted. "Kotemon said you wanted to talk?"

Suzie nodded and took a deep breath. "So…you've made it pretty clear that you seem 'interested' in me. Are you serious, or is all this some sort of act."

Alex took a few steps towards her. "I'm perfectly serious. I've only ever been into girls. Why? Are you grossed out or something?"

Suzie shook her head. "No. In fact…I just realized that…I'm only into girls too."

Alex nodded and took another few steps towards the pink-haired girl. "Okay. So what's this about then?"

Suzie's heart began to pound in her chest as she tried to muster together her next words. "Well…if you're really serious, then…I was wondering if…you would be willing to go out with me?"

After a few tense seconds, Alex smiled and walked all the way up to the pinkette. "I'd be delighted to."

Upon hearing those words, all of the tension that had been inside Suzie simply popped like a balloon. Suddenly she was feeling as light as a feather. Before she realized it, a big smile had formed on her face.

"We should probably exchange phone numbers," Alex suggested, brining Suzie back down to earth.

Suzie nodded and the two of them temporarily swapped phones to enter in each other's numbers. The pink-haired girl couldn't help but blush a bit as she touched Alex's phone. Once they had all of their contact info exchanged, they swapped back.

"So about our first date, are you free Sunday afternoon?" Alex asked.

"Sunday would be perfect!" Suzie declared.

"Great. I'll text you the details later." Alex then pulled Suzie close and kissed her forehead. "Until next time, cutie."

With those parting words, Alex walked off. Suzie fell to her knees as soon as the redhead was gone, feeling as though steam was rising from the top of her head. She soon recovered though, and the lightness she had been feeling when Alex had agreed to go out with her had returned. Suzie left the roof, cheerily humming to herself and feeling as though she were walking on a cloud. When she at last exited through the front door of the school, Suzie found Lopmon waiting in his usual place.

"Hi Suzie. How'd things go with Alex?" Lopmon asked.

Suzie giggled as she picked Lopmon up and began twirling down the steps to the front gate as if they were dancing. "It went great! We're going out on a date this Sunday!"

"That's great! Just one thing though. You've never been on a date, have you?"

Suzie's dance froze as this realization hit her like a brick. "Uh…well, it's not like I don't know what to do. I mean, Alex and I are both girls, and I've gone on outings with Miki and Aki hundreds of times."

"But you go out with them just as friends. Alex is something way different, right?"

With Lopmon still clutched in both her hands, Suzie dropped to her knees in despair. "CRAP!"

It was just after 6:00 PM as Takato entered a small but classy little bar located near Hypnos HQ. He had left Guilmon back at his apartment with Jeri and Calumon. As soon as Takato walked into the place, he scanned the establishment and found Yamaki sitting by himself in a booth by the window. Yamaki raised his glass to Takato as a signal to come on over.

"This place doesn't look half bad," Takato remarked as he sat at the table opposite Yamaki.

"Thanks for coming on such short notice," Yamaki told him.

"Well your text said it was kind of urgent, so here I am. What's up?"

"I thought you should know, Henry signed on to join the special Team that Sato is putting together. They're called Taskforce D."

Takato slumped back in his seat. "That figures. I had a feeling he'd do this sooner or later. Still, I wished we had talked this out more."

"There's more to this whole matter than what was talked about at the meeting," Yamaki revealed before taking another sip from his glass. "The main reason you and your fellow tamers are no longer authorized to act in a combat situation is because of all the outlaw tamers out there."

"Outlaw tamers? What're you talking about?"

"It's still mostly top secret, but the information is going to come out soon enough. There are a lot of tamers out there who have been using their Digimon to commit illegal acts, both in cyberspace and here in the human world. The main purpose of Taskforce D is to apprehend these outlaws."

A look of shock formed on Takato's face. "People are using their Digimon to commit crimes? I never even imagined there'd be people like that."

"Did you think all of you kids chosen as tamers were good little boys and girls? I suppose most of you probably started out that way, but life often as a way of turning good kids into bad adults. In any event, the incidents caused by these outlaw tamers has been kept mostly out of the media to avoid public hysteria, but the fact that there are tamers out there who use their Digimon to do bad things is why there suddenly needs to be strict enforcement and oversight."

Takato turned to gaze at the passing traffic out the window. "Guess I was wrong about this whole thing. It'd be one thing if this was just about wild Digimon, but if there are tamers out there who're using their Digimon to commit crimes or whatever, maybe Colonel Sato's team is needed."

Yamaki jiggled the ice cubes in his glass. "Actually, I wouldn't be so quick to judge. The thing is I've known Hitomi Sato off and on for a few years now, and she often has an ulterior motive behind whatever she does."

Takato turned his eyes back to Yamaki. "What do you mean?"

"The fact is ever since the D-Reaper incident, governments around the world have wanted to exploit Digimon for military purposes. That exploitation extends to any tamers those Digimon would be partnered with. Just after the incident with GranLocomon, there was a proposal in our government to conscript every tamer in Japan into military service. One of the people spearheading that proposal was Colonel Hitomi Sato. Back then the proposal was shot down because no one wanted to draft children into the military, but I looked into it recently and discovered that Sato had been pulling every string she could over the years to make the proposal happen.

"And now, with so many tamers having grown up and with a certain number of them using their Digimon to commit crimes, Sato has finally gotten what she wanted. For now, Taskforce D is only a police force meant to apprehend outlaw tamers, but tomorrow she'll likely try to expand the team's role into more military affairs like overthrowing third world dictators. I'm certain that Sato believes that the wars of tomorrow will be fought using Digimon as weapons."

"Great! So this is actually worse than I thought. The question is, what do we do about it?"

"The fact is we may not be able to do anything about it. The political winds are blowing in Sato's direction, and unless those winds shift significantly against her, the future she's envisioned could very well become a reality."

Takato rolled his eyes. "You're a real ray of sunshine, you know that?"

Yamaki rose from his seat. "I only told you all this so you wouldn't get involved with Sato. My best advice to you is, don't do anything stupid. You should pass that along to your friends, particularly to Nash and Shioda."

With those words, Yamaki headed to the bar to pay his bill.

Takato turned his head back to the window. "I know I shouldn't do anything stupid, but I can't exactly do nothing either."

It was just past noon on Sunday as Suzie waited nervously near the front gate of an amusement park, wearing a purple dress that Lopmon had helped her pick out. The little rabbit Digimon was hiding nearby, waiting to come out in the event Suzie needed rescuing from an attacking Digimon or for simple moral support. The amusement park was the venue Alex had picked out for their first date. The redhead had texted Suzie the time and location for their date the evening of the day Suzie had worked up the nerve to ask her out. Suzie looked at the clock on her phone for perhaps the thousandth time as she waited for Alex to show up.

Suzie was extremely nervous about her date, as she felt woefully unprepared. As soon as she had gotten home after asking Alex out, Suzie had fired up her laptop and did an online search for dating tips. Unfortunately nothing she found applied to her particular situation. For some reason she couldn't find any sites that gave dating advice for girls dating other girls. Suzie tried typing in search terms like, "girls dating girls", but for some reason those searches only brought up links to porn videos. She guiltily watched a couple of those videos while Lopmon was in the living room watching T.V. with Terriermon.

Days passed, and Suzie had been totally unable to find any useful information that could help her prepare for her date. She couldn't ask Miki or Aki for advice, because she was certain her two friends would find her strange for wanting to date another girl. She could hardly ask her father or Henry either, as they would just totally freak out about the idea of her going on a date period. Asking a librarian or the clerk at a bookstore for any texts on such a subject was also out of the question. Thus Suzie was forced to go into her very first date ever totally unprepared.

Alex at last arrived just two minutes past the time they had agreed to meet up. The redhead was wearing a pink t-shirt with a black rose on the front, and a pair of red jeans that hugged tightly to her form.

"Hi cutie," Alex greeted, giving Suzie a radiant smile. "Waiting long?"

"Uh, no," Suzie answered, blushing a little. "You look great, by the way."

Alex chuckled a little as she took Suzie's hand. "You look great too. I love your dress."

"Oh, well…Lopmon helped me pick it out. I was worried it might be a little too fancy."

"Not at all. Your little friend has good taste. Now, shall we?"

Suzie nodded, and Alex led her by the hand into the amusement park. As Suzie looked around the bustling park, she wondered which attraction Alex would take them to first. She was perfectly comfortable with letting the redhead take the lead.

Alex looked around the park and brought them to an abrupt halt. "Hey, how 'bout we check out this first?"

Suzie looked towards the attraction Alex was pointing to and was somewhat taken aback. The attraction was an outdoor stage where the park held costumed superhero shows aimed primarily at little boys.

Suzie raised an eyebrow. "Um, really?"

Alex blushed a little. "I sort of have a soft spot for this kind of stuff. I watched one of the Americanized T.V. versions of these shows back when I was seven or eight. If you don't want to see it though, we can move on to somewhere else."

"No-no! If you really wanna see this, we can. But you owe me a ride on the ferris wheel afterwards."

Alex grinned. "Deal!"

The two of them got tickets for the next show, which started in less than fifteen minutes. Suzie and Alex ended up in the front row, surrounded on all sides by elementary school boys and their parents. Being in the middle of such a crowd, Suzie couldn't help but feel a little awkward, and yet she couldn't help but notice a sparkle in Alex's eye as she looked at the empty stage and waited for the show to start. The redhead was clearly excited about this, and Suzie found that she liked seeing Alex like this. She felt like she had just learned something about Alex, which was really what dating someone was all about.

Suddenly loud rock music began to play over the stage's speakers, signaling that the show was about to start. When Suzie looked at the clock on her phone though, she saw that there were still eight minutes before the show was about to begin.

A voice began to speak through the speakers. "Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! We interrupt your lame superhero show to bring you the biggest rising star in rock and roll! Give it up for…Jimmy KEN!"

There was a pyrotechnic flash up on the stage that raised a thick cloud of purple smoke, and emerging from the clearing cloud was a man with long wild black hair. He had on purple lipstick and a face covered with white paint. Painted around his left eye was a large purple star with a thick black border around the edge. Around his neck was a black chocker that looked more like a dog collar, and instead of a shirt he wore a black leather vest and fingerless black gloves that went up past his elbows. He also had on a pair of black pants with three zippers on each leg, and a pair of black zip-up boots that were both partially unzipped.

The man known as Jimmy KEN screamed into the microphone he was holding. "Hello-hello-hello, little boys and girls of Nakano Fun Land! I. Am. Jimmy KEN! You better hold onto your butts, because we're about to ROCK! AND! ROOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!"

"Uh, what the hell is this?" Suzie asked as the other audience members murmured in confusion. "Is he like the bad guy or something?"

Alex shook her head. "I don't think this is part of the show. Something's wrong."

"We're gonna start this show off with my latest hit," Jimmy KEN continued. "It's called, 'Ephemeral Hummingbird'!"

The music playing over the speakers changed, and Jimmy KEN began to wail into his microphone. The sounds that the self-proclaimed rock star made somewhat resembled music, but it brought pain to the ear of those listening. Less than half way into the song, the audience members began to leave. By the end of the piece's five-minute run, Alex and Suzie were the only ones left in their seats.

When Jimmy KEN opened his eyes after letting out that last shriek of a high note, he blinked in surprise. "Eh? What the…where'd my audience go?" He shook his head. "Man! Some people have no taste at all."

The wannabe rock star noticed Suzie still sitting in the front row. She was massaging her temples from the headache Jimmy KEN's song had given her.

Grinning, Jimmy KEN jumped off the stage and stood before Suzie. "Hey-hey there, little lady. Looks like I have at least one fan in this audience."

"Um, no. In fact I think that song of yours may have made my ears bleed," Suzie responded.

Jimmy KEN grabbed Suzie by the wrist and pulled her from her seat. "No need to be shy, sweet thing. I know a true diehard fan when I see one. In fact, I think you and I could make some beautiful music together."

Alex immediately pulled Suzie from the wannabe rock star's grip and got between her and Jimmy KEN. "Get away from her, you clown!"

"Hey-hey-HEY! Who're you callin' a clown?!" Jimmy KEN protested.

Alex smirked. "With all that makeup on, I don't see what else you could be. Just go back to the circus you came from!"

Jimmy KEN's left eye twitched with rage. "Oh that is it! You just pissed off the wrong rocker, bitch! Time to show you who you're messing with!"

With those words, Jimmy KEN reached behind his back and produced a black D-Arc with a yellow strap and screen border. He raised the device in the air and the screen began to glow red. There was a blinding flash of light, and suddenly the sky above had changed to a murky green that Suzie had seen before. Most of the seats in the outdoor auditorium as well as parts of the stage had become covered in blocky patches of visual distortions resembling static. Coiling up the base of the stage were strange black vines with glowing orange spots.

"This is just like what happened when Devitamamon attacked," Suzie recalled.

Jimmy KEN snapped his fingers, and suddenly flying down from the sky were several nearly human-sized creatures with ape-like bodies covered in grey fur. They had large misshapen heads with wide mouths filled with large sharp fangs. Their eyes were red, and in place of ears each creature had two pairs of grey bat-like wings. Long spiked red hair grew from the tops of their heads and down the creatures' backs, and each one had a large tuft of white fur covering their chests.

"These guys are called Vilemon," Jimmy KEN announced. "They've been diehard fans of mine ever since I started my career."

The legion of Vilemon surrounded Suzie and Alex and began chanting Jimmy KEN's name.

"Okay, my furry fans! How 'bout you teach that redheaded bitch what happens to people who diss my music?" Jimmy KEN spoke before snapping his fingers again.

One of the Vilemon flew straight for Alex and raised a clawed hand to slash her face off. Before it could get near her though, a fast-moving object flew through the air and bashed the demon on top of its head with its bamboo sword. After delivering its strike, Kotemon flipped through the air and landed in front of Alex.

"Alex, I trust you are unharmed?" Kotemon asked as he kept his eyes on the surrounding Vilemon.

Alex nodded and pulled out her D-Arc. "Let's teach these freaks a lesson for crashing my date."

Kotemon nodded, and Alex's D-Arc let out the mechanized cry of a single word. "BIOMERGE!"

Alex turned into a ball of pink light and entered Kotemon's body, triggering the reptile's transformation. "Kotemon biomerge digivolve to…Crusadermon!"

With a blinding flash of pink light, Alex and Kotemon's transformation into Crusadermon had finished. The surrounding Vilemon suddenly backed away a little.

Jimmy KEN was so stunned that he nearly dropped his microphone. "Hey-hey-hey-HEY?! Who the hell are you?"

A rose appeared in the pink knight's hand. "I am Crusadermon! And I shall snatch the shining rose of victory!"

Yamaki walked into the Hypnos control room carrying a file folder under his arm. He found Sato staring up at the electronic images showing on the room's domed ceiling as she drank from a coffee mug. Sitting in the two electronic chairs elevated towards the ceiling were Yamaki's wife, Riley and her coworker, Tally Onodera.

Yamaki walked up to Sato and handed her the folder he had been carrying. "These are all of the sensor reports for the past month. You can look through them if you want, but there's been nothing like the disturbance we detected a few days ago.

Sato looked at the first page inside the folder and nodded. "I thought as much, but it doesn't hurt to be through. What about the witness statements from when the disturbance occurred?"

"I went over those again too. The few people who had been in the area of the disturbance didn't report encountering anything we've seen before."

Sato closed the folder and went back to looking at the ceiling above. "So we may be dealing with a brand new threat."

Suddenly red lights began to flash inside the control room. Several alert warnings appeared all over the digital ceiling above.

"We're detecting another disturbance like the one from a few days ago!" Tally reported. "It's localized in Nakano Fun Land."

"Can we get eyes in there?" Sato asked.

"I'm getting access to the park's surveillance camera's now," Riley answered. "Found something! Putting it on main visual now!"

Appearing on the curved wall of the dome was a window showing Crusadermon about to face off with Jimmy KEN's band of Vilemon.

Yamaki spotted the D-Arc clutched in Jimmy KEN's hand. "Is that man a tamer?"

"It would appear so," Sato observed. "Deploy Taskforce D at once! Their first mission starts now."

Three of the Vilemon flew at Crusadermon, only them to get cut to shreds by the pink knight's Spiral Masquerade attack. Crusdaermon extended her left arm forward, and from the palm of their hand shot several rays of red light at the remaining demons. The Vilemon were all sliced apart, and their remains dissolved into particles of data that dissipated in the air. Jimmy KEN began to back away as he watched his inhuman fanbase dissolve to nothing.

"Your concert's canceled," Crusadermon declared.

Suddenly a large figure emerged from the stage and jumped between Crusadermon and Jimmy KEN. The creature was a humanoid with a muscular grey body. Wrapped around his torso and arms were chains burning with intense blue flames. Covering his face was a metal mask, and he had pronounced spiked blue hair styled to look like a flame. He had on a pair of black pants with red and yellow flame patterns decorating the sides, and on his feet were metal boots with toes styled to look like skulls.

The flaming creature roared at Crusadermon. "No one's canceling Jimiken's show!"

Jimmy KEN smirked. "Meet my main mon, SkullMeramon. Now that he's on stage, we're gonna give you a show that'll really ROCK! YOUR! WOORRRRRLLLLLDD!"

On cue, Jimmy KEN's D-Arc let out the mechanized cry of a single world. "BIOMERGE!"

The glam rocker turned into a ball of yellow-green light that entered SkullMeramon's back and triggered a transformation. "SkullMeramon biomerge digivolve to…Boltmon!"

With a flash of green light, SkullMeramon had transformed into a large muscular green humanoid with spiked red hair and a new metal mask covering most of his head. On the sides of this new mask were two large bolts. There were grey wires protruding from his shoulders, and on his chest was a grey lightning bolt. In the middle of each of his upper arms were thick metal bands that seemed to indicate that his arms had been artificially attached to the rest of his body. He had on black pants with the knees torn to reveal the heads of two large bolts protruding from his kneecaps, and on his large feet were a pair of brown boots with grey metal toes and pairs of spikes on the top of each. In his right hand, the green giant wielded a large double-sided axe.

"No offense, but you don't look much different from before," Crusadermon remarked, tilting their head.

Boltmon responded by leaping into the air towards the knight and raising his large axe above his head with both hands. "Tomahawk Crunch!"

As Boltmon swung down the head of his axe, Crusadermon parried the blade with another Spiral Masquerade attack. As the green hulk fell back, Crusadermon swung the shield on their right arm at the giant for an explosive punch. Boltmon quickly blocked the attack by using the head of his axe as a shield. Crusadermon's attack against the axe blade caused an explosion that forced both combatants to fall back.

As Suzie watched while taking shelter behind the corner of the stage, Lopmon ran up to her. "Suzie! Are you okay?"

Suzie nodded. "I'm fine. We should try to help Crusadermon though."

"I don't think we can. For one thing, I still can't evolve past my Champion form. Plus, we're not supposed to fight anymore, remember?"

Suzie immediately recalled the meeting she and her fellow Tamers had a few nights ago with Colonel Sato. The colonel had made it clear that they were no longer supposed take part in battles.

"But…we can't exactly just run away," Suzie pointed out. "Crusadermon…Alex is fighting that psycho on her own."

Suddenly there came the call of a familiar voice through a megaphone. "Stop it right now!"

Both Crusadermon and Boltmon froze and looked towards the sound of the voice, as did Suzie and Lopmon. They saw Henry standing in the aisle between the auditorium seats, with Terriermon perched on his shoulder. What surprised Suzie the most was that her brother was wearing some sort of black military uniform, complete with body armor. Henry also had some sort of headset microphone on over his left ear. Miku and Gen were also present and wearing the same uniform, and their Digimon standing beside them.

Boltmon scratched his head. "Aw man! More stage crashers?! And just who the hell are you supposed to be?!"

Henry put down the megaphone he had been using. "Let's show 'em, team."

Terriermon and the other four nodded, and their D-Arcs all let out the mechanized cry of a single familiar word. "BIOMERGE!"

Henry changed into a ball of green light and entered Terriermon's body, triggering his transformation. "Terriermon biomerge digivolve to…MegaGargomon!"

With a flash of green light, Henry's Digimon had transformed into a large humanoid robot with mostly green armor. It had a white dog-like face, and on the sides of its head were two green airplane-like wings that seemed to serve as ears. Mounted in each of the robot's shoulders was a large missile with a yellow dog-like face on the end.

Meanwhile, Miku had changed into a ball of lavender light that entered Fern and began the plant creature's transformation. "Palmon biomerge digivolve to….BanchoLillymon!"

Fern had transformed into a young-looking woman with a noseless face and large eyes very much like those of her previous form. On her head was a helmet made of large black flower petals, with a purple X-shaped mark on the front petal. The hair streamed down from beneath this helmet was actually a cluster of long green thorn-covered vines. She had on a short white shirt that showed her midriff and had a black collar with a blue ribbon like the shirt of a Japanese school girl's sailor uniform, and hanging down around her waist was a long black skirt with several zippers between each section that were partially unzipped to show off her legs. Hanging from her back like a cape was a long red coat that hit two pairs of wings resembling large purple leaves. She had pink ribbons wrapped around both of her wrists, and both her hands were clad in fingerless black gloves and also carried a spiked green yo-yo. On her feet was a pair of black shoes, each on baring a red almost diamond-shaped mark on the toe.

At the same time, Gen had changed into a ball of indigo light that entered Goblimon's back and sparked his own transformation. "Goblimon biomerge digivolve to…KingEtemon!"

Gen's Digimon had transformed into a gold ape-like creature with a silver and red visor over his eyes. Atop his head was a large red crown, and hanging from his back was a red cape with white fur around the edges. On his hands was a pair of blue gloves with with fur around the ends, and he had on a similar pair of blue boots with toes that curved upward and had white fur around the ankles. He had large spiked gold pads over his shoulders, and around his waist was a large white and gold belt like the kind that might be worn by a professional wrestler. The pectorals of his chest was engraved with the characters for "Great King".

"We are Taskforce D!" MegaGargomon declared as he pointed a metal finger at Boltmon and Crusadermon. "And by the authority of the Japanese government, you are both under arrest!"

Author's Note: Some of you reading might have recognized Jimmy KEN (Jimiken) from the Cyber Sleuth and Hacker's Memory games. For a while I had been toying with the idea of working him into this series. My initial idea was for him to show up as a comic relief antihero that some of the Tamers might be forced to work with. When it came time to figure out the latter half of this chapter though, I realized that I needed some lower-midlevel bad guy to show up and crash Suzie's date with Alex, and Jimmy KEN was the first character that came to mind.