"Belay that," he replied, not entirely sure acting on this was the best idea.
Upon hearing that there would be potential damage to the 'real Digimon' if they remained 'in the Real World' long enough, Haruka decided to bite, pressing the button once again, causing the Bukamon to vanish with a flicker. The boy then turned to Kuroda, and gave a skeptical look.
"I suppose we're supposed to say something like 'mission start' and be excited for this then?" he posited.

"Well, I guess I'll see you later then?" Zakai, heeding Kuroda's advice, activated the D-Scanner again and watched as Gazimon was once again 'digitalized' and returned to . . . the Digital World?


"Yeah, we'll see. Maybe I'll be busy and won't make it next time." Gazimon replied apathetically right before he faded away.

Zakai now remembered the Giga Blast card in hand, and with Kuroda's approval decided he should quickly put together some kind of deck with the newly available cards. He probably didn't have much time however, if there really was some large Digimon terrorizing the city. He still was half expecting this all to be some sort of joke, but everything was serious up until now. So for better or worse, he'd continue along with this.

Not wasting time, he made his way back to the deck he was shuffling through earlier. This time, he withdrew cards that might have some sort of use as he did. He wasn't sure which Digivolution Gazimon would end up having exactly, but he did his best and made sure to snag cards that Gazimon could effectively use in his current form. Who knew if real Digimon even followed the paths they knew? Once he was finished, he walked back over to Kuroda.

"Ready to go."

The site of the latest Cyber Beast incursion was an arcade within a shopping mall district. This meant that civilian risk was high and as such the Police and SAT Officers were prioritizing evacuation over anything else. Police maintained the perimeter while the SAT actually entered the hostile area in order to pull out civilians trapped within. So far only Law Enforcement was involved, so the Self-Defense Force had yet make an appearance. Amidst that chaos, a black van marked as a D-Connect company vehicle drove calmly into the madness. Its driver was Samantha Chase, who kept an eerily calm demeanor even as she was driving into a danger zone. The three tamers sat in the back as passengers.

The van pulled up to the perimeter, where an officer stopped them with the intention of turning them around and detouring the van elsewhere. But then Ms. Chase flashed a security clearance badge, surprising the officer. Confused, he called over a superior who waved the van through upon inspecting the badge for himself, "Police and SAT have already been informed of D-Connect's plan for combating the Cyber Beasts. They should cooperate with us during each incursion."

Makoto, in the meantime, was thumbing through the deck he'd put together, essentially double-checking it to ensure it had everything he needed, "Is that it?" he suddenly asked, pointing to a shadowy shape appearing to stepping out of the shopping mall. It wasn't much taller than adult human, perhaps by a meter, give or take. But it was muscular and carried an oblong-shaped weapon of some kind. It actually looked vaguely familiar, Makoto certain he'd something of that shape before but simply couldn't remember it.

When the van finally stopped, Makoto got out among the other tamers. He gave his D-Scanner a nervous glance and shivered briefly, as if having second thoughts. No, this is it. Don't get scared now. He held out the D-Scanner and released Commandramon. Who seemed to give a brief salute before noticing the Cyber Beast not too far away, "Awaiting orders. Am I clear to fire?" even as he said this, he held his assault rifle and was already taking aim. Makoto just nodded, but still seemed nervous about something.

"M16 Assassin!" Commandramon announced as he opened fire on the Beast. He also began moving forward as he fired as well, since Assault Rifles tended to be more effective at medium range instead of long range. While the shots got the Beast's attention, they didn't seem to affect it. Instead it angrily lunged forward with a swing of its weapon and knocked Commandramon back and flat on his rump, "Ugh! Attack ineffective! Awaiting orders-WHOA!" the Beast wasn't gonna wait around and instead kept swinging its weapon. Commandramon had to take jumps back to avoid the second swing.

"It must Champion-level. No problem, I've got a Digivolution Card that'll help-" Makoto started to say, but was quickly cut off by Ms. Chase's voice.

"We haven't quite figured out how to incorporate Digivolution. For now you have no choice but to keep fighting as you are." she said, still staring down at her tablet as if completely unfazed by all this.

How? If the Cyber Beast is Champion-level then how are our Rookie-level digimon going to put a dent in it? Makoto began to sweat a bit. Maybe he was too far out of practice, too in-over-his-head to do this? He seriously considered running. He briefly closed his eyes, even beginning to feel faint. That was when a breeze seemed to blow over him. He was suddenly standing straight again, slicked his hair back with his hand and when he opened his eyes, there was suddenly a different expression on his face. His eyes were a bit narrower, sharper and more calculating, and his lips curled into a confident smile. It wasn't a drastic change, but certainly noticeable. Whatever hesitance and nervousness he was displaying before was gone completely. In that moment he wasn't Makoto anymore. He was Emu, or M, the Genius Gamer.

"Guess I'll just call this this challenge run, then." he said in an almost cocky tone. He reached for his card deck and, without even looking at it pulled a card from it, "Digi-Modify!" he said with a confident look on his face, even twirling the D-Scanner on his finger briefly as if he were some kind of gunslinger, "Positron Rifle, activate!" after scanning the card, he pointed the device at Commandramon and pulled the trigger. It shot a line of pixelated light that briefly cloaked Commandramon with its glow. After a split second, the light faded and Commandramon's assault rifle was replaced with a more powerful firearm that fired lasers capable of piercing a target's defense.

"Keep your distance and shoot through whatever armor he's wearing! That'll wear him down quick." Emu called, never losing that near-cocky attitude he'd suddenly gained.

"Understood, sir!" Commandramon leveled the weapon to take aim, "Positron Laser, fire!" hopefully Haruka and Zakai had already sprung into action and were also employing some kind of strategy, preferably one that would distract the Cyber Beast so that Commandramon's shot would hit its mark.

The deployment ride was... boring, honestly. Despite the mild break of stopping in the D-Connect building, it seemed the whole day had been one giant trip. Out of one car and into another. It was almost sickening to a point. As he sat in the bench seat, Haruka thumbed the trigger of the new D-Connect lightly. A moment later, and a gasp of realization, he withdrew his own D-Connect. There was a moment of shock as he found the screen empty. The egg which had been formed when his Digimon reverted was nowhere to be seen. Had the two D-Connects somehow synchronized? Shaking the thought, he hurriedly returned the v-pet to his pocket, making his deck-holder clip to his pocket for easy reach, while he palmed the new D-Connect in his left hand.

Upon their arrival, Haruka stepped out, taking a strong stance with his left foot forward, "Time to see if these things work out here too," he muttered casually.
Flipping the Digivice on its ring, he aimed his hand out straight, catching it and pulling back the trigger with a soft chunk in a fluid motion. As before, the Bakumon emerged, showing no signs of distortion, nor hologram transmitter in the daylight.
'What? But that means...' his mind raced, and for a moment he froze, quivering in the strange breeze that seemed to pick up.
Haruka's senses were alerted by a strange sound, a shadowy shape looming in the distance. It was rather large, but held a vaguely humanoid shape, and seemed to be carrying a club. With very few Digimon- if this truly was a Digimon- wielding such a weapon, the plan of attack was clear.
"Open fire. Emit Virus Delete," he commanded in a cold, efficient tone.
"Calculating... Estimating RAM Output... Targeting... Virus Delete!"
With that, a misty fractal jetted from the Rookie's open mouth, eyes aglow. The blast careened towards the figure with a satisfying 'woosh', and seemed to be dead-on target for a moment. Shifting his gaze to the side, the boy saw the other partnered with the Commandramon, Makoto, modifying his Digimon with a Mega Class weapon. Haruka scoffed.
"Tch. What an amature move. Relying on such a tactic so early on is positively barbaric. I can see why you'd want to be some copycat legend, 'Emu'," he called out sarcastically, "Stay mid range Bukamon," he continued, now turning to the battle at hand with a casual attentiveness, "Keep your distance, but make sure you can get a hit in.".

Zakai finished organizing his deck of cards into their respective piles as the van pulled into the scene of the cyber beast. As Makoto's voice was heard, he looked up from his cards and outside the window. The authorities were all over the place, and sure enough a figure had emerged from the mall. Unless this were a movie, and there were no cameras or lights, this was looking pretty real. Not that Gazimon didn't look real, but it was natural to have some doubt about all that was happening.

Moving quickly outside the van to get a better look, Zakai squeezed his D-Connect.

Alright then. Here we go.

Zakai called forth Gazimon, who appeared with arms crossed.

"Sup. I had nothing better to do."

"Right. Well, we could really use your help right now. Another Digimon is tearing the place up."

"So what are we waiting around here talking for? If it's a fight, it's a fight!" Gazimon suddenly took off on all fours right as Commandramon begain firing his assault rifle and charging towards the enemy. As he did, Zakai glanced over at Makoto and noticed his glum expression. Was he feeling okay?

Bullets flew overhead as Gazimon sprinted, darting from side to side so his opponent wouldn't know which direction he'd attack from. As he neared his opponent he could see the bullets rebounding off his armor with no effect. But the distraction allowed Gazimon to hop behind their enemy and attack with his claws.

"Gazimon Claw!" Gazimon grinned as his claws raked across his opponent's armor, but faded once he realized it had no effect. Now their target turned his attention on Gazimon as he swung his weapon violently in his direction. Gazimon brought his chin to the floor and evaded the swing before performing a backflip and retreating to safety.

"None of these attacks are going to . . ." Zakai trailed off, realizing Makoto and Haruka were not listening. Makoto seemed sick, and as he glanced at Haruka he could see an expression of disbelief on his face. Maybe they weren't ready for this? Are too young? . . . Can we really do this? Zakai began running closer to the Digimon enemy. They had to try. It's just like the game, or the show right? It's the same Digimon.

"Gazimon, use the signs and structures around you! Avoid his attacks and strike hard when the opportunity opens!" Pulling a card from his deck and holding out his D-Scanner, he added. "This will help!" He swiped the card while simultaneously shouting, "Digi-Modify! Digimon's Drill, Activate!" Upon activation of the card Gazimon's claws illuminated and as the light faded began spinning as powerful drills.

"Now we're talking!" Gazimon leapt up onto a circular sign surrounded by benches. "Hey bozo, over here!" He caught the Digimon's attention again after he knocked Commandramon back. "Now, eat this!" With that he leapt from his post and smashed his drills into the Digimon repeatedly before landing, rolling sideways and bouncing back into the air and into a tree.

Looking back at Makoto, Zakai was greeted with a very different appearance. Now Makoto seemed like an entirely different person. And he got Commandramon right back into the fight with a more powerful weapon. "There we go!" And now , though Haruka had to add his snark comment, Bakumon was firing as well. We can do this.

"Gazimon, keep him busy under fire!" Zakai called, intending to use Gazimon's agility to aid Commandramon and Bakumon in attacking from a distance. Gazimon kept his furry of attacks going, bouncing from surface to surface as his drill claws made more and more damage on behalf of Commandramon lowering his defense. Each time one of Bakumon's blasts hit the Digimon, Gazimon would take the chance to shift his position and confuse his opponent.

Emu largely ignored Haruka's scoffing. He had a strategy in mind and no amount snark from his teammate was going to stop him from implementing it, "Just keep shooting for now." he said, though his hands were almost blindly thumbing through his card deck in the meantime. Of them, Haruka was the only one who opted not to use any of his cards yet. Instead he just ordered his Digimon to attack. This was what finally got Emu to address the guy, "Yeah, just keep going at it with attacks we already saw were useless against it. No way that brilliant strategy could fail..." he said, using a sarcastic tone of his own. Haruka wasn't the only one capable of snark.

As for the Cyber Beast, the sudden shots from the Positron Rifle and Gazimon quickly following those with drill claw attacks seemed enough that they were finally doing some actual damage. The Cyber Beast reeled a bit, but it was far from finished. It lashed out with the weapon it held to keep Gazimon at bay long enough for it to ball up its free hand into a fist and punch it in the general direction of Commandramon and Bukamon. That motion conjured up a small blast of energy that Commandramon had to dive out of the way of just to avoid a direct hit.

"Gazimon won't last in melee against that thing forever... change of plans, Commandramon!" Emu smirked, having chosen his next card. Just as well, the Positron Rifle had spent up all of its shots and was already dissolving away into pixel-like lights. Twirling the D-Scanner again, Emu swiped the card and aimed the device at his partner, "Digi-Modify! Megamorph, activate!" it was one of the new cards, Megamorph. Its effect allowed the Digimon to briefly use attacks from their next stage of evolution without needing to Digivolve.

When the light faded, Commandramon found himself equipped with the Scouter Monoeye of Sealsdramon as well as the sharp combat knife it used for attacks. With the Monoeye, Commandramon was able to scan the Cyber Beasts for weakspots before dashing forward at a high speed. He looked to be lunging straight at the Cyber Beast, but vanished at the last second only to reappear behind it, "Death Behind!" Commandramon struck hard and fast with knife, right into one of the weak spots it scanned for a moment. A Rookie level attack did little to beast, but this was a Champion level attack, so it was significantly more effective. The Cyber Beast reeled from this, looking like it could be close to defeat now.

"Well?" Emu asked Haruka, "You gonna do something useful now or should Zak and I keep doing this on our own?"

Haruka rolled his eyes at the remark. Rather than gratifying the smarmy coppycat with a response, he simply withdrew one of his own cards.
"Time for another test-" he began, swiping the card, "Initiate: Power Boost!"
With a flip of his finger, he slid the card through the reader of the D-Scanner, and a wave of pixilated arrays spread over the area.
"Okay, let's give this a shot-"
"Nightmare Syndrome!" with that, Bakumon unleashed a bast of ambiguous, nightmarish form.

Bakumon's attack - thanks to that Power Boost - stopped the lumbering Cyber Beast, and at last the Tamers seemed to have gained control of the battle. Being a largely non-damaging move, the Nightmare Syndrome held the beast in place but it did not destroy it. The entity appeared to have been forced to its knees though, it dropping the weapon it carried and appearing to clutch the sides of its head with its massive hands. It gave out a distorted cry, perhaps out of pain or fear, it was hard to tell due to its corrupted data. This prompted a knowing smirk from the Genius Gamer, finally seeing an opportunity to put an end to this thing once and for all.

"Looks like I've reached the last level," said Emu, fishing through his deck for a specific card. Finding it, he readied it on the scanner, "Time to clear this game. Digi-Modify! Dramon Killer - activate!" this little beauty of a card equipped Commandramon with a rather high level weapon: a large golden gauntlet with a lethal set of dagger-like claws attached, normally belonging to the Mega level WarGreymon. With the new weapon in tow, Commandramon made a leap for the nearly defeated Cyber Beast.

"Aerial Dramon Killer!" a downward thrust attack, usually performed by a flying WarGreymon, this time it was accomplished by Commandramon pushing himself into the air with a leap and then letting gravity give him all the momentum he needed to give the thrust its power. The claws sliced through the weakened beast like butter, it almost exploding into a mass of data and pixels around where Commandramon now stood. This battle was finished.

"Now that's more like it. Tamers: 1, Cyber Beasts: 0. Good fighting Commandramon." said Makoto, his gamer persona starting to dissolve away and his previous personality now taking precedent again. Despite the bickering, he and Haruka did make an exceptional team. If they kept this up, then maybe the two of them could pull this mission off after all. Two of them, not three? Makoto rubbed his temples and then shook it off. Of course not three, he and Haruka were the only two that showed up on time from what he remembered. Thankfully, he spotted Ms. Chase doing something odd to take his mind off of that thought.

"Hey, what are you-?" Makoto started to ask. Chase was pointing a device of her own at the mass of data the Cyber Beast left behind. It looked kind of like a D-Scanner, but not as ornate or colorful. It appeared to suck in the stray data and pixels from the Cyber Beast like a vacuum, so maybe it was some kind of storage or clean up device?

"With the Cyber Beast defeated, its data can now be collected and processed. We're hoping by studying it we can learn some kind of weakness or more effective means of dealing with future attacks. So I'll be using this data collector on the remains after each battle. The more data we can collect, the better chance we have of learning exactly what it is we're up against." her answer was quick and matter-of-factly. In other words she was merely confirming her actions, not asking for permission, "All right, we should return to D-Connect. Mr. Kuroda messaged me during the incident that another recipient arrived late and is waiting to meet you."

---

Meanwhile - back at D-Connect Headquarters - a new, third limo arrived. Its occupant - a young American named Violet - had just arrived despite being late. Having flown in from America, there was a delay with the flight causing her current tardiness. But Kuroda didn't appear phased at all by this. Just as with the first two arrivals, he made sure to personally greet young Violet as she emerged from the limo he had hired for her.

"Welcome, welcome Ms. North!" he said, in English. Most people assumed that Ms. Chase served as an interpreter but the truth was that Kuroda was quite fluent in English, so he didn't actually need a translator. No, he hired Chase for her other talents and skills, "Terribly sorry about your flight. I hope it was otherwise a comfortable trip? In any case, your fellow recipients have already left, but should be returning any time now. In the meantime, please let me you show what we're all about here at D-Connect."

Kuroda would essentially give Violet the same tour he gave the first group. And like the first group he unveiled Project Destiny and offered her one of the special D-Scanners with a Digimon partner to call her own. By the time Ms. Chase returned with the boys Kuroda had already shown Violet one more facility that he didn't get to show the first group due to time restraints and the unexpected appearance of a Cyber Beast. It looked like kind of game room, or recreation room. It had some exercise equipment, some arcade machines and places for the Tamers to practice the card game against each other in order to hone their skill. Once Ms. Chase entered with the two boys, however, a pixelated entity made its presence known. It was some kind of pinkish ball of light with wings, and it bounced around the room like a pinball in its excitement before finally settling down and speaking.

"Hi hi!" the winged ball of light said in a high-pitched voice that could only belong to something female, "I'm Pixelmon, and you're my new friends!"

"Um... hi?"

Mr. Kuroda cleared his voice, "That would be Pixelmon. We thought it might be helpful to have someone around who can help identify Cyber Beasts. Pixelmon here has the entire Digimon encyclopedia encoded in her memory. That should let her recognize the looks and attacks of Cyber Beasts and give you a clearer idea of what you're fighting against."

"Yep yep! You'll see! Next time you fight, I'll be able to analyze the Cyber Beasts attacks and identify them for you."

"I must apologize." said Kuroda, "I meant to show this to you earlier, but that Cyber Beast you faced caught us off guard and I didn't have the chance until now. But please, Pixelmon and this Game Room are completely at your disposal. If you're going to be helping our company, then it's only fair you be compensated, yes? Well, I'll leave the three of you to get better acquainted, D-Connect isn't going to manage itself I'm afraid. Please give any further questions to Ms. Chase, and I do hope you enjoy your time with us." Kuroda said all of this twice, first in Japanese and then in English for Violet's sake.

"So um... h-hello." Makoto said to Violet, his English a bit shaky and not perfect, but he tried his best, "I'm Makoto... friends call me Emu, though."

Violet was in shock. Meeting Mr. Kuroda, getting a D-Scanner that apparently had a real digimon in it, and access to a brand new set of cards? She finally snapped out of it when she heard a voice introducing itself. Though its English was... less than ideal. She double-checked her new D-Scanner to make sure it didn't have an Angemon sent to bring her to the heaven she had obviously died and gone to, once again seeing the digitama that indicated either a Machine-type to be or a SnowBotamon, depending on the stripes that she didn't take the time to look closely at. She finally registered what the... boy, she now noticed, had said.

"Saikin dō?" [What's up?] she replied in Japanese that would pass for coming from a native speaker if the inflection didn't seem a little too perfect to be the relaxed speech that one would have. "Watashi wa V-..." [I'm V-...] Violet paused, realizing the potential difficulty in her name for a Japanese speaker. "... Gem desu. Yoroshiku." [I'm Gem. Nice to meet you.]

A glance at the boy showed that he was much older than her, but she felt that the possible disrespect from her informality would be worth the risk in order to help him feel less walled off from her. She did arrive late, after all, and was visually foreign. She already felt that Japanese had too much formality in it, so breaking the illusion that she's well-mannered was an added bonus.

Haruka gazed unblinking as the aberrated beast splattered into bits of data. While it seemed able to interact with solid objects, coming as close as splattering on the boy's face, it was soon absorbed by a device suddenly waved about by Ms. Chase. The boy shot a now standardly skeptical look at the machine in question. A scoff left his lips. Had he really been sucked into this illusion? How pathetic. He rolled his eyes, then took a step towards the Bakumon. Still, it was pretty convincing. This must be a pretty expensive set up. What a waste.
As he gazed at the Digimon, who looked back at him, his expression soured slightly. That superstitious copycat seemed to finish it off, but only by accessing the Dramon Killers. A dry laugh left the boy's lips. Better to win with the cards you're dealt than go as far as cheating or superstitious mimicry, like Mokoto and that other kid with the Gazimon had done. Haruka's eyes shifted about- where had that kid gone?

---

"So," he casually snarked to Ms. Chase once they were almost at the D-Connect building again, "What is all this actually about? You can't expect me to believe some corporation actually stumbled upon real Digimon," and that was the extent of his communication on the ride.
After that, Haruka was getting very sick of sitting in the backs of cars, bumpy roads or otherwise. However, his mood stayed about level as they returned to the D-Connect building, where they were introduced to some talking spark. Haruka rolled his eyes as he saw the young girl standing, talking to Mokoto. He was rather fed up with most of the situation, but it had to be fake now. Why would they include such a young child in something that involved real Digimon? Kuroda seemed to be an avid Digimon fan, but even Haruka would have to admit to himself that he wasn't soft in the head, for how jovial he always acted.

Makoto blinked, her Japanese was pretty good, better than his English at the very least, "Gem... strange name." then again, she came from America, a country that - based on everything he ever heard about it - could be a very strange place. That had him thinking though... did the Cyber Beast threat extend to other countries? If so this was a more serious matter than he first thought. It was too late to ask Kuroda, he had already left to return to work. And Ms. Chase found herself preoccupied with answering Haruka's question.

"And why shouldn't I expect such from you?" she asked Haruka, her eyes narrowing into an almost cold glare, "Microwave ovens, Velcro, super glue, pacemakers, X-ray, even toys like play-doh and slinkies." she was listing a seemingly random number of things. For what purpose, she would soon make clear, "All of those things were "stumbled" on by men and companies by complete accident. Why should something like Digimon be considered any less believable?"

Makoto had to stifle a laugh, she sure seemed to be schooling Haruka pretty good. At the same time though, he couldn't help but make a point of his own, "Microwaves are one thing, but we're talking about living, breathing things made of data. I think we can forgive Haruka for having at least a little skepticism. But even so... Haruka, you saw the Beast and helped take it down with Bakumon. I'm thinking the time for skepticism may be a little past its expiration." after this Makoto decided to turn his attention to Pixelmon.

Upon a closer inspection, 'ball of light' was not the best way to describe her. She was a small, floating mass of pixels that seemed to keep the shape of a butterfly of some kind, "So... can you identify the Cyber Beast we just defeated?"

"Sure I can. Let's... analyze!" at this, she appeared break apart into individual pixels that reformed into a different shape. She looked like a window on a computer screen displaying the shadowy shape of the Cyber Beast from earlier. After a moment though, "Here's our culprit..." the shadowy shape had its color and detail filled in to reveal a Digimon, "...Ogremon. I'm sure of it. That Beast is, or at least was, Ogremon. Poor guy, can't seem to catch a break in any story he's a part of." true, Ogremon usually had the bad luck to end up as some brainless henchmen in the various anime, and apparently that fate followed him here to the real world as well. That also explained why the Cyber Beast was difficult to deal with at first. Ogremon was indeed a Champion level Digimon, coinciding with Commandramon's and Bakumon's initial difficulty in fighting it.

"It's... It's two syllables away from yours." Violet responded. She looked at the other boy and thought for a moment, before deciding to stay quiet and turn back to her D-Scanner. Now that she was taking a closer look at the egg, she realized that it would wind up being a YukimiBotamon, and began deciding on nicknames. Looking through the new cards could wait until it was safely hatched, and the 'Pixelmon' didn't interest her. As a presumably non-living program, priority went towards the soon to be hatched life in her hand.

Haruka rolled his eyes, giving a patronizing glance to Mokoto as he passed.
"Well, it looks like this one has some sense after all," the boy muttered as he strolled by, the vaporous form of Bakumon close behind.
There was a stark disinterest in his posture, as he crossed the room, barely seeming to pay any attention to the Digimon following him, nor the somewhat irrational seeming instances of Ms. Chase.

---

Haruka's eyes flickered over the glowing screen, gathering minute changes in various meters and compiling them in his head. The match shouldn't be dragging on this long. More importantly, he had no way to damage the other player's Valdurmon general with his own Gaiomon. The technique meter in the bottom center of the screen had been frozen since very near the beginning of the fight, and the Valdurmon's passive ability, Purge Shine, stopped any direct attacks from connecting. Haruka's teeth gritted in frustration, his fingers hovering over the keys tentatively as he pushed that attack with his Goburimon. However, without any support from high stage Digimon, the grunts would be overwhelmed.

---

"Um, what are we doing next?" asked Makoto, finally. He dreaded the answer, and unfortunately the look Ms. Chase gave told him exactly what he was hoping not to hear.

"We wait. We don't yet possess the means to predict Cyber Beast activity, so until we do all you can do is wait for them to show themselves. As Mr. Kuroda said, you're free to use these facilities for practice or recreation. You'll even find dormitories we've prepared down the hall, in case this mission takes longer than we anticipated." the letters the Tamers received specified that part of the prize they were selected for was this trip of theirs to be considered a week-long vacation, so for now that would have to suffice as their explanation for staying at the headquarters, although D-Connect admittedly hadn't planned for the possibility that the crisis wouldn't be solved within that allotted time. Should the week pass and the Cyber Beasts still were not eradicated fully, the company would have to cross that bridge when they reached it.

Without any better ideas Makoto decided to log into one of the computers nearby. If all he could do was wait then he might as well spend that waiting time doing something productive. First, though, he decided to check his emails. The inbox was empty, save for one recent message from... an unknown sender. That was more than a little suspicious, the message didn't even have a subject. Against his better judgement, Makoto's curiosity got the better of him and he opened the email. It was... a poem?



Makato just stared blankly. The... poem or whatever it was didn't make any sense. There were certain words and phrases used that made it strikingly insightful to the current situation with the Cyber Beasts, but otherwise it was just poetic musings about humanity and heroism that probably belonged in a comic book somewhere, "You guys may want to look at this. It was in my inbox, I thought it was just some random poem but some of it is phrased like the sender knows what we're doing. And does anyone know anybody called D.K.? Cause I don't."

@tobiax@DarkwolfX37

Still staring at her D-Scanner, it took Violet quite a while before she registered Makoto's question. "The writer, the character, or the hacker?" She thought for a moment, putting her digitama to the back of her mind. "There's a writer by that alias who made a fairly popular digimon comic in America. Of course there's the character from the 'Tamers' manga, and given the newfound existence of actual digimon, I wouldn't totally rule out the possibility of a fictional character suddenly sending people emails. Then there's the hacker who leaks a lot of information from D-Connect. Theories range from it being the 'Best Tamer' M to it being Mr. Kuroda. The idea that it's a stealthy way for D-Connect to leak information they want leaked is fairly plausible, as is the idea that it's someone from some government trying to undermine D-Connect, even more so if they knew about the existence of Digimon before now. I used to think it was most likely an automated program someone made to gather information on D-Connect's coding languages and systems. Now, though, the possibility of it being a digimon or even Yggdrasil seems plausible." She went back to focusing on the egg in front of her.

Haruka rolled his eyes. This was ridiculous. Who did they take him for that he would believe all this? First real Digimon, then some clandestine selection process, mysterious destructive attacks, now some enigmatic internet message leaker? It was enough to make him laugh at the preposterity of it all.
He strode past the girl who spouted the latest bout of nonsense, his shoulders close and his posture cold.
"While I appreciate the theatrics, I really do, but they fall a little flat, don't you think? Especially going this far. What, is the kid a plant or something?"

Violet glanced at Haruka and spoke in the most disrespectful way possible, ignoring all politeness in her speech. "To borrow a pun from English that doesn't work in Japanese, the only plant here is your brain. Delusional and not worth anyone's time, how pathetic can you be?"

"OK, let's try not to start hating each other on the first day, yeah?" asked Makoto, somewhat meekly trying to play moderator. Taking charge and going in guns-blazing was something he was good at doing in games, but in real life with actual people? Forget about it. Still, he had say something to prevent a serious argument from happening, especially given how confrontational Haruko had already shown himself to be thus far. A fire alarm sound may have been just the interruption this group needed. Accompanying the loud noise was Pixelmon's shrill voice.

"Cyber Beast! Cyber Beast! It's a Cyber Beast! Right here at D-Connect!" she squealed, her pixelated form bouncing around in a hyperactive manner.

"Can you identify it?" asked Makoto, quick on the draw to get away from the argument-to-be and focusing on something else.

"Sure can! It's Meramon! Try not to touch him or you'll get burned!" Pixelmon's form suddenly darted out of the room toward somewhere outside the building.

"Meramon, huh? Why do I get the feeling there's something she wasn't telling us?" Makoto scooped up his D-Scanner and made for the door himself, "Looks like there's no rest for the wicked, come on let's check it out!"

---

Outside of D-Connect, there indeed was a Cyber Beast attack in progress. It surely couldn't have been a coincidence that they would target D-Connect almost immediately after Project Destiny was enacted. But that was also impossible, nothing in any of the reports suggested any kind of planning or strategic reasoning for the attacks thus far. Could this one have been the first? At the front of the premises was a tall, fiery humanoid with features that - like the previous Cyber Beast - seemed to be blurred out and hidden in some kind of murky silhouette. Surrounding the perimeter, the Defense Team had already arrived and were in position to cordon off the area while two different firefighting teams were already present to deal with what they suspected would be an inevitable fire breakout.

Among the Defense Team was two men more distinct than the others. Most of the officers were in uniforms reminiscent of American SWAT teams, but not these two. One was formal attire, a dark brown longcoat worn over it to keep himself warm in the cool air, while the other looked a lot more casual, his leather jacket and dark colored pants making him look more like a biker than an officer. But both men had flashed their badges, proving they were indeed genuine officers. They both looked to the Tamers once they emerged from D-Connect and looked to be talking among themselves.

"That's them? They really are just kids." said Officer Honda Owada, the man in the leather jacket. He sounded irritable, his voice deep and gruff. Or perhaps he was just having a bad day? Apparently he wasn't present at the previous Cyber Beast attack. His partner, the other man, was.

"I was surprised, too. But they're the ones Kuroda picked. Not much we can do about it but support them as best we can." he was the man in the long coat, Superintendent Shinnosuke Ichijou, the officer chosen to lead this task force meant to support the Tamers, while Owada was his partner and right hand man. Unlike Owada, Ichijou was calm and seemed to be able to keep his cool even in the midst of a Cyber Beast attack.

The Cyber Beast - Meramon - seemed to sense the arrival of the Tamers and immediately lashed out against them with a gout of flames from his hands. It was a slow enough attack that the Tamers had moments to dive out of the way and safely out of the fire's reach. But something was off about this fire. In fact, all the fires that Meramon set was not a natural fire at all. Small flaming spheres seemed to emerge from the flames and began acting as minions for Meramon.

"What the? Pixelmon, what are they?" it was Makoto, already aiming his D-Scanner and pulling the trigger to release Commandramon.

"DemiMeramon! His fires are summoning DemiMeramon to help him fight!"

"Why can't it ever be easy?" Makoto then took a deep breath before pushing his hair, his demeanor changing again and his tone once more confident and prideful, "Commandramon's rifle should let us handle the small ones, so you two go ahead and focus on Meramon himself!"

@tobiax@DarkwolfX37

@Double

Violet sigh. "Sorry, I have no patience for people who don't treat their digimon well." She barely managed to finish talking before the alarm went off. "Meramon? Poor guy. Always portrayed as a villain."

---

Hiding behind a wall, Violet looked around at the scene before shouting at Makoto. "What do you mean 'you two!?' I'm sitting here with an egg so unless we can use cards themselves, I'm sort of stuck as tactician!" Not waiting for a reply, she pulled out her deck and the two cards she'd grabbed from the new set. "Too bad I didn't have more time to look through these..." She looked over her makeshift cover at the battle scene before glancing back at her D-Scanner and deck. "Then again, this shouldn't be enough of a problem to need a partner for..." Violet attempted to use a card, intending to find out. "Card Slash, Frost Field!"