Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon. I do not own Heroes of Olympus. Boy, it's early.

Author's Note: Written for the Novel with Prompts Challenge found on the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges forum. The prompt for this chapter is "pop".

Reminder: I post all review replies on my personal forum topic found right here on this site. Replies to the previous chapter are often posted about an hour after the newest chapter goes up. To find the topic, navigate to the little drop down menu at the top of the screen for Forum to Anime to Digimon. Find the forum called Digital Connections. The topic you are looking for is called "Blurring Boundaries: And so it begins..." Or you can go to my profile and use the direct link there!

See what happens when I say I'm not back? Miracles, apparently. God, it's really early. It just hit 5AM here, and I've been doing the editing thing for about... 30 minutes, I wanna say? Either way, my eyes are going kind of cross-eyed, but I wanted to get this up tonight (this morning?) so here it is. I apologize for any errors I might've missed in my half-asleep mess. Either way, I hope you...

Enjoy!

Chapter Eight

"So, is it true?" Rika asked. "Do you know him? And I'm not talking about from watching television – do you know him, Ryo?"

They sat in an empty office belonging to some poor sap who had probably gotten fired if the emptiness of the place told them anything. As far as Rika knew, the office could have always been empty, a pointless room among the thousands that were currently occupied. It seemed unlikely, but it wasn't impossible. But then again, a lot of people had been getting fired from this floor lately – the tamers' fault. Anybody who was too pro-tamers and anti-military were being sent home with their possessions in a box. All it took was a simple comment to the wrong person or a post on social media, and they were gone. For the most part, the teenagers didn't really know any of the people being sacked. They were just nameless faces who had supported them in the background. The people who actually worked closely with the tamers, they knew better than to show too much outward support. It was too dangerous.

Rika swallowed back her anger, remembering the close call with Yamaki several months ago, right after Takato disappeared. The Powers That Be had tried to put the blame on him, as if that would make everything alright again. They'd failed – or maybe they just realized that Yamaki was more useful to them working here than just being a convenient patsy. Either way, no Yamaki at Hypnos? She didn't want to think about it. She's not sure Japan would last long without him.

Ryo sighed, his chair balancing precariously on its back two legs while his feet rested on the desk in front of him. Monodramon curled up next to him while Ryo's fingers lazily scratched the top of his head. He gazed out the windows, across the horizon of Shibumi, where the only thing they could see from this high up was the smog settling in for the evening.

"Takeru Takaishi." He said the name as if it didn't quite fit in his mouth. "Rika, I have to be careful what I say here—"

"What do you mean?" Henry interjected. He stood in Ryo's eyeline, back leaning against the window. Terriermon sat on the desk, looking bored out of his mind. "Why can't you just tell us what's going on?"

"Important things are at work here," he said. "Some secrets need to stay secret… at least until the time is right."

"And when will that be?" Renamon asked.

Rika was the only person who wasn't startled by her sudden appearance.

"Hard to say," Ryo said with a touch of annoyed amusement, a hand still on his chest, clearly waiting for his heart to stop trying to pop out of his chest. He glared lightly at Rika, as if he suspected that she had instructed Renamon to appear just like that. She had. "Whenever it feels right."

Rika rolled her eyes. "Well, I have a feeling I'm going to punch you in the face."

"Rika," Ryo started.

"It's getting stronger by the moment."

"What can you tell us?" Henry asked. Always the level-headed one. "He's not like us, is he?"

"No," Ryo said. "I'm sorry I can't tell you more, but I don't think I should interfere. Not yet. Something Shibumi said—"

"You've talked to Shibumi?" Henry asked.

"Briefly," Ryo said, waving it off as if it wasn't important. "All I know is that the best place for TK and Patamon right now is here with us."

"Are they dangerous?" Rika asked.

Ryo managed a dry smile. "Very. To their enemies. But he's not a threat to us. We can trust him."

"Like we trust you," Rika said bitterly.

Ryo ran his finger over his D-Power. Monodramon perked up as if he sensed something, but Terriermon and Renamon didn't react to anything. Rika knew it was a false alarm. In this form, Monodramon seemed so in tune with his partner's emotions, he'd react to a threat at the slightest sign of Ryo's distress. Rika had gotten used to it by now, but she still couldn't help but see the irony: in one of his weakest forms, all Monodramon wanted to do was protect Ryo from every possible threat, but in the form where he could be any help, Cyberdramon was too far gone to be any help to anybody – unless you wanted something destroyed, of course.

"Look, I know this is hard," Ryo said. "I know how much you hate not knowing something—"

"It might have something to do with the fact that it's because it's usually dangerous for us," Henry pointed out.

"Momentai, Henry! I'm sure Ryo would tell us if it was dangerous," Terriermon said. Then he paused. "…Right?"

"Yes," Ryo said with no hesitation. "And yes, it's dangerous. You need to be on your guard. In fact, I'd guess you probably need to head to the Digital World… and soon."

"You'll be coming with us?" Rika asked.

Rika caught his hesitation instantly, and she could feel her suspicion and frustration growing. This was probably the main thing she hated about Ryo Akiyama, Digimon King. Ryo cared about the tamers, Rika never doubted that, but he never really integrated himself in the group. He always made sure to keep them at arm's length, going on his own missions and getting into his own fights. It didn't matter that they were all on the same side, working toward the same goal; Ryo Akiyama had to do it on his own and in his own way. Rika knew it wasn't about being "too cool" or "too egotistical" to hang around with them, but she was tired of trying to be patient and just waiting for him to come around. That was always Takato's area of expertise.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Rika's blood boiled with frustration, as if little rivers of lava were flowing through her veins, but she bit back the bitterness to focus on the problem at hand. "Why do we need to go to the Digital World? Is it about the digimon not staying destroyed? Have you figured out who's behind it?"

"I'm getting close," Ryo said. "It's getting bad in the Digital World. The Digimon Sovereigns are trying to keep peace, but they're losing control. And from what Jeri and TK told me, things are starting to spill out over into the Real World too."

"Yeah, you can say that again," Terriermon quipped.

"Things are starting to spill out over into the Real World too," Monodramon echoed.

They ignored him.

"Okay, say we go to the Digital World like you think we should," Henry said. "What will we be looking for?"

"The cause of all of this – the digimon not staying destroyed," Ryo said.

"You've located the source?" Renamon asked.

"Sort of," Ryo said.

"A little less vagueness would be nice!" Terriermon said. Rika saw Henry's lips twitch in amusement, but neither made a move to contradict Terriermon's statement. A straight answer would be nice for once.

"When you delete something on your computer, it gets moved to your recycling bin, and it sits there, waiting to be erased fully but not really on your computer anymore," Ryo said. Rika blinked, not sure where this was going, but she didn't interrupt him, figuring she might as well let him talk it out. "Think of that in terms of digimon. When digimon are deleted, their data is still out there, right? That's how other digimon can absorb the data; that's where all of the loose data packets come from…"

"Okay…" Rika said slowly. If Ryo was trying to hint at something here, she wasn't getting it.

"The recycling bin on your computer will empty itself as you delete more things. It's automatic to make sure your hard drive doesn't end up cluttered with erased data that you had already deleted anyway. It's a cleanup function." Ryo looked between Rika and Henry. "The Digital World does the same thing. When too much loose data is left floating around, it will purge itself of the oldest data, sending it… somewhere."

"Somewhere?" Henry repeated.

"Calumon – he is the living form of a nonliving program that existed within the Digital World, the Catalyst that allowed digivolution," Ryo said suddenly, seemingly changing the subject on them.

"What does Calumon have to do with this?" Rika asked sharply.

Ryo raised both of his hands to stop her before she could work herself into a frenzy. "Probably nothing! But the point is – the Sovereigns, they've taken a basic functioning program within the Digital World before and turned it into something living to protect it. My sources tell me that something similar has happened to this… Recycling Bin program, for lack of a better name. Whatever program was in place to purge the Digital World of its loose data, it's gone. The data is just sitting there. Data streams, data packets, literally zeroes and ones that make up destroyed digimon, like lost souls – the Digital World is full of them now, even more than they were the last time you guys were there. And it's only going to get worse. I think – no, I know – that somehow Huanglongmon has made the program into a physical entity that he could trap."

"A physical entity… just like Calumon," Henry said, catching on.

"Before this program went missing, Huanglongmon was having to reach outside of the Digital World to wherever the excess data was being purged to reform old enemies," Ryo explained. "But now, with this program in his grasp as his captive, the data just stays here. There's no wait period, no hesitation, the digimon can just reform on their own without his help within seconds."

"Like those Vilemon," Terriermon said. "You mean every enemy from now on is going to do that? Henry, I think I'm ready to retire."

"So that's why you want us to go to the Digital World," Henry said, ignoring his partner. "To rescue this… program or whatever it is?"

"It won't stop the digimon from being able to come back," Ryo admitted, "but it'll certainly slow them down. At least, if I understand it correctly."

Rika narrowed her eyes at him. "Who exactly is this source of yours?"

Ryo and Monodramon shared a look before Ryo sighed. "That's not important."

Rika wanted to argue, but she had a feeling that now was not the time. It really did feel like they were fighting the clock here. The date that TK had brought them speaking of their impending doom was feeling closer by the second. She settled for an annoyed glare instead.

Henry interrupted the silent glaring. "If you're not coming with us, how will we know where to go?"

"You know there are six layers to the Digital World," Ryo said. "The first layer is the data layer, created by humans, the layer that Hypnos can track to see who is coming through. Then there's the sky layer that determines whether it's night or day. Third is the first physical layer, dead wasteland, what we see when we play the video games. Underneath that is all of the universes, the different climates and habitats created out of necessity for the digimon to have somewhere to call home. And then it's the Sovereigns domain, where Zhuqiaomon and Azulongmon live. And last…"

Rika wasn't sure where Ryo was going with this at first. She and Henry knew all of this, of course. Out of all of the tamers – including Takato – they probably knew this the best outside of Ryo, but she let him talk, figuring there was a point. At least, she had hoped so, as the growing tension started to work its way up her spine. And then he finally got to it and she felt her throat threaten to close. She waited for Ryo to reassure them that they wouldn't be going there, but he made no move to; he just let them catch up to what he was hinting at. She glanced toward Henry and saw the horror on his face, and she knew he'd come to the same conclusion.

"D-Reaper," he whispered.

"We can't," Rika said immediately. She was not usually one to backdown from a fight, but she knew what this would entail. If they had to fight the D-Reaper again, she knew that there was only one way they defeated it before, and it took all of Henry and Terriermon's strength plus a little backup. And considering their condition now – a condition she shared – she knew they would never survive. "We can't go down there, wake that thing back up—"

"Rika, would I be sending you guys down there if I thought you might be waking it up?" Ryo asked.

Terriermon let out a nervous laugh. "That means it's gonna stay nice and dormant, right?"

"Or it means it's already been awoken," Renamon said.

Ryo's expression remained unreadable, but Rika figured his silence was answer enough.

"Does anybody else know about this?" Henry asked, his voice sharp.

Ryo shook his head. "I wanted to tell you two first. Even Shibumi doesn't know, though I'm sure it won't take Hypnos long to catch on."

"But by the time they do, it'll be too late," Henry said. "The Chaos will be making its way back into the Real World again. It learns; it adapts. It'll find a way."

Rika felt paralyzed. She was hit with a sudden memory, one she thought she had locked away for good. When the Chaos awakens for the second time, you'll wish I was at your side to fight it.

Four years ago, she'd assumed it was an empty threat. She hadn't known the Chaos then, and when they had defeated the D-Reaper and sent it back to the Digital World, she had assumed that was the last of it. But was this what that voice had been talking about? Had that threat actually been a promise, a warning? Did that mean any journey they made to the Sixth Layer was doomed to end in failure, that there was no way they were going to survive?

"We can't fight that again," Rika whispered.

Had anyone other than just Henry, Ryo, and their digimon been present, she would've been embarrassed by how vulnerable she felt.

"There's something else down there to, with the Chaos," Ryo said. "You have to be ready for it. But I know you'll be fine, and if I can, I'll join you – just later. I have to check something else out first, and I'm pretty sure it'll take me too long to ask you to wait for me. It would be too dangerous to wait at this pace."

"What else do you have to check out?" Renamon asked.

Ryo shook his head, a clear sign he had no intention on answering her question. "Look, I know it sounds hopeless to go up against this thing without Takato this time, but don't forget about our new friend. TK Takaishi – he's a bit of a wild card. He's a good person to have at your side."

"You say that like we'll be able to steal him away to the Digital World," Rika said. "I don't think Hanaharu is going to let him go that easily, even without knowing the truth about him."

"He did try to take apart his D-3," Henry said. "And you can't tell me that didn't have something to do with him having an angel digimon."

"You're just going to have to find a way to make sure you can take him with you," Ryo said. "He's a part of this. You can feel that, can't you?"

Rika didn't agree aloud, but she had to admit that he was right. From the second that she had laid her eyes on TK, she had sensed this power emitting from the kid. At first, it had reminded her of Takato, this quiet energy bubbling under the surface, but after spending more time with him, she realized it hummed at a different frequency. Either way, the kid was special, and special usually meant important.

"Did he really just come out of the TV?" she asked. Four years ago, she would've thought such a question to be ridiculous, but now? She knew anything was possible. "Or is it more than that?"

Ryo raised an eyebrow at her as if to say, Do you really expect me to answer that? He pulled his D-Power off his belt and glanced at the time before setting it back in its place.

"Look, it's getting late, and I haven't eaten," Ryo said. "So how about we continue this conversation with the others over dinner?"