Chapter 6: The Arising Conflict

The very next day at HYPNOS, waiting for entrance to the higher levels of the building were six teenagers, all but one waiting patiently for their messenger to come get them. They were called here this morning, receiving phone calls telling them something urgent had come up and that they were needed here as soon as possible. Knowing that they wouldn't be call down to just chat, the group quickly head down to the building, which lead themselves to their current situation.

Pacing worriedly back and forth across the lobby was a teen, no older than fifteen with dark, shaggy brown hair and scarlet red eyes. Plastic looking, yellow goggles with blue lenses kept his bangs from reaching his eyes. He was wearing an open, short sleeved crimson red jacket with a hood along with black upside down triangles on its sleeves. Underneath he was wearing a black t-shirt, tan pants and grey sneakers.

Takato Matsuki continued to pace back and forth, running his thumb over his D-Ark in his pocket. He was normally a very mellow person, but when it involved things like the digital world and Guilmon, he became a very stressed person, akin to a stockbroker who just lost millions.

Guilmon...are you okay? Did you send the monsters makers a message? Why now? Why not earlier? The brunettes mind raced with a million thoughts a minute. They hadn't heard from the digital world since four years ago, when the borders between the worlds became impenetrable from either side. Four years since they had seen their digimon partners. They had went through the usual phase of looking for a way back, another portal to the digital world of some sorts. Unfortunately they all ended up in failure.

Takato shook his head. I gotta think positive. What if they Guilmon and the others finally found a way to contact us? Yeah, that could be it- His thoughts were interrupted as a hand firmly grasped his wrist, stopping his pacing and making him turn to see who grabbed his hand. Red eyes met purple as he realized that it was Rika who had grabbed him.

"Gogglehead," Rika started, tugging on his arm and pulling him down to sit by her on the couch that was in the middle of the lobby. "I know your worried, I am too. But just relax for a minute, okay? Your not much help when your like this." She said, her gaze catching his own.

Rika, over the years had a change of wardrobe as well, something that Takato thought suited her quite was now sporting a brown, rib length jacket with a white sleeveless hoodie underneath it. Her belt was reminiscent to her old outfit, sharing the same design, but black and a holster for her digimon card deck on her right side. She was wearing jeans as usual with shin high pirate boots, and her old pineapple like pony tail was lower, and longer than before, the end of it reaching the middle of her back. Lastly, around her neck was two things, her D-Ark and a yellow yin-yang pendant that he had gotten her for her birthday two years before.

Takato sighed, realizing that the redhead was right. "Sorry Rika...I'm just worried." He said softly. "I forgot that you haven't seen Renamon in four years as well.." She waved him off. "Don't sweat it gogglehead. Your just worried for you bread-eating dinosaur. Besides," She said, yawning a bit and leaning her head on his shoulder. "I wouldn't have my boyfriend any other way." She smiled softly before falling asleep on his shoulder, having been here since quite early in the morning.

Takato smiled, and leaned his head on top of hers, ignoring the looks of amusement he was getting from the others.

"Henry," He said, getting the amused teens full attention. "Why do you think we were called here?"

Henry, had definitely matured more over the years, getting taller, barely shorter than Ryo currently, who was the tallest of the tamers. His hair was also shorter, having kept it that length to keep it out of his eyes during his Tai Chi practice. His outfit changed a bit as well. The teen had thrown out his old high collared vest for a short sleeved, high collared blue jacket with orange lining. Underneath that he was wearing a green t-shirt, dark grey pants and white shoes.

Henry frowned, as if contemplating something before shaking his head. "I honestly don't know. But from the way my Dad was acting when he got home from work that day...I think it was something pretty bad." He explained. Suzie, who was sitting by him frowned, and hit him in the stomach.

"Henry, don't say things like that! I think that Lopmon just sent a very encouraging message to Dad to help them get back!" She whined, being the optimist about the situation. Her older brother frowned for a second, before quickly being replaced with a smile. "Your probably right."

From behind him, Kazu and Kenta let out a loud snore, having fallen asleep moments after they had arrived. Henry snickered. "Maybe she said to make sure those two stay out of trouble."

Suddenly the door burst open, and from out of it Yamaki walked out, followed closely behind by Riley and Shibumi. "Glad you could make it..Where is Ryo?" Yamaki asked.

"He said he couldn't make it, hes out of town with his parents at the moment so he has to take a rain check on it." Henry explained. "Those two were very upset when they found out." He snickered, point to the sleeping forms of Kazu and Kenta. Yamaki grunted, walking over and nudging both of them with his foot. "Get up, we have things to discuss." Turning and walking back, he motioned for them to follow.

Takato lightly nudged Rika awake, who looked around half-asleep before realizing what was happening and snapping to attention. They stood up, walking behind Yamaki as the remaining to struggled to regain their bearings.

As they walked, Yamaki began to explain why they were here. "We got a message last night after a big surge of activity from the digital world. The message was for you, Takato, but the activity involved everyone." He stated, opening the doors to the HYPNOS main processing room, showing the large, dome like computer that they had seen before.

Riley moved from behind the blonde in a suit, typing a few things into a computer before the message once again appeared.

Takato felt his knees go weak, struggling to keep himself aloft. "W-what? N-no!" Takato said, panicking. "What happened!? Whats happened to Guilmon?!" He said, feeling a burst of anger swell through him before he crushed it, realizing that there was no reason to get mad at hadn't caused it, after all.

Henry seemed to step forward, focusing not on the message, but something else that was said. "You said there was a huge spike of activity last night. What was it?"

It was Shibumi who answered this time. "Somehow...a whole layer, an entire plane of existence in the digital world vanished yesterday." He said.

This left the group gaping, not knowing what to say to that in the slightest. "H-how is that possible?" Henry stuttered, barely believing what he was told. It just didn't make any sense!

Riley typed away, barely looking back to look at the startled teens. "We don't know yet but we are going to find out. But for now, we do know that your partners are safe. Well, as safe as one can be in the digital world." The woman joked, trying to lighten the tone of the conversation.

"How do you know?" This time is was Rika that asked. Yamaki pointed back at the message. "Guilmon didn't say 'help me' he said 'help us' meaning that your partners are probably alive as well. Rika let out a sigh of relief, wiping her brow of imaginary sweat. She knew Renamon was the strongest rookie level, but she was her friend so the redhead had the right to worry about it.

Feeling a hand suddenly snake into her own, Rika turned and saw Takato giving her a small smile, giving her hand a small squeeze of reassurance.

"Soo...what do we do now? Just wait for something else to occur?" Kenta, who had finally regained his bearings, asked.

Yamaki sighed. "We really don't have anyway to actually find out what happened, but for now we will be on the look out for developments. In the meantime, be on the look out for strange things going on around town. If anything happens, call us." He said, turning and motioning them to the door. Realizing that the meeting was over, abit quickly, the group turned and left, the events of what just happened fresh on their minds.

A whole plane of the digital world disappearing... Rika thought, thinking how that could be possible before a single thought ran through her head.

Can a digimon...load the data of the digital world?

Back in Odaiba, different events were currently taking place.

After their midnight escape and the findings of the secret tunnel that lead to the hidden train station under the broken one, Izzy, Tai and Kari made plans to head over to Gennai's current base. Originally everyone was going to go, but a small errand like this only required a few people to complete. Izzy was going due to the fact that he was the only one currently who could contact Gennai, and had a few questions to ask him as well.

Tai was going due to the fact that he felt responsible to be a leader again, due to Davis going through a brooding period after finding out that he might not be the leader of the newest digidestined group. He could understand the feeling, but the teen had to get over it eventually or he might do some rash things later on. There was also the part of him that needed to find Takuya; the boy might have been the same age as his sister and her best friend, but he was a great friend to him as well.

Kari was going because Takuya was someone important to her, and felt like it was someone that she had to find. Another thing that made her come along was something that was bugging her, and she knew the others knew it, but ignored it for a moment; how did Devidramon get into the human world in the first place? The only way to the human world was through a D-3, no digidestined was in Japan except them, and fewer would release a Devidramon into the human world. They weren't that kind of people.

"Alright, are we ready to go?" Izzy asked the siblings, pulling out his laptop and setting it on their coffee table. "Let me contact Gennai first and tell him to open a portal near his base." The red head said, typing away on his laptop to Gennai. "Remind me of something Tai," Izzy said, his eyes never leaving the screen. "We saw that strange station yesterday, which was torn to shreds. If the tunnels were sealed off, how did they get through? More importantly, Why didn't they just use their D-3's function to open digital gates?" He questioned, leaving Tai pondering and speechless.

"Well for the first one, I think one of the tunnels was still open and when they got through they collapsed it after them." He said, his hand on his chin, watching Agumon eat some breakfast Kari had made for him. "For the second one, I had kinda overheard Davis and Ken talking about it." He said, getting a confused look from Kari.

"What if they don't have D-3's? What if they have something completely new?" He replied. "Prodigious." Izzy exhaled, realizing that with a whole new generation of digidestined, meant new digivices. he was almost drooling at the thought of new things to study, to figure out what they do..

The computer screen beeped twice, signifying that Gennai had opened his personal gate. Kari stood up, waiting for the two older teens to stand behind her before she held her D-3 in front of the screen, flashing a light blue.

"Digiport open!" Once again, Kari felt the familiar feeling of entering the digital world, the feeling of emptiness before being filled with a fuzzy feeling and then-

GROUND!

Kari exited the T.V first, rolling away and landing one of the pillows that were randomly placed around the room. Gatomon followed suit, doing a flip before landing with feline grace. Kari clapped in applause at the display, letting Gatomon take a mock bow before making the digimon get out of the way as Tai, Izzy, Tentomon and Agumon appeared in a heap on the floor, looking quite ridiculous. Kari laughed again at the display, getting a empty glare from her brother.

Untangling themselves, The group of six exited the small room, coming out to see a young Gennai, calmly relaxing in a chair in the middle of the courtyard, sipping tea. Hearing their footsteps, he glanced over before putting the tea cup down, standing up and dusting his robe off.

"Ah, Tai, Agumon, Izzy, Tentomon, Gatomon and Kari! It's been a while. Nice to see you again!" He said, shaking each of their hands. "Its nice to see you again as well Gennai. You haven't aged a day I see." Tai joked, seeing that even though its been over four years, the rejuvenated data person still looks the same as the day he came to them in that form.

"Ah, well data ages quite nicely you see. Anyway, what can I do for you? There must be a reason for your sudden visit." He said, pulling more chairs out for them.

It was Tai who spoke up first. "Gennai, do you know what happened in the human world a few days ago?" he asked. The man looked confused, as if he didn't understand the question that was being asked.

"It was the first day of July three days ago, yes? Was it a special holiday or something?" he replied taking another sip of his tea.

His reply left the group startled. He didn't know what happened? "Gennai, a Devidramon was in Shibuya two days ago. It attacked people." Tai explained. The group had to quickly move back to avoid the large amount of tea that Gennai had spit out in surprise. Coughing, he pounded on his chest twice, wiping a drip of it that had dribbled down his chin.

"W-what?! That..that shouldn't be possible!" he stuttered, thinking over a million scenarios in his head. "Its not! There's no way a Devidramon could have gotten through the barrier, not after how much we reinforced it!" He said, pacing back and forth in a worried manner.

Then to add onto it, Gatomon said. "So then, the new digidestined...do you know about them?" That set Gennai into another fit of confusion and fear.

"I'm sorry, what!?" Gennai nearly screamed. "New digidestined?! That cannot be! We decided, we argued that-"

Tai cut him off. "What do you mean it cannot be?" Gennai's head snapped towards Tai. Grabbing him by his shoulders, Gennai's light brown eyes bore into Tai's Chocolate brown ones. "

"Tai," He started, shaking the teens shoulders slightly. "Are you sure there was a Devidramon attacking new digidestined?" Tai nodded in a robotic like manner, surprised to seeing the usually calm Gennai freaking out like this.

Gennai's expression formed into a snarl for a second, before a panicked one again. "Because after Davis and his group, we decided that if a new conflict arose, then there would be no new chosen children."

"W-what!?" The group exclaimed in unison, the new information running through their heads numbly.

Gennai, seeing this, let go of Tai's shoulders and continued. "If another great threat appeared, since you guys were still alive and capable, we would just bring you guys back in, since you know what your guys are doing, and do a brilliant job at it." He explained.

"But then...why did were they chased by Devidramon? They had a Lopmon with them!" Gennai shook his head. "I don't know, but I'm going to find out. I will contact Azulongmon to try and figure out what is going on. In the meantime, you guys should keep watch around your world. If a Devidramon got through, who knows what else could." He advised.

"Here." Izzy said, giving Gennai a USB drive. "On this is what we have on the missing teens and their supposed attacker." He handed it to Gennai, who nodded and ran off to do who knew what after learning of the events that had taken place.

The six nodded, and a bit dejectedly starting turning and leaving, having gotten what they came here for. It was easy to tell though that the humans of the group were all upset. "Kari," Gatomon said, getting the attention of the distracted girl. "Are you okay?" Gatomon could tell that Kari was shaken up, realizing that Takuya and his friend were in a lot more danger than they thought before, and he might not actually be a real digidestined.

It was depressing, to find out someone who you knew as a child was a part of something she was, a way to find him and chat with him about their adventures, only to find out that he might be a pawn in something worse. Kari shook her head of those thoughts. Its not like I wasn't going to tell him anyway. She thought. Why shouldn't I, after he had an experience with a digimon?

Kari gave her a small, soft smile. "Thank you for caring Gatomon. I'll be okay." She said. Opening the door to the portal room.

Takuya..Kari thought. What happened to you?

ONE WEEK LATER...

It was the middle of the night, when a young Takuya Kanbara had been awoken from his slumber by a loud bang. Startled, the boy rolled out of his bed, falling to the floor of his room with a thud. "Ow..." He moaned, rubbing the spot on his forehead where he had landed. Shaking his head to clear out the cobwebs that came with sleep, the young brunette stood up, yawning and heading for the door, realizing how thirsty he was.

Opening the door that had been left open a small crack by his parents, he trudged out, walking slowly to avoid tripping over the pant legs of his pajamas. He had barely reached the sink when another loud bang occurred, shaking the room and causing the boy to fall over.

Finally regaining his footing, Takuya turned to his terrace, seeing bright lights flashing on the outside of the curtains. Curious, the boy walked towards it, not realizing that the technology in the room around him was going haywire, as if a power surge had fried all their circuits.

Seeing another bright flash, Takuya unlocked the terrace door, opening it and walking outside wondering what was making all those pretty lights.

Peeking out over the edge, the young boy saw not fireworks, but instead a large, orange dinosaur with something pink on its back-

-BZZT-

The memory suddenly began growing fuzzy, only being able to make sense of it for a bit longer as the dinosaur looked upward, seeing a giant, shadowy egg in the sky, cracking open with the sound of thunder and releasing something that looked akin to a giant green parrot-

-BZZZZZZZZZZT-

"NOVA BLAST!"

Takuya awoke with a start, breathing erratically as his heart refused to calm down. Realizing where he was, he groaned, pulling the blanket he had back over himself. It was the third night this week that he had been visited by dreams of his forgotten past.

Although, The sleepy teen thought to himself. This one was different. Why was there static? Can there even be static in a memory? He wondered, sighing. Not like we was going to find out anyway.

Figuring out he couldn't fall back asleep, Takuya got out of the bed, stretching as he did so. "Might as well go do some morning training!" He said to no-one in particular. Running a hand through his bed-head, he yawned and walked towards the bathroom.

It had been a week since returning to the digital world, and in that time the Legendary Warriors had experienced two failed raids on the castle, and what training under a mega digimon was really like.

To be frank, it was hell. Takuya shuddered at the very thought of the second days training. Cherubimon pulled out all the stops, wanting to help them reach their more powerful forms. by the end of the fourth day they had all successfully able to control their beast spirits again. Unfortunately, none of them had reach their fusion evolutions, but Takuya could feel that he was very close, but something was blocking it, keeping him from evolving.

Deciding to think something differently, the brunette focused on his latest dream. Turuiemon had told him to not let them over take him, but they were occurring more and more. There were triggers, like phrases or certain actions, but his memories only involved two people so far; Kari, and Tai. He had yet to see Tai again after his first training session relapse.

But the last night was... involved only himself, and strange, giant creatures that came from the sky-

Wait a second...Takuya realized. Were those..digimon!?

The more Takuya thought about it, the more it made sense. But it also didn't make sense at all: how did a digimon get to the human world? How was it there when he was five?

More importantly, how could he forget about something this important?

Suddenly his head was hit with a splitting headache, the pain so strong that it caused Takuya to stumble and hold on the sink for support. "Guh!" He groaned, looking into the mirror for a second, seeing his younger self in the reflection.

Startled, he jumped backwards, slamming into the towel rack and causing it to fall. Blinking once, his younger visage was gone, in its place a reflection of himself once again.

"What is..happening to me?" He whispered, resting his head on the wall.

It was twenty minutes after when Takuya finally left his room, geared up and ready for the day. His headache had subsided into something tolerable, making his way towards the dining hall for breakfast before heading off to train. He contemplated on telling Cherubimon about his dream, but for now brushed it aside. He could barely remember the event, so maybe it was just his psyche's strange way to compensate for the missing parts in his memory?

The static though, that was strange..Is it even possible to remember static? Takuya thought to himself. Reaching the dining hall, he brushed aside those thoughts and focused on other things, like how much could he stack his plate and eat before he got sick!

Grabbing a decent amount of food, Takuya walked over to Tommy, who was currently enjoying his own breakfast as well. "Moof forning Tafuya!" He greeted, his mouth full of what he had been eating for breakfast. Takuya snickered, taking a bite of his own food before replying. "Moof fornimg mas ell fommeh!" He said, causing the younger boy to almost choke because of how hard he was laughing.

"Glad to see that you two are well rested this morning." Zoe piped up, sitting town next to Tommy. "You guys ready for todays round of training?" They two teens nodded, a determined glint shared in their eyes. It had become somewhat of a race, to see who would be able to fusion evolve first. They had all gotten very close, J.P coming the closest by being on the borderline of the evolution.

Kouichi showed up at the table next, sitting down next to Takuya before Kouji appeared beside him and sat down as well.

"Where's J.P?" Tommy shrugged. "Last time I checked he was getting ready. He must be talking to Cherubimon about something." He stated, taking another bite of his breakfast.

"I almost forgot," Kouichi said, putting his plate away. "Cherubimon wants us down in his throne room after we are done here. Ophanimon had a message for us, and Seraphimon wanted to talk to us about something." He said.

Getting a unison of nods to his reminder, the group quickly finished their breakfast and headed off, walking in a stride towards the giant chamber that Cherubimon was in.

Upon reaching the ginormous doors, they found their missing and final member of the team J.P waiting there, leaning against the cracked open door with a grin stretched across his entire face. He looked slightly disheveled, small dirt and sweat marks on his cheeks and clothes. He walked over to them, walking at a very fast pace with the grin never leaving his visage.

"Whats got you so excited today J.P?" Zoe asked, surprised to see the normally pessimistic boy so.. happy. The brunette just jabbed a thumb onto his chest. "Guess who went in for some early morning training, and finally got their fusion evolution? Thats right, me!" He said, spinning around in his excitement.

"Whoah! J.P That's awesome!" Takuya said, giving the older teen a high five. "What is it like? Is it awesome?" Tommy prodded. J.P grinned, gripping his chin as he felt his pride swell up. "The energy was captivating, surreal almost. But mobility in that form in very limited." He explained, giving off hints of what his new form was, and hoping to leave them wanting to see the form in person.

"Anyway, lets head on in, I think we've kept them waiting long enough." Kouji stated, walking around the older boy and sliding in between the giant others followed behind him, entering the room to see once again Cherubimon relaxing in his chair, the digital projections of Ophanimon and Seraphimon to his their arrival, the beastly digimon let a faint smile grow to his face, and readjusted himself in his chair to sit up properly. "Ah, you are here. This means that we can begin." He said.

Seraphimon was the one who spoke first. "I hope that your remastering of your abilities has been going well? The Deathly Sin grows stronger and stronger each day we wait for our counterattack." The angelic digimon asked.

"Its going great!" Takuya replied, a grin on his face. "J.P even reached his fusion form today, and the rest of us are close." He said, giving J.P a look, who just grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head from he praise. "Let those Deathly Sin come, we'll show them why they shouldn't mess with our friends!" He added.

"Now Takuya," It was Cherubimon who spoke this time. "One must never want the enemy to come to them. War is something everybody should avoid." He explained. It was life lesson he learned himself, from the days of when Lucemon still had his hold over him.

The boy, realizing his statement, chuckled and rubbed the back of his head in a similar manner to the other boy. "I didn't mean it like that. I just think that if they appear sooner, the least damage they can do and the more lives we can save!" Takuya explained. Kouji grinned and hit him on the shoulder. "Thinking like a leader again, are we?" He snickered, remembering similar speeches he used to give in their last adventure.

"Well, in any case, I-" Seraphimons projection suddenly turned its head, looking at something they couldn't see. "Theres someone here." He stated, turning and raising his fist as if to charge and attack. "My subjects aren't supposed to be near this area of the castle-" A loud boom rang out from his side of the room, startling the group and watching as Seraphimon took a step back, holding his armored hands out to prepare a Strike of the Seven Stars.

"Seraphimon! Whats happening over there!?" It was Ophanimon who talked, looking at her brother celestial in great worry.

"Who are you!? How did you get into my castle without alerting the guards?-" Seraphimons questioning stopped as a roar drowned out his words. "Dark Inferno!"

A sickening black looking flame shot at Seraphimon, burning the mega digimon and releasing a roar of pain from his lips as the picture became fuzzy, before shattering like glass.

"SERAPHIMON!" The whole team screamed, frozen in horror at what just happened. "What was that?!" Kouichi exclaimed, turning to Cherubimon who had crushed his chairs arm after watching the screen fade.

"Children! If you truly believe you have the power you say you have, then follow me!" Cherubimon stated, a commanding tone raising in his voice. He turned to Ophanimon, who nodded and faded from existence. "MEN! GET READY FOR COMBAT!" He roared, the digimon guarding the doors nodding and dashing off to alert the other dwellers of his castle.

"Something has happened to Seraphimon's castle, and we are going to go find out what!" the Celestial stated, slamming into his giant doors and throwing them aside like they were made of styrofoam. "To the Trailmon C-89! With its speed, we will be able to get to Forest Terminal in lest then an two hours!"

Finally snapping from their stupor, the group shared a unanimous "RIGHT!" Before dashing out the door.

The Deathly Sin had struck. It was time for the counterattack.

Abit rushed at the end again, but I wanted to get it over with so the real fun can begin.

The plot thickens as the Legendary Warriors rush to find out what has happened to Seraphimon, while the Odaiba digidestined are trying to put together what happened to them. The Tamers received a grim message but with some hope as well, figuring out their partners were alive.

Next Time on Digimon: Digital Connections!

(Oh yeah, as a Christmas present to you guys, I'm putting up a Poll on my profile on wither or now I should do a Digital Connections Christmas Special, or a Sequel ending to what was Forgotten. Your choice I guess.)