"Are you okay, Agumon?" Tai asked with concern.
"Sorry, Tai." Agumon hung his head, guilt-ridden over having lost to the enemy.
"Tentomon?"
"That guy cheated." Tentomon was furious that the enemy had attacked them while they were Digivolving.
"Sigh…" Tai let out a helpless breath. "We let our guard down too much."
"We've never even considered the possibility of being attacked in the middle of a Digivolution before," Izzy admitted just as helplessly. "Agumon and Tentomon are going to need some rest before they can get back into the fight."
"Tai, there's an e-mail here from a boy in Australia," Izzy said, staring at the computer.
After watching the battle, lots of kids all over the world had started sending e-mails to the address being shown.
"Hi, were those creatures just now called Digimon? That's so cool. — Tom"
"You guys had two Digimon and still lost to one Digimon. Are you really that bad? — Jan"
"There are tons more. Ah!"
From the pile of messages, Izzy suddenly picked out one that felt different. "There's one here from that jellyfish. It's nothing but hello, hello, hello, hello…"
Then Izzy took a closer look at the sender's address and his face changed. "We're in big trouble! According to this address, it's inside NTT now—Japan's main public telephone company."
"Wait—if it eats all the data there, won't that cut off the phones?" Tai blurted out in shock. Losing all communications would be no joke.
"We have to get in touch with everyone right away."
Meanwhile, Kari was having a blast playing cards with her friends when Tai's urgent call came in.
"No way, I'm on a winning streak, I can't leave now."
"Forget the cards and get home right now. A Digimon has shown up on the network."
As soon as he hung up on Kari, Tai hurried to call the next person—but all he got from the phone was a busy signal. Then, suddenly, the very phone line he couldn't get through on started ringing. When he picked up, all he heard from the other end was:
"Hello… hello… hello… hello… hello…"
There was only one explanation for this: Infermon had already taken over NTT. At that moment, every landline and cell phone in Japan started ringing at once, and all of them played the same voice:
"Hello… hello… hello… hello… hello…"
Right after that, NTT's whole system crashed. All network and communication services went down simultaneously.
Izzy, who'd been typing frantically at the computer, suddenly stopped. The network connection had dropped there too.
"Tai…"
"No choice, I'll handle it." Tai took the laptop from him, opened a new window, and said, "Datamon, hook the network feed directly into the central computer, then relay it from there into the human world's network."
Datamon completed the task quickly, and the computer came back to life.
"Izzy, use the DT Digivice to contact everyone. I just hope they're all wearing theirs," Tai said helplessly. Right now, that was the only way to reach the others—the kids were scattered way too far apart.
Tai and Izzy hurriedly used their DT Digivices to send messages to each of the other kids, explaining the situation.
"Matt? If you see this, reply now. This is urgent—super urgent!"
"Kari, I told you to come straight back!"
Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
While Tai and Izzy were firing off messages non-stop, the doorbell rang.
"Tai, get the door. I'm busy over here," Izzy said.
"Yeah, yeah." Tai pushed himself up, shuffled to the entryway, and opened the door. "Huh, Sora. What are you doing here?"
"Hmph." With her chin tilted up like an indignant little hen, Sora walked past him into the apartment.
"Oh, Sora! Welcome. I made a cake, have some later," Yuko said warmly.
"Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Kamiya."
Tai was just about to close the door when a small hand blocked it. Kari's little face poked in around the edge. "Hey, what's the big idea, calling me back in such a hurry? Ah! Sora's here too!"
"Kari's back as well. In that case, one cake might not be enough," Yuko murmured, half to them and half to herself, before heading back to the kitchen to keep working.
"Oh, Sora's here and Kari's back too."
Still working at the table, Izzy glanced over at them and held up his DT Digivice. "Mimi just sent a message. She's on the beach in Hawaii, and her Digivice is back at the hotel. She won't be able to get to it for a while."
"Sigh…"
Right then Yuko came back in. "I almost forgot, this is a postcard Mimi sent us." She handed Tai a postcard with a Hawaiian beach printed on it.
"This is a reply from Matt," Izzy said, showing the new message on his DT Digivice. "'It's Matt. What's so urgent that you had to contact me like this?'"
"Finally." Tai quickly typed out a new message. "Do you and T.K. have your Digivices with you?"
"Yeah, we've got them. What's going on?"
"Find a computer as fast as you can. There's a new Digimon on the network. We're going back into battle."
"Even if we've got our Digivices, my grandma's place doesn't have a computer. This is Shimane, remember."
"Find one anyway. There has to be at least one computer in Shimane."
Once he finished briefing Matt, Tai had Datamon start uploading Biyomon, Gatomon, and Patamon into the network as well.
Izzy kept contacting friends all over the world, searching for any sign of Infermon's location.
Just then, Infermon sent out another e-mail:
"You can't see me, you can't see me…"
"It's in America!"
Meanwhile, in Shimane, Matt and T.K. were combing the whole town for a computer.
"A computer? I've got one, but it's broken." Which was basically the same as not having one at all.
"A computer? We don't own anything like that."
"Com-pooter? Pom-puter?"
Panting for breath, Matt and T.K. could only walk away, totally speechless.
"So in the whole of Shimane, not a single person has a computer…" Matt groaned, staring up at the sky.
"Wait—there!"
Just when they'd practically turned all of Shimane upside down, Matt finally spotted a computer. But—
"Sorry, kids. This one isn't connected to the internet," the owner said. T.K. was on the verge of tears, his eyes brimming.
"All right, all right, let them use it."
"Sho, you're way too softhearted," someone muttered.
"They just look so pitiful," Sho said. And they really did—one about to cry, the other dripping with sweat.
"But it's not connected to the network!"
"Then we'll connect it!"
The two adults' voices kept rising, each louder than the last.
"Sho!"
Seeing they were starting to slam their hands on the table, and worried they'd start a fight, Matt hurried to calm them down. "It's fine, it's fine, please don't argue…"
In the end, this guy named Sho hopped on his motorcycle and took Matt and T.K. on a wild ride in search of a working, internet-connected computer.
Back in the network, Infermon was devouring data with complete abandon. All of America was descending into chaos: traffic lights, public transport, video phones, aviation systems—everything was out of control, and every single screen showed the same image: Infermon.
In a secret base somewhere in the United States, people were frantically working. The entire network had been thrown into confusion by some unknown entity. Before long, with despair in their eyes, they launched a missile marked with a special symbol.
"That thing is playing with us!" Tai slammed his fist on the table, furious. He and the others had been tracking Infermon nonstop, but it kept hopping between different networks at incredible speed. It never stayed in one place long enough for Agumon and the others to be transferred in and engage it. Most of the time, by the time the Digimon were halfway through the transfer, Infermon had already vanished again.
"Even if it's Ultimate-level, it's still just a newborn child," Izzy said, equally frustrated. "Who knows what it's really trying to do?"
"If we can predict its path and have Agumon and the others arrive ahead of it and wait in position, then we can start the fight the moment Infermon shows up," Sora suggested from the side.
Right then, Matt and T.K. finally reported in: they'd found an internet-connected computer in a barbershop. The surroundings weren't exactly ideal, but it would have to do.
"Letting two little kids use it… they aren't going to break it, are they?" the barber who owned the computer asked nervously.
"Quit whining and let them use it!" Sho snapped from the barber chair. Though really, yelling at the barber like that didn't seem very smart—what if his shave went badly after this?
"They're A-Juan's grandsons," someone explained.
"Kids from Tokyo are so stylish these days," an old man nearby commented, eyeing Matt and T.K. up and down.
"Hey, what's going on, Matt?" Tai asked over the line.
"Uh, nothing. It's fine," Matt replied, clearly not eager to describe the awkward situation he was in right now.
"All right, I've had Datamon lure Infermon into a specific server. That machine can handle the data load of a Mega-level Digimon. Once it's inside, we'll wipe it out in one go," Tai said to rally everyone.
"The others still not here yet?" Tentomon asked, still speaking in his Kansai twang.
"If they're not, then it's the two of us going in alone again," Agumon said. Two of them… going in as a "lone army." Looked like Agumon still needed to work on his phrasing.
"Agumon, Tentomon!"
A cheerful shout sounded nearby.
"Ah! Gabumon, Patamon, Biyomon, and Gatomon!" Tentomon exclaimed joyfully.
"We're here too!"
"Sorry we're late."
"It's all up to you now," the kids said, cheering their partners on. The Digimon in turn promised to give the battle everything they had.
At last, Datamon successfully drew Infermon into the predetermined battlefield. Izzy opened the gate and sent all the Digimon through into the combat zone.
The war was about to begin, and the atmosphere in Tai's room grew tense enough to cut with a knife.
//Check out my P@tre0n for 20 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810