Emi Kanzaki walked carefully down the dark, empty hallways of Daikoku Junior High School, looking around for any hidden traps. She rubbed the back of her neck as sweat dripped down the long blue hoodie she wore. Bearmon, Agumon and Guilmon, her Digimon partners, followed behind her.

“Come on, guys,” Emi implored the air, “Can’t we talk about this?”

A faint whirring sound erupted directly behind her, and she quickly whipped around and jumped back as a hail of cyber bullets barely grazed her.

“Bearmon!” Emi yelled.

“Got it!” Bearmon dashed forward. “Bear Fist!”

The attack slammed into the spot on the wall where the bullets were launched from and quickly destroyed it.

Emi sighed and hung her head. This cat-and-mouse game had been going on for almost an hour, and she had yet to find her opponents’ hiding places.

She silently cursed the other members of Hudie. This mission would be a piece of cake, they said. It would be a perfect test mission for a new recruit like her, they said. Nope. One hacker against an entire team of glasses-wearing kids who manipulated digital spaces like wizards? It was insanity.

It was even worse that it was Kamishiro Enterprises themselves who had hired Hudie to deal with the “little problem” that was keeping them from expanding EDEN’s services into Daikoku. These people just would not see reason, and their numerous cyber pranks were just delaying the inevitable.

Emi suddenly heard footsteps running quickly toward her, and a loud crackling sound. She looked in that direction to see two girls with their hands raised, making sideways “peace” signs and firing bright, blue beams directly at her.

“Baby Flame!”

Agumon’s attack fired between Emi and the blue beams, shattering the beams.

“Fireball!”

Guilmon’s attack was aimed at the two girls, but they quickly threw expandable brick and steel walls in front of them and escaped.

Emi looked around again as the hallway cleared and quieted down, her temper starting to boil.

---

“Did we get her?” Daichi asked.

“Negative,” Namecchi said. “One of the three monsters got in the way.”

“What about Fumie’s people?”

“Another negative. The other 2 monsters attacked them.”

“Those monsters,” Gachagiri said, “Digimon, they’re called? They look kinda cool! I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on one of those!”

Daichi shot a disgusted look in his direction. “Are you serious?”

“Now, now…” Denpa said hastily, “I’m sure he’s just joking.”

“Don’t make me fry your glasses, Gachagiri!” Daichi shot back, his fingers poised over his virtual keyboard.

“Whoa! Calm down, dude!” Gachagiri said, his hands up. “It’s just as Denpa said – I was only joking!”

Daichi glared, and quickly turned away. “Namecchi! Another box of Mr. Forthrights!”

---

“Megabaa!” Fumie called out as she and Yasako rushed back into the room. “We’re almost out of metatags!”

“I’m working, I’m working…” Megabaa said, as she methodically merged metabugs together and dropped them into her metatag crafting machine.

“That was... too close…” Yasako murmured, catching her breath. “Those things, whatever you call them, they almost ended us!”

“Digimon,” Fumie said darkly. “The bane of our existence!”

“I’m surprised you managed to get Megabaa involved,” Haraken whispered to Yasako. “I thought this was just something between us students.”

“When she found out the new transfer student was connected to EDEN, Megabaa volunteered herself to drive her away.”

“The moment Kamishiro bought out Megamass was the beginning of the end for us cyberinvestigators,” Megabaa said, “I won’t let them erase my husband’s work so easily!”

“And Daichi and his cronies weren’t about to let EDEN erase their position as the top hackers in Daikoku, so they decided to join us,” Fumie said dryly.

“Done!” Megabaa said as a stack of metatags rolled out of the machine. She handed them over to Fumie, Yasako and Haraken. “Go get em!”

“Roger that!” Fumie exclaimed.

“Here we go again,” Yasako said.

---

“This is really getting old,” Emi called out into the hallway. “Quit playing around and come out, so we can settle this fair and square!”

Several things happened at once. First, a yellow circle appeared in the air, shooting out cyber bullets. Next, what looked like paper cleanse tags flew out of nowhere and attached themselves to Bearmon, Agumon and Guilmon. Then, what sounded like the cackle of a witch said, “Take this!” and blue beams shot out.

The cyber bullets hit Emi in the back while the blue beams hit her in the front, causing her to sink to the ground as electrical interference cascaded down her body. The metatags that had attached themselves to her Digimon short-circuited them and caused them to weaken. Despite all that had happened, only one thought ran through Emi’s mind.

What was an old lady doing here?

A thought suddenly occurred to her – something said offhand by a local when she had been exploring around town – a story about the crazy old lady who owned the candy shop on the corner and sold cyberware to kids like drugs.

Well then. This must be that same old lady, and she seemed to be in cahoots with the crazy hacker kids. Wonderful. One more thing to worry about.

As her vision swam and her mind raced, Emi managed to pull up her virtual keyboard and punch in commands for healing items. After a few agonizing moments, her Digimon and her cyberbody began to heal themselves.

The hallway fell silent again, until Emi caught movement from the corner of her eye. She whipped around, ready to issue a command to her Digimon, when she found herself face-to-face with a group of large, pink blobs with stubby arms, spheres embedded in their stomachs, and cheerful, smiling faces.

“I’m Satchii! Nice to meet you!”

Emi stared back at them with a confused expression. “The heck?” What were these things? A moment later, she remembered. Searchmatons, or Satchii, as they were typically called. The closest thing Daikoku had to computer police. Someone must have called them in because of all the racket she and the others were making.

She froze as the Satchii at the front of the pack moved closer to her and stared at her with happy, cheerful, yet absolutely foreboding eyes. They stared at each other for a few moments, then the spheres on the Satchii’s stomach lit up.

“Oh, crap…” Emi muttered, feeling like she had failed an inspection. She dove out of the way of four bright blue beams. “All right, everyone,” she shouted over to her Digimon, “Fire at will!”

“Bear Fist!”

“Baby Flame!”

“Fireball!”

Each attack collided with a beam, causing them to shatter and explode.

“Okay, all together!” Emi shouted.

The three Digimon fired their attacks at the Satchii simultaneously, causing it to explode into flames.

Emi stared at the smoldering remains of the Satchii as the dust cleared, a fleeting thought going through her mind that she had just destroyed public property.

Her thoughts were interrupted by screaming and shouting from elsewhere down the hallway. The other Satchii had tracked down the hacker kids and were shooting blue beams at both groups.

Without giving a second thought, Emi got up and ran toward the commotion, beckoning her Digimon to follow.

The Satchii had already wreaked havoc on the Daikoku Hackers Club. By the time Bearmon, Agumon and Guilmon destroyed the Satchii, most of the club members were sitting around with smoking glasses.

“One… month’s… allowance…” one of the boys moaned.

The Coil Cyberinvestigation Agency, however, fared a bit better. They were still throwing metatags, cyber beams and barriers at the Satchii, with Megabaa multitasking various hacks and attacks.

Emi nodded at Bearmon, Agumon and Guilmon.

“Bear Fist!”

“Baby Flame!”

“Fireball!”

The attacks connected with the Satchii, and it burst into flames, saying its catchphrase in a glitchy, distorted baritone.

“I-i-i’mmm-m Sat-t-t-chi-i-i...”

Emi sighed and looked over at her Digimon. “I’ve had enough of this,” she muttered, “We’re going home.”

She turned toward the classroom door and started to walk out when one of the hacker kids spoke up.

“Wait!”

Emi turned around.

“You helped us,” Yasako said, “Why?”

Emi shrugged. “I couldn’t just let you all be destroyed. It’s no problem.”

“Even after all we did to drive you away?” Fumie asked. “Some weird game you’re playing.”

“I’m not playing any game,” Emi replied, “It’s just a job.” She scratched her head. “Though I’d have to explain to my client that you don’t intend on upgrading to EDEN. That’ll be a job in itself.” And maybe get her kicked out of Hudie, unfortunately.

“About that…” Fumie replied, “The way your… Digimon destroyed Satchii was, well… it was incredible!”

“None of us would have been able to do it,” Haraken commented.

“I wonder if there are other things that Digimon could help us do…” Yasako said wistfully.

Megabaa was silent for a few moments, deep in thought. “If EDEN is a digital space, it can be hacked,” she said carefully, “Code can be ported, and research can be continued…” She looked up at Emi. “It’s something to think about. Maybe it’s time to move forward…”

Emi blinked. “So you’ll consider it? Upgrading to EDEN?”

“Tentatively,” Megabaa said. “We won’t rush to it with open arms, but we won’t outright reject it, either.”

“What about the others?” Emi asked, motioning to the Daikoku Hackers Club in the other room.

“Oh, them,” Fumie smiled evilly. “It might be cheaper for them to just upgrade to EDEN than to fix all of their gear!”

Emi smiled for the first time in over an hour. “All right, then.” She held out her hand. “Truce?”

Fumie took her hand. “Truce.”

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