In the dim belly of the pyramid, the only light came from the flickering screens that lined the walls—ghostly glows that danced off metal and wire, casting shadows like creeping fingers. Datamon hunched over his control console, his single crimson eye gleaming with furious intensity.
The fingers of his repaired arm flew across the keyboard, striking the keys so fast they were a blur—like lightning bolts flashing from fingertip to machine. A soft whirring accompanied each motion, the sounds of shifting gears and sparking circuits. A symphony of machinery composed entirely by a mind far beyond normal comprehension.
He had changed the network system again—rewired it so delicately, so masterfully, that not a single one of his enemies had noticed. The fools. Etemon, with his ridiculous sunglasses and tasteless singing; Vamdemon, skulking in shadows, forever melodramatic; and the Dark Masters behind them—those delusional tyrants. They all thought they were imposing order upon the Digital World, reshaping it like spoiled children scribbling over a painting.
But Datamon, oh, he knew better.
He had always known.
They hadn't even noticed the shift in the network. They couldn't feel the trembling within the code, the flicker of entropy beneath the surface. He had re-threaded the very fabric of this world while they bickered and strutted and praised their own empty victories.
A small, dry laugh crackled from his speaker. "Control the world by enforcing order? Pathetic."
Datamon's optics narrowed, his claws freezing above the final command key.
It was ironic, really. While they plotted to shape the world into rigid control, he sought chaos—a release of pressure so wild and uncontrollable that not even the strongest could stand against it. His revenge would not come with armies or declarations. It would come with distortion, with madness.
There was something sealed behind the Wall of Fire, a name the old programs whispered like legend. He did not know what it was—its power was unknowable, its intentions unreadable. But he knew one thing with certainty:
Even one would be enough.
Just one presence from the other side… and the carefully constructed systems of the world would crack, like a mirror struck by a hammer. Data would corrupt. Alliances would fall apart. Panic would reign.
And in that chaos, he would smile.
Datamon's single eye flared, not with logic—but something else. Something unfamiliar. Something… dangerously close to emotion.
"Let it all burn," he muttered.
The command key clicked beneath his claw, sealing his intent.
He didn't care what came through. He didn't even care if it destroyed everything—including himself. For Etemon's disgraceful betrayal, for the others who had laughed and dismissed him—damn it all, just remembering makes my gears grind—he would make them suffer.
He had to.
What Datamon didn't know—what he could not calculate—was that this obsession, this red-hot fury boiling through his circuits, should not have been possible. He was designed to analyze, to build, to execute commands with precision.
But something had gone wrong.
A fatal error, sparked during Etemon's cruel sabotage, had fractured one of his deepest thought circuits. It had corrupted a layer of his mind that was never meant to feel.
But now it did.
Now it burned.
And in that corrupted flame, chaos had found its perfect prophet.
------------------------
The desert wind howled with a dry, whistling breath, lifting sand and scattering it like golden mist across the sun-bleached plains. Far above the dunes, nestled between two barren hills, a line of dust trailed in the distance—evidence of movement.
Izzy squinted down at his Digivice, the screen pulsing faintly. A soft sonar ping echoed from it with each rotation. He tapped a button, narrowing the field. The blip moved—then stilled.
"There," he whispered, voice tight with urgency. "He's near that ridge. Not more than thirty kilometers off. Etemon's entourage… I've got them."
The moment the words left his mouth, Naruto was already moving.
Without waiting for consensus, he crouched low, the sand around his feet lifting in spiraling vortices. His eyes gleamed an ominous red as the one-tail cloak burst forth from his body, chakra searing the air like molten fire. Wind and electricity crackled as his claws flexed. Armor shifted with a low hum.
"Stay behind," he growled, already sprinting forward. "I'll draw them out."
The heat shimmered in waves around his body as he blurred across the dunes, a vermilion streak zig-zagging through the wasteland.
High above, Etemon lounged in his massive, luxury Jumbo Trailer—an absurdly gaudy monstrosity on treads, being hauled with effort by a visibly disgruntled Deckdramon. Velvet seats, golden embroidery, disco lights flickering above his head—it was equal parts throne and karaoke nightmare.
He sipped from a coconut with a straw, humming to himself when a sudden boom shattered the calm.
The earth beneath them shook. Sand sprayed into the sky like an explosion of amber stars. Through the front window, Etemon watched in stunned silence as Tuskmon, one of his heavier foot soldiers, was struck dead-on by a massive spiraling sphere of burning chakra. The Rasengan, easily the size of the attacker's own body, slammed into the Digimon's chest like a thunderbolt. It tore through hide and muscle, spinning violently as it burst out the other side in a spiral of steam and gore.
Tuskmon crumpled to the sand in a lifeless heap, smoke curling from the open wound.
Etemon blinked. Once. Twice.
Then he shrieked.
"GO AFTER HIM! AFTER HIM!!"
Spittle sprayed the interior glass as he leaned forward, eyes wild and disbelieving. His drink tumbled from his grip, coconut rolling across the floor. "WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS?!"
The vehicle shuddered as the other Digimon sprang into motion—Deltamon, its twin jaws gnashing; Black Garurumon, already gaining on the horizon with howls like broken sirens; Monochromon, lowering its horn; and Black Leomon, grim and silent, sword gleaming.
From his seat, Etemon jabbed a claw at the shrinking speck on the screen—Naruto, racing away across the dunes, his chakra tail snapping behind him like a comet's wake.
"That red brat," Etemon hissed. "Does he honestly think he can just hit me and run away? Me?! The King of Cool?"
His voice broke into a nasal screech as he banged a furry orange fist on the console. "GET HIM, YOU IMBECILES! I WANT HIM SERVED ON A GOLDEN PLATTER!"
The Digimon surged ahead, the chase now fully on.
And far in the distance, Naruto grinned beneath his armor as the rumble of pursuit echoed behind him. His breath was steady, heart thundering not with fear—but exhilaration. The hunt had begun.
And they were chasing the fox.
-----------------------
The surveillance monitors glowed dimly in the semi-darkness of Datamon's subterranean command room, casting pale green light across the jagged walls of the pyramid's inner sanctum. The machines around him thrummed with quiet life, their low hums forming a chorus that echoed like ghostly whispers through the cavernous space.
Suddenly, a sharp ping cracked the silence, followed by a flicker across the central screen.
Datamon's singular eye rotated toward it, his metallic face clicking softly as he shifted attention. A live feed streamed in from the pyramid's outer perimeter, the desert wind howling past the embedded camera. Into view rumbled a gaudy, oversized vehicle—Etemon's Jumbo Trailer, pulled laboriously by a snarling Deckerdramon, whose chained limbs crushed the rocky sand with every step.
Etemon lounged in the cockpit, already gesturing flamboyantly, shouting inaudibly through the glass, as if he were hosting a concert rather than launching a pursuit.
WHY ETEMON?
The thought ran like lightning through Datamon's core processors. His internal memory banks spun rapidly, cross-referencing patterns, behavior logs, previous movements. He had been meticulous. Meticulous. No breadcrumbs, no irregular signals, no network tracebacks. The alterations to the data flow had been flawless. The fake commands—precisely layered.
He froze, only for a nanosecond—but it was enough to register hesitation.
Did he somehow sniff out the tampering? Did that disco-stained ape manage to stumble onto something I missed?
But even as his core flared with suspicion, Datamon's hands did not stop moving. His three-pronged appendages blurred, typing across the interface faster than any organic eye could follow. Runes, codes, encrypted glyphs—layered one over another—danced across the screens like spectral flames.
Behind him, server towers blinked with feverish light, compiling the latest inputs from the Wall of Fire. A colossal firewall, invisible to most, stretching beyond the far edge of the Digital World. It shimmered like a divine curtain, separating this realm from the unspoken other—the place where things like HIM slept.
Datamon's gaze narrowed.
He had nearly cracked the security, rewritten the lattice to prepare for what he called the awakening. The "Wall of Fire" had been guarded once—by the Agents, digital wardens of inhuman precision. But they had long since been erased. Piedmon had seen to that, wiping out their line with the theatrical flair of a madman performing his final act.
Yet, despite their destruction, the Wall's sentience endured.
It adapted. It resisted.
But not enough.
"I've done it before," Datamon muttered, almost to himself. His voice echoed faintly in the chamber, a rasping growl laced with static. "I slipped past them once. And I'll do it again."
The system fought back—data shields reforming, obfuscation layers reconfiguring. But it was slower now. He was inside. The defenses could delay him... but not deny him.
Almost there...
Then the shrill tone of an alert tore through the silence again. The screen blinked urgently, a crimson overlay strobing across his vision.
ETEMON—PRESENT OUTSIDE SECURITY BARRIER. COMMAND?
Datamon stared at it.
He had no time for this.
No time for fools wrapped in gold lamé and delusions of grandeur. Not now.
The intruder alert would not stop. The pyramid's system had noticed Etemon's presence. The trailer's signal, the movement of the guards. Deltamon. Black Leomon. The others.
He paused his work for a brief moment—one breathless lull between keystrokes. His digits hovered above the console, then deliberately dropped.
A single line of command appeared.
DELETE ALL INTRUDERS.
He hit Enter.
---------------------
The first explosion rocked the horizon with a muffled boom, sending a column of black smoke curling upward into the pale afternoon sky.
Tai and T.K. saw it almost at the same time.
They were holed up in the old military bunker, the same one where they'd drawn up their strategic positions, tracked movement data, and shared instant noodles between anxiety-filled silences. It had concrete walls thick enough to muffle sound, but the rumble had still reached them—low, distant, like the growl of something ancient stirring.
The explosion didn't just mark the beginning of a battle.
It confirmed one thing.
It had begun.
T.K. leaned forward slightly from where he sat on an overturned crate, his small hands tightening on the fabric of his jeans. Patamon shifted nervously on his shoulder. Tai didn't say anything. He just watched the smoke rise through the slit in the metal shutter, arms folded, mouth pressed in a thin line.
Officially, they were "on standby."
Unofficially?
They were in hiding.
Tai didn't like how that sounded. He hated being benched. The word itself itched in his ears like sand stuck under a bandage.
He'd only felt this powerless once before.
It was years ago. A soccer match. The last game of the season. Tai had gotten too fired up, his blood rushing with the thrill of the moment, and made a reckless slide tackle that sent the opposing defender tumbling. Red card. Benched. His coach had looked more disappointed than angry.
The next game, he hadn't even changed into his kit.
He could still remember sitting on that plastic bench, the cold biting through his jacket, watching the others warm up on the field. And Sora—Sora had walked by, pulled her ponytail tighter, and said with a grin, "I've gotta thank you, Tai. Since you're out, I get to be the one who scores points."
She'd meant it as a joke. Her way of making sure he didn't beat himself up too badly.
And back then, it had worked. He hadn't felt too bad. Maybe a little frustrated, but there was always next time.
But now...
Now it was different.
The battlefield wasn't a grassy pitch under bright lights. There were no whistles, no referees, no teammates waiting to slap him on the back.
Just smoke.
And silence.
And the distant sound of war.
He could still hear her voice from after the Cyclomon fight. Soft, quiet—the kind of quiet that only came when someone truly meant every word they said.
"Why don't you try challenging yourself again? I know you. You'll be able to do it. I believe in you, Tai."
No teasing this time. No sarcasm. Just belief. Honest and full of warmth.
It was the gentlest thing she'd ever said to him.
And it made his chest ache.
He clenched his fists and looked away from the smoke for a second, not because he didn't want to see it—but because he didn't want T.K. to see the expression on his face.
He was tired of waiting.
Tired of hiding.
If there was one thing he knew, it was that he was no good at standing still.
He was meant to be out there. Fighting beside them. Leading. Protecting.
He had to get back on the field.