"Let's see here... One, two, three... Four is it?" A woman muttered to herself as she leaned back in her computer chair. "Not that it's a problem I guess. Means we have six as opposed to two." Then, there was a knock at the front door and the woman jumped straight out of her chair. "Shit!" She screamed internally. Who the hell could it be? She didn't leave any tracks, so it shouldn't be the police. With a sigh, she stood up and walked out of her bedroom into the main kitchen/living room. Finally at the front door, she peered out the peephole... Once confirming who it was, she sighed in relief and opened the door. "Hello there, Mrs. Yamada. You gave me a bit of a scare."

On the other side of the door was a little old lady with a container in her hand. "Oh, I'm sorry. We just had some leftovers and figured you wouldn't make food again. You should get off that computer every now and then, Manaka."

Manaka took the container and scratched her head. "I mean, it's part of my job."

Mrs. Yamada just sighed and walked back home. "I hope you enjoy your food, dear." She opened her door and disappeared inside.

Manaka closed her door and looked at the time. "Still an hour until the meeting. Guess I can eat this and get the right clothes on." So she did. The Yamadas had some tofu. Some sauce on that and it'd be ready to eat. She hadn't ate all day, so it was gone rather quickly. With that finished, she tossed it in the sink and pour some water and soup in it. She'd worry about returning that later. For now, she had to ready the show.

---

About an hour later, a very nice letter-like thing was sent to each of the perspective members invited. They were of course slightly different. They all started the same though.

Dear xxxx,

I'm not your enemy, I hope you realize by now. In fact, I could be the best friend you've ever had. Don't ask how I got your Line address even though you never gave me it. You should be able to figure it out right? Anyhow...

Each continued, talking about the reasons for each being invited.

For Noru, it spoke of his hacking skills with him having been a veteran in the field. "I've come to understand that you have not officially joined a team. I would formally extend a hand in welcoming you to Jormungundr. I have encoded a URL with three security questions you should be able to answer. At 4PM on Thursday, visit it."

For Ichirou, she spoke of how they needed a "thug" to help. He was small time, sure, but he was easily a boon to their unstaffed group. "While you may not have the highest reputation, I believe we can make a soldier of you. As such, I would formally extend a hand in welcoming you to Jormungundr. I have encoded a URL with three security questions you should be able to answer. At 4PM on Thursday, visit it."

For Fumi, really she just spoke of how cute he was and how she just couldn't really believe he was a boy. "You are going to be our mascot. For sure! I put a URL in the link, but for safety, I put some security questions on it you should be able to figure it out. At 4PM on Thursday, visit it."

Another similarity at the end was a veiled threat if they released this URL to anyone else.

---

At 4PM, Manaka is waiting patiently in EDEN. It should be any minute now... She gave them all the URL for her tentative server "The Snake's Throne", just in case one of them did give the URL away. It was better safe than sorry. The server was actually rather small. It involved a room and the throne in the middle of it.



Soon enough, three people showed up. Just the three she was waiting for! "Greetings! Welcome to the tentative meeting place for Jormungundr! Well, tentatively. My name... Is just Manaka. For now." Manaka was a young looking woman with a black-purple turtleneck dress that went down to her thighs. In addition, she wore black tights and a pair of knee-high boots.



"Perhaps you'd like to introduce yourselves to each other! Do you like my throne? Isn't Fumi here absolutely adorable?" It was a trail of questions, but she didn't really let up easily. "You can also tell me how beautiful I am!" She added, not seeming at all embarrassed.

"Hey hey, brother," Fumi rolled over on the couch in their families living room. It was a fairly pleasant day, to be honest. He had just spent most of his day on his lovely Digifarm with his two Digimon, training to become the strongest digimon in the server. He was taking a break though, and since his brother was home, he decided to cook brunch for them. "I thought I told you not to give creepy men my LINE address?"

"I haven't, Fumi." He replied with a sigh from the couch, flipping over a few channels on the TV. "Pretty much everyone at the company knows that you are, in fact, male."

"Eeeeh? Reeeally?" Of course, he was just giving his younger brother a hard time. "Waaah? How can they say that about an innocent, pure, maiden like myself? It breaks my delicate heart." Of course, his younger brother just rolled his eyes.

"I'm sure they're so ashamed of themselves." He retorted as Fumi sat up and pouted, folding his arms across his chest. "Your heart is neither delicate nor maiden." Fumi's face contorted to one of both pure horror and shock as he held a hand against his chest, scoffing as he feigned anger.

"Gah, ow my familial affection. So mean." Of course, it lasted only a few seconds before he broke out into a quiet giggle. "Hey hey, I'ma head back to my Digifarm if ya need me. Try not to work too hard. Rely on your older brother once in awhile if ya need to, okay?" Fumi stood up, quickly walking over to the stairs which led to his room in the apartment.

---

After spending a few more hours on the Digifarm with his Digimon, Lekismon and Dinohymon, he finally decided to head to the meeting place. Honestly, he was a little skeptical about this whole thing. 'Suspicious' seemed to be written all over it. Not to mention the whole 'mascot' thing. Well, he was certainly cute and he couldn't blame them for wanting him, but still. Well, whatever. He was confident in his abilities to get out of trouble but the secret server they were meeting in seemed to be both well protected and secure. The security questions were easily solved, though. He might have been a bit of a klutz on purpose at times, but he certainly was in fact, not an airhead. Usually.

Once he had arrived in the server wearing his usual dress, he was pleasantly surprised. Three more people were there - a rather ominous looking woman and two guys. The girl of which, proceeded to ask string of questions, after which, Fumi only had one conclusion.

"...Ah, you're not a creepy old guy!" He pointed towards Manaka. "You're just an old lady!"

usually wasn't an airhead.

"And the winner is Noru and Rex, another incredible victory for the Duo! Will anyone end the infamous duo's winning streak-"

Noru turned of the video of last week's match and smiled he had of of his friends record it to see how he looked from from a spectator's point of view and he's got to say he looked damn cool.

"So, what do you think?"

Noru turned to his partner, who could be best described as a yellow cyborg Bakugan dragon, his round metal body looking odd with his large metal wings and arrow shaped head which turned to face the young man and asked.

"Why do you even need to watch this in the first place? You obviously been there."

Rex rolled his eyes as best as a giant cyborg dragon could, then turned to the edge of the virtual cliff side that they were both resting on. The Cyborg lizard then asked another question.

"Besides, Isn't that a more amusing view?"

What the cyborg was pointing out was several players bouncing up and down from the simulated forest from bellow some were amused by their current predicament, most was annoyed by it, and a few were absolutely terrified, which made the hacker feel kinda bad.

"Well, it was, but it's kinda getting old."

The hacker had spent a few days finding the codes to get access past server security while he probably could have just brute forced it with Rex, he didn't want to leave a trace, besides this server was a bit outdated and didn't have Digimon security. Either way he proceeded to create mass chaos with his new found power and changed every thing to hot pink and gave knock back to every object that was collidable, leaving only himself exempt and had Rex fly him up the the cliff to survey his handiwork.

"Yeah, I'm going to call it a day."

Noru decided before pulling up a screen on his digivice and undid the changes letting the people involved finally reach the ground and seeing green once again, he could almost hear someone praising whatever god they believe in that it was finally over. Though before he was going to log off and go do his homework or something, he spotted that he had new mail.

"What is this fanmail?"

The cyborg lizard scoffed, before snarking to his partner.

"As if you would get fanmail, it's probably someone you pissed off, giving a poorly written note basically telling you to end yourself.

The hacker retorted back to his partner.

"Well it's not like you helped much with that, tubbymon."

Rex gave a glare to his partner, but Noru gave no notice and opened the mail. It was always a good sign when the letter started off sketchy. He was more weirded out by the fact that it was trying to confirm that the sender was his friend then the fact that they got his line address hackers did that all the time, so he was kinda desensitized by that, though he should probably create new security protocols.

Well he was sorta right when he said about it being fan mail since it was a bit of an ego booster praising his hacking skills. Though that wasn't really what stood out.

"Jormungundr?"

Rex raised his neck a little at the name. Noru was actually active while they were as well, but he didn't expect them to be back. If it even was the same group. Nobody really knew why they disappeared, being one of the seven mysteries of EDEN, but it flared up Noru's curiosity, while he never was part of a group, this peaked enough interest from him to at least hear them out.

He looked down at the encoded URL and security question of course all suspicious invitations have to have something like this and a threat. The security question wasn't really that big of a problem like the letter said he'd be able to get it and he did, Noru said to his partner.

"Let's get out of here we got a meeting to prepare for."

And with that Hacker and Digimon left the server, Nature's Garden.

Thursday, 4PM: Snake's Throne.

Noru entered the room, with Rex at his heel. He only had one Digimon, but Rex was stronger than the average Digimon as all of his time with training Digimon was given to him, so he was sure they could handle it and it would seem that the others also could put up a fight.

The Woman at the throne was the one who arranged for the meeting and she definitely looked shady enough, though it would also appear that she was a narcissist as well though he did have to say that she had a bit of charm, though the other girl beat her in that department.

Speaking of Fumi, instead of answering any of Manaka's questions, called her an old lady to her face. Which caused Noru to hold back a laugh as Fumi effectively killed the mood in on sentence. Though Rex added to that statement as he made a correction.

"She doesn't seem very old, though creepy is a good word to describe her."

Noru held back another laugh. Even funnier once he realized how much effort she put into all the theatrics and then have one of her guest and a lizard insult her.

"C'mon. You wouldn't want this data getting out, would you?" Ichirou taunted, though there wasn't any joy in his voice. He was grabbing at the collar an old man; a politician according to what data Ichirou had gathered. He had also gathered some chat logs from the man talking to a woman who was definitely not his wife. 'Compensated dating' wasn't illegal, sure, but a politician's life could be soiled by proof of adultery and such. Men like him shouldn't be making the laws, and in fact a fool should be parted with his money, right? That would be happening soon.

"No, nooooo... Please, I have a family, if this gets out we could be out of a job, out of a home!" The corrupt old man begged. Ichirou roughly shoved him onto his back with a sneer. "I have a family too. We all do. I don't try and sneak around behind their back though. Now cough it up, before my 'friend' here forces it out of you!" Ichirou shouted, Gats stepping forward while tightening his gloves.

"Okay, okay! I'll give you some money, just please delete those files!" He said. Ichirou placed a hand on Gats' chest to dissuade him from assaulting them man. "Transfer the money to this account, and the files gone, old man. You have my word, since yours isn't worth much."

70000 Yen was added to his account immediately, which was quickly laundered through a series of socks into Ichirou's actual bank account with the simple press of a macro key. It was a pain to set up, but absolutely imperative to he and his father's safety. It also felt quite cool to do; he remembered a time where he could barely open a webpage. But that didn't matter currently, he had an adulterer to relieve.

"There we go, almost as easy as cheating on your wife eh?" He quipped, pulling up a false screen mirroring the actual menus of EDEN. He faked deleting the files in front of the politician which brought his blood pressure down, it seemed. Just as he had finished though, he got a piece of mail. Curious, as he hadn't received mail in weeks, he checked it on the spot, reading and walking to the server's exit.

---

"A thug huh? That's my legacy?" Ichirou wondered aloud, looking over the email once again. It mentioned his poor reputation and his use as a 'soldier.' That was admittedly more credit than many ever gave him but still wasn't glowing. "Well hey, she doesn't know you yet, and she said she might even want to be friends. I really don't think she meant any harm by that, Ichi-san." Jacky said, ever the optimist. Whether the mysterious Jormungdr hackers would be his friends or not, Ichirou was getting tired of petty theft. A higher pay grade would be nice, his father was getting older and his retirement seemed to get closer by the second.

Ichirou entered the server, quickly followed by someone else he didn't bother looking back at. Judging by the throne, the woman in black was their 'Manaka.' There was also an emo-looking man, and the woman who had just entered the room behind him. Manaka quickly introduced herself and the company, also rambling on about her and 'Fumi' (presumably the girl behind him) being attractive. He was about to open his mouth but Fumi opened her's first, surprised that the hacker before her was a woman and not a man. A digimon also called their 'boss' creepy, which Ichirou didn't appreciate, even if it wasn't from a normal guy.

"Hey, let's not call people creepy huh man? You aren't even human." Ichirou reprimanded, glaring at the emo's dragon. "Anyways, I'm Ichirou. The 'muscle' I guess, though probably through reputation and intimidation since I don't have a robot dragon by my side."

"You do have me though!" Jacky quipped, hugging his friend. "Who are you guys?"

"Fearless aren't you all?" Manaka said with a smile. It wasn't a happy smile though. Instead, it looked sinister. "An old lady and creepy?" She held her hands up and two terminals appeared. Typically, most could handle one... But this was Manaka's area of expertise. "Ariyoshi Fumi... Easy encryption... And in." At the same time, a door opened in the back and two giant specimens stepped out and behind rex..





The second terminal disappeared and she turned her focus to the first terminal. "Meet my friends, Ophanimon and Raguelmon. I hope they're creepy enough for you Rex." She said, seeming to have finished up the First Terminal. "Let's see. Fumi... What do you think will happen if I press this button and delete your account? It's getting a bit old isn't it?" Obviously, she was making a point. With both the Digimon and threat.

"Ack! I'm sorry beautiful leader lady please don't!~" Fumi said, seeming repentant enough for Manaka to make the terminal disappear. Someone learned quickly enough at least. A good sign.

On the other hand, she did greet someone properly as they were polite enough. "Welcome Ichirou and his Digimon. I was going to reroute the money you took earlier, but since you were so polite you can keep it. Rest assured, while you don't have a "robot dragon," in the future your partners will turn out to be quite magnificent if I do say so myself."

With the necessary threats out of the way now, she continued. "Now then, you all. I'm rebuilding Jormungundr from the ground up. Would you all be interested in the rebirth of a legend? If so, I have a little test for you all."

The other two guys quickly chimed in on their opinion of Manaka as well. One called her creepy, while the other seemed to take a more level headed approach. Ooh, they both had some cool looking digimon with them! Not as cool as his own, of course. Should he have bought his out? He kinda wasn't really thinking much on the subject when he came here. In hindsight, he probably should have done as Dinohyumon suggested and at least had one of them out.

Oh well.

Before he could make a rebuttal though, Manaka started speaking as she opened a terminal. Something about his account name and easy encryption? Fumi was distracted momentarily by the reveal of Manaka's digimon to pay attention at first. Oh they were both so wonderful looking! He turned to look at the two of them. He quickly walked over to the two digimon as they finished their grand reveal.

"Creepy? No no how could they be creepy they're both cool!" He clapped his hands. "Ooh, I hope Lekis and Dino are as cool as you two one day!" he giggled, only catching the last words of Manaka's sentence. H-huh?! Delete his account?! She wouldn't be that cruel, but best to apologize anyways.

"Ack!" He immediately turned to face Manaka, face red with a bit of embarrassment and waving his arms lightly in front of him. "I'm sorry beautiful leader lady please don't!" He would be in so much trouble if his account got stolen! Not just from well, in general the bad stuff associated with that. Mostly from his dad. He was on thin ice with his parents as it was, he didn't need any more complications, but it seemed like his apology was good enough for her causing Fumi to sigh in relief when she closed the terminal.

Of course, that left one small problem. Fumi turned to Manaka.

"Uhm...leader lady!" Fumi raised a hand, waving it in the air as if he was a kid in a classroom with a question. "What exactly is Jormungundr?" He asked simply. Dinohyumon said something about some sort of hacker group or something, but he didn't entirely know the details himself. Fumi was objectively, new to the world of hackers and aside from experience on his Digifarm raising Digimon, he wasn't well versed in the inner workings of EDEN.

Rex growled at the appearance of the Digimon. Noru simply put a hand out stopping him. He was a part of a species that craved battle, Rex was programmed to fight and that made his a hassle to deal with. Noru scowled. Was violence and threats the only thing she could pull out? Unfortunately for her to Noru all her threats was pretty much empty and not without good reason. As much as he didn't want people knowing his father, due to the fact that it would get him widely distrusted amoung the hacker community, to the point he actively hid the fact, so well that he doubted that even Manaka could find it. It had it's benefits after all EDEN doesn't want anyone to get hacked and steal their data after the whole hackers finding about the Digimon, so they had an extensive security system, one that while it wasn't something he couldn't control, included Megas. Only getting stronger after both Noru and his father started to modify and improve over time, so he was safe on the defense side. Noru decided to ignore the Megas and keep going and then the snake woman threatened to delete Fumi's account.

"Is that even possible?"

Rex asked and Noru simply replied that it wasn't if they were online. After all there were fail safes, not even Noru himself with extensive knowledge of the EDEN system could overcome them. It was flat out Impossible. But even if it was a joke, it wasn't something you joked about. In one statement she actually lost his respect, that was a new record.

Noru's face became a mask, emotionless and after Fumi asked what the group was, the teen stated.

"They're a hacker gang from way back that disappeared, so leader lady, why resurface now?"

Noru was mimicking Fumi's nickname as he asked the question on his mind, however, unlike Fumi's innocent tone of voice Noru had a subtle dash of sarcasm and mockery. He didn't even try and introduce himself making pretty clear that the leader got off the wrong foot with him, making pretty clear that they would butt heads further down the line.

Ichirou gently rubbed Jacky's back in a manner reassuring to the both of them, waiting for Manaka to respond. She grinned maliciously at the 3 recruits, bringing up 2 terminals, bizarrely. He'd actually never seen that before; Could one of the panels be a fake? She assumably began hacking into Fumi's account, revealing her full name which oddly rang a bit of a bell. He'd have to look that name up later. Behind him, a door opened up revealing two huge digimon. Ichirou knew they were majorly powerful even though he had never seen them before. Ophanimon and Raguelmon, they were called. He'd have to look into them as well. Manaka threatened to destroy Miss Fumi's account while she was in it; an impossibility if Ichirou knew his stuff.

Still, she didn't realize the bluff-- it appears Manaka called her in based on appearance. He huffed at her shallowness, seemingly shifting her focus to him. Apparently she had been watching him shake down and was planning on taking the yen he had stolen. It worried him he had no moral right to keep the cash considering he had also taken it from it's rightful owner. She would allow him to keep it though (if she could actually redirect the funds, she had just played a bluff) because he stood up for her. That rubbed him a bit in the wrong way, but he was happy to hear that both if his Digimon would grow up big and strong.

Miss Fumi and the Emo questioned why Jormugndur would bother to exist now, since apparently they had disappeared a while back. "Fame and fortune, maybe revenge too, obviously. I wanna know what this 'test' is, since it doesn't seem to need much hacking knowledge." Ichirou asked, before realizing that was a bit rude to insult Manaka and Miss Fumi in one blow. Still, it felt disingenuous to apologize, so he kept his mouth shut and waited for a response.

Manaka smiled again. "That condescending tone's cute." Looking to Noru, "Now, why might Jormungundr resurface? Ichirou has a few ideas... But I'll tell you if you can impress me enough with this test I'll give you." She tapped on another terminal for a bit. "Here's something to think about though, you two with knowledge on hackers. What do you know about Kousuke Uehara? And the group known as Thor? I wonder how much you know of Norse mythology." With that, she finished tapping on her terminal. "Oh well, the Direct Link is ready to go. I'm confident you all can get through this. I wouldn't send you all if I weren't."

When she finished, a light appeared beneath the hackers and their Digimon. A 'Direct Link' as Manaka put it. Much like a Hyperlink on a web-page, it takes the users directly to where the Link is programmed. Can only be used on one's server to a known URL. The group quickly fell down into the portal and disappeared from sight. "I wonder how long they'll take."

Location Unknown, EDEN

---

The group found themselves falling through cyberspace and soon landed on their feet. It was dark with the only light being torches lining the walls. By looks, it was like a creepy dungeon from a game with brown brick walls and ceiling. The floor appeared to be of dirt, but the weird circuit design that flooded the design philosophy of EDEN made itself known here as well, reminding them they were still in EDEN if they forgot.

Currently, they were in a square room surrounded by torches. More odd though, were the weird trees in the room. About four of them and the hackers could notice that instead of fruit, the tree seemed to have things of meat on a bone growing. Almost like out of a cartoon of some sort. Anyone that had visited a Digifarm would recognize though, that this was a Digimeat Tree! While not exclusively used on Digifarms, they were mostly used there and it. They didn't come "naturally" in EDEN either.

There was also a hallway, with torches about ever five feet but always in holes in the walls on the opposite side of the wall. Far down the hall, a big chamber could be seen, though nothing was really visible inside. Not from where they were at least. One thing was for sure, they could hear some voices being rather loud. If they wanted to get out, they'd have to move forward, wouldn't they? There had to be a Server Access Point or Log-Out Platform somewhere.

Hacking group? Hm. He had never messed around with hacking stuff before. He exclusively dealt with studying various types of digimon, raising them, and well, playing with them mostly. Ah, what to do. He wasn't sure he could offer anything of value here. Not that he wasn't without his skills, no. he had money as well as business contacts that Manaka could probably make heavy use of. That was likely the real reason he had been called here since well, he kinda was a big deal being the kid of a wealthy tech company CEO.

Secondly, ow his pride. Wouldn't need much skill? That was obviously directed at him.

"Ah, so cruel Ichirou...my poor maiden heart." Fumi muttered, pouting and running a hand through his hair. If Dino had heard him say that, he'd have a very irate digimon on his hands. Dinohyumon was a little overprotective at times. Lekis would probably just laugh. Oh well, thoughts for another time. Manaka was talking about stuff about Hackers, Norse Mythology, Thor and why Jormungundr would resurface. Well...wouldn't they just resurface to do hacker group stuff?

Before he could continue on that train of thought though, Fumi became aware of the ground beneath him opening.

"E-eh?" Oh, that was a direct link or something, wasn't it? Well that meant. "-Ah." Soon enough, he found himself falling through cyberspace along with the others. Fumi just enjoyed the ride, giggling brightly as they fell.

"Wheeee!-Ah-oof!~" All too soon though, the fall abruptly stopped, landing on his feet though rather badly and almost stumbling over. "Oh wow, that was fun. I should take Lekis next time." He giggled as he got his bearings, looking around the new area they had found themselves in. "...talk about creepy. Feels like a dungeon outta some old video game." Fumi at least, had a lot of experiences playing video games since that was almost all he did in his spare time these days. Which he had a lot of. One thing though, immediately caught Fumi's attention.

"Oh hey!" He bounced over to the Digimeat Tree. "It's a Digimeat tree! What's this doing here. I've only ever seen them on Digifarms..." He mused. "They don't grow naturally in EDEN either so someone had to put it here." He didn't seem to notice the voices coming from further in. "Ah hey, help me get some digimeat! I should take it back to my Digifarm."

[color=7bcdc8][/color]
Ichirou waited patiently as Manaka spoke, but he was a bit worried and disappointed in earnest. It seemed even outcasts and criminals were destined to butt heads over stupid stuff. It may have even been a bit of his fault, Fumi began pouting a bit at his rude comment. Whatever, he reasoned, he had Jacky and Gats and those two were all he needed. He needed to focus on cash, and this test would be his meal ticket. Apparently they were going to go against Kousuke Uehara, whom Ichirou hadn't heard much on, and Thor, which was fracturing a bit as of recently-- though the group would call it 'spreading' he was sure.

"Hmph. Alright, well I-- Agh!" Ichirou began, before a hole happened to open up under him. Manaka wanted them to go now, it seemed. He quickly grabbed Jacky and held him close as the two fell, Gats was in data form thankfully. As Ichirou's hit feet the ground, he wondered why he had grabbed Jacky though, since you couldn't normally get hurt in EDEN. He gently let Jacky down from the princess-carry he was in, and took a look around. They were in a medieval dungeon of some kind, though it was pixelated and had some kind of meat growing trees sprinkled as often as the torches.

According to Fumi's rambling, that was a Digimeat tree, something common in Digifarms and not much else. Ichirou certainly hadn't seen them around EDEN and he was around the place constantly. If it was a treat for Jacky and Gats though, he'd love to have some. Ichirou extended his hand and summoned his secondary partner, partly for protection and partly to give him some Digimeat.

Reading his mind, Jacky had already begun picking some meat, grabbing 2 slabs for himself and Gats, and beginning to hand over the rest to Fumi.

"So uh, what's goin' on here? Do we just go and beat everyone here up?" Asked the ever eager Gaomon. Ichirou simply nodded in response. "Seems so. Are we ready?"

And think about it he did. Thor and the serpent was probably one of the best known part of Norse mythos, especially in the final battle. Thor slew Jormungudr, but died after taking seven steps. Now that he thinks about it Thor the group wasn't doing so hot, so did Thor and Jormungudr had a battle in which they crippled Thor and took out Jormungudr? Well the Norse Myth, time was a cycle and Ichirou did mention revenge, so was that the reason? A rematch? Noru was about to confirm it when Manaka oh so rudely sent them to somewhere else and Noru's response was a look that basically said 'Not impressed I can do that too!'

Noru and Rex landed in the dungeon. He there was some dungeons that you could clear using your Digimon, but it was probably a private server, after all he was pretty sure that getting outside help could be considered cheating. Interestingly a digimeat tree appearing at a random location like this one made him pretty sure it was a private server.

Huh, for there to be a digimeat tree here of all places either, Manaka hacked the tree, so that it considers any area as a digifarm area or they actually in a modified digfarm, either worked. While Noru was in deep thought Rex came over and ate one of the meat on the tree. Which the sounds of his chewing got Noru's attention.

"Hey don't eat that you don't know where it's been!"

In between bite Rex replied.

"Right here on this tree rooted to the ground, relax it's just normal meat."

Noru grumbled about raising a glutton and opened a screen and with a few click pulled up a mini map. Mini maps in Eden was usually left blank for areas like these until you start exploring, but Noru could just hack to side step the entire process.

"Well I'm in the mood for a good head smashing. Let's go beat everyone up."

Rex replied to what Gaomon said in the same eager tone, though it was a lot more intimidating coming from a cyborg dragon.

"Yeah what he said, I'll be sending both of you the map data. The name's Noru by the way."

Noru press a few buttons on the screen and the same maps appeared infront of the others. It was time to head forth. He didn't like Manaka that much, but he disliked Uehara even more.

The team seems almost unanimous in their agreement to move forward. As they got closer to the only visible exit, they'd hear a bunch of grunt and a lot of cheering. "I'll get more fer' us! Bwhahaha!" Starting down the hallway towards them all was a small green-skinned humanoid. He was looking over his shoulder into the room behind him before turning around and taking a good long look at the three humans and digimon.



At first, his face showed hostility and then shock as he noticed the digimon with hands full of DigiMeat. "Oi'! Whatcha' doing!? That's our grub!" He was about to take a step forward before noticing what challenge there was before him. "Geh!? What? Champion!? If ya' wuz all Rookie I'd mop ya... But..." He quickly turned and ran with his hands in the air. "Boiz! Get the big bros! They stealing our grub!"

A lot of commotion could be heard in the room as it seemed a large group of those same Digimon ran out the opposite way. The group would reach the room by time they all ran. Their map would show that this level was just the room they started in, the room they just reached, and one room ahead that showed a seperate Direct Link, though it seemed connected to this server. Beyond that, they didn't have anything. It seemed they'd have to head through the portal to really know what more there was.

As they looked into this room, it looked like some medieval feast hall. There were a plenty of tables with plates filled with DigiMeat. On one side, there was a large fireplace that illuminated the room. In the middle of the room was what looked like a fighting ring of some sort, though it was just a circular outline with sand in the center.

As soon as they finished canvasing the area and started to head towards the only obvious exit, a group of even bigger green digimon appeared. Five of them to be exact. And they didn't look happy, even with their already ugly appearance. "You lot the one stealing our stuff?! Get ready for a rumble!" That one then launched himself at Rex attempting to hit him with his club. Of course, he was getting a bit overconfident, not knowing exactly knowing who he was dealing with. He had the best boasting, but he was one of the weakest of the five.

There wasn't much choice but to fight it seemed, though the other green Digimon just stayed back and watched, taunting the other two Digimon. "We's don't 'ave to fight so 'ard with there only being three of them!"

It was ironic that the weakest of the five would attack one of the strongest Digimon there. Clearly he wasn't very smart, as what kind of sane intelligent being would go after the Cyborg Dragon! A life choice this poor Digimon would soon regret it. While Rex was a Vaccine type, his nature took over in a fight and he became more akin something you would see in a virus type Digimon and just as brutal and ferocious. It was said that the Reptiledramon species was a cyborg type due to being unable to contain that ferocious nature and Rex was about to show everyone what happens if it's released.

As the big green Digimon launched himself to hit Rex, a golden flash appeared at it's side and grappled it jerking it sideways before being stopped. Rex had caught the Digimon like a serpent, fitting of his own serpentine neck. Despite having another Digimon in his mouth he announced his attack loud and clear.

"Ambush Crush!"

A sickening crunch could be heard as Rex's metallic teeth sunk into the flesh like data of the Digimon. If it wasn't for the fact that Digimon where data it would have quickly become a rated R scene. Though Rex quite wasn't done just yet. Rex would thrash around using his neck as flail while keeping the Green Digimon locking in his jaws, after flailing him around he finally let down, while swinging the green Digimon downwards, slamming him into the ground.

Though it wasn't quite over, even with all that. A shadow would appear over the fallen Digimon. It wasn't exactly the shadow of death as it was Rex's foot before he crushed the underfoot. The cyborg dragon roared, partly in triumph partly as to issue a challenge. Noru rubbed the back of his head, before explaining.

"Yeah sorry about him, he's kinda like that in combat he's a real sunshine and rainbow kinda guy once you get to know him."

Rex roared again repeating his challenge.

"Ok, maybe sunshine and rainbows, is a little bit of an exaggeration."

Rex repeated his challenge again.

"Ok, a big exaggeration."

"Ah! Thanks Jacky!" Fumi thanked the digimon for helping with the digimeat. This was quite the haul - he'd bring it back to his farm and add it to his stash. Lekis and Dino would have a feast at this rate! It was still odd though why there would be one here. He doubted Manaka added it, since this likely wasn't a server owned by her. Either a private one owned my someone else, or just a random server they had been dumped into. Maybe a modified digifarm of that 'Thor' group she mentioned?

"Aha, don't you think hacking the map of a place would be bad?" Fumi questioned as Noru shared the maps with them, stuffing the Digimeat into his digivice for later use. "Wouldn't whoever owned this server find out about it?" It was a logical conclusion. After all, he doubted whoever did own it - assuming it wasn't Manaka's server - wouldn't have some security measures in place to prevent that sort of thing, but before he could continue questioning Noru's line of thinking on that, they ran into some rather rowdy looking goblin like digimon.

"Ah! Goblimon!" Fumi pointed at them as if excited by their appearance. "Rookie level, not too bright and a little cowardly." It was fairly obvious by the fact they fled almost immediately to get their 'big bros' when they accused them of stealing their meat. It gave them time to look around the area - though it didn't seem too different from the previous room, aside from the lack of obvious digimeat trees. Not that they'd have much time to really look around their 'big bros' appeared pretty soon.

"Ah...is that an Ogremon?" He questioned. Things were looking pretty dicey. Should he summon his partners already? The two guys looked like they had it handled and he wasn't keen on tiring out his partners just yet. "Big dumb brutes, aren't they? Ehe, you guys do your best!~" He encouraged from the sidelines, jumping excitedly and making a victory sign with fingers.

For the most part, the Ogremon just laughed at their comrade getting the shit beaten out of him. It seemed they just enjoyed the concept of fighting or just found that their comrade was humorous as he screamed while rex practically devoured him. Soon enough, the Ogremon that Rex was fighting disappeared underfoot, though it was a little different from when a Digimon was destroyed... A thought for a separate time, perhaps, as two of the digimon stepped forward. "Aight, aight. We'z get it. You'z strong. Well, 'zat guy waz da' weakest of uz. Oh, but it'z no fun like 'dis." The Ogremon didn't seem to upset as turn and started to stop on the ground a bit. "Where'z the damn.. Oh, 'dere!" A sound clicked and the ground right below Ichirou and his Digimon opened suddenly and they disappeared.

"Aight, four on one is a lot more fun!" He added with a small laugh between the Ogremon. Right as they calmed down from laughing, the main one that made Ichirou disappear rushed forward and swung his club at Rex. The Digimon and his human partner would notice that this Ogremon was a lot more powerful than the one before him. If Rex blocked, he'd feel a bit of recoil and if he dodged, the club would smash into the ground a bit.

One of the others walked around towards Fumi, "Why you hangin' out with 'dez guyz? We're a lot more fun." He seemed to have misunderstood a couple things about Fumi. First that he was harmless, second... That he wasn't actually a girl.

"Ah! Bad! no hurting Ichi!" Fumi shouted at the Ogremon who seemed to do something to Ichirou and his partner. Another Direct Link? Not much they could do about now, but hopefully they could handle themselves. More importantly...one of the other Ogremon seemed to have taken a bit of an interest in him. Oh, well, he couldn't say he wasn't flattered...but now wasn't the time for it. Besides, Dino would get twitchy if he let someone take such a shameless interest in him, heh. Normally he'd turn on the charm to avoid conflict, buuuut seemed like he'd have to do some thing not quite as fun.

"Aha, are you?" Fumi giggled at the Ogremon. "You guys seem pretty boring to me. All brawn and no brain." Regardless of the Ogremon's reaction, Fumi would jump backwards just as he pressed a button on his own Digivice. "Ehe, Dino! Lekis! Lets beat up these guys and take home that Digimeat!~" Fumi made a motion pointing towards the offending Ogremon. On cue, Fumi's two partners materialized just in front of him. One, a humanoid Dinosaur looking thing wielding two giant swords and blades on his wrists. The other some sort of Bipedal rabbit with long ears and arrows.

"Lord Fumi, please take us with you next time to avoid being attacked as such." Dinohyumon sternly stated, drawing the Akinakes from their sheathes, before charging at the Ogremon. "How dare you approach Lord Fumi with such an attitude!" He shouted, sending a flurry of slashes at the beast, cutting and tearing into the hopefully unprepared digimon's data.

"What he means is, he's concerned for your saftey, hehe." Lekismon hopped around, staying closer to Fumi and putting some distance between them and the Ogremon. "Hey hey, so where are we anyways?"

"No idea!" Fumi replied with a smile. Lekismon simply laughed, before observing the battle between Dinohyumon and Rex, ready to support either of them with ranged attacks.

Noru looked down a Ichirou was sent down a trapdoor as Noru looked down the trapdoor in a bit of curiosity, well that was certainly interesting, he didn't expect to see such a comedic and cartoon act. He had to wonder where he would end up. In the Rancor pit or something along those line is what he had to guess.

While Noru was thinking of the ever so important trap door Rex was focused on the fight between him and this Ogremon, which he wasn't actually that impressed with. Sure it was stronger than the last moron, but it was just about the same in any other way, charging head on with all the grace of a drunk hippo. It was predictable.

Rex dodged out of the way with speed that you didn't think that he would possess at first sight, causing the club to dig into the ground, however, Rex wasn't quite done. As his feet landed on the ground to cancel out inertia and then spun around and smacked the ogre in the face with his tail like a golden whip, but unlike a whip which was relatively light, his tail was not and knocked the Ogre down as he was trying to get his club out of the floor.

"Rex throw the table!"

It would appear that Noru finally decided to do his job as a tamer and started to throw out a strategy. Though Noru's directions where pretty muddy they had been partners for years now and that's all Rex needed to pick up on Noru's line of thinking. Rex flipped over and sent the the table flying at the two other two Ogremon, with food being scattered everywhere raving down and splattering on the wall. The first thing to do when dealing with multiple opponents, is to isolate and separate them. Rex then turned to the Ogremon that he distorted with his tail and the swiped at it with his razor sharp metal wing, trying to cut it in half before it could retaliate.

The Ogremon next to Fumi reacted comically surprised, practically throwing his club into the air as the two Digimon materialized in front of him. "Oi'! Youz a tamer too!? Gah!" He said, jumping back a bit. Then he noticed Dinohyumon sending a flurry of blows his direction. In a panic, he brought his club up and blocked most of the blows... Though the last one knocked it out of his hands. "You git'!" He screamed, mostly defenseless now.

On the other side of the room, the Ogremon fighting Rex was knocked down by the reptile digimon's tail. "Guh..." Ogremon complained.

The other two quickly reacted to the table being thrown at them. One just smashed the thing as it was flying at them. It first splintered into pieces and then disappeared into data. Nothing too uncommon for EDEN. "Come on! We'z even giving you a fair one on one. Gah! Fine, I help this git' and you help the one over there." He said to the other one, sending two against Fumi and his partners and two against Rex. The Ogremon then ran over just as Rex's wing met his enemy... Instead of cutting him in half though, he only managed to cut an arm off. He screamed in pain of course. It was almost pitiable. Still, as things were, it was as good as a One versus One. "Just stealin' our food and all, eh? Fine!" Learning from his brother's mistake, he gave a horizontal swipe at Rex.

Meanwhile, Fumi's second enemy arrived. "Hah! Can't even handle one girl and her worthless pieces of data!? What kind of Mon are you!?" He said, pushing his comrade back and then taking a powerful swing downward at Dinohyumon's head. "Try takin' this, ye' fool!"

"Grah!" The last of his blows sent the Ogremon's club flying, having disarmed his foe. He wasn't paying too much attention to the others on the field, however - far too focused on the single enemy in front of him. As he made to land the final blow on the now disarmed Ogremon with his blades, the opponent was suddenly pushed back by another Ogremon causing his finishing blow to miss entirely and give the opposing digimon a perfect opening to hit the lizard digimon right on the noggin'

"Tear Arrow!" Almost immediately, Lekismon pulled an arrow from its back, the icy projectile aiming right for Ogremon's midsection. "Ehe, Watch yourself Dino-dino!" She giggled brightly, launching a second arrow at the Ogremon's head.

"Humph!" Not bothering to reply, Dinohyumon would take both of his swords and slice cleanly into the Ogremon before swiftly moving onto the one that had been pushed back, hopefully taking both of them out in one, fluid motion.

"Aha, you guys are doing great! Keep it up!" Fumi hopped in the air, landing on one leg and giving his partners a word of encouragement.