Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Beyond humanity.

Chapter 1

It had been two days since they got back. Back to the Digital World. The one they had to leave in order to save their own.

Now it was just a shadow of what it used to be.

The Dark Masters made sure of that. They tore down every particle of the world and rebuild it in their own image, with Spiral Mountain in the centre of it. In order to destroy the Dark Masters they had to climb it, which seemed rather impossible.

"We'll never get up there. We don't have any supplies or climbing gear." Joe ranted. Tai had blocked him out a few minutes ago when he started.

Tai continued to do so and thought about their task. It seemed impossible to destroy four mega level digimon. Their own two mega levels hardly put a dent in Piedmon. Why did life have to be so hard?

Joe was currently having a nervous break-down.

Tai got up and continued to ignore Joe, who was now ranting about toilet paper. Tai himself hadn't brought anything from home, except a long-sleeved sweater in case they ended up somewhere cold again.

He walked over to the edge of the cliff they were currently resting. Piximon had dropped them near here after their first encounter with Piedmon and the other Dark Masters. He paid with his own life when he sent them here.

But he would come back. One thing they knew about digimon was that they never disappear. They just go away for a while and come back.

The same couldn't be said about them. If they died they wouldn't come back. They'd be gone forever. They may have been digital at the time but Tai sincerely doubted they'd be reborn in the Primary Village.

Weird thought!

Tai suddenly had this weird vision of himself breaking open a digi-egg from the inside.

Very weird but it put a smile on Tai's face anyway. He hadn't really smiled since they got back. He was afraid. Afraid that his friends would die here. That they would never rescue the Digital World. That their world was next.

He was afraid. He, the bearer of courage, afraid. It seemed so unworldly. He never feared anything before and now he was nearly shivering from fear. He didn't off course. That would be devastating for the morale of the group.

To see that their fearless leader was afraid.

"Joe, shut up! You're making me nervous." Matt suddenly snapped, making Tai come back to the 'real' world. Joe immediately fell silent but glared at Matt menacingly, which was rather not menacingly.

"He's right Joe. You should stop complaining. It won't help against those awful Dark Masters." Mimi said as she grabbed her hat just a bit tighter. She had pulled it down a bit to block out Joe's ranting.

"That's not true." TK said. "He might bore them to death."

The whole group except Joe laughed at that.

"But seriously, what are we gonna do about them?" Sora asked once she stopped laughing. Everyone turned to Tai.

Tai was currently contemplating their options. They could do a full-on attack. No that would get them killed. They could try to sneak in and destroy them. No. Piedmon would notice them and then they would be killed. They could…

"Tai."

Or they could… No that meant certain death as well.

"Tai!"

Maybe…

"Taichi!"

Tai snapped back to reality, second time in like three minutes.

"What is it? And who told you my full name?" Tai asked the lizard-like creature yelling at him.

"She did." He pointed at Kari, who just waved innocently.

"Tai, you really need to stop zoning out like that." Izzy said. "We can't be a team without a leader."

"So Tai. What are we going to do about them?" This time it was Matt who asked the dreaded question.

"To be honest… I have no idea." Everyone dropped down anime-style.

"What do you mean, you have no idea?" Matt stood up; leaving his 'I-don't-really-care' attitude behind. "You're supposed to be our leader."

"And does that make me a tactical genius? I never asked to be the leader Matt." Tai gritted his teeth as he spat out those words.

Matt backed down as Tai said that. He hated to admit it but Tai was right. He was just eleven, just like himself. None of them should know how to destroy an evil squadron of dark digimon.

"That may be true Tai but you are our leader. You're the one we all listen to. You're the one that holds us together." Sora said once Matt calmed down again.

Tai sighed. She was right. When he disappeared for a few hours the team fell apart. Off course it hadn't been a few hours to them. More like a few months.

He sighed again. "I don't know what to do now. Maybe we could ask Gennai for some information about the Dark Masters. Maybe he knows their weaknesses."

This clearly was a good idea, as everyone nodded.

"Just one problem though." Izzy said, not even looking up from his screen.

"Now what?" Joe mumbled.

"We don't find Gennai. Gennai finds us." Tentomon said as he hovered past them. "He's right. The only times that I was able to contact Gennai was when he showed himself to me." Izzy continued.

"So what, we're supposed to sit here and wait for the old man to call us?" Matt asked as he sat down on his rock again.

"Pretty much." Izzy said.

"Great, just great." Joe started to complain again.

"Relax Joe, you'll live longer." Gomamon tried.

"You should listen to him Joe." Mimi said as Joe tensed up.

"Live longer? Live longer?" Joe started. 'Not good.' Was all that went through the digidestined and digimon's heads.

"I doubt I'll 'live longer' as long as we're on this god forsaken piece of rock!" Joe's head started to turn red. "And I can't relax with the thought that we have to wait for Gennai while we're easy targets here!"

Everyone looked astounded at Joe's outburst. Who knew that the calm façade contained so much anger.

"So what are we going to do? Wait till fate leads us to him?"

Out of anger Joe kicked against a rock, which flew through the air, struck a tree, bounced into another direction and knocked away a pile of stones.

Which then revealed one of those steel plates on which they first met Gennai.

Joe's jaw fell to the floor. "Can't argue with fate, can you?" Tai said as he walked over to the plate.

"How did this work again?" Tai said to himself as he kicked it a few times.

"Get him away from there!" Izzy yelled out in panic. Soon Tai was dragged away by Matt and Agumon.

"Let's just hope it's not broken." Izzy muttered to himself as he connected it to his laptop.

"Mind if me and TK go explore for a while?" Kari asked. "I'd rather not wait till he's done." She pointed at Izzy, who was currently entering 'the zone'.

"Okay, but be careful." Tai said reluctantly. He was a bit worried, with her being sick and all but TK and Gatomon would be with her.

"Great!" She yelled out as she headed into the forest close to their piece of rock.

"Hey wait up!" Gatomon yelled as she, TK and Patamon went after her.

"You sure that was a good idea?" Sora asked as the quartet left the team. "I doubt that the Dark Masters would attack now." Tai said, though not really sure about it himself. "And besides: Gatomon and Patamon are with them."

This seemed to put some of her worries aside.

Meanwhile Izzy was still ticking away on his computer. Tai didn't know that human fingers could move so fast. He got dizzy from just looking at him.

"So, got anything?" Tai asked after a while. Nothing. Izzy seemed to be very far off. Even his eyes weren't really focused any more.

"Okay that's just plain weird." Tai said to himself as he left Izzy alone again.

"Shouldn't we do something? You know, like wake him up?" Mimi asked. "Bad idea. Izzy hates it when people distract him when he's working." Tentomon said casually.

"He calls this working." Joe said as he threw his hands up.

Like an hour or so later Izzy finally moved again. "Prodigious!" he exclaimed, causing Tai to wake up and nearly falling off of the rock he dubbed a bed.

"What? What?" He asked, rather confused about what just happened.

"I found a way to contact Gennai!" Izzy said as he tapped away on his computer some more. "If I just do this… and then open up that link…there we go!"

A flickering image appeared above the piece of steel. An image of an old man that had lost the ability to open his eyes a few thousand years ago.

"Hello digidestined." He started. "How nice to see you all again."

"The same Gennai, but we didn't call you for small talk. We need information about the Dark Masters." Tai said, rather abruptly.

"Ah yes, the dark masters. Nasty digimon but I fear that there's an even bigger threat to your wellbeing." Gennai said with sadness in his voice.

"Oh great! More evil digimon that want us dead!" Joe complained again.

"Shut up Joe. Tell us about this new threat." Tai said as he blocked Joe out again.

You know how our dimension hung in the sky at your home?" Everyone nodded. "That means that our two dimensions are scrapping against each other. This causes a great increase in digital energy."

"What is this 'digital energy' you speak of?" Izzy's curiosity was getting the better of him as always.

"Everything in this world is powered by the Digital energy. It allows digimon to digivolve and be reborn over and over again." Gennai said as Izzy absorbed every word he said into his mind.

"I believe that most energy was released into the Digital World, so your world should be safe." Everyone looked rather relieved when Gennai said so.

"But that means that there is to much of it present in this world. I have absolutely no idea what effect it could have on humans." Gennai said darkly.

"How is this dangerous to us?" Tai asked, a bit afraid of the answer.

"I don't know, like I told you: something like this has never happened before. It's entirely possible that nothing happens to you."

"But if something does happen, what then?" Tai asked, this time truly afraid of the answer.

"It could change you as well."

This struck fear in everyone's hearts. But mostly in Tai's. He couldn't think of himself as anything other then human.

"Do you mean we might change into digimon?" Mimi asked nervously.

"Not exactly digimon but as I said, it's probably nothing. It's just a theory."

A scream suddenly pierced the silence of the forest. Matt went from 'totally relaxed and just slightly worried' to 'worried sick'.

"That was TK." He said and ran off without an other word. He waked up Gabumon as he passed the sleeping lizard/wolf-like digimon, who then quickly followed Matt.

Tai, Mimi, Sora, Joe and their digimon followed Matt. Only Izzy remained behind.

"I'm afraid that the theory could become a reality." Gennai said with a worried look on his face.

"Isn't there a way to shield us from that Digital energy?" Izzy asked, also worried about what it could do to them and about that scream.

"I'm afraid there isn't but I can give you this. It's a scanner program for your computer. It detects large sources of Digital energy so you can avoid it as much as possible."

"Don't I need a sensor or something for that to work?" Izzy asked as he closed his laptop and put it back into his backpack.

"No you can just use the infrared of your laptop." Gennai responded.

Izzy ran off, followed by Tentomon. "I'll send the program but it might take a while. My modem is older then myself."

The others ran as fast as they could towards the source of the screams but when they got there…

"What the hell?"

Cliff-hanger!

Hooray! I decided to post a new story to celebrate the fact that 'Spirits of Destiny' hit 300 reviews! (plus the plotbunnies wouldn't leave me alone)

R&R please! I'll continue when I get a few reviews. No flamers though.