The young boy sat in the chair with his small feet dangling in the air and his attention focused on the game console in his hands.

"Hi there."

He looked up to see a young woman in a nurse's uniform kneel down in front of him. "Are you Taichi?"

He nodded.

"How old are you, Taichi?"

"I'm two!" he said with his face beaming.

"Where's your mother?"

He motioned down the hall. "She's in there with my baby sister."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "O-oh. Did something happen to your sister?"

"She's not here yet," he said, "She's still in mommy's tummy."

The nurse sighed and mumbled under her breath. "I was afraid of that."

She took a deep breath, "Um, Taichi, there's been a…um…"

He blinked in confusion. The nurse struggled, "Your mother's…."

Taichi looked over her shoulder to the man wandering down the hall. The nurse stood and bowed. "It would probably be better if you told him."

The man nodded and knelt down. "Where's Mommy?" Taichi asked, "Where's my baby sister?"

His father sighed. "Taichi, there's been a…" He swallowed as tears came to his eyes, "I'm sorry Taichi, but your baby sister's not coming and Mommy's…"

He took another breath, "And Mommy's not coming home either."

Taichi could not understand what his father was saying, but knew that something bad had happened. He did not know why, but he started crying as well.

The Dead Princess

Chapter 1

The Adventure Begins

Fourteen years later

Taichi woke with the familiar blaring in his ears. His hand reached out from beneath his sheet and slammed down on the alarm clock. His hand continued to fumble around the small nightstand until he found his cellphone. He tapped the screen and pulled it underneath his sheets to join his head.

"Saturday. Why did I set the alarm on Saturday?"

His memory flew back to him like a spike through his head. "The Tournament!"

He jumped from his bed, shed his pajamas and dove into his favorite blue shirt and brown shorts in one motion. He grabbed his digivice, his Digimon virtual pet device, from the table and ran through the apartment. "Bye Dad, be back later!"

His father glanced up from his newspaper and watched his son dart through the door.

Taichi raced down the sidewalk, darting through the crowds while his fingers danced across the screen of his device. "V-dramon, Level 25," he said to himself, "All right, we're gonna win this thing."

He rounded the corner and saw the Kame Game Shop at the end of the street. He clenched his device and ran into the shop. The old man behind the counter bowed. "Good morning. Welcome to the…" He frowned, "Ah, Taichi. I've got some bad news."

"What?" he asked.

"Registration ended thirty minutes ago," he chuckled.

Taichi's face fell and his heart dropped to his feet. The old man chuckled, "But you're lucky that I know you." He motioned with his head to a door behind the counter.

Taichi grinned and ran past. "Say hi to your grandson for me!"

The back room was almost as large as the main store but repurposed solely for game tournaments. While mostly hosting card game battles, the shop offered a Digital Pet tournament once a year. Taichi pushed his way through the crowd; mostly preteen to young teenage boys, but there were more than a few girls there as well.

"Yagami, I'm surprised you didn't over sleep like last time."

Taichi growled and turned to see a boy with wild white hair. "I had to show up just to kick your ass Saiba!"

Neo Saiba snickered and held up his Digital Pet. "And what pathetic Digimon did you bring? My Greymon strong enough to defeat Fully Evolved."

Taichi paled. How could an Adult defeat a Fully Evolved? "Y-yeah, well, my digimon's no weakling! And I'm going to kick your ass and delete your Digimon!"

He would have continued the taunting expect the tournament official stepped into the dueling arena. "Welcome everyone to the fifth annual D-1 Grand Prix!"

The crowd cheered.

"We've got a lot of contestants today," he continued, "So let's get the preliminaries started!"

They were randomly split into brackets. Taichi waited with anticipation and boredom as he watched round after round until he was finally called. He beamed as he stepped up to the small console on the dueling floor. He twisted his device through his fingers while he waited for his opponent. The same device nearly fell from his hands as he watched Neo step onto the other side of the arena.

Neo smirked. "All right Yagami, you said you were going to kick my ass, and delete my Digimon, right? So bring it on!" He shoved his Digital Pet device into his console.

"Digimon Uploaded!" the computerized voice declared.

Taichi gripped his device tighter. "I'm not going to lose to you!" He shoved the device into the console.

The console's screen began to flash green. "Uploading…..Uploading…."

The green turned red. "Error! Error! Unknown Digimon uploaded!"

The color drained from Taichi's face. "What?"

The tournament official shouted, "You have a Digimon that wasn't programmed into the game."

"What?" Taichi gasped.

Neo pointed at him. "Are you trying to cheat or something? We can't have you battle using your trick monster!"

Taichi shook his head. "I raised him and this is just the way he turned out!"

"You're disqualified," the tournament official said, "Remove your Digital Pet."

Taichi's face fell and pulled the device from the console. He dropped it into his pocket, but a stream of glowing energy shot from the connector port and struck Taichi in the leg. "What the…?"

The console beeped and booped as electricity began to shoot across the screen. "What the hell did you do, Yagami?" Neo shouted.

Taichi could not answer as a bright light exploded from the console screen and enveloped all that Taichi could see.

AAAAA

Taichi opened his eyes and found himself staring at the bright blue sky. Had his malfunctioning device blown the roof of the game shop? He sat up and rubbed the back of his head. He was sitting outside in the middle of forest.

"What the hell?" he asked. How had he gotten there and where was everyone else?

He stood up and brushed the dirt off his legs. Maybe he had passed out or something. Yeah, that was probably it.

He heard a snort behind him and he gave a short jump. He slowly turned his head over his shoulder and his blood froze. There was a giant, two-legged blue dragon standing behind him! He gave a shout and ran. The dragon ran after him!

"No!" he screamed, "Leave me alone!"

The dragon roared. "Taichi!"

Taichi? Taichi! Oh great, not only was it after him, and that it could talk, it also knew his name! The teenage boy closed his eyes and ran even faster, thinking that if he only ran faster and kept his eyes closed this would all disappear, that he would wake up from this nightmare!

He heard another roar, no, that sounded different. He opened his eyes and found himself in the center of a circle of stones with a large, flat stone adorned with strange directly in front of him. He only gave that stone a passing glance because his eyes were focused on the towering creature in front of him, a four-legged creature with a spiked back. This creature he recognized.

"Shellmon?" he gasped, "A Shellmon? You're a Shellmon!"

The Shellmon slammed his foot onto the ground and Taichi fell onto his rear due to the resulting earthquake. The turtle Digimon opened his mouth and leaned forward. The blue dragon roared from behind. Taichi curled into a ball and put his hands on the back of his head. "Just make it quick!" he shouted.

"Just stay down Taichi!" he cried, "I'll protect you!"

"Protect me?" he gasped. He pulled his head up to see the blue dragon swinging his fists into Shellmon's mouth. "Why is he trying to protect me?"

The Shellmon rammed his head into the blue dragon's chest. The dragon grabbed the turtle's neck with one hand and slammed his head with the other. "Hammer Fist!"

The turtle skidded backwards from the attack and smashed into a large stone. The dragon grinned at Taichi. "No problem, Taichi. I've got this."

Taichi's eyes drifted from him to the Shellmon, who had recovered and was charging back into battle. "Look out!"

The dragon spun around and fired a blast of energy from his mouth. "V-Breath Arrow!"

The turtle fired spikes from his back. "Phalanx Attack!"

The blast of energy incinerated the incoming projectiles and struck the Shellmon in the head. He growled before glowing brightly and shrinking down to a smaller frog-like creature. He glared at Taichi and the blue dragon before hopping away.

"Betamon?" Taichi blinked, "H-he devolved!"

He gasped and turned to the blue dragon. "Why did you help me?"

The dragon blinked. "What? Don't you know who I am? I'm V-dramon, I'm your partner."

"V-dramon?" Taichi blinked, "My partner?"

He gasped again and removed the Virtual Pet device from his pocket. "This is you?"

"Yeah, I guess," he shrugged.

"But, if you're here, and that Shellmon was here, then where the hell am I?"

"You're in the Digital World," V-dramon said, "Don't you know?"

"I have no idea what the hell's going on!" Taichi shouted.

"Well, then we'd better ask for some help," the digimon said, "There's a small village up this way. Maybe we can find some more humans there."

"More humans?" Taichi blinked, "There are other humans here?"

"Yeah, there's been humans here ever since the Digital Masters came here."

Taichi rubbed his forehead. "What? Who? Digital Masters?"

V-dramon frowned. "You don't know, do you? The Digital Masters came here like all Chosen Children do."

He paused at seeing the confused expression on Taichi's face, "Humans that come to this world are called Chosen Children. So these Chosen Children came to save us from the evil digimon that took over the Digital World. But, when they defeated them, they took the evil digimon's powers as their own and they became the Digital Masters. They brought other Chosen Children here to make up their Digital Army and they started taking over this world."

Voices filled the air. "It came from over here."

Human and digimon stared at one another and then dove behind the large rock "Why are we hiding?" V-dramon whispered.

A thousand thoughts exploded against Taichi's head: his digimon virtual pet was standing beside him, he had been transported to another world, and had nearly been killed by a battle that had existed as a video game to him only hours before, yet the foremost thought was what he told V-dramon, "We don't know who they are."

They crouched down and watched as two humans pushed their way through the overgrowth of grass; one was a short boy with a bowl cut of brown hair and the other was a girl with long purple hair. At their side were digimon that Taichi recognized as an Armadimon and a Hawkmon.

The girl was staring at a digivice in her hand. "The residual energy from that gate leads here."

The boy knelt down and examined the ground. "There was a battle here. Whoever crossed over must have found his or her partner and already had their first battle."

"If we weren't so close to the Dark Ocean Gate, we shouldn't even bother," the girl frowned.

"Humans," Taichi sighed, "Thank god."

V-dramon gasped. "No!" he hissed, "Wait!"

But Taichi had already stepped out into the open. "Hey, over here!" he waved.

The two humans turned to him. "Were you the one that fought here?" the boy asked.

Taichi nodded. "Yeah. Me and V-dramon faced a Shellmon and won."

"V-dramon?" the girl blinked. She looked to the two digimon, who only shrugged.

"Where did you get that digimon from?" she asked, "Is that your partner?"

Taichi nodded. "Yeah, what's the big deal?"

"We've never heard of that digimon before," the boy said.

Taichi blinked and turned to V-dramon. "You really are a glitch, aren't you?"

"If I'm a glitch it 'cause of the way you raised me!" he snapped.

"Yeah, anyway," the girl said, "What's your name?"

"Taichi Yagami," he beamed, "I nearly won last year's D-1 Grand Prix."

The boy and girl glanced at each other. "Taichi Yagmai?" the boy asked, "That's really your name?"

"Yeah," he shrugged, "What's the big deal?"

"Okay, Taichi," the girl said, "My name is Miyako. This is Iori and our partners, Hawkmon and Armadimon."

"Yeah, nice to meet you and all that," Taichi said, "But how did you get here?"

Iori stepped forward, "Why don't you come with us? We can hopefully answer your questions."

Taichi took a step forward, but V-dramon growled. "Taichi, they're with the Digital Army!"

The boy then realized that both the boy and girl were wearing similar clothes, blue and orange military uniforms! He took a step back and the girl jumped forward. "Stop right there!"

The Hawkmon fluttered from behind her and started glowing. "Hawkmon evolve to Aquillamon!"

V-dramon growled. "You wanna fight? Then let's fight! V-Breath Arrow!"

Aquillamon flapped his wings and rings of red light shot from his mouth. "Blast Rings!"

Both attacks struck each other and exploded in a blast of light and wind. V-dramon leapt through the explosion and tackled Aquillamon to the ground. "Great job!" Taichi grinned, "His advantage is that he can fly! Pin his wings down!"

V-dramon grinned as he pressed the bird's wings down with all his weight. "Ahh!" Miyako screamed. She turned to Iori, "Aren't you gonna help?"

The boy sighed and held up his digivice. "Do it."

Armadimon charged forward. "Armadimon evolve to Ankylomon!"

"Look out!" Taichi shouted.

V-dramon only had time to see the spiked tail crash into his head. He stumbled backwards and Aquillamon was able to shoot back into the sky.

"I didn't want this to happen," Iori said, "But if you keep attacking, I will join my comrades."

V-dramon jumped back to his feet. "I'm not backing down!"

"Armor Stampede!" Ankylomon shouted. Before V-dramon could blink, the large digimon charged forward and rammed his horned helmet into the dragon's chest.

V-dramon cried out as a large gash appeared on his abdomen. "No!" Taichi cried.

Aquillamon circled the sky and fired more glowing rings from his mouth. "Blast Rings!"

V-dramon clutched at his wound and watched Aquillamon's attack head straight for him.

"No!" Taichi cried as he charged at his partner, "V-dramon!"

The Blast Rings hit V-dramon at point blank. He was thrown backwards with his tail snagging Taichi's leg and pulling the human backwards as well. They struck the large flat stone, and when Taichi's hand, which held his digivice, struck the surface, the symbols began glowing in a strange, dark light.

"He activated the Gate!" Iori gasped.

The symbols exploded in light and Taichi felt the flat surface give way and he and V-dramon were pulled into what looked like a dark, swirling tunnel. He could still make out the two Digital Army soldiers through a small hole at the tunnel's end until that, too vanished into the darkness. He then landed on solid ground with sharp rocks scratching his legs. V-dramon landed beside him with a loud thud.

He turned his head to scan his surroundings. He was standing on what had to be a beach, with a dark ocean stretching before him. The sky was a dark haze, like a perpetual overcast, but a dark sun could be seen behind the clouds.

V-dramon moaned and Taichi saw the gash on his chest had grown larger. "V-dramon!"

The dragon lay on his back struggling for breath. "T-taichi…"

The human raced to his side. "You're gonna pull through, right? One little cut's not gonna stop you, right?"

V-dramon chuckled, but then moaned. "Don't worry, I'm not about to leave you just yet…" He groaned and his body exploded in light before shrinking down to a small orange dinosaur.

He blinked and rubbed his chest, which was now free of any injury. "Sometimes you just need to devolve to heal up."

"V-dramon?" Taichi asked, "I mean, you are an Agumon now, right?"

Taichi could only nodded. "But, you are an Agumon now, right?"

"You should know. I was an Agumon first."

Taichi nodded again. When he first bought his Digital Pet it had been an Agumon before evolving to that strange Digimon.

"So where are we now?" Agumon asked.

Taichi shook his head. "I have no idea."

Agumon pointed over Taichi's shoulder. "Maybe we came through that."

There was another large, flat stone with similar symbols in front of them. Taichi stared at his digivice and gently tapped it against the stone, but the symbols remained silent. "Must be a one-way street, whatever it was," he mumbled.

"But your digivice activated it," Agumon added.

Taichi turned back to the endless beach. "I guess we'd better check this place out."

They had only walked for a few minutes before a dark, well, darker, shadow passed over head. "Oh now what?" Taichi gasped.

"Up there!" Agumon shouted.

A black bird circled overhead. Taichi held his digivice, "Can you evolve again?"

Agumon shook his head. "Not for a while yet!"

"What? What do you mean?"

"I just don't have the energy!"

Taichi swallowed, "Then run!"

They darted across the sand, but the bird easily overtook them. It dropped to the ground inches in front of them. Both human and digimon fell onto their rears and stared at the bird's mouth full of razor teeth.

"Hold Saberdramon," a voice called. The bird dropped its head and Taichi could now see there was a teenage girl on its back. She had short orange hair and wore a suit of dark armor. She dropped off of the bird's back and pulled a short sword from her side.

"I am Sora Takenouchi, captain of her majesty's guards. Who are you and what are you doing in the Dark Ocean?"

To be continued…

Next: Taichi is brought before Hikari, the ruler of the Dark Ocean and his destiny as the Chosen One is revealed to him. Will he help Hikari rid the Digital World of the evil Digital Masters?