The skies were blue, the wind was gentle. It was just another day in the Digital World. On this day, Inochino Seidaku was lounging in her cave home, basking in a beam of light that managed to get into the entrance. Nearby, the sounds of a chisel at work echoed. Seidaku's digital monster, or digimon, partner was busy chiseling the image of a small child into the stone wall. The child was a girl named Suzi, someone both human and digimon once knew. "What do you think?" the digimon asked, turning to the teenage girl. Seidaku craned her neck and could barely see it. She sat up and then stood up. She walked over and stood beside the white digimon with rainbow details. The digimon resembled a rabbit, of sorts, and was standing on a wooden step-ladder.
The girl looked over the image and smiled. "Cherubimon would be proud," she said. "Good work, Evelomon." Evelomon beamed like the ray of sunlight and hopped down, dropping the chisel and toolbelt. "So, we'll begin the fourth digidestined next week?"
"Sounds good!" Evelomon said, jumping onto Seidaku's chair. "I deserve a break."
"You did good on Lopmon, too," Seidaku added, blowing away dust that was in the cracks. Next to the girl was a digimon with three horns on its head and ears that went slighly past its feet. This digimon, too, resembled a rabbit. "Again, Cherubimon would be proud."
"It was easy," Evelomon said. "After doing Terriermon, Lopmon was no problem at all!" Seidaku looked next to Suzi to see a tall boy. He was Henry, Suzi's brother. Next to him was a digimon that was exactly like Lopmon, save for the absence of two horns on his head. That was Terriermon.
Seidaku absent-mindedly traced the lines of Henry's picture. "I miss them," she said. Evelomon looked over at Seidaku in shock. The black-haired girl rarely spoke of the past digidestined, and when she did she never made any mention of missing them. "I miss the digimon, too," she said, looking at Lopmon and Terriermon. The two saw plenty of digimon all of the time, but rarely did they actually meet the digimon that had been the partners of the digidestined. They would meet many Terriermons and Agumons and Hawkmons all of the time, but they hadn't seen the digidestined digimon in a long time. They had seen Gatomon, Patamon, and Lopmon in the more recent years, but they were in their angelic forms of Ophanimon, Seraphimon, and Cherubimon, respectively. They were more like acquaintences anymore.
Seidaku sighed and picked up the belt and chisel. She then headed further into the cave to put them away. Evelomon fell asleep in the sunbeam.
Later that afternoon, Seidaku left the inner cave to check on Evelomon. She found that the sun was gone and replaced by dark clouds and heavy winds. Then, as if on cue, a bright streak of lightning lit the dark skies. Moments later, thunder sounded loudly. It boomed so loudly that Evelomon jumped out of her sleep and landed on the floor headfirst. As she righted herself, rain began pouring. "So much for our sunny afternoon," Seidaku said, pulling the chair of of reach of the ricocheting rain.
"Yeah, oh well," Evelomon said with a stretch. "We always have tomorrow." Seidaku nodded and headed back into the depths of the cave. She had barely closed the makeshift door when Evelomon's ears perked up. "Hold on," she said. "I hear something!" She pushed the door aside and looked to the entrance of the cave further down. It was dark and neither saw nothing. That is, until lightning streaked across the sky again. Both saw three distinct figures at the entrance. The two hurried to the figures, Seidaku carrying a lamp. When the light from the lamp was cast on the three figures, Seidaku and Evelomon gasped. In the entrance of their humble cave was Gatomon, Angemon, and Turuiemon, the champion forms of the three digital world angels. Angemon was on one knee. Turuiemon stood beside him, stopping the weary angel from falling over. On Angemon's other side was Gatomon, who was holding Angemon's arm. Seidaku and Evelomon waisted no time helping the angel into their home.
As soon as Seidaku closed and locked the makeshift door, she heard the unmistakable sound of a digimon de-evolving. Where Angemon had been now was Patamon, who seemed to be breathing much easier than he had been moments before. "What happened to you guys?" Evelomon asked as she offered water to the three. Gatomon gladly took a glass and took a drink as Turuiemon took another and helped Patamon get a drink.
"We were attacked, what else?" Turuiemon said. "We were minding our own business, observing Primary Village when someone attacked us from above and behind. The attack was so powerful, we de-evolved. Naturally, I fell into the village as these two tried to hold their own. We didn't recognize the digimon that attacked us. I tried to help, but I could only do so much from the ground."
"I took a bad hit to the head," Gatomon continued as Turuiemon took a drink. "I hit the ground and de-evolved. Turuiemon was hit and de-evolved, and then MagnaAngemon took a particularly nasty hit and de-evolved. He picked the two of us up and got the heck out of there."
"You guys were de-evloved with one hit?" Seidaku asked. The three nodded. Seidaku whistled and finished preparing a warm bowl of water to clean up Patamon. She sat beside him and gently cleaning his cuts.
"I can see why you came here," Evelomon said. "We're so close to Primary Village."
"We actually went to our palace, first," Patamon said. "We were ambushed there, and I took a lot of heavy hits."
"We didn't know where else to go after that," Turuiemon said. "So, we just came here."
"We'll take care of you," Seidaku said.
"Yeah!" Evelomon said. Her cheery demeanor disappeared when the whole cave began shaking. "What-?" Turuiemon put her paw over Evelomon's mouth.
"It's them!" Patamon whispered fearfully. Seidaku was already up. In her hand was her second-generation digivice. Evelomon dislocated herself from Turuiemon and shooed her and the other two further into the cave. The make-shift door and wall shattered.
"Evelomon, armor digivolve!" Seidaku shouted. Evelomon began glowing in unison with Seidaku's digivice and handheld. The digiarmor of Purity appeared on its screen.
"Evelomon armor digivolve to Numesamon!" Evelomon shouted. Then the glowing disappeared. In Evelomon's place stood Numesamon, a metallic rabbit slightly taller than Seidaku on all fours. "Falling Star!" Numesamon shouted. From the silver star on her forehead shot a similar silver star with a long glittering tail. The attack literally bounced off of one of the bear-like intruders. "WHAT!" Numesamon shouted in surprise.
"Seidaku, Numesamon!" shouted a small, shrill voice. "Come on!" Seidaku and Numesamon turned and ran to the back of the cave. Along the way, Numesamon pushed Seidaku just right that she slid onto Numesamon's back. Seidaku held onto Numesamon's longer-than-normal ears as they came upon a glowing portal. Conomon, SnowBotamon, and Poyomon stood in front of it, looking anxious. "Let's go!" SnowBotamon shouted as the three jumped onto Numesamon's back with Seidaku's help. The group disappeared into the portal. Before it closed, a large fireball found its way in.
The afternoon air was cool and crisp in the central park of Tokyo. Because of the warning of large storms, the park was fairly empty, save for three middle school kids in the top house of the jungle gym. One of them was Waheino Anchuu. He was reclined against the wall of the structure, his hat pulled over his eyes and his earphones stuck fast in his ears. Across from him was his sister, Waheino Shinai. Shinai was two years younger that Anchuu but still required Anchuu's escorting after school. Today, Shinai was playing a little-known game with her would-be boyfriend, Shouhei Kanki. The game was called the Digital Monsters Battle Card Game. Kanki had inherited the game and a whole lot of cards from some relative of his that passed on years before. The game required card readers, and Kanki had two, so he and Shinai often played the game. Anchuu thought it was interesting, but never bothered much with it. He could find little information about the strange game anywhere he looked.
As Anchuu listened to the last half of a song, his foot was shaken. He lifted his hat to see Shinai waving at him. Kanki was behind her, putting the items in his bag. Anchuu shut off his music and pulled the ear phones out. "So, who won?" he asked, really not caring.
"I finally did!" Shinai said. "Isn't that awsome?"
"Yeah, sure," Anchuu said as he began to climb down the ladder. "We had better hurry home. Looks like the bad weather's coming in!"
"I agree with that," Kanki said as he followed. Shinai followed after and the three set out across the park. As they crossed the swing area, a bright light appeared just a little bit ahead of them. They stopped and were about to turn around when a large, metallic rabbit fell from it. It landed on all fours and looked to be having some things on its back. It promptly bucked the things off. They landed in a nearby sandbox just as a bright red ball of fire appeared from the light. It struck the metallic rabbit and sent it rolling along the ground. As it began to glow, someone shouted something that sounded like, "New-mess-uh-mon." Anchuu and Kanki watched as a figure left the sand box and ran to the glow. It disappeared as the figure got there. They looked at each other and looked for Shinai, but she was already at the sandbox. The automatic park lights came on, lighting up the park. They looked and saw a girl where the large metallic rabbit had been. Without thinking, they ran over to her.
"Hey, are you okay?" Anchuu shouted. The girl looked up at him and Kanki as she wrapped her arms around her front. In them seemed to be several small stuffed animals. Except, as Kanki noticed, they were blinking.
"Whoa, are those digimon?" he asked.
Two bear-like Digimon with dark blue capes left the now-ransacked cave in an angry huff. "Nothing!" the black one said. "How did they get out of there?"
"I don't know," the brown and white one said. "Did they get by us?"
"No they did not!" the black one said. The two bears reached the ledge and leapt from it as a pair of wings appeared from under the capes on their back. They flew off of the ledge but were promptly stopped by a large purple cloud that materialized in front of them. "Master Soritamon!" the two digimon shouted in surprise. They dropped to a nearby ledge and bowed.
The purple cloud hovered down to just in front of their faces. The two digimon shuddered in fear. "Master Soritamon, we-"
"Silence." The two digimon quieted. "You did not capture the girl."
"She escaped!" the brown and white bear cried. "The angels-"
"The three guardians helped them," Soritamon interrupted. "I know. They opened a portal and escaped through it. I could feel them."
"Master, what do we do?" the black digimon asked.
"Follow them in good time, Kodimon" Soritamon said. "Give them time to get comfortable, to drop their guard. Then you shall follow them."
"Where are they?" Kodimon asked.
As the cloud faded, Soritamon said, "They are in the world of humans."
Outside, the rain pounded down, soaking the streets and buildings. In Hanya Cafe, Anchuu and Shinai sat with the girl named Seidaku. They were seated in a booth, and sitting on the inside part were four baby-level digimon. Poyomon was wrapped in Shinai's scarf while Sinimon snoozed in Seidaku's. Conomon and SnowBotamon were nibbling at a pastry. Anchuu and Shinai didn't look at the four digimon, as Kanki had called them. Rather, Shinai kept herself occupied by folding her paper napkin into a swan and then back. Anchuu had resorted to staring at Seidaku, trying to figure out who this girl was and where she was from. The girl had only told them her name.
"Seidaku!" Conomon whispered, looking up at Seidaku. She looked down at the little digimon. "I'm thirsty!"
"Refreshment is here!" Kanki said, as though he had been cued. He had four coffee cups and saucers balanced expertly on his arms. Shinai and Anchuu promtply took their's. Kakni set one in front of Siedaku and then sat beside her. He glanced other at the four digimon, still not believing that four real-life digimon were in his presence, in his parent's cafe.
Seidaku muttered a small thank you and took the saucer. She carefully poured the brown liquid, hot chocolate by the smell of it, into the saucer and sat it on the seat in between Conomon and SnowBotamon.
"Be careful," she said, "It's hot." She turned back to the three kids who had helped her. Shinai was still focused on her napkin, Anchuu currently had his attention on stirring sugar into his drink, which seemed to be coffee, and Kakni was smiling at Seidaku. "Thank you for helping us," she said, inclining her head slightly.
"Hey, no problem," Kanki said. "So, digimon are real?" Seidaku only nodded. "Whoa, so these aren't a bunch of codswallop." He pulled out the card readers and game cards from his bag. "These were handed down to me from someone somewhere in my family. I think my, like, Great-Great Grandma Rika or something, I don't know. Some distant family I've never heard of."
"Rika?" Seidaku asked, looking at the items. She knew the items well. She reached into her own bag and pulled out her black and white D-Arc, showing it to Kanki.
"You have one, too?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, "And it is no mere card reader. These are digivices. More specifically, they are D-Arc digivices, the third generation of them. The all-blue one belonged to a boy named Ryo. The blue and white one belonged to a girl named Rika. I knew them, a long time ago."
"How?" Shinai asked. "These are really old, from a long time ago, from his great-great grandmother or somethin. How could you know someone that old who has already passed on?"
Seidaku smiled. "I'm older than I look. I look like a teenager, but I'm well over, oh, a hundred years?" she looked down at SnowBotamon and Conomon. "How many would you say? In real-world years, mind you."
"I'd say over a hundred," SnowBotamon said. "None of the generations have overlapped at all, save for the first two."
"How can you be over a hundred and not look a day over fourteen?" Anchuu asked, his voice heavy with distrust and sarcasm.
"Time in the digital world moves faster than the real world, but humans age slower in the digital world than in the real world," Seidaku said simply. "Plus, I had a time where I aged backward."
"Digital world?" Shinai repeated.
"It's where digimon come from, right?" Kanki asked. Seidaku nodded.
"Okay, let's say we believe you, which I for one don't," Anchuu said. "Why did you come where with these digimon?"
"We had to run," Seidaku explained. "We were attacked while Sinimon and I were taking care of the other three. They had been previously hurt by the same ones who attacked us." She looked down at the digimon. All four were awake now, and finishing off the pastry and hot chocolate. "I'd say we have a new threat to the digital world." The four looked up and nodded.
"I think we'll need a new generation of digidestined," SnowBotamon said. Conomon and Poyomon agreed, but Seidaku and Sinimon shook their heads.
"I'm tired of having them in danger," Seidaku said. "Every generation, they are put through unnecessary risks! I don't want to risk anymore lives. We almost lost Kouichi, Jeri, Ken, Kari, T.K... I could name more!"
"We can't do it on our own," Conomon said. "We need partners to get us back on our feet. You two can't possible take on those beasts all by yourselves. You saw what they did."
"I can help!" Kanki said. "I have two digivices!"
"Not just any digimon can be your partner," Seidaku said. "You have to be digidestined, to be destined to be partners. And, that's if you are destined at all."
"Do all digivices look like these?" Shinai asked.
Seidaku shook her head. "No," she said. "There have been four generations thus far." She pulled out her other three digivices.
"We have ones like that!" Shinai said excitedly, pointing to Seidaku's black and white second generation digivice. "We both have one! Mine is, um, white with dark red stuff, like your black ones. Anchuu's is all black, though."
"Ken and Yolei," Seidaku said quietly. "Ken's was all black while Yolei's was white with red details." Seidaku leaned back in thought. She was about to speak when Conomon jumped on her lap and pushed herself up with her tail so she looked over the table.
"Maybe the next generation is in the descendents," she said. "If the descendents have digivices, maybe they would work in this time and they could find partners."
"Maybe, maybe not," SnowBotamon said. "I took away the digivices of the fourth generation after they returned to the real world. Besides, how would we find them and how would we know that they are digidestined?"
"It's in their blood," Seidaku said. "We need to search family trees."
"We can help you with that!" Shinai said. "We have access!"
"You're sure they'll be all right with your friend?" Seidaku asked as she sat on Shinai's bed. Shinai brought Seidaku home to spend the night. Kanki volunteered to take care of the digimon, and the digimon hadn't objected. Seidaku, though, still worried.
"They'll be fine," Shinai said as she sat at her computer. "Kanki is a good person. He'll take care of them and he'll bring them to school tomorrow, safe and sound. Here we are." Shinai rolled to the side and offered Seidaku a look. "It's a neato thing. I can look into it whenever I want. I mainly use it for history reports, though. Just type in who you want to find."
"Might I ask how you can get into something like this?" Seidaku said, typing up a name. "Wouldn't something like this be confidential?"
"Our mom works for the united government." Shinai and Seiduka looked at Anchuu, who stood in the doorway. "The united government is a separate government from the individual governments of different countries. It branches through all countries to manage certain things and what-not."
Seidaku nodded, not having a clue what Anchuu was talking about, and finished typing in Tai Kamiya. The result was a family in California. "Looks like the whole family ended up as sport stars," she said with an amused smile. "A chip off the old block, I guess."
Anchuu dropped himself onto Shinai's bed as Seidaku typing in another name. "Sora," Shinai said, "That's a pretty name."
"She was pretty," Seidaku said. "Looks like she and Matt stayed together a while." She looked down the tree to the most recent name. "Shinzen?"
"She's in my class," Anchuu said, sitting up. "Banpan'no Shinzen?"
Seidaku nodded. "She is the descendent of Matt and Sora from the first generation." Seidaku went on with her task for another hour before completing her list. She had a small list, only taking down the names of those children who Shinai and Anchuu knew of and were, in Seidaku's mind, old enough.
"Okay, read off the list for us," Anchuu said lazily.
Seidaku cleared her throat and read off the list. "Banpan'no Shinzen," she began, "Descendent of Matt and Sora. Jinbun'no Kokoroe, Izzy. Hishou Tanomoshii, Joe. Kusakino Tanshin, Mimi. Hukuno Shoki, T.K.. Ashi Tomoshibi, Kari. Heiwano Anchuu and Shinai, Ken and Yolei. Migawa Kanki, Rika and Ryo. Souno Seimei, Suzi. Saika Denkou, J.P.. Ten'no Roten, Zoe."
"So, are you going to recruit all of them for your war or whatever it is?" Anchuu asked.
"I just want to talk to them," Seidaku said as she looked over the list. "I want to see if they know anything about digimon. I mean, it's hard to believe that the knowledge of digimon is basically non-existant."
"Well, believe it," Anchuu said, walking casually to the door. "G'night." Shinai turned off the program and computer while Seidaku sat on the sleeping bag.
"Tomoshibi and Tanomoshii have talked about digimon before," Shinai said, climbing into bed. "Kanki went and looked for his cards after hearing them talk about them.
"So there's still a chance," Seidaku said.
"We'll pass out little notes to them at school," Shinai said. She snuggled into her blankets. "We'll get them to meet us at the park," she continued, her voice slightly muffled by her blanket. "Though, Saika Denkou and Ten'no Roten won't come. They're 'too cool.' But then again they may." When Seidaku didn't say anything, Shinai looked over her bed to the girl below. Seidaku hadn't even climbed completely into the sleeping bag before falling asleep.