AN: For my and your convenience, the narration will use the Dub names while the dialogs will use the Sub. But only for the children, their Spirits and attacks will be named depending on pronunciation and my personal opinion. Enjoy!

3 Years before a Certain Unified Timeline:

"Sensei? This computer is giving weird readi~ngs!"

"Hrm, let me see...oho, isn't this Aleister's old side-project?"

"Hai, I'm also getting reports on mass SMS in the area around Shibuya."

"Let's keep an eye on this, shall we? As Kiharas, and scientists, observing results is the best way to judge an experiment."

Kanbara Takuya caught his breath as the train took him towards his destination, Shibuya, though he knew that he was cutting it close – very close.

Standing opposite of himself, he saw another boy, checking his cell-phone and the clock.

'Is he also going there?' he wondered, when a movement caught his eye. Further back in the train stood a third boy, whose face was hidden beneath his baseball cap.

Then the train came to a stop, and the boy closest to him exited, Takuya hastily following.

He somehow lost sight of the boy, but after running around a bit, he spied him in an elevator about to close.

With a battle-cry, Takuya launched himself between the doors, getting caught in the crack for a moment before they opened again – and the third boy slammed into him from behind, sending them both to the ground.

"I-I'm sorry!"

"Nah, no problem..."

They both got up, the original occupant of the elevator raising a brow at them before turning his head away without seeing either of their faces.

After the lift went well past the listed bottom floor at a more than usual speed, it stopped and opened its doors to an unknown station with five terminals, with trains already on them, though you could only see the last car of each one.

Without hesitation, the boy with the bandana walked out of the elevator, while Takuya and the other boy lingered by it for a moment.

But only a moment, for the clock struck six and the trains whistled, signaling their departure. Both boys hastily made their way to the middle and middle-left trains, barely getting on. For a second, Takuya caught the cap-boys face, making eye contact, before it vanished behind the tunnel walls.

Takuya also found that he had gotten on the same train as the bandana boy, who had his brow raised at him again, like 'seriously?'.

Takuya grimaced in annoyance, following him inside the red-orange themed carts to find only three more passengers: a blonde girl and two boys, one large, one small.

Koichi entered the train he boarded, disappointed and relieved that he hadn't gotten the one Kouji picked. Disappointed because now he would have to wait who knows how long to properly meet his brother, but relieved because honestly, he didn't feel ready for it yet.

He felt more than mild surprise when he traversed the entire gun-metal gray train only to find four other passengers near the front: a tall boy with light-brown hair, a shorter boy next to him with glasses and darker brown hair, another short, but thin boy with spiked medium brown hair and a girl with her brown hair tied in two braids lying on her shoulders.

"Just in time, eh?" asked the tall boy with a smirk.

Nervously, Koichi nodded.

"So wait, is this everyone?" wondered the glasses boy, "Even though so many people came?"

Now that he thought about it, there were an awful lot of children boarding the trains, though they seemed to focus primarily on the ones he and his brother didn't choose.

"It could happen," added the girl, "I mean, sure, what are the chances, but hey." She shrugged.

"But on two trains?"

They all looked at him as Koichi spoke.

"What do you mean?" asked the small boy.

"When I got down, our train and the one in the middle had the least people boarding them," explained Koichi, remembering because that was the one Kouji and that goggle-wearing boy had boarded.

"That's...weird," the tall boy conceded.

"Yo, what's your name, anyways?" piped up the boy with glasses.

"Kimura...Koichi."

"I'm Shiki Katsuharu."

"Onizuka Teppei here."

"My name is Araragi Teruo."

"And I'm Itsuka Chiaki."

Now that introductions were over, Katsuharu took the lead again: "So, what do you guys think is waiting for us ahead?"

Teppei followed up: "I'm hoping for some serious adventuring!"

Teruo shrugged: "It's a break from, well, everyday. Anything's fine, really."

"I'm just curious what that SMS was about," Chiaki said.

Koichi had no idea what she meant: "What SMS?"

That earned him several stares.

"Seriously? You don't know about it?" asked Teppei, with a face asking 'you're messing with me, right?'.

"How come you're here if you didn't know?"

In response to Katsuharu's question, Koichi said: "I, uh, followed a friend here. He was in a rush, and I was wondering why. Seems he got on a different train though."

"Are you saying you didn't even get the messages?" asked Chiaki.

"I, don't have a cell-phone."

"What!? Why not?!" exclaimed Teppei.

"We can't afford one."

Silence permeated following his words.

"S-sorry man."

"No, it's okay. You didn't know."

Koichi gave a polite smile.

JP, Zoe, Tommy and Takuya had already introduced themselves.

"So, you might you be?" the first asked the last child, who had yet to say anything.

"...Minamoto Kouji."

"Not much of a talker, are ya?" commented Takuya.

With a grunt, Kouji turned his head away.

"So, why you here?" wondered Zoe.

"...I was told that I could find answers there..."

None of them knew what to make of that.

Before the passengers of either train could speak further, their rides crossed the border into their destination. But what happened was more than the bumps from crossing from the physical dimension into the digital one – For a long time now, that whole world had been changing, shifting, over and over. And at that moment, the change was even greater than most, because it had gained hundreds of temporary inhabitants at the same time as the usual shift.

This change in the entire system was reflected in the confines of the Trailmons, changing their passengers in a way both like and opposite to hundreds of thousands of children back on Earth in a Certain City.

The initial change was...painful. Each felt it differently, but all became changed in a way that would accommodate the powers that ten had just been chosen to receive. Their life-circuitry still ran the same way that other humans' did, but they were enhanced now, capable of feats beyond these youths' wildest dreams...