Hello ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, dogs and cats, dragons of all ages. Welcome to my first ever Digimon fanfic! So I recently watched Digimon Tamers, which got me interested in reading tons of fanfic's about it. Then a thought occurred to me as an idea came to mind. "I have seen multiple pirate AU's for several other fandoms, but there are almost none for Digimon (or at least none where the characters from Tamers are the main focus)." So since I had the idea for one, I thought to myself, 'why not?'

Anyway, once you've read through please feel free to leave a review telling me of what you guys think.


Chapter 1: Treasure Awaits


In the Northern Pacific Ocean, far away from the mainland, is an island named Shinjuku. Shinjuku is a fairly large island, not nearly big enough to be considered a continent, but still larger than the majority of the islands in the area. The island was also home to a town that shared the same name. It was a quiet island, not much happened aside from when the town's local celebrity returned home from traveling abroad.

Sitting on the beach staring out over the ocean was a nineteen year old boy named Takato Matsuki. He had messy light brown hair and crimson red eyes. He wore a pair of brown boots with tan trousers, a blue hooded shirt, and a pair of goggles on his head. He was out here like he was at this same time every day, daydreaming about going on an adventure and sailing on the open seas.

"Takatomon? Can we eat now?"

The young man looked to his left to see the red dino sitting next to him with a pleading look on his face. He was very familiar with that look. It was the one that the wing-eared raptor used whenever he wanted something to eat. The talking dinosaur had quickly built a reputation for having a bottomless pit for a stomach.

It had been quite a surprise to Takato when he found Guilmon. Especially since he had only drawn him several hours before. Guilmon was a rare creature known as a digimon. Very little was known about digimon aside from that they showed up from time to time around the world. Digimon were feared by the world though since all previous recorded appearances of them resulted in death and destruction. Hence why he couldn't let his parents know that he had one.

"Okay Guilmon." Takato sighed as he got up. He looked to the sky to see the sun was at its peek in the sky before muttering to himself, "Is it really that time already?"

As he got up, he picked up a strange device from next to where he had been sitting. The peculiar item was silver with a red circle surrounding a strange "window" in the center of it along with two red buttons below the window, and a small orange one down and to the right of the glass that seemed to activate it. This device was called a D-arc, or so said the magical writing when he first found it. The device had appeared to Takato the night he created Guilmon. The device came in flash of bright light. When Takato picked it up out of curiosity, words appeared hovering over the device saying, D-arc online. A compass then appeared, guiding him to a mysterious fog where he found his new pet digimon.


The two set off for one of the few sanctuaries where they didn't have to be afraid of someone discovering Guilmon. Takato kept him hidden in an unfinished stone shed that was dug into the hills behind his house. Once they got to his backyard on the edge of town they separated with Guilmon heading to his shed, while Takato snuck into the back of his family's bakery to sneak out the stale bread.

Thirty minutes later and Guilmon had successfully scarfed down ten loafs of bread and a couple of pastries. Takato just sat down and began to draw with the supplies he had gotten from his house while he was retrieving the bread. He was actually a pretty good artist, but couldn't afford to go to an official art school due to his parents' lack of fortune.

His current project was of a dream he had had the night before. There was a young woman with a digimon fighting another digimon. The one that sided with the girl was a humanoid fox in appearance, while the other was a large cat made of fire. The woman had her hair in a short, spiky ponytail and held a card between the index and middle finger of her right hand, and a D-arc with blue detailing in her left hand. The winner of the battle would end up being the girl and the fox digimon.

"Hey Takato!" a voice shouted, disrupting his focus on the drawing. He looked up to see his friend, Henry, running up the hill towards him and Guilmon. The boy had grey eyes with blue hair, and was dressed in a black shirt with an orange vest and brown pants. The boy carried a large satchel over his shoulder as it bounced against his leg. A large white and green colored rabbit ear hung out from beneath the satchel's flap.

"Hey Henry," Takato greeted with a small wave as the navigator-in-training slowed to a stop in front of him. The goggle wearing man just waited for his friend to catch his breath. He knew it must have been important if he ran all the way from his studies. Then the owner of the floppy ear popped out of the satchel with a cheerful smile. "Hi Terriermon."

"Hey Takatomon. You save any bread from the bottmless pit for me?" The dog-bunny greeted in return.

"How was I supposed to when I didn't even know you would be here?"

"Well, some friend you are. What person doesn't keep a back up stash for his friends?"

"Terriermon…" Henry warned the rabbit-dog. Terriermon paid no mind though and leapt off the young man's shoulder to play with Guilmon.

Terriermon was a digimon like Guilmon. Unlike Guilmon, Terriermon was a smart-aleck rather than a glutton. Close to nothing could keep his mouth shut if he had something to say. It was actually a surprise to Takato that Henry had kept the digimon a secret for as long as he had.

"It's alright Henry, I've gotten used to it. So what did you want to tell me?"

Henry stood up straight as he remembered the reason he had ran all this way in the first place. He reached back to his satchel and rummaged around for a second before pulling out a leather pouch. He undid the clasp on the pouch before opening it and producing a folded piece of old cloth.

"This…" He unfolded the cloth to reveal that it was a map with sloppy handwriting on the side of it. Takato's eyes widened as he realized that what he was looking at was a treasure map. A smile grew on his face as his eyes scanned the map before focusing on a symbol and initials in the bottom right corner of the cloth.

The symbol was a letter D made out of circles that grew from left to right with a dinosaur made of squares leaping out of the center. The initials were written sloppily, but he could make out a G.M. followed by a fancily drawn S. Had it just been the initials, Takato wouldn't have had a clue to what they mean. The symbol is what brought everything to light.

"Shibumi." He muttered loud enough for Henry to hear. Henry nodded his head as he watched his friend begin to examine the map with more eagerness than before. Takato was still careful though, since the old cloth threatened to fall apart if one wasn't careful. "I don't believe it…" he whispered before leaping up and knocking his drawing supplies all over the ground. "The greatest pirate of the past age, and this is a map to his treasure!"

Shibumi was a favorite topic of discussion among the two when they were younger, and still was to this day. Aside from being a keen pirate, his success and fame was also a result of him being the only man known to have controlled digimon. It was rumored that Shibumi had raided enough treasure to purchase an entire country and several islands if he wanted to. It was also rumored that Shibumi had hidden the key to controlling digimon amongst his treasure. Twenty-three years ago though, Shibumi and his treasure simply vanished without a trace. His legend lived on as every sailor from pirate to fisherman searched for it. Eventually, almost everyone aside a few dedicated souls gave up in the search for Shibumi's treasure.

"My dad said that he discovered it several years ago, and that he decided to let me have a try at figuring it out." Henry stated with a hint of pride.

Henry came from one of the richer families in Shinjuku. His father, Janyu Wong, was an accomplished scholar and doctor. He and Henry shared the hobby of going over old treasure maps and studying them. Henry took the hobby a little more seriously though.

"What's all this writing on the side of the map?" Takato wasn't fluent in any language other than Japanese, but Henry had shown him enough maps from other countries that he could recognize the languages. This writing, however, was in a language that he had never seen before."

"It's called Digicode. Some say that it's the same language the digimon used to speak in. There are only a handful of people left in the world who can read it. And you happen to be speaking to one of them."

"What do you mean, 'the same language the digimon used to speak?'" Takato asked as he looked up from the map.

"Well, I'm not sure why, but when I showed the map to Terrriermon he couldn't read any of it."

"Yup, the whole thing looked like gibberish to me. Of course I think anything that requires you to read is gibberish." The small digimon chipped in as he was flipped into the air over and over by Guilmon's tail.

"So what does it say?"

Henry then sighed as he folded his arms and closed his eyes, reciting the writing from memory,

"Sea of misery and woe,

Filled with multiple and various a foe.

Island's teeth will challenge your hull,

When you see the floating skull.

Fifteen steps from first to last,

From the rocks that have been cast

North then west then north again,

Southeast then northeast, you shouldn't bend."

Takato stared at the bluenette as he finished reciting the riddle. Unfortunately, Takato hadn't the faintest idea where the treasure could be located. All he could get was something about a floating skull, an island with teeth, and several compass directions. Alas, he didn't have as much experience with navigating the seas as he would like. The little experience he did have was a fishing trip he went on with his dad when he was eight.

"So what do we do know?" Takato asked in slight depression. A treasure map wasn't much use unless one could get the where it was leading.

That was when a small smile grew on Henry's face.

"Actually, my dad talked to Yamaki and convinced him to charter a voyage in search of the island. Not only that but he managed to get the both of us spots on the voyage as well. That's what I ran all this way to tell you."

"No way!" Takato exclaimed in excitement. "How did your dad manage to pull that off? You know how strict Yamaki is."

Mitsuo Yamaki was the leader of a Shinjuku based, anti-digimon and pirate organization known as Hypnos. They were founded to discover and execute potential leads to destroy the "digimon menace." They had several islands and even a few countries funding them. Mostly because they had been victims of digimon attacks, and the few others hoped to discover an effective way of repelling the monsters should their island be the next to fall under attack. Over the years though, several of Hypnos' investors had begun to lose faith in Yamaki's ability to produce results.

"Yamaki may be strict, but he's no fool to ignore the legends of Shibumi controlling digimon. He's beginning to get desperate for a way to stop them. It's like I said, people who can read digicode are hard to come by. As for you, I simply refused to cooperate unless they let you come along."

Takato smiled at his friend's loyalty. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, and Henry had risked giving it up so that he could go with them. His smile fell though when a sad realization jumped into his mind. His arms fell to his side as he glanced at their two digimon friends playing with each other.

"What about them? If we're going to be sailing with Hypnos…" he trailed off dejectedly.

"Which is why we're going to have to take great care when sneaking them on with us." Henry threw in before his friend could continue that line of thought.

After receiving a surprised look from goggle-wearing young man, the two of them shared smiled at each other before they started planning how they were going to sneak their digimon onto the ship.


The day before the voyage was scheduled to cast off, Takato found himself spying on their ship, the Yuggoth. He was hiding behind some barrels and fishing nets while looking for an opportunity to sneak Guilmon onto the ship, but everyone was so busy loading things onto it that there was no way to get him on without someone noticing. Luckily for Henry, Terriermon was small enough that he could hide him among his luggage when he went on board.

"Takatomon," chimed Guilmon's childish voice from the wooden box he was hiding in. "When are we going to eat?"

Takato resisted the urge to slap his palm into his face at the saurian's endless appetite.

"Guilmon, you just ate an hour ago." He tried to reason exasperatedly.

"But that was an hour ago and I'm hungry now." The red dino countered with his yellow eyes shining through a hole in the crate.

The young man sweatdropped at the digimon's response. Thankfully he was, somewhat, saved by a dog shaped hand-puppet appearing his line of vision.

"Arf! Arf!"

"Gah!" Takato jumped backwards and tripped over his own feet, causing him to land on his backside. His vision followed the arm controlling the puppet up to the person it was attached to. His eyes were met by a smiling face with brown eyes and shoulder length brown hair along with a small ponytail to the side. The girl was wearing a floor length green dress with short yellow sleeves.

"Jeri, what have I told you about scaring me like that." He sighed with a little aggravation. He and Jeri had been good friends since they were children. They had even developed a slightly romantic relationship, but that had been fairly short lived. Even afterwards they were still extremely good friends, practically brother and sister in some ways.

"But the expression on your face is always so funny." Jeri giggled as her friend picked himself off the ground. She looked to the wooden crate sitting next to Takato, "Hello Guilmon."

"Hi Jeri." Guilmon greeted as he turned the box to face the cheerful girl that always snuck him pastries behind Takato's back. Jeri was one of the three people other than Henry who knew of Guilmon's existence, the other two being Takato's friends Kazu and Kenta.

"Wha-! How did you know Guilmon was in there?" Takato demanded. It didn't sound very threatening though due to his surprise that Jeri had seen through his, supposedly, foolproof plan. All he got in response was Jeri smiling as she pointed at the red tail sticking out from underneath the box.

Takato quickly rushed to hide the tail back under the box while Jeri tried to hold back her laughter at his state of panic. The two then sat down on the box to try and make the scene less suspicious. They both watched as the townsfolk walked by on their daily business, completely unaware that a "dangerous monster" was hiding under an average wooden crate.

"So how did your parents take the news?" Jeri asked. She knew that going on a voyage out to see had always been one of Takato's dreams, but she would be lying if she said she wouldn't miss him.

"About as well as I expected," the young man said as he scratched the back of his head. "Dad was pretty understanding and I think he was even a little excited for me. Mom was a different situation entirely. She said I was too young to be going off on adventures, and that I was just using it as an excuse to get out of working at the bakery."

"Sounds like she doesn't want to admit that her little boy has grown up." Jeri chipped in cheerfully.

"Yeah, I know that she cares. I just she wasn't so…forceful with it."

"So, do you have a way to get Guilmon onto the ship yet?"

"No…" He replied dejectedly. If he didn't come up with something soon than he would have to leave Guilmon behind, which meant he would have to stay behind because there was no way he was leaving Guilmon.

"Hmm…" Jeri hummed as she put a finger to her chin and lifted her eyes to the sky in thought. She then turned towards Takato and lifted her hand-puppet so that it was in front of him. She then spoke in her puppy-dog voice, "I've got an idea."


The next day Takato stood at the edge of the gangplank with a sack slung over his shoulder as he stared up at the brigantine before him. The impressive vessel carried twenty people and was armed with sixteen guns. The tall white masts were being circled by seagulls. He was brought out of his state of daydreaming by a voice shouting at him from behind.

"Get out of the way boy!"

Takato leapt out of the way as one of the crew rolled a large barrel up the gangplank and onto the ship. A small smile appeared as he saw the letter G written on the wood and recognized it as the barrel that Guilmon was hiding in. Jeri's father owned the local tavern so most of the sailors went there for their alcoholic consumables. Due to this, Jeri had come up with the idea of hiding Guilmon in one of the rum barrels that would be loaded onto the ship. With the reassurance that his friend wouldn't be left behind, Takato stepped onto the gangplank and boarded the ship.

He looked around as he observed the deck of the ship. The crew was moving about as they got everything ready to set sail. He looked to the top of the mast and saw the Hypnos flag flapping in the wind.

"Takato!"

Takato turned around to see Janyu Wong, Henry's father, waving at him as he walked out of the main cabin. Takato returned the gesture as the older man walked up to him.

"Henry's already below deck, getting all of his stuff sorted. We're both glad that you could make it." He said with a smile.

"Well I'm glad that you convinced Yamaki to let me tag along."

"It wasn't easy to do, but Henry's told me about how much you wanted to go on an adventure out to sea. I hope you know that you'll have to pull your own weight while on this voyage though."

Takato gave a firm nod of affirmation before asking a question to the experienced scholar, "So do you have any ideas for where this island is?"

"I can't be positive; but I've got a few ideas on where it might be. I've heard about a few islands that have dangerous rocks that could be described as 'teeth.' Unfortunately I haven't seen any of them so I can't be certain."

Their conversation was brought to a halt as a whistle let out a shrill screech in the air. They turned their attention to Yamaki as he stood at the helm of the ship.

"Cast off as soon as we can. I don't want to delay this any longer than we have to." He ordered.

As the leader of Hypnos turned to address the helmsman, Janyu returned his attention to Takato. "Well, you better get your stuff put away so you can help out. Yamaki doesn't like slackers. In the meantime, I should go see how Henry's settling in"

As Janyu walked off to check on Henry, Takato returned to gazing around at the ship. He walked to the brigatine's bow and looked out to the open sea. A few thin clouds were off in the distance as the wind blew his messy hair about. He had a feeling that everything was going to turn out just fine…


Cold and wet.

That's all that Takato could feel. His body shivered violently as it bobbed up and down on the piece of hull that acted as a substitute raft. His eyelids felt like they weighed a ton as he tried to open them. He wanted to hear from Guilmon, from Henry, he even wanted to hear one of Terriermon's smart mouth comments. Anything to let him know his friends were alive.

That storm had come out of nowhere. All he remembered was waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of wood cracking. He fell out of his hammock and stumbled up to the top of the deck. Only thanks to the lightning did he see the giant rock sticking out of the see and crash into the ship. That had been right before a wave had swept him off the deck.

After that, all he remembered was swimming with all his might, trying to stay above the water. He couldn't remember for how long he swam before he found the makeshift raft. He climbed onto it and hung on for dear life as he was tossed about helplessly by the storm.

"Man overboard!" someone shouted above him, bringing him out of his state of recollection.

Takato barely opened his eyes as he saw the blurry shape of a large ship sailing next to his raft. As the sails shifted they let the sun shine directly on him. He turned his head away from the harsh light, and noticed Henry struggling to hold onto the raft he was on. He had been so exhausted that he hadn't even noticed his friend grab onto the it.

He heard a splash above him and seconds later he felt someone wrapping a rope around his chest and under his armpits. He heard a voice shout something to the ship before he felt the rope begin to lift him out of the water. He shuddered as he felt the cold wind bite at his skin. He shook his head to try and wake himself up.

He opened his eyes again to see his own feet dangling above a wooden deck. He noted that his left foot was missing it's boot. He slowly descended and saw people approach where he would set down. His feet met the wood and he felt his legs shake as more of his weight was put on them. Barely standing on his own, he looked around at the sailors who had saved them as they proceeded to haul Henry up.

They were dressed in an assortment of clothing, but he did notice one common accessory. They all had swords hanging from their belts. He took a better look around the ship to see that it was a larger vessel than the Yuggoth had been. Most likely a frigate if he had to guess. He felt water drop onto his shoulder and looked up to see Henry dangling above him. Had he been in better condition and not so worried about his friend, he would have paid more notice to the flag flying at the top of the mast.

He stepped to the side and helped Henry balance his weight as he was set down onto the deck. The crewmembers surrounded them after helping their friend out of the water. Takato didn't like the way they were looking at them.

"So boys," started one scruffy looking sailor. "What brings you two young lads out into the middle of these 'ere seas."

Takato was about to answer when one of the crew shouted over him.

"Oy! These two are from Hypnos!"

The crew as well as the two young men looked to where the particular sailor was pointing to see the Yuggoth's flag floating in the water. Takato and Henry looked around at the crew as they all glared daggers at the two young men. Takato suddenly remembered glancing up at the ship's flag and looked back up to it. His gaze was met by a black flag with a white broken heart and cross-swords on it.

Takato gulped nervously right before the crewmembers grabbed them and roughly forced them onto their knees. The pirate that had first met them crouched right in his face and held the blade of a knife against his cheek.

"So, what business does Hypnos have in these waters?" he asked threateningly as he pressed the blade harder against the young man's cheek. Takato refused to give in though and only sent a glare at the brigand. He was about the spit in the man's face when a cold and harsh, yet attractive voice caught his attention, along with the crew's.

"What is the meaning of this?"

The knife wielding pirate pulled the knife back and stood up as he turned to face whoever spoke. His body still blocked the view of the speaker though as the pirate replied. When he spoke his voice shook with fear of incurring the wrath of whomever he was speaking to.

"Captain, we found these two in the water among some wreckage-"

"And who gave the order to bring them onto my ship?"

"Uh, I did captain but-" CRACK

Takato's eyes followed the pirate's body as it fell limp to deck. The body fell to the side and back, revealing a bleeding bullet hole right where his heart would be. he barely noticed as the crew let him go and stepped back in fear. He looked to Henry and saw the horrified look on his face. Henry was a pacifist, so Takato knew his reaction to seeing violence was bad, but he didn't know his first time seeing death would be this bad.

"Does anyone else think they can give orders on my ship," the cold voice questioned, sounding a lot closer than it had. With his view no longer obstructed, he finally saw the captain of the vessel, and was thoroughly shocked. He had never met her personally but he had heard enough stories to recognize her description. Not only that, but he had even dreamt about her only a week and a half prior. She stood before him dressed in boots that had the toes' plated with steel, blue pants with two brown belts wrapped around her left thigh, a sword was attached to a brown belt that had a pistol tucked into it, she wore a long black coat over an olive green shirt with a grey skull on it. Her copper red hair was pulled up into a short spiky ponytail, with two thin strands hanging down to frame her pale but beautiful face. Her violate eyes looked down upon with a merciless cold glare.

Standing before him was his dream girl. The youngest and most feared pirate alive. The Pirate Empress and Queen of the Seven Seas. Rika Nonaka.