Syrus winced as the back of his head hit the cold, jagged brickwork and bit down hard on his lip – too hard – until the taste of blood filled his mouth.

'See any monsters now, Freak?' His tormentor screamed the question into his face, showering him with flecks of stray saliva. Behind him a couple of other kids laughed and Syrus thought he saw a camera flash as one of them recorded the moment for posterity. 'Well? Do you?!'

Syrus said nothing. His vision had begun to blur, the tears he had held back now welled desperately in his eyes. For the hundredth time, he wished he could turn back the clock and make it so he never said a word about them – the monsters. He wished he could un-write the stories he had written; un-draw the pictures. He wished he could make it so he had never been forced to see a child psychiatrist, and even more so he wished nobody had ever found out. Most of all, he wished everyone would just leave him alone.

'Loser.' He felt the familiar impact of a fist against his stomach; the familiar burn in his throat as the wind was torn away from him and he gasped for air.

Maybe if he said nothing they would get bored and go home. Maybe they would realise he was never going to fight back and give up. Or maybe it would only make it all worse.

'Hey!' Syrus' eyes shot open at the sound of a new voice, a hard, feminine tone. He twisted in his tormentor's iron grip, straining to see who had spoken. 'You losers are blocking my path.'

Suddenly the fist gripping his shirt collar opened, and Syrus slumped back against the wall. He squinted through the blur, recognising the fuzzy shape of the girl, but momentarily unable to place her.

'What did you say?' The potato-shaped kid with the iron grip cracked his knuckles, prompting his reinforcements to do the same.

'I said,' the girl dropped her schoolbag and made a backward arch with her fingers, 'that you losers are in my way.' She took a step closer, her dark eyes hard and determined. As Syrus' vision began to clear he saw the stern line of her jaw and the slight crease of her lip. This girl was more than ready to fight, she craved it.

Maybe Mr. Potato-head saw it too, because suddenly he seemed to lose his will to bother. He muttered something under his breath, shot Syrus a look which told him this was far from over, and lead his audience away, and out of the school gates.

'Thank you.' Syrus breathed, pushing himself to his feet.

The girl closed the space between them, fixing him with a look of disgust. He recognised her then; she was in his History class. 'I don't like to see people picking on the weak.'

Syrus considered this for a moment then said without thinking: 'Who says I'm weak. Teri, right?'

The girl glowered. 'Tori. And if you can't defend yourself against people like that, then you must be weak.' She leaned a little bit closer than Syrus was okay with, searching his face for something. 'You should learn to throw a punch, 'cause this is the only time I help you.'

Syrus flinched back against the wall, the sharp stone digging into the back of his skull. This girl's face was peppered with old bruises and tiny scars, her hair pulled back in a tight, untidy ponytail.

'Thank you,' he mumbled, 'but I have no interest in fighting.'

The girl's eyes blazed with anger and for a horrible moment Syrus thought he was about to earn himself another punch in the gut. 'There are times when you have to fight.' The girl smiled a cold, almost cruel smile. 'But if you really are too weak, then you should at least stop talking about big red bugs, or your life is only going to get worse.'

Big red bugs. A horrible image of the giant, hungry insect forced Syrus to grit his teeth, the breath catching in his throat. He remembered the massive pincers slicing through the air, raking the leaves from the tallest trees as it searched blindly for its opponent, the blue wolf.

'How do you know?' He breathed, wondering for a split second if she had seen the painting; the one that had forced him to leave his old school.

A flicker of shock passed over Tori's face and she backed away, stooping to snatch up her bag. 'You're new here, right? Do yourself a favour and try to blend in.' Her hard eyes washed over his black combat boots and the oversized violet headphones that hung around his neck, almost the same colour as his hair.

Syrus ignored her. 'You've seen them too,' he breathed, snatching her arm.

She shook him off, batting his hand away and growling though her teeth like a wolf. 'Get lost, Freak.'

Syrus ignored the name – he had been called far worse than that – and grabbed a handful of her shirt sleeve in his fist. 'You have! How else would you know about the red beetle? Did you see the wolf as well? The blue wolf who breathes fire?!' He was desperate, and he could hear it in his own voice. It had been years, three of them, to be precise, since he had witnessed the battle.

'You're insane.' She whispered.

'No, you are if you think you can just forget about them. Don't you want to know the truth? Can you really live without knowing what those things were?!'

'I know what they are!' Tori yelled, and once again Syrus found himself showered with someone else's saliva. 'Monsters. Now, leave me alone!'

Tori managed to make it all the way to the school gate, her fists clenched so tight her fingernails bit into her palms, before a soft, commanding voice stopped her in her tracks.

'Kotori? My office. Now.'

Tori breathed a heavy sigh as she followed the Principal, a middle-aged, well groomed lady back into the school building and through the splintering wooden door into her office.

Then she froze.

'Hi, again.' It was that kid. He flicked a lock of purple hair out of his eyes and cracked a half smile.

Beside him stood a girl who looked about eight years old, a pair of gold rimmed glasses perched on the end of her nose. She raised her eyes from a book to glance at Tori, then promptly returned her attention to the page when she realised that Tori was really not that interesting.

'Take a seat, please.'

'But Principal Rose, I have- '

'A seat, please.'

Tori took a seat, silently wishing she had taken a different route out of the school. At least then she could have made it home in time for her kickboxing class.

'Principal Rose,' the wimpy kid began, but she held up a palm.

'There will be a time for questions in a moment, Syrus, but first you must listen to what I have to say. When the two of you met just a few minutes ago your personalities clashed and in doing so you have managed to awaken your shared destiny.'

Tori failed to hold back a snort. 'Look, Miss, I was just trying to help out the new kid.'

'By ignoring the truth?!' Syrus snapped.

'Silence!' They both fell silent. 'Syrus, your unquenchable thirst for knowledge blinds you to the very real danger in which you continue to place yourself.' Her bright blue eyes washed over him with some blend of admiration and pity. 'You have no friends; your relationship with your parents is in tatters and these past three years you have spent more time in therapy than in school.'

There was a long moment of silence during which Syrus studied his scuffed boots, Tori studied Syrus and the silent girl between them turned the page of her book with a sniff.

'And you, Kotori, are captain of the wrestling team and the athletics team; a junior champion in judo, kickboxing and fencing, and you are without doubt the angriest young person ever to cross my path.'

Tori shrugged. The girl turned another page.

'The untimely death of your father not only made you prone to violence, but left you with a noble desire to protect those weaker than yourself. Alone, neither of you are strong enough to face your destiny, but together you might just have a chance.'

Syrus was pretty sure that any mention of his psychiatric wellbeing was something Principal Rose should refrain from in front of Tori and this other, random girl. Then again, Syrus liked the Principal. She was kind, easy to talk to and she had showed a genuine interest in his obsession with myths and legends... even if she probably thought he was crazy.

Having said that, she was the one talking about some kind of 'shared destiny'.

'Erm, Principal?'

Principal Rose tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, removing her thick glasses to look directly at Syrus when she spoke. 'The world is at war, a secret, invisible war which grows direr by the day and this city – our city – is at the very heart of it. Even as we speak London is splintering under an incursion of creatures from another world.'

Syrus should have found this difficult to accept. He should have been afraid. Except it was nothing like fear that bubbled in his gut; it was the bright, burning fire of excitement. He opened his mouth, hardly able to form the word. 'Monsters?'

Principle Rose smiled at him, and he thought he saw her shoulders drop and inch with relief. 'What you refer to as monsters Syrus are in fact termed: Digimon.'

Principle Rose explained that Digimon exist in a parallel world called the Digital World and that whilst they were mostly unable to cross over into the 'real' world, there had always been a few who managed it, and a few, chosen humans who could travel there.

'You need something called a digivice.' The Principle explained, chattering excitedly as though she sounded anything other than absolutely insane.

Syrus nodded, barely understanding a word she said but excited that for the first time in his life someone might actually offer him an explanation for his monster sightings that did not hinge on mental instability.

Tori, it seemed, was not quite so prepared to accept the story. She stood, her chair toppling backward and landing on the bare wood floor with a loud clatter. 'Do you think I'm stupid?!' She snapped, leaning over the Principle's desk and glaring at the older woman.

Principle Rose fixed her with a sympathetic look. 'No, Kotori, I think you are angry and looking for a fight. This could be your fight.'

Before Tori could argue the Principle opened the top drawer of her desk and rummaged in the mess of pens, pencils, paperclips and digestive biscuits until she produced a pair of things which looked to Syrus like a set of walkie-talkies he had had as a child.

'These are your D-3s.' She stood, holding one in each hand toward them. 'Syrus, yours is the violet digivice. Here, take it.' Syrus reached for it, but his hand froze over the ultra-sleek, purple and white device. 'Tori, yours is the scarlet.' When Tori made no move to take it the Principle sighed and reached a bit closer.

Syrus watched Tori reach for the scarlet digivice, her face set in a deep scowl that suggested she wanted no part of any of this but was unable to resist it. He could sort of understand because he could hear the violet D-3 calling to him: a soft, purring voice deep in his mind.

Together, they took them, and in that instant a column of bright, purple light engulfed Syrus at the same time he saw Tori disappear inside her own deep red glow. He blinked spots of light from his eyes, the digivice so warm against his skin he thought it might overheat and explode. The device was vibrating ever so slightly with a soft, slow rhythm almost like a cat's purr.

A cat. There floating in the air in front of him, was a white cat curled in a tight ball. As he watched, hardly daring to blink, the cat uncurled itself, stretched out its legs– wait, were those gloves?! – and yawned. Syrus felt his mouth fall open and without realising it he reached out a hand toward the cat, his fingers brushing its soft, white fur. The cat purred contentedly and watched him with blue eyes wide. Then the glow dissolved, the light seeping back into the screen on his digivice, and the cat dropped to the ground, landing neatly by his feet.

'Hello.' She purred, her voice silky smooth. She stood upright, like a small person, her gloved paws hanging by her side like hands. Tufts of dark purple fur stuck up from the tops of her pointy ears like antennae, and an oddly long, purple and white striped tail hung neatly in the air behind her. 'My name is Gatomon. I presume you are my partner?'

Tori fought to keep her eyes open as the device – what had the Principle called it? A D-3? – erupted with a burning red like, shuddering violently in her grip. She wanted to shield her eyes from it; more than that, she wanted to throw the thing at Principle Rose and run away. She wanted to do these things, but she forced herself to be brave. Her dad would be brave. He was always brave and without him her to protect her, Tori had to be able to protect herself.

She grit her teeth, clamping her free hand over one ear as a shrill screech tore excitedly through her skull. It sounded like a bird of prey, only wild, angry and very close.

'What is that noise?!' She growled at nobody in particular, staring in awe as something materialised in before her in the column of red light.

It was a bird: a large, red and white bird with some sort of belt around its forehead. The bird unfurled its wings, shaking the last squibs of red light away until it was flapping gently to keep itself aloft. It watched her for a long minute, during which time Tori clenched her fists and raised them before her – she was not above punching a bird if it mistook her for a meal.

Except this bird hardly looked dangerous, just weird – and things only got weirder when it opened is bright yellow beak and introduced itself.

'Greetings, my name is Hawkmon. Is there a reason you have taken a fighting stance or is that your resting pose?'