Naruto closed the door to his apartment with giddy excitement. Today he had seen what had to be the coolest jutsu ever! After one of his latest pranking exploits (shaving "Naruto is awesome" into all of the deer at the Nara compounds fur), the Anbu member Dog (identified by the dog mask he wore and his gravity defying silver hair) used a jutsu called 'Summoning Jutsu' in order to summon a talking dog that helped sniff him out of his hiding spot in a nearby tree. After getting (half-heartedly) reprimanded by the Anbu for the prank, to which he only half paid attention to, Naruto went over the hand signs the man did in order to summon the dog in his head.

Sure, he'd heard of how the Fourth Hokage had used a jutsu to summon a giant toad to battle the Nine-Tailed Fox that'd been attacking the village, but to see the jutsu himself…! Naruto's eleven-year-old mind whirled with the possibilities. If he got that jutsu down, he'd most definitely get the respect he deserved!

And, if he was to be completely honest with himself, it'd give him a friend that he so desperately wanted. He quickly went into the middle of his room, going over the hand signs once more in his mind while preparing his chakra for the jutsu he was about to try. Naruto couldn't help but wonder what he'd summon. Would it be a toad? A dog? A phoenix? A DRAGON?! So many possibilities!

Of course he realized most likely that if he summoned a bigger animal there wouldn't be much left of his apartment, but he figured the village would be so mesmerized by his awesomeness that they'd give him a new apartment! With that in mind, Naruto started making the hand seals, slowly to make sure he didn't mess up, and channelled as much chakra he felt was necessary before slamming his hands onto the ground and shouted: "SUMMONING JUTSU!" He was not fully aware of the consequences his actions will have.

There was a large puff of smoke and then darkness.


Somewhere in the Digital World

Qinglongmon grimaced as he stretched his aching body. It had been a few days since the Dark Masters had started their attack on the four Holy Beasts, and as of now the mighty Dragon Digimon tried to gather his wits in this momentary lull in fighting. While it was true that he and his allies were the four most powerful Digimon currently ruling the Digital World, the four Dark Masters were all powerful in their own right.

Four Ultimate Digimon, all with unique powers and an army of followers to back them up, were enough to cause the Digital Dragon to worry. Not only that, but he was confident there was a more powerful, darker force behind the attack that was starting to cause ripples in the main part of the Digital World. He had no doubt that if the Holy Beasts lost, the entirety of this world and others would fall into chaos.

Other dark Digimon were starting to move in as well, from Adults to Perfects; there was no telling the damage this all would cause! He was eternally glad he'd thought ahead and prepared the eight Digimon to be selected to be the chosen warriors that would pair up with human partners in order to clear up the mess currently happening in the Digital World, and hopefully end this darkness in the event that they couldn't!

It was a shame the Holy Beasts had to wait this long in order to finally put their plan into action. The rifts between this world and the Human World needed to be destabilized just enough to pull the right children through to fight for their cause. While it pained him to use children to fight a battle that was, by all rights, something the adults should handle themselves, it couldn't be helped.

Only children had enough strength of spirit and the power to form strong enough bonds to make a difference. Adults were too untrusting of each other and their spirits are weaker thanks to the toils of living through more of life's hardships. He knew it was rather cruel, but what choice did he have? If he didn't have strong enough warriors to help them in this crisis, the entire universe, and even other universes, could suffer! Still, a part of the Dragon was worried. Would the children's and their partner's strength be enough? The enemies that they'd face would be terribly strong and there was always the chance that they couldn't win.

Qinglongmon was snapped out of his musings when he felt a shift in the boundaries between realities. What? The Great Dragon thought. Why is the boundary between worlds getting weaker? We haven't even called for the children yet; it was supposed to be later tomorrow!

It was then that the Holy Beast noticed the anomaly wasn't originating from the human world he was thinking of. No, it was from one of the other dimensions that can be accessed through the Digital World. Curiosity getting the better of him, Qinglongmon gave a little power to the rift to see what would happen.

Imagine his surprise when a young child with blonde hair and whisker-like marks fell out of the rift. Upon inspection, the Dragon noticed the boy was out cold, a side-effect from dimensional travel, but was otherwise unharmed. Noticing a strong energy coming off the small boy, Qinglongmon quickly used his talents to shift through the boy's mind to see where he came from.

What he saw stunned him. Humans from a world different from the one that gave birth to him, ones that used many similar attacks to Digimon! He saw many great and powerful individuals through the boy, no Naruto's, mind and was able to learn of the world he was born in. Qinglongmon also saw the situation behind Naruto's birth, and was saddened at the hardships the young human had to go through because of events outside of his control. But beneath all the sadness and loneliness Naruto felt, Qinglongmon saw something else. An ironclad determination, endless amounts of spirit and compassion, and a large craving for respect.

Hmm…Well Naruto, you may have a larger purpose in your life than even you're aware of, the Ultimate mused. The child from another world had many traits, both good and bad, but mainly those that he sought after for the Chosen Children. Chuckling at his good fortune, the Holy Beast was able to will a Digitama, complete with Digivice, into being and carefully placed them both on the boy before sending him off using the Digital Stream that made up the core of the Digital World so he'd be at the location where the other children would be sent to the following day.

It is fortunate, Qinglongmon thought to himself, that I had that spare Digitama, Crest and Digivice made if an event such as this were to happen. By now the crest and tag should be hidden with the others. I just hope Naruto will be able to handle what has befallen him, and that he'll be able to help the others.

Turning back to the landscape, Qinglongmon got ready to rejoin his brethren in another battle with the Dark Masters but not before giving a final farewell. "Good luck, Naruto Uzumaki, the Chosen of Respect!"


(File Island)

"Do you think he'll wake up?" was what Naruto first heard as he slowly became conscious.

"I hope so." Another voice said, both of which sounded like young children. By the tone they were using, Naruto would guess that a boy and girl had found him… wherever he was at. The last thing he remembered was attempting the Summoning Jutsu when everything went black.

Iruka-sensei did say if you lose too much chakra you risk passing out, even dying, Naruto rationalized as he analyzed his body to make sure nothing else was wrong. Besides feeling a slight headache, a little stiff in the muscles, and a strange weight on his chest, he actually felt pretty good. Slowly, he cracked one eye open to see where he was at. How'd I get in the forest? He wondered as what first greeted his eyes were lush trees and bushes as far as he could see. Wait, I don't recognize these trees! Naruto thought in a slight panic.

It was then he heard one of the voices from earlier pipe up. "Hey look! He's awake!"

Naruto lowered his eyes to his chest where the voice, and weight, was coming from. What he saw shocked him. Two smallish creatures were sitting on his chest, looking at him with a mix of anxiety and seriousness. One of the creatures looked like a yellow cat head with a striped tail, as well as two small green eyes that seemed to dance with concern.

The second creature looked like a blue cat head with cheerful yet sincere green eyes and a tail that protruded from its back, as well as blue stripes along the body that also formed an 'M' in the centre of its forehead. Naruto blinked at the two strange creatures twice as they stared at each other for a minute.

Both the heads gave near identical grins and said in unison: "Hey Naruto!"

Naruto acted accordingly.


Gennai's House

Gennai was attending his rock garden located deep within a lake on the other side of File Island when he heard it.

"YYYYYYYAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

The old man paused in what he was doing to look and see where the high-pitched, girlish scream came from. Seeing no one, he went back to attending the sand while silently vowing to lay off the day old clams.


Back to the trio

"Hey Wanyamon, what do you think he's doing up there?" asked the yellow head to the blue head.

"Don't know Nyaromon, maybe he really loves climbing trees?" The other head, Wanyamon, responded as it (he?) used its tail to shield its eyes as it looked up at the ridiculously high tree to where Naruto was now clinging onto for dear life, pale in the face and sweating.

"I don't know, looks to me like he saw a Bakemon." The yellow head, Nyaromon, said jokingly while hopping in place in excitement.

"Wh-who or what are you?!" Naruto stammered while holding onto the tree even tighter, hoping that the two creatures couldn't climb to meet him.

"Ah, where are my manners!" The blue cat head bopped himself on the top of his head with his tail. "My name's Wanyamon." He said with a grin and pointed his tail at himself.

"And I'm his fraternal twin sister, Nyaromon! It's great to finally meet you, Naruto!" The yellow head said with a salute of her tail.

"And we're…" The two creatures said in unison. "Digimon~! Digital Monsters!"

"D-Digimon?" Naruto questioned, confused. While the two creatures startled him at first, now that he had a better look at them he'd be hesitant to call them "monsters." They were actually kinda, dare he say it, cute. Naruto slid down the tree to land in front of the two chibi-monsters and idly noticed that they didn't even quite reach his knees in height. As they looked up at him with big, curious eyes (and he had to repress the urge to pick them up in a hug), something suddenly occurred to Naruto as he remembered what he was doing earlier.

"Are you guys my summons?" Naruto asked in confusion. He'd never heard of 'Digimon' before so it was weird that these two creatures would be his summons. Heck, they didn't even look alike!

Nyaromon tilted her head cutely while Wanyamon just looked confused for a second before he answered. "Not really sure what a 'summon' is, but we're your partners. We were born to stick by you through thick and thin!"

"Yep, yep~! We're your friends!" answered Nyaromon in a slightly singsong voice while once again hopping up and down a little.

Naruto's eyes widened at that. "Friends." He knew that word, yet he hardly ever used it unless the sentence started with "I want…" And here are these two strange creatures in a strange land, proclaiming to be his friends. Normal people would be suspicious and confused at first, but to an attention starved child only one thing really got through his brain. These guys are my… my…

With that, Naruto reached down and wrapped the two Digimon in a hug, slightly crying as he did so. Both of the Digimon looked slightly startled at first but then their features softened as they tried hugging their partner back (an awkward task seeing as they both lacked any major limbs). Suddenly, a small device that was clipped to Naruto's pants, that he failed to notice in all the excitement, started to light up. Both Digimon and human looked down at the glow in surprise before both Wanyamon and Nyaromon were lit up in a similar glow.

"Nyaromonevolve to… Plotmon!"

"Wanyamon evolve to… Gaomon!"

The shouts that started were those of the Digimon he first met, but then their voices changed, become slightly deeper and more like those of a pre-teen instead of that of a toddler. When the light died down, two very different creatures stood in their place. What was once Nyaromon now looked like a puppy with a golden ring around her neck.

In Wanyamon's place was what looked like a blue, bipedal dog with a white muzzle and underbelly, and had on a red headband that matched the gloves on his hands. His feet held three sharp looking claws and his tail was now curly and white tipped behind him.

"Hey~! We both evolved!" The puppy (Nyaromon?) exclaimed in a happy voice.

"That we did." The puppy (Wanyamon?) said in a slightly more mature sounding voice as he examined his gloved hands (paws?).

"Wh-what happened to you two?!" Naruto cried out in amazement.

The two looked at him and it was the puppy who answered. "We evolved, silly~!"

"What he means is," started the puppy in a lecturing sort of voice Naruto has come to expect from Iruka-sensei, "Is that we Digimon have different forms that we go through. First there is the Baby stage, which we hatched out of. Then there is the Baby 2 stage, which is what you just saw us in. We currently are in our Child form. I'm Gaomon and that's Plotmon.

And there are several other forms that we can reach after this. We get stronger in each form, but it takes a lot of energy to get to these forms. That's why we needed your help. That device that was glowing earlier," Naruto held up said device, "is called a Digivice and it allows you to transfer energy to us in order for us to reach our next level." With that, Gaomon dropped out of his 'lecture mode' and went back to normal saying, "At least, that's how I understand it."

Naruto had a huge question mark hanging over his head at that and Plotmon seemed to have lost interest in the conversation. She had jumped into Naruto's arms and climbed on top of Naruto's head to play with his spiky blonde hair. Gaomon had a sweat-drop on the back of his head and coughed into a gloved fist. "Anyway, the short answer is, with your help we reached the next level and are stronger for it."

Naruto gave a slow nod in understanding while Plotmon hopped off his head and landed back beside Gaomon again. The puppy Digimon then said in a chipper voice. "Well, now that the boring stuff is done," Gaomon glared at his sister for that but was ignored, "we should take you to meet the others! Boy, won't they be surprised~? Last ones to hatch, first to evolve~! They'll be soooo jealous!" She giggled at that.

Naruto looked curious and asked: "Others?"

Gaomon nodded his furry head and said: "Yes, there were seven other Digimon that we met that were waiting for partners as well. They're convinced that since the three of us appeared that their partners should be arriving soon as well. They're nice guys, just a little… energetic."

With that, both Plotmon and Gaomon started to lead him through the thick jungle. Naruto had a feeling that things were going to get really interesting in the next few days and maybe, maybe he would never have to be alone again!

If only he knew…