Chapter 1: The City Tournament
Disclaimer: I don't own digimon. However, the majority of the characters in this story are mine.
A pre-reading author's note: This is a story that contains mostly original characters. However, the world that it takes place in is the same as Season 3, Digimon Tamers (whenever the characters from the show appear, they'll have their Japanese names). It takes place about two years after the finale of that show and portrays the aftereffects of the D-Reaper invasion on the rest of the world as well as showing a few concepts I haven't really seen in Digimon fanfiction before (most notably, the evil academy for tamers). Have fun reading and let me know whether you like it in a review.
Another note: the card game rules in this chapter are a bit closer to the Japanese ones than the American ones.
Images of various teenagers and their partners flashed across the screen. The first was a brown-haired girl with pigtails and a blank, almost bored expression on her face. She and her partner, a Candlemon, were up against a large, humanoid robot. The girl digivolved Candlemon to the humanoid flame, Meramon, who launched fireballs into the enemy, destroying it easily.
"Jennifer Riker from New York," a woman narrated, "Her partner is Candlemon and she's one of our strongest female tamers. When her partner digivolves, she can defeate an army of Champion-level digimon."
Then the images on the screen changed, showing a large, muscular boy with medium-length brown hair and an equally blank expression. Right next to him was a blue, tentacle-sporting alien digimon named Keramon. He digivolved Keramon to the knife-sporting Chrysalimon, who moved foreward, slaughtering a squad of robotic enemies used for training.
"Gunther Kaufmann from Germany with a Keramon. He is one of our top programming students and his partner is a good match."
For the final time, the screen changed, showing a tall boy with black hair. His partner, Ballistamon digivolved into Blitzmon and shocked a squadron of the same robots that the previous two tamers went up against.
"Dmitri Tartakovsky, a Russian tamer who is partnered with Ballistamon. He is one of our top strategists."
Then the three teens fought against a common enemy, a large robot intended to simulate the strength of an Ultimate-level digimon. The robot came down easily in an explosion of fire and lightning.
"The three of them together should be capable of any challenge you put them up against," the woman said, finally appearing. She had grey hair and blue eyes, appearing to be in her fifties. "What would you like them to do, Blaine?"
A masked man shrouded in shadows looked straight at the woman, emotionless. He had a white mask with the crest of friendship on the front of it and was wearing a hood over his head. Going straight to the point, he said. "I only have one task for them, interrupt the tournament tomorrow and destroy the three tamers that will be there."
A fog filled up the casino almost instantly, causing the various gamblers to stop playing at their slot machines. Thinking that there was a fire, someone pulled the alarm, causing everyone to rush out of the building. Everyone except for three kids and three digimon who came in just after the various gamblers left.
The three moved into the center of the cloud mass. The first of the three, Ezekiel, who was apparently their leader, revealed himself and his partner. He was fairly tall, with black hair and brown eyes covered by a pair of circular sunglasses. He was also wearing a long brown trenchcoat and had his black and red digivice out.
His partner looked much like a Doberman Pinscher, the champion level digimon was obviously Dobermon.
Behind him was his older brother by ten months, Diego, a slightly chubby guy who was simply wearing a blue shirt and some shorts. He had his black and blue digivice on his belt. His partner was a blue dog named Gaomon.
The third tamer in the group, Marika, was a girl with short black hair tipped in purple who was wearing a somewhat skimpy black outfit. Her partner walked slowly next to her and was a small, grey dog, Plotmon.
Their enemy was a massive white and blue insect with a flat back. Marika was the one who looked him up on her digivice. "Searchmon, Armor Level, its attacks are Search Jamming, Busy Status and Deflect."
"Interesting. Then this shouldn't be much of a problem," Ezekiel said in a tone with very little emotion. "Are you ready, Dobermon?"
"Yes, sir!"
"How about you, Gaomon?" Diego asked, receiving a nod from his partner.
"Plotmon?" Marika inquired of her digimon.
"Sure am!"
"Okay, team, this is our first indoor battle, so we're going to have to be extra careful not to destroy any property," Ezekiel commanded.
The three digimon charged. The first to attack, surprisingly enough, was Plotmon, who launched a carefully timed Sledge Crash, rushing forward and tackling Searchmon's head. Right after that, just as Searchmon was preparing to attack the group, Dobermon used his Schwartzes Strahl attack, shooting a black beam of energy from his mouth, damaging the large insect far more than Plotmon did.
Just as Gaomon was about to attack, Searchmon used its Hertz Jamming technique, releasing a high-pitched screech, causing the three dogs to wince. It even affected the three tamers, who covered their ears instantly. "Geez! It isn't our fault this thing was destroying the place when we got here," Diego commented, aware that the others probably couldn't hear him.
Then the buzzing stopped. "Great, we need to figure out some way around that," Marika said, going through her deck of cards.
Gaomon finally landed a punch on the enemy digimon, but it did little more than bounce off the enemy. Seeing this, Diego pulled out a card. "Digi-Modify! Attack Plug-in B!" he yelled, sliding it through his D-Arc. Gaomon finally felt a surge of strength and decided to attack the enemy digimon a second time just as Plotmon and Dobermon struck him as well.
"Rolling Upper!"
"Schwartzes Strahl!"
"Sledge Crash!"
The three attacks at once created a large crack in the digimon's armor just as it prepared to attack again.
"You've got him! Just one more strike!" Marika called out.
The repeated the same attacks, this time breaking the armor completely, deleting the digimon before it could destroy anything. As soon as the digimon disintegrated, the fog of the digital field dissipated.
"Good, next time we'll have to delete the enemy digimon before it unleashes any piercing screeches. Any other observations?" Ezekiel inquired. The others shook their heads. Looking around, they examined the area that Searchmon completely demolished. There were parts for various slot machines and poker tables just lying around.
"Yeah, let's just get out of here before any of the casino workers decide to come back in. Man, I hate the smell of cigarette smoke," Diego remarked.
"Wow, I barely notice it," Marika commented.
"It is quite pungent," Gaomon said.
"Are you kidding me? It stinks!" Plotmon complained.
The group walked out of the casino and past the various Echelon agents that were scattered throughout the premises of the casino. "So, how about some ice cream?" Diego asked the group.
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Marika replied. "That is unless Plotmon has any objections."
"No, are you kidding me, I never have ice cream!" the little dog exclaimed.
Ezekiel couldn't help but smirk. It was amazing how close the team had gotten in the past month ever since encountering Marika for the first time. The stoic boy at first found the girl annoying, but he now accepted the girl's contributions to the group. His brother was also starting to get a bit more outgoing as well. Who knew? Eventually they might become as well known as the Japanese team, though that wasn't likely.
Looking up, Ezekiel swore he saw a large digimon fly overhead. That is strange. There haven't been any bioemergences of digimon belonging to tamers that I know of lately.
"So are we going or what?" Diego asked his younger brother. After not getting any response, the chubby boy waved his hand over Ezekiel's face, much to the latter's annoyance.
"I thought I saw a digimon."
"What kind?"
Ezekiel shrugged before following the others to the nearest place that sold fattening dairy products.
That was close, thought another tamer on top of a large, flying digimon. He had no idea that there were other tamers in this area. Still, it wasn't likely that they would cross paths again.
Then again, for all he knew, they would be at the tournament tomorrow.
A few hours later, Diego woke up in the middle of the night, thirsty, so he got up, walked out of his room, and filled up a glass of water. He was definitely parched for some reason and waking up in the middle of the night made him glad that it was the middle of summer and he didn't have school in the morning. He kept on thinking about his brother's observation, about the potential sight of another digimon. According to Echelon, there wasn't any structural damage to the building they were in, so that meant that the other digimon couldn't have come from that specific digital field. If so, where did it come from? If this thing really had a tamer, who was he and why didn't Echelon detect his partner digimon when it emerged.
He just wandered back to his room after downing two full glasses of water, but not before noticing a light coming from Ezekiel's room right next to his. So he went and checked it out. His brother was still fully clothed and in a trenchcoat, sitting at his computer and going over what sounded like Russian verb drills. Looking at the digital clock on the wall, it was three in the morning and Dobermon was in the corner of the room, fast asleep.
After repeating a pretty nasty sounding sentence, Ezekiel noticed his barely-dressed brother sitting at his doorway.
"Couldn't sleep, huh?" Diego asked as his brother took off his headphones.
"No, I couldn't. We have a long day tomorrow with the tournament and everything."
Diego smiled. "Have you tweaked your deck any tonight?"
"Actually, I have. I noticed a weakness in the form of a couple of useless cards I felt I would be better off without."
Diego nodded. "Well, you better get to sleep soon. Other than that, is there anything going on this weekend?"
"Well, Chris is having a few people over to watch a movie."
"Alright, that sounds cool. Maybe we should go after the whole tournament tomorrow."
Ezekiel shrugged. "I have too much to do. Maybe next time."
"Okay, your loss."
The younger brother smiled as Diego left and headed back into his own room. At least he seemed to be getting more outgoing. Ezekiel always pondered how he tended to be the social one until they got their partners about a month ago and then their roles seemed to switch around. Ezekiel looked at what he was doing, added a few cards to the flashcard program on his computer, and then shut it down before going to sleep himself.
It was going to be a long day tomorrow.
He awoke with a jolt. The alarm clock in his room was annoyingly loud but he was used to it. It was going to be yet another fifteen-hour day of training and attempted brainwashing. He was resisting it easily, but he didn't know how long that would last.
He got up, undressed, and walked into the shower that was attached to his dark quarters. He really wanted to leave but he couldn't and he realized that if he did, then his parents would probably be in danger. Then again, they most likely knew that something was up and would be able to take care of themselves.
They would and he knew it.
Upon washing, he got out of the shower and got dressed, putting on his blue school uniform. Everything at the so-called Tamer's Academy was scheduled meticulously and if the headmaster or any of the so-called teachers knew he was later for breakfast, they would know that something was amiss, so he hurriedly dressed himself.
He walked out of the room after getting dressed and was stopped by one of the teachers. "Hello, student, you will need to go back to your room and gather your things. You will also need to dress in civilian clothes. You have a mission today."
He nodded at the woman impassively and walked back to his quarters, making sure that every step was perfect so that nobody would suspect anything.
And then he got dressed, but not like usual. If he had to dress in civilian clothes, that meant that he was most likely going to a city in the Real World, so he was going to make his getaway. He was sure that his partner was probably going to turn out brainwashed, but he was going anyway whether the digimon liked it or not. He put on three pairs of each piece of clothing. It was obviously going to be far too hot for him, but it would be worth it.
Yet what after that, he knew that he would probably have to run as fast as he could, but where would he go so that nobody from the Dark Academy, as he jokingly called it, would find him? He had to think decisively. He had plenty of skills that would serve him well. Some were from before his days at the Dark Academy, such as his programming and hacking ability, something that the academy's courses expanded on. I just hope this works, he thought as he finally walked out, looking quite a bit heavier than he was. There were other skills that he gained while at the academy, but those were for another time.
Still, his attempts at imitating all the brainwashed students worked out well, and with a blank look on his face, he hurried on.
As he walked into the briefing room to retrieve his equipment (including a device that would help the Academy locate him, something that he was going to dispose of discreetly during the mission), he realized this would be the only chance he had to make this work. He also realized that he needed help in order to do that.
Diego woke up at a little after seven the next morning and spent the next few hours working through his deck. At about noon, he ate lunch and realized that he hadn't seen Ezekiel all morning so he checked up on him. Sure enough, the boy was still asleep and in bed, wearing a t-shirt and boxers, with his sheets all but thrown off of it.
His brother sighed as he walked over and shook him, waking him up. "Give me a few more minutes.
"Uh, the tournament is at two and it's already past noon." With that realization, Ezekiel's eyes shot open and he got up out of bed, heading straight to the bathroom to shower.
Five minutes later, the guy came out of the shower dressed in his usual outfit and made himself a sandwich while Diego ate a personal pizza.
"So, where are mom and dad?" Ezekiel asked.
"Oh, they had to take Fernie to the doctor. They should be back in about an hour."
Ezekiel raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realize that Fernando wasn't feeling well."
Dobermon walked into the room with Gaomon. The two were apparently discussing something, but stopped talking as soon as they walked into the room.
"When are we going to leave?" Gaomon asked.
"Just a little bit before one to catch the bus," Diego replied. "You'll go as a stuffed animal and Dobermon will be Ezekiel's Seeing Eye dog."
Gaomon simply nodded in response while Dobermon said "Understood."
The following trip to a building across town via bus went by pretty quickly. At the building, they ran into Marika who seemed happy to see them as always. They talked about strategy while walking into the building to register.
Registering their decks was a fairly simple process. They just gave them to a proctor who looked through their cards and made sure that they were all legal before writing down their decks so that the judges knew they weren't cheating.
After that, they had to wait for a little bit before the first rounds began. When they did, they checked the charts to see that Marika was on opposite ends of the tournament from
Ezekiel's first round was against someone named Andrew Laino. The judges couldn't get the pronunciation of the skinny blond guy's last name right and he played quite badly, giving Ezekiel an easy win. The following round put him up against a black-haired girl with blue eyes who nearly defeated him. He had a bit of a headache from the combination of staying up way too late and sleeping in and knew that was taking its toll.
Diego's first round was against a female Renamon specialist who was a little difficult, but nothing he couldn't handle. The second round was against an obese guy with blond hair and glasses. He was easily dispatched as well.
Marika's first two rounds went way too well for her. It was against some muscular black guy with a Hagurumon deck who didn't seem to get that Virus types were weak against Vaccines like most of the girl's deck. The second round for her was against a guy with data-attribute monsters, which meant she had to use the BlackGatomon line instead of her usual.
Unfortunately for Ezekiel, the third round was far tougher than imagined. He was facing a dark-skinned Hispanic guy name Eduardo Nevarez who was slaughtering him. First the guy played a deadly rookie and kept on changing his plans to deal with Ezekiel's strategies. Not to mention, his option card usage was quite annoying. He constantly seemed to be increasing his DP while Ezekiel couldn't get them below what he started with. The battle ended in defeat for Ezekiel.
"That really sucks," Marika commented in between rounds. "Of the three of us, I was expecting him to win."
"Yeah, no kidding, considering all the work he put into his deck," Diego replied. His third round seemed to go easy for him. Now from the looks of it, there were only three more rounds to go through. Marika's third round was pretty simple as well, though the matches were still getting tougher.
Ezekiel simply sat on the sidelines. He didn't know what do now that he was out of the tournament. He simply pulled out his digivice and checked it, just in case the other tamer was in the room.
It turned out that he was. There were three signals other than his: Diego, Marika and someone else. He couldn't really check without someone being suspicious or the other tamer finding out, but he could see the general area. Unfortunately, he had about ten players to choose from.
Round four involved Diego being put up against a guy named Mark Tannenbaum who put up a pretty good fight. Diego had to admit that for once, he was getting a little nervous that he wasn't going to win. He started out with a Gabumon and digivolved it to BlackGarurumon as soon as he saw that he was facing an opponent who started with a Salamon and digivolved it to Mikemon. Diego wondered what the evolution line was he let the guy digivolve him.
It turned into a digimon that Diego had never seen before called Betsumon. Actually, Diego didn't know if he even wanted to know such a thing existed and wished it turned into something like its female counterparts' ultimate forms. He quickly disposed of it with ShadowWereGarurumon once he saw it and it reverted back to Salamon. At that point, Diego had to wait as his opponent screwed him over with vaccine attribute monsters until he could digivolve again. After that, it was a matter of playing his cards right and then he defeated his opponent.
Marika's match was against a girl named Consuelo Ortiz. The battle was fairly drawn out, surprisingly. The girl she was up against had a Hawkmon deck and knew how to play her cards pretty well, using armor forms to their advantage. In the end, it was by sheer luck that the Czech girl won the match.
At that point, the person who defeated Ezekiel had been defeated by someone named Kyle Dibenko. In the next round, the guy would face his brother. Too bad Ezekiel was expecting Diego to avenge him or something. Then again, the thought of vengeance over a card game was illogical anyway.
Ezekiel checked his digivice as they got ready to play the second to last round. The fourth tamer was still there. Ezekiel narrowed his eyes as he tried to figure out who it was, but his headache was getting worse. He hoped that he wasn't getting the flu like his younger brother, but he couldn't guarantee anything.
Still, he managed to deduce the identity of the other local tamer before muttering. "Now, who's his partner?"
He set the digivice to the mode used to communicate with his partner. "Dobermon, have you seen any other digimon other than the two you are with?"
"No, Ezekiel, but I sense something, something viral."
That would mean the other tamer's partner was a virus. Then again, Dobermon and Plotmon were both vaccines and Gaomon was a data, so their group kind of needed a virus. Ezekiel would just wait to talk to the tamer in question after the end of the next round. He was almost certain to lose.
But he didn't. Instead, one of his teammates lost the next round.
The three tamers working for the so-called Dark Academy had their bags packed and entered a room where they were reunited with their partners. It turned out that the brainwashing methods used by the academy wouldn't work on Digimon, so their partners still had their personalities while the three tamers seemingly didn't.
The headmistress spoke. "Now, remember, you better fulfill your mission. If you do, press this button on your communicator…" The gray-haired woman put her thumb over a red button on one of her devices, demonstrating for her students. "… And a portal will be opened for you to come back."
"What did you do to our partners?" a Keramon, Gunther's partner, asked.
"That is none of your concern. If you attack us, we will be forced to resort to extreme measures. Our weapons are designed to destroy digimon of your level, so don't even attempt it."
All three digimon glared at the woman, realizing that they had no choice in the matter.
"And another thing: if you are defeated and found by the authorities, we will pretend you don't exist. Now, proceed to the portal room." The three tamers entered the room, an empty room surprisingly, and waited as the technician uploaded the program that would take them over to the other side of the world.
Diego shuffled his deck and his opponent did the same. Then Diego flipped a coin, calling heads but getting tails. His opponent decided to go second. His opponent, a guy with Kyle Dibenko was a guy who had brown, curly hair that was shaved real short. He was wearing a purple shirt and some brown shorts.
The two each picked a rookie from their decks. Diego played Gabumon again while Kyle played an Elecmon. Diego couldn't digivolve his digimon so he waited.
The next turn, Kyle digivolved his rookie to Leomon.
"First, I'll play the Dark Tower card and then I'll attack. You loose twenty points." (Diego: 80 points)
Diego simply raised his eyebrow and wondered how he was going to get out of this mess. He knew he was capable of it so he just drew a card. Unfortunately, the card in question was simply his digimon's evolved form. He knew that wasn't going to work. So another turn went by, another twenty points lost.
The following turn, he found just what he needed. "Okay, I'll play Field Negation to remove your Dark Tower card to the Dark Area and digivolve Gabumon to Garurumon!"
Kyle let out a smile. It was about time he found an actual opponent. Garurumon's attack power was ten points higher than Leomon's, meaning that for once, Kyle lost the round, forcing him to revert his digimon back to Elecmon. (Kyle: 90 points; Diego: 60 points)
It's a shame he already had his trump card in hand. "I'll play the Holy Digi-core, which allows me to search my deck and instantly chain a digivolution to Mega." He searched through his deck, pulling out his second Leomon, then a Panjyamon followed by a SaberLeomon. Then he shuffled his deck. "Okay, that means you just lost thirty points," Kyle said deadpan, amused by Diego's shocked expression and red face. It seemed that the chubby boy wasn't taking his defeat particularly well.
Diego just had to figure out a way past this guy's strategy. Unfortunately, his next card wasn't anything worth using, just one of his other rookies. And looking at the field, it didn't seem that the card would make any real difference against his opponent.
Don't worry about it, man, this is just a game. He took a deep breath. Besides, what were the chances that you were actually gonna win this tournament anyway. At least you'll get a nice third place trophy, right? That wouldn't look to bad on my bookshelf.
Then again, he still wanted to win and go to state. Since they currently lived in the largest city in the state, he expected it to be here. Where would it be otherwise?
Unfortunately, the next turn, his opponent wiped out the last of his points, causing him to collapse onto the table, much to Kyle's dismay.
Oh well, at least that meant that he was a finalist. His last opponent better be good.
He looked around the room. There were only a couple people left. There was some Mexican guy with shades sitting down on a bench. There were the few judges. There was also some goth chick that he figured was his next opponent who had just finished her latest match.
This could be interesting.
So, the two of them sat down for their final match, Diego going and sitting down next to the other Mexican guy (or at least, Kyle thought they were Mexican). The two shuffled their decks after choosing a rookie form and placing it straight down on the table. Then everything fell apart.
Marika was about to draw her first hand when fog filled the room. The judges automatically thought there was a fire somewhere, even though it didn't smell like it. In fact, the air was kind of damp and smelled of mildew.
"Due to extenuating circumstances, we will have to declare this match a draw and both of you as champions," the head judge said before someone pulled the fire alarms. Already, shapes were starting to form in the fog and everyone ran out of the building. Everyone that is, except for the three tamers and their digimon who came in stealthily.
"You pulled the fire alarm, didn't you, Ezekiel?" Marika asked.
"No, I did," Gaomon corrected. Marika looked at him in surprise since the digimon didn't seem to have opposable thumbs.
Diego was busy looking at his digivice's radar. "There are three tamers in here, now!"
Marika smirked. "We're evenly matched."
"No, we're four on three," Ezekiel stated.
Diego rechecked the digivice. "Actually, more like three on two. One of the digivice signals is going away from us toward another one.
Ezekiel adjusted his sunglasses. "I hope he's prepared." The fog cleared a bit and the trio spotted two tamers: a black-haired boy and a girl with brown hair in pigtails. The two tamers had cards.
"Digi-Modify! Super Evolution Plug-in B!" the two yelled in almost disturbing unison, not even noticing that their teammate was gone.
DIGIVOLUTION_
"Candlemon digivolve to… Meramon!"
"Ballistamon digivolve to… Blitzmon!"
"Dobermon, take care of Blitzmon. Diego and Marika, tag team against the Meramon. We need to get these guys taken care of right now!" But just as Ezekiel yelled that, the duo ganged up on his partner.
As soon as he got out of the portal, Gunther bolted, his partner following him in surprise. He checked his digivice and realized that there were three tamers in the room they were in and one outside, so he decided to run outside. Three tamers could take on the duo that he ran away from. He tossed the signaling device that he brought with him into the nearest trashcan and ran into the hundred-plus degree heat that awaited him.
For the first time in many months, he had freedom. He didn't care that he was sweating like a pig due to wearing three layers of clothing combined with the 100+ degree heat. He just needed to find that other tamer.
There he was. It was pretty obvious that he was a tamer since he had a large, purple, rabbit-like digimon on his shoulder.
"So, Kyle, you sure we shouldn't go help the others?" the digimon said. Gunther pulled out his digivice and checked the monster's stats. ViElecmon, Rookie Level, Virus Attribute.
"They'll be fine. The odds are even, anyway. We've encountered some academy freaks before, remember?"
"Yeah, Lucemon filleted them without even digivolving."
"Exactly. From what I could tell, at least one of them could reach the champion level so they should be alright."
"What are we doing?" Gunther heard his partner, Keramon, ask from behind him.
"Leaving. What does it look like?"
It took a few seconds for it to click for Keramon. "You mean you're not brainwashed!" the digimon practically shouted, getting the attention of everybody around them, including Kyle, who stared at him in amazement.
"Wait, you're academy?" the brown-haired boy asked, a trace of suspicion flashing across his face.
"Yeah, right, like I would ever claim allegiance to that place. Believe me, I crushed whatever pills they gave me and flushed them down the toilet."
Kyle couldn't quite believe it, so he pinched him. "Ow! What was that for?"
"Well, you show emotion, so I guess you are an escapee. I've never heard of an escapee from that place."
"I'm like the second that I know of. I had a friend that escaped about two weeks ago. Man, last time I remember being outside, it was winter."
ViElecmon, on the other hand, was a bit skeptical. "I don't like this."
"Okay, so what are you going to do now?"
Gunther just shrugged. "I'll figure something out, I guess."
"Well, in the mean time, you might as well hang with me for awhile. I'm probably just going to hang around the city for the rest of the afternoon before heading home and you're welcome to come along."
"Just so you know, I don't have any money."
"No prob. I'll just pay your bus fare. I have a pretty good allowance and I'm probably just going to go downtown but I'm sure we could go all the way to Boulder City if we felt like it."
"Well, you're going to have to tell me about where we're at. The skyline looks kind of familiar but that's about it."
"Sure thing. I'll tell you everything on the bus."
Marika wasn't doing well. For some reason, she was stuck up against Meramon. In the first few seconds of the match, the two enemy digimon appeared, digivolved and attacked Dobermon. The dog didn't even stand a chance and was quickly knocked out. So after that, it was just one on one.
The humanoid flame digimon held up his fist and shot out a flame. "Burning Fist!" Luckily, Plotmon got out of the way. Unfortunately, the puppy couldn't land a hit on her enemy, so the battle thus far has just been an example of attack, dodge, and attack again.
To make matters worse, Marika didn't even have her tamer deck with her, not even thinking that she would have to have it until later when a digimon inevitably emerged into the real world. Still, she could at least attempt to help her partner with a card. "Digi-Modify! Hyogamon!"
With that modification, Plotmon all the sudden grew a number of spikes and shot them at Meramon, who grabbed them and melted them, preventing them from causing him any damage.
"Digi Modify! Submarinemon's Oxigen Torpedo."
That was a mistake. The pair of airshots coming from Plotmon's mouth only seemed to make Meramon bigger.
"Meramon, this is going nowhere. Attack the tamer," the mysterious girl that was Meramon's partner ordered in an emotionless voice. The humanoid flame hesitated and then complied, realizing he had no choice.
"Burning Fist!"
"Marika!" Plotmon yelled, getting in between the blast of fire and her partner just as the girl's digivice shined.
DIGIVOLUTON_
"Plotmon digivolve to... Darcmon!"
Darcmon was an angel digimon who had a large red hat and scarf, golden armor and a golden mask covering the top half of her face. Using four wings, she floated, taking the brunt of Meramon's attack and holding her scepter.
"Well, Marika, your Hyogamon card was actually useful. I didn't take as much damage as I would have otherwise."
"Good. Now, defeat Meramon, just don't kill him."
"I wasn't going to. It's obvious that the girl we're up against is brainwashed."
Marika smiled as he partner moved forward and drew her sword. "Dancing Sword!" Darcmon performed a series of sword moves, damaging her opponent. Despite the pain, Meramon just moved back and attacked with all his might.
"Roaring Fire!" he yelled, unleashing a massive amount of fire from his fists. Darcmon created a shield by spinning her staff, dissipating the flames.
"Is that all you've got."
"No! Magma Blast!" The enemy digimon unleashed a torrent of burning hot lava, which Darcmon dodged while Marika ran as quickly as she could to get out of the way. Darcmon seemingly disappeared and reappeared behind Meramon.
"La Pucelle!" She yelled, sticking her sword into the fiery digimon. Meramon shrieked in pain before reverting to his rookie form. "There."
Diego was in a similar predicament fighting against Blitzmon. First, the two digimon appeared with their tamers and then attacked Dobermon. Diego had to act decisively to prevent the digimon from deleting his brother's partner. Thankfully, due to Gaomon's rubber gloves, the Rookie was at a slight advantage. Now if only he could break that armor.
"Card Slash! Attack Plug-in B! Card Slash! Speed Plug-in H! Card Slash! Digi-O!"
This allowed Gaomon speed on par with the Champion, who didn't seem all that fast at all. The dog appeared behind his enemy and punched at his armor just in time for the digimon to turn around. Then the Rookie disappeared, reappearing behind the enemy again, chipping at his armor.
Having enough of this, Blitzmon turned around again, this time, attacking. "Mjollnir Thunder!" This attack involved electricity surrounding Blitzmon, electrocuting any nearby digimon that just happened to be within range of the electrical field. Unfortunately for Gaomon, he happened to be it. The electricity struck suddenly, resulting in Gaomon ending up on the ground in a smoldering heap.
"Blitzmon, end him," his brainwashed tamer ordered without a single hint of emotion. The digimon hesitated for a second. That second was all that Gaomon needed.
"Card Slash, Stamina Seed! Card Slash, MetalGarurumon's Grace Cross Freezer!"
Gaomon disappeared in the second for a fist charged with electricity to smash down into the ground and reappeared just behind his opponent with numerous mechanical implants on his body.
"Grace Cross Freezer!" he yelled out, unleashing a torrent of missiles into the weak spot where he had punched twice before. The resulting damage and explosion caused Blitzmon to devolve back into Ballistamon.
Diego gave a smile at his digimon. "Good job, Gaomon!"
Ezekiel was ticked. Despite his stoic exterior keeping everything under wraps, he was seething underneath. These enemy tamers had the gall to show up and attack his partner. How dare they! And then there was the matter of the other tamer running away from the battle as soon as it started for no adequately explained reason. No matter. He just adjusted his sunglasses and waited it out as his partner regained consciousness.
It didn't take long for the fights to end. After they did, Diego walked toward the male tamer and held him up by the collar. "Okay, you're going to tell me who you're working for!"
"My name is Dmitri Tartakovski. I am a student at the Tamer's Academy on a mission for an employer by the name of Blaine."
That was when Ezekiel stepped in. "Who is Blaine?"
"This is new for me too as I've never heard of this Blaine figure before," a man said through a video feed. The man was middle-aged with short brown hair underneath a cowboy hat. "Still, you're going to have to keep an eye out for more of these academy freaks. They've been showing up all over the place."
The group of tamers was currently in a dark room inside the local base for the international intelligence organization Echelon. The man they were talking to was on a computer screen that had a web-cam attached to the top of it.
"Yeah, I think that's what we figured out. How has an organization like this been able to exist, though?" Ezekiel asked.
"You don't think we've been trying to figure that out?" the man asked. "What bothers me is that there are two other tamers unaccounted for including one that came with the other two enemy tamers. Tomorrow, you are going to have to search out those two."
"I know the name of one of them," Ezekiel said. "A certain Kyle Dibenko."
"I would have beaten him too if it weren't for those…" Marika was interrupted by Ezekiel.
"…meddling academy tamers?" Diego couldn't help but chuckle while the girl rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue at Ezekiel for saying that. Johnny Beckenstein just glared at the boy.
"Okay, your task will be to find this Kyle Dibenko character and find out his true agenda as well locate the other academy student and find out whether he's a runaway or a spy."
Ezekiel nodded. "Understood."
"Alright, I'm glad that's all sorted out. Now you'll all need to describe the battle in detail."
The tamers and digimon groaned at the thought.
After determining that Gunther wasn't a spy and that his digimon wasn't brainwashed either, Kyle decided that the guy could stay at his house. It was just a matter of inviting. Because of this, Kyle just got to the point. "So, we have a spare room."
"You don't have to." Gunther said in between bites of noodles. It had been six months since he's had any actual food and they were at a Chinese restaurant. All they served at the academy was really bland health food.
"No, I insist. It's obvious that you don't have anywhere else to go and there's no way you can go home since you don't have a passport and those academy dirtbags might try capturing you again if you do. Come on, stay with me tonight. I can just see my mom's face. She'll probably just think you came from the tournament and she'll just be glad that I actually have a friend."
"You don't have any friends here?" Keramon asked.
"Nope. Just moved here a couple weeks ago. Trust me; my mom'll be cool with it. She'll probably ask questions once it's obvious that you're staying for a bit, but well tell her everything."
"Do your parents know about ViElecmon?" Gunther asked.
"Sure they do. They found out a while back. I'd rather not go into any specifics. Believe me, they'll be fine with it."
"Okay, as long as you have a computer that I can put Visual Studio on and play around with it, I'll be fine."
"Oh yeah, I have a computer in my room. There's a content blocker on it so don't bother trying anything stupid."
"Hey! I wasn't going to try anything. Ever since I got captured by those academy morons I've just been dying to get started on a good old programming project."
"Oh, okay. So that's what Visual Studio's for."
"What? You didn't know that?"
"Hey, I just use my computer to play games and play the Digimon Card Game online. Programming's too deep for me."
Gunther smiled. "It's not that hard."
"How long have you been at it?"
"Since like the first grade. My dad's a computer programmer. He has his own business and everything. I told him I wanted to make video games so he showed me how to program."
"Have you made any games?" ViElecmon asked doubtfully.
"Oh, heck no. It takes a lot more work than programming to do that. Besides, I'm absolutely terrible in the art department."
Kyle looked at everyone's dishes. "Well, I guess we can just pay the bill and head home."
"That's fine with me. Wait, what time is it?" Gunther asked.
"Five-thirty. It'll take us awhile to get back since I live clear on the other side of town in a master-plan community called Summerlin."
Gunther nodded. "Can I see a map of this city? I have no idea where anything is."
"Sure thing. I have one in my pocket and you can check it out on the way home."
"Okay, that's doable."
"Their failure won't go unpunished," the Academy Headmistress told Blaine. "As soon as they get out of Echelon's jurisdiction, they will return to the Academy and be severely disciplined. We will also find the runaway and make sure that he takes his medication this time."
"That is highly unlikely and unnecessary," Blaine said. "After all they did fulfill their mission." Blaine clicked a button on a remote control. An image of Ezekiel and Dmitri showed up. Ezekiel repeated the same question over and over.
"Who is Blaine?"
The boy's voice echoed throughout the room.
A/N: How was the first chapter? Tell me in a review.
Appendix:
Main Characters Introduced in this chapter:
Ezekiel Guevara
Age: 15
BD: May 13
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Dress: Orange shirt, baggy black pants, trenchcoat
Partner: Labramon (Rookie), Dobermon (Champion, Default form)
Diego Guevara
Age: 15
BD: August 3
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Dress: Blue shirt, black shorts
Partner: Gaomon (Rookie, only form acquired thus far)
Marika Dvorak
Age: 14
BD: June 1
Hair: Black with purple stripes (naturally brown)
Eyes: Blue
Dress: Black shirt, black jeans
Partner: Plotmon (Salamon, Rookie), Darcmon (Champion)
Gunther Kaufmann
Age: 16
BD: October 17
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Dress: Grey polo shirt, blue pants
Partner: Keramon (Rookie, Default form), Crysalimon (Champion)
Kyle Dibenko
Age: 15
BD: February 19
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Dress: Purple shirt, blue jeans
Partner: ViElecmon (Rookie, Default form), Unknown Champion form, Unknown Armor forms (That's right. I have four of them thought up. One actually appears in the next chapter.)