Chapter 1: Next in Line


Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon in any of its incarnations. The original characters in this story are mine, though.


Diego Guevara looked at the digital field in front of him. He always felt a little apprehension entering places like these, being that they were the focal points from where monsters emerged from the other world, however, he need to deal with the latest in a string of enemy Digimon that have come forth to wreak havoc. This time, it was in the school playground of May Elementary in Las Vegas, Nevada to be precise, and if he didn't want any kids finding a trashed jungle gym for the last day of school, he had to act fast.

"Let's go, Gaomon!" he called out to his partner, a dog-like creature with blue fur, red boxing gloves and an enormous head that had a red scarf above his eyes.

"Yes, Diego!" Hey, it was a start. At least he wasn't saying 'Sir, yes, sir!' or 'Yes, master!' anymore. Still, as the two entered into the field of mist, he thought about ways of getting the Digimon to stop using such formalities. After all, Diego doesn't use sir with his father. Why shouldn't the tamer-Digimon relationship be any different?

When the duo entered the mist, they found a lone Digimon, a green moth with a turret for a stinger.

Mothmon

Armor Level

Data Type

Attacks: Gauss Powder; Energy Sucking

Diego tried his usual spiel, a simple request. "We don't have to fight you if you just come with me." The moth Digimon just responded with a few gunshots from its turret that hit the ground in front of him, causing Diego to flinch. "That's what I thought. You want to do things the hard way." Diego pulled a card from his deck box that was attached to his belt. He wasn't a skinny guy by any means. In fact, he was kind of fat, had black hair, brown eyes and was just about average height for his age as a fourteen year old. He was wearing a blue shirt and some grey cargo shorts along with some white running shoes.

"Card Slash!" He looked at the card and slid it vertically, holding the card reader on his red and blue digivice toward him, yelling out. "High Speed Plug-in B!"

With that, Gaomon appeared behind the enemy Digimon, yelling "Speed Bash!" and rapidly punching the enemy and knocking it to the ground.

"Double Backhand!" For a finishing move, Gaomon spun around in a whirlwind, striking the enemy with a tornado of punches. With that, the enemy Digimon disintegrated, its green data floating off into the air.

"Nice work! That's gotta be a record."

"Thanks, master! Uh, I mean, Diego!"

Diego smiled at the blue dog as the mist dispersed from around him. The battle almost seemed too easy. Diego walked with his Digimon toward the gate and noticed a black government vehicle and a man dressed in a black suit standing outside of it.

Diego could only imagine who he was with. "Is there anything wrong, sir?" he asked the man, who was wearing black sunglasses.

"Everything will be explained at Somnus," he said.


When Diego reached the local division of Somnus , an organization that was meant to be the American counterpart to the Japanese organization Hypnos, actually more of an international counterpart, he got out of the car inside an airplane hanger. Since the local division was inside Area 51, the car windows were blacked out and Diego didn't see anything on the way. Of course, it was in the middle of the night anyway.

He was led to a large room with a map of the world on one side and numerous desks spread throughout. The room was dark with a tint of blue light coming from the computer monitors. This wasn't work hours, suffice to say.

"Good that you've come," a tall figure, this time a white American in his fifties who was wearing a hat.

"How are you doing today, Mr. Beckenstein?"

"Decent. However, I called you tamers here for something important."

That's when Diego noticed the girl on the other side of her room along with her partner Digimon, who couldn't be seen clearly because of the lighting in the room. She had short, red-tipped purple hair with bangs going toward the right, purple eye shadow, lipstick and fingernails along with black clothes, a black studded belt, and a wristband that had spikes running across it on her left hand, though she was actually right handed.

"I'm sure you two have noticed the recent spike in activity lately."

"Yeah, what's up with that?" the girl asked.

"Good question, Marika. As you both know, there have been six bio-emergences in the past six days." Johnny Beckenstein pressed a button on his remote control and the world map changed to one of North Las Vegas. There were six dots. "We don't know who or what, but it seems that someone is trying to break through the barriers into our world. You all know how fragile the barriers have been since the D-Reaper invasion, right?" He pressed another button and it went back to the world map, with mostly blue but also containing some red, along with numerous colors in between. "The red areas are where the barriers are weakest, notably Tokyo, but also New York, Los Angeles and pretty much every major city. Tokyo is by far the weakest, though.

"Most of the Digimon that broke through have been Adult or in your vernacular, Champion Level Digimon. If this barrier breaks just right, we could be dealing with a Perfect or Ultimate in American vernacular."

Diego shuttered a little bit from the thought. There were currently only two tamers working for Somnus , though he did know about a third one who didn't fight. If this Ultimate were to break through, the third would have to help out. "So, how long?"

"From the rate things are going, it looks like we will be seeing a major breach in two weeks."

Two weeks? Diego asked himself, his eyes wide. "That's nowhere near enough time."

"I realize that."

"May I interject?" one of the workers asked, Beckenstein nodding him on. "There's a chance that in the time needed, another Tamer or two may appear. You see, the Digignomes that chose you to be tamers pick tamers for a purpose. For instance, the tamers in Shinjuku were chosen just in time to do battle with the D-Reaper. It may be the same here. Chances are that they will pick the best available to help."

"Which would be who?" Marika asked.

"Any winners of card-game tournaments, those that play the games online, or anyone that develops an attachment to a Digimon."

"Well, I won the last tournament. You won't see me getting another partner."

"Then maybe the runner up."

"I know what tournament you're talking about," Beckenstein said. "My son was the runner-up there. He got a trophy at home for it."

"Then he may become a tamer."

"Listen, I'd rather he not get mixed up in this mess."

"We're all going to be involved sooner or later. That seems to be what the world is headed to."


Nathan was completely done with his exams, finally. It was the end of Middle School and he was glad to be able to leave it behind for good after today. Of course, he had a couple of friends, but because of certain rumors that were spread about him during seventh grade, he wasn't very popular.

He looked at the clock and noticed that it was just a little bit before time to go. He had less than a minute left and it seemed that the second hand was taking an eternity.

And then, finally, the second hand hit the 11 on the right minute and the right hour. The last half day of school was finally over and, signaling that, the bell rang. He was a blond haired guy with blue eyes and he wore a green shirt and blue shorts. Getting up, he walked toward the door, being mindful of the other kids who were anxious to get out like he was.

Upon getting out of the school exit and going down toward the bike-racks, the one thought that went through his mind was Good bye, Skankston, hello Cheyenne. Skankston wasn't the actual name of the school. Instead it was Swainston, but everybody called it Skankston for obvious reasons much like they called Cheyenne Chey-Town. Then again, this was Vegas.

When he reached the bike-racks, he unchained his bike and ran into his friend, Marcus, a taller African-American student with an orange shirt and some long blue-jeans. "What's up, man? You ready to get this summer started?" he asked.

"Oh, heck yeah, man." With that, Nathan pulled out his wallet. "Ready to go get something to eat and then go to the game shop?"

"Oh, yeah. What kind of cards are you going to get this time?"

"Well, I'm going to have to find a way to counteract the strategies of that girl who beat me the other day."

"Hey, at least you got second place. That was far better than I could have gotten." Marcus unchained his bike as well. "So, what are we gonna do after this?"

"I was thinking of playing that game a little more."

"Oh, yeah, you got that promotional Digimon, didn't you?"

"Yeah. I'm supposed to meet a friend online after he's done with his exams and at home. Let's see how he thinks of his Veedramon after he gets a load of my Dracomon."

"Isn't Dracomon a Rookie and Veedramon a Champion."

"Uh, yeah. Still, Dracomon looks cooler than Veemon ever did."

"Your friend would beg to differ."

"I'm sure he would."


After lunch at the Panda Express off of Craig and Martin Luther King, the duo proceeded to go straight to the game shop. "Hey, Eric! How's it going?" Nathan greeted upon coming in.
"Oh, hey," the blond-haired, brown-eyed and overweight cashier greeted back. "What can I do for you kids today?"

"Not much. I was just wondering whether you got the new card set in yet."

"Yeah. There's also a new starter deck. Oh, and I heard about the tournament the other day."

"Oh, yeah. I just got to second place, but it's all good."

"So, what do you want?"

"Well, I'll take three boosters." This was how Nathan spent his allowance: food and cards. Then again, his dad made pretty good money at his government job so he got a pretty good allowance.

"Alright, here you go. Can I see what you got?"

"Sure." Nathan opened the boosters up, checking out some new modify and monster cards. There was one card that caught his attention, though. "Okay, what is this?" he asked, looking at the card. It was completely blue except for a D in the middle with a dinosaur head sticking out of it.

Eric was surprised as well. "I don't know. I haven't seen this kind of card before." He looked it over. "Looks to me like some sort of card for that online RPG or something. Maybe it's meant for the latest computer game or something."

"You have any idea what this blue card does, Marcus?" Nathan asked his friend.

"Honestly, it just looks like some promotional card or something."

"Well, I am going to go play on Digimon Online later on."

Eric thought about the card some more. Where had he seen it? Oh yeah... Then again, that was a story for another time.

Deciding they were going to get nowhere talking about the blue card, Nathan decided to ask Eric something. "So, what's your favorite Digimon?"

"I have two." Eric grabbed his wallet from his back pocket and pulled out two cards that were in plastic. "AncientGarurumon and Rosemon."

"Cool. I have Rosemon's card but AncientGarurumon?" How the heck did you get that?"

"EBay."

"Oh, okay, that works."

"Man, those are some cool looking Digimon," Marcus said. "I think I remember hearing that Rosemon's supposed to be like, Lillymon's Mega or something."

"That's what I heard too. I hear she appeared in the games that we weren't lucky enough to get." Nathan looked at his watch and saw what time it was. "Well, it looks like I might have to go, but see you around."

"You bet." As Nathan and Marcus walked out of the game shop, they walked past a heavy guy with black hair. He walked up to the cashier's desk. "Oh, hey, Diego! How's it going?"

"Just dandy. You got any good Tamer cards?" Diego knew he could trust Eric.


"Okay, ready to go kick some butt?" Nathan asked through his headset. He was sitting at his computer desk and playing the game. He had just agreed to go on an easy mission with his friend since his Digimon was still at the Rookie Level.

"Heck, yeah, man. We've got to guard the city against a group of Shadramon. You ready for this?" his friend asked through the headset.

"Yeah. Ready, Dracomon?"

The Digimon, a green reptile with red horns coming from the back of his head and small red wings nodded.

He moved forward, heading out of the town. He finally reached a barren area with very little around him except for the large stone walls he was in between and a lone Shadramon. "I'll take down this Shadramon over here while you take the other ones."

"Alright, moving in."

Nathan looked at the screen and simply slashed a card. "Card Slash! Attack Plug-in A!" he yelled. "Now, Dracomon, Attack!"

"Baby Flame," the small dragon Digimon yelled, unleashing a red fireball at the enemy Digimon, damaging it. The enemy's health bar went down to a third.

Man, this is too easy! Nathan thought. Dracomon unleashed another Baby Flame attack, deleting the enemy Digimon. Nathan looked at his blue card. I guess I won't need this, huh?

Unfortunately, a larger swarm of Shadramon appeared. Nathan was shocked by the sight. "Card Slash! High Speed Plug-in B!" he yelled. He realized he couldn't slash it twice and the Shadramon looked like they were gaining on him, even though he used Baby Flame on one of them. One of the Shadramon attacked him, followed by another. Pretty soon, Dracomon's hit points were in critical.

"Crap!" was Nathan's response. He had only one option: the blue card. "Card Slash! Blue Card!" he yelled, sliding the card through the card reader. He didn't know what it was going to do, but when he slid it, his computer shined brightly in his face and the card reader turned into a grey and green D-Arc.

Was I not supposed to slide that card? He asked himself. Slowly, though, the light dimmed, revealing mist throughout the room and a reptilian form falling into his lap.

His only response was: "No way."


"Now what?" Beckenstein asked in the main computer terminal, which was much like the one at Hypnos with the two chairs on a crane.

"There's a Bio-Emergence in North Las Vegas," one of the system operators, an African-American girl replied. "It's not on the digital fault line, so it hasn't affected the barrier."

"Good. What do you know about it?"

"Very little. It seems to have bio-emerged too quickly to tell anything other than that it was a low-level wild one. Child Level at the most."

"Can you get its exact location?"
"Unfortunately no," the other system operator, a Filipino girl, replied. "It emerged too quickly to even send a tracer."

Beckenstein grimaced at the notion. He couldn't imagine his son being the one with the Digimon, but he had a sneaking suspicion. He just hoped it wasn't true.


One eye opened slowly, spotting an unknown face. The last thing Dracomon remembered was being attacked by a group of enemy Digimon. Now though, he was somewhere else and at peace, lying down in a bed in a blue-painted room with a door in the corner, a closet to the left of the door, a computer desk against the wall to the right of the closet and finally the bed he was sitting in against the wall and underneath the window.

"How are you feeling?" Nathan asked. It had been about an hour since Dracomon emerged from the computer. Nathan called his friend from out of town, who didn't believe him and quickly chastised him for ditching him to the mercy of those Shadramon, not even listening to Nathan's complaint about the Digimon ganging up on him. Marcus didn't believe him either.

"You know, man. You're crazy if you think you've got a Digimon. The only ones with Digimon are those guys who fought against the D-Reaper in Japan."

Nathan shuddered at the response and then promised to bring Dracomon over the following day. In the mean time, he made the Digimon a sandwich.

"You hungry?" he asked the Digimon, showing the sandwich on a paper plate. Dracomon ate it all in one bite, paper plate and everything.

Dracomon sat up and then swallowed his lunch, looking around the room. "You're the voice," he said.

"Huh?"

"The voice that talked to me, telling me what to do. He helped me save the day."

Nathan smiled. "Yeah. Sometimes I do that." Then he paused. That didn't come out right. "In the games, at least."

"The games?" Dracomon got up out of bed.

"Yeah. I play this online Digimon game on my computer. I'll need a new monitor now that you came out of it and screwed up its components, but that's nothing my dad can't buy."

Dracomon didn't have a clue as to what Nathan was talking about. "So, how big is this fortress?"

Nathan looked at him confused for a second. "You mean my house?"

"House? Oh, okay. So you don't have to fight off enemies that come and attack, huh?"

"Uh, no. In the real world we have security systems and locks that block out thieves."

"What if the thieves shoot fireballs at this place?"

It was obvious, Dracomon didn't have a clue about the real world. "Humans don't shoot fireballs."

"Ice attacks?"

"Humans don't have any special powers."

Dracomon was surprised at that. "You don't have any powers? How did you build this?"

"I didn't. This house was built by construction workers, plumbers, and electricians. They built it from the ground up using their hands."

"Sounds awfully inefficient." Dracomon paused for a second. "Do you have anything else to eat?"
"Uh, sure, follow me to the kitchen. Beware, my dad's coming home in a few hours and you're going to need to hide then. I don't want him knowing I have a Digimon."

"Your dad doesn't like Digimon?" Dracomon asked, following Nathan out into the kitchen.

"I don't know. I know he had to go someplace during the D-Reaper crisis a year and a half ago, though."

"D-Reaper?"

"You know, a big red blob that destroyed everything in sight."

"You humans are weird."

"Yes we are."

"So, what's this dad thing?"

Nathan looked at Dracomon as he pulled out a can of iced tea from the fridge. Man, do I have to explain everything to him? Better bring out the dictionary.


A few hours later, his dad got home. "Hey, dad, I think I'm going to need a new monitor," Nathan said, showing him the smoldering flat-screen monitor that he used as he walked through the door to the garage.

Beckenstein just glared at him. "What did you do?"

"I don't know. It just kind of overheated while I was playing online with Cody. I didn't do anything. I swear."

So far, no sign of any Digimon, Beckenstein thought, and then made himself smile. "Oh well, I guess we can just go to Fry's electronics tomorrow after work."

Nathan smiled. "Alright dad."

"So, how was school?"

"Great. The exams all went smoothly. I may not be going to A-TECH but I'm sure gonna end up with good grades."

"You didn't come straight home and play the game, did you?"

"Uh, no. I ate lunch with Marcus and went to the game shop."

The game shop meant that he got more Digimon cards. "Can I see the cards you got?" he asked, suspecting a blue card.

"Sure." Nathan got his folder of cards.


Meanwhile, Dracomon was cramped in Nathan's closet. His Tamer just stuffed him in there as soon as he heard the garage door opening. He was not happy. After a little bit, Nathan got him out of there. "Sorry about that, man." He said as Dracomon got out. "Here, you want something more to eat?"

It was a microwaved pocket sandwich. "Oh, gee, thanks." Dracomon scarfed it down in an instant.

"So, what do you want to do?" Nathan asked. "My dad has to get up early so he already went to bed."

Dracomon shrugged. "Beats me."

"You know, Digimon are normally supposed to fight evil Digimon, save the world, that sort of thing. I don't know if any evil Digimon emerged lately, but if they do, you want to go take care of them?"

"Sounds like a good idea to me. So, how long until an enemy Digimon appears?"

Nathan hadn't thought about that. "No clue." Dracomon glared at him. "I've got a lot of stuff to do in the mean time, though, so we won't be completely bored. It's not like all Digimon do is fight."

Dracomon yawned. "In the mean time, I think I'll go to sleep. It seems kind of late."

"Huh? What are you talking about? It's only about nine o'clock."

Dracomon yawned again. "You expect me to stay up and do nothing?"

"Um, I was thinking of going into the living room and powering up the old PlayStation. Why?"

Dracomon thought about it for a second. "Sounds like a good idea to me, whatever that is."

As Nathan and Dracomon walked out of the room and Nathan explained the concept of video games to his partner, the digivice alarm went off. Unfortunately, neither of them heard it.


A/N: Well, that was the first chapter. I hope you liked it. I had to rewrite it from scratch since the first draft was kind of bland. I hope I at least set up enough of a plot to pique your interest. I'm aiming for a 13 chapter fic, but I'll make a sequel if I get enough response. I just had to take a break from Digimon Scammers or my creativity would have run completely dry.

Unlike the game that Jenrya played on the show, this one had 3-D graphics. Of course, it was early on in the first decade of the new millennium, so why wouldn't it have 3-D graphics. I hope it didn't turn you off, though, since from what I know, not many people liked that episode.