Disclaimer: I do not own digimon, I would not be writing fanfiction of it if I did. I would be writing canon.
Ch. 1 How it all started
"AAAGGGHH, the Dark Ocean, very impressive my little digidestined, remind me not to take you so lightly next time." grunted Daemon, as the combined force of Imperialdramon, fighter mode's Galvatron Laser, Shakkoumon's Justice Beam, and Sylphimon's Static Force pushed him into the dark gate that had been opened by that test subject, Ken. He narrowed his glowing yellow eyes under his blood-red hood. He may be pushed into that portal, but he was not going without a little...souvenir. Through the flames of his Evil Inferno and the light of their combined attacks, he stared at Ken, who was currently in a great amount of pain, trying to hold open the accursed gate. His friends-Daemon found that word disgusting-surrounded him, supporting him, as if any of them were worth anything. He knew he had to act fast, if he wanted to acquire what he had come for in the first place. Stretching out his hand towards the child, he felt for the spark of darkness in him. 'Yes...' he thought. He could sense the presence of the dark spore in his neck. It was dormant, now. And it would probably stay that way forever, if left to rot inside that useless boy. Exerting his will, Daemon pulled at the dark spore.
Ken was struggling to hold the Dark Gate open. He felt so much fear, so much uncertainty. He could feel the darkness within him, struggling to get out, to engulf him. He had let it happen to him once, and he knew that he would carry the nightmares from that experience with him for the rest of his life. The horror that he felt at even the thought of that same darkness taking over again almost made him lose his concentration, the gate slipping a bit. With a growl, he brought his focus back onto holding the gate open. "We're right here with ya buddy, just hold on a little longer, you can do it!" Davis shouted. Ken spared a moment to look at his goggled friend. Davis had been with him every step of the way on his road of redemption. Davis had never seemed to hold his sins against him. Ken was grateful for that, and would be forever. A chorus of "Yeah Ken!"'s and "You can do it"'s came from his other friends; TK, Yolee, Karri, and Kody. He looked at them all in appreciation. Then he narrowed his eyes and glared at Daemon. Ken blinked in confusion. Daemon was stretching out his hand towards him. Suddenly, an excruciating pain tore through him, emanating from his neck. He collapsed to his knees in shock, screaming from the pain. It felt like something was pushing through his skin, trying to force it's way out, and being none too gentle about it. He felt the skin on the back of his neck stretching, pulling, and then finally bursting open. Blood ran down his neck, but he looked up in time to see a dark purple, sea urchin-looking thing racing toward Daemon's outstretched hand. 'The Dark Spore!' he thought, before the pain made him black out.
Daemon grabbed the dark spore just in the nick of time. The gate had started to collapse rather quickly when Ken had started screaming, and he had snatched the blood-covered Dark Spore mere moments before it had finished closing. He twisted out of the way of the attacks that had followed him through the gate. Hearing a massive explosion behind him, he turned to look at the scenery, dreary and depressing as it was. A dark beach was beat upon by dark waves. A sort of darkhouse sent beams of darkness off into the already black ocean. The horizon was a dull, slate gray color. And, there was another gate, leading out to who-knows-where. 'Hmm...must have been blasted open by the combination of those attacks.' Daemon mused. He chuckled, looking down at the blood-drenched spore in his hand. Daemon was one of the very few beings that knew of the true nature of the Dark Ocean. It was a reality between realities, it was the gap that kept them separated, that kept those realities from crashing into each other. It connected to each one, but opening a hole to go through was more than just difficult, it was nearly impossible. He would have been able to do it on his own eventually, but it would have taken him years to build up that much power. Beneath his blood-red hood, he smirked. 'Let's see who I can go and terrorize next.' With that thought, he flew through the rapidly closing gate, which vanished, leaving no trace of anyone ever having been there.
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"Cowabunga!" Joshua lifted his head, looking up to see Jacob jumping into the lake behind them, sending up a respectable amount of water. Joshua laughed at the sight, particularly as the water had managed to splash onto Ashley and Hannah, who were sitting on chairs near the lakes shore. As the two girls started yelling at Jacob, whose only reaction was to laugh, Joshua sighed and leaned back in his camping chair. He and his brother, Stephen, were on a camping trip with a bunch of school friends. They had arrived yesterday, and today they were going to be hiking up a mountain. They had all been put in groups of 6, and each group would be given a map and supplies. Each group would be taking a different route up the mountain.
In his group, he had: himself, obviously. He was a ten-year-old kid, a bit short for his age, with short, dirty-blonde hair. He was the youngest of the group. Then there was his brother, Stephen. Older than him by about 2 years, Stephen was a good foot taller than his younger brother, with slightly longer dirty-blonde hair, and a small scar on his cheek, which he had gotten when he got into a fight with some kids who were trying to hurt his brother. Stephen was always looking out for him, and did everything he could to protect his little brother. Then there was Ashley and Hannah. They were best friends, though they had totally different personalities. Hannah was a bit of an air head, in Joshua's opinion, with an unhealthy obsession for fashion and clothes. Case of point: she was currently wore a glittery purple dress that came down to her knees, and a long purple scarf wrapped around her neck. In summer. When they were just about to go on a hike. Joshua was sure her clothes would be destroyed by the time this week-long trip was done. Ashley, on the other hand, was a lot more sensible and sporty. She loved playing soccer, and was the lead striker on her team. As opposed to Hannah, she had soccer shorts and a green t-shirt on. She had neck length black hair, and was tan from all of the outdoors stuff she did. She and Hannah were in the same class in school, so they were the same age, which Joshua guessed at being 13. After that was Kurt. Kurt was a bit of a strange kid, no doubt about that. He was constantly picked on in school, with his large glasses and button-up shirts that his mother made him wear. His red hair and pale complexion didn't help much either. Joshua had tried to strike up a conversation with the guy, who was a year older than him, but Kurt had gone off on some tangent about computer programming that Joshua had no idea about. It really was no wonder the kid was a bully magnet, even Joshua could see that! He had decided early on that he was going to become friends with Kurt. If only he could actually get into a conversation with him that he could understand. The final member of the group was Jacob, the guy who had just doused the girls. Jacob was generally a fun-loving, optimistic guy. He loved to joke around, and tried to make others laugh. He had spiky brown hair, which was always a mess, since he didn't like styling his hair, and had googles hanging from his neck.
As Jacob continued getting berated by the girls, Joshua decided to go inside the cabin to snag some more of the pancakes that they had had for breakfast. They were going to be starting their hike soon. He would need the energy!
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Daemon observed the area around him. This was a different digital world than the one had had recently left. The feel of it was different, as well as what topography. It mostly looked the same, except for the sky. While at first glance it looked like a normal sky, closer examination revealed what looked like lines of data running along the sky, almost too faint to make out. The sun directly above him shone brightly, causing him to wince. He didn't like the light, much preferring the cold embrace of darkness. Things here would have to change. And he knew that the moment he started, the Digital World itself would rise up to oppose him, most likely calling upon more Digidestined. That seemed to just be the default reaction. But, he now realized the mistakes that he and the other would-be digital tyrants had made. Instead of treating the destined as the threat that they were, they had mostly ignored them. This had allowed them to gain power, enough to actually give him trouble. He would not make the same mistake here. If he caught wind of any meddling children, he would take care of them immediately. His eyes seemed to narrow into a dangerous, deadly smile as he looked down at he Dark Spore that he still held in his hand. Of course, if he could turn one of their own against them...
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"Come on, it's not much farther!" shouted the ever enthusiastic Jacob. They had been hiking for a good while now, for at least 2 hours. "To the top?" asked Hannah hopefully. She had, for some unknown reason, decided to wear high-heels on this hike. She was already regretting that decision. "No, the peaks still miles away. I'm talking about the rope bridge that we get to cross!" enthused Jacob. Everybody groaned. "Don't get us all excited like that, idiot!" complained Stephen. Jacob frowned at him. Ever since they had gotten to the camping ground the previous day, he hadn't so much as seen a smile on that guy's face. He highly doubted that he had gotten even close to 'excited.' "Actually..." started Kurt, who had been silent pretty much the whole time. "We're approximately 1 ½ hours away if we keep going at our current pace." Groans came from all around once again.
As their group continued, Stephen began to grow uneasy. He wasn't quite sure what it was, but he felt that something was off. It mad him nervous, and he was constantly looking over his shoulder, starting at every little sound he heard. It made him want to turn around and head back to the campground, and screw this stupid hike. It wasn't like he had ever actually wanted to come along anyway. Having to spend time around people? NO thank you. He'd much rather be by himself, or even with just his brother. It wasn't that he hated people, he just didn't do so well around them. Whenever he found himself in a conversation with people, he found himself getting annoyed and disinterested pretty quickly, and just wanted to walk away. Which he usually ended up doing. He knew that this, in turn, annoyed and irritated the people that he walked away from. But he just didn't care. However, he knew his brother wasn't like that. Joshua was one of the most friendly, talkative kids that he knew. He loved meeting new people and making new friends. They were as different as night and day. And that's what kept him from heading back. Joshua was loving this hike, and was having so much fun just talking with everybody, particularly, he noticed, with Jacob. Stephen had a big soft spot for his brother. They came from an abusive family, and so they relied on each other a lot. This was a rare week of happiness for them, so he wasn't going to ruin it just because of a feeling.
Finally, they were almost to the rope bridge. It spanned across a fairly shallow stream, which made sense, because the adults wouldn't want them getting hurt. This stream was fed by a small waterfall that came down from the top of a large cliff face at the base of the mountain. The spray from the waterfall coated the rocks around them, making navigating them difficult. 'This isn't going end well.' Thought Jacob, as they traversed the rocks. 'Hannah is wearing high-heels for goodness sake. Any second now and-' His thoughts were interrupted by a small crack coming from Hannah's ankle, followed immediately by her scream. 'That will happen.'
Ashley was by Hannah's side immediately, checking out her injury. As a soccer player, she had most likely dealt with this before. After speaking some words of comfort, Ashley confirmed that Hannah had twisted her ankle. "Great. That's just perfect." muttered Stephen. After shooting Stephen a glance, Jacob began looking around for a better place for them to set her down and let her rest. He knew that they were going to have to head back, no way was Hannah going to be able to even cross the bridge, let alone continue the hike. Jacob was disappointed by that, but he knew that they couldn't just leave her there and continue on. Spotting an opening in the cliff face on their side of the bridge, he pointed it out, and then he, Stephen (who looked reluctant to help), and Ashley helped Hannah over to the cave. Joshua was getting a water bottle and the first aid kit out of the backpack of supplies that they had been given, and asked Kurt to find the easiest route back to camp on their map. While Jacob and Joshua started discussing how best to get Hannah back to the campground, Stephen wandered over to the wall of the cave and leaned against it, looking annoyed. That irritated Jacob. Who looks annoyed when somebody that they are with gets injured? Even if they weren't friends, that was just cold. But, he didn't want to get in a fight, so he kept it to himself. Pulling out his phone, Jacob checked their reception. Nothing. Oh well, it was worth a try.
After a few minutes, Kurt suddenly looked up from the map. "This cave isn't on the map." He stated, getting everybody's attention. Well, everybody except Stephen, who looked like he wasn't paying attention to anything. "What do you mean it's not on thee map? Asked Jacob, as he went over to take a look at it. Sure enough, the cliff face that they were at was marked as being smooth and cave-free. "Huh. Maybe they just forgot to mark it?" He suggested. "I don't think so." Ashley, who had been listening in, called over. "Actually, I didn't see this cave before Hannah twisted her ankle." At this, Hannah gave another whimper of pain.
"Weird," Jacob remarked. "Well, we still need to get Hannah back to the cabin. Do you have a route?" Jacob asked. He was trying to make Kurt feel included, noticing the same things that Joshua had: that he wasn't a very popular kid. "Just one more minute, I almost have it." Kurt replied.
Joshua, meanwhile, had taken an interest in the cave. While the entrance was fairly well lit, he couldn't see the back at all. It was too dark. He looked through their backpack of supplies. 'Whistle, no. Mirror, no. Toilet Paper...useful, but no. Ah, here it is!' Joshua brought out a large flashlight. He turned it on, and swung the beam around to take a look at the back of the cave. What he saw there made him gasp. Illuminated by his beam was a wall with all sorts of intricate carvings on it. Going closer to the wall, he saw that the carvings were of...well, he wasn't sure, exactly. Most looked almost like animals- though definitely not any that he had ever seen-while others even looked humanoid. He even saw one that looked like a tank with a face. In the middle of the wall were some different carvings. He went closer to take a look, and realized that they weren't carvings at all. It looked like somebody had put 6 little devices in the wall, with an indent in the rock below them so that they could be pulled out. The devices (he had no idea what they were) were rectangular, though the bottom was more rounded than straight, and were about the same size as his cell phone. Each one had a screen on the top half, and a small rectangular indentation on the bottom half. Each one was a bit of a different color. He didn't know why, but he felt drawn to them.
While Kurt and Jacob were finishing up with the map, they heard Joshua shout from behind them, "Hey guys, look what I found!" Turning, he saw Joshua standing in front of the back of the cave, shining his flashlight on some carvings and some...things...set into the wall. Curious, he walked over, with Kurt and, surprisingly, Stephen, following him. He had thought that Stephen had actually fallen asleep with his back against the wall. Ashley helped Hannah limp over, after Hannah whined that she wanted to look at the "pretty pictures." Ashley had been holding an ice pack to her ankle, so Hannah was able to limp over there with Ashley's help.
Looking at the little electronic looking things in front of him, Jacob had the same feeling of being drawn to them as Joshua had. Without thinking, he reached out towards the black one at the far right of the group. He hooked his fingers under it, and pulled. It didn't budge. Frowning, he pulled again with all of his strength, grunting with the effort. Again, it didn't budge. "It's stuck." he stated, quite unnecessarily. "Hn. Let me do it." Stephen said as he walked forward, pushing Jacob out of the way. Snagging the device with his finger, he pulled at it, and it came out easily, with a small pop. Jacob looked at it with shock, as Stephen smirked at him. "I must have loosened it for you!" "Yeah right, wimp."
Stephen looked at the device in his hand. There wasn't much on the back, just rubber grip, a strap, and a clip. While he was looking at his, the others, also compelled by that curious sensation, started trying pull the others out. It almost seemed as if each one could only be pulled by a certain one of them, as they all had to try multiple devices before they found "theirs." In the end, they all had one. Stephen had his black one, while Joshua had a yellowish one. Ashley had white one, while Hannah had managed to get her favorite color, a dark purple (she was so excited that it matched her outfit). Kurt snagged a silvery one, while Jacob had ended up with the red one. When Jacob, who was the last to find his, pulled his out, everybody felt a small tremor run through the ground.
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Daemon paused his flight as he felt a shudder go through the Digital World. He had been flying to a dark forest, where he had planned to spend the day until night came. Now however, he wanted to check on this strange phenomenon. It felt similar to a digital gate being opened.
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She was falling. That was all that was on Ashley's mind. Right after the tremor started, she had run for the exit to the cave, trying to bring Hannah with her, but her injury prevented her from moving very far. Jacob and the others had been right behind them, but then the quaking had intensified, before the floor had disappeared out from under them. And that brought her to where she was now. Falling through darkness. She didn't know how long she had been falling, but it felt like hours. And she had no idea if any of the others were falling with her, as it was too dark to see. Abruptly, she felt herself hitting a solid object, and she blacked out.
When Jacob woke up, he felt extremely dizzy. Not surprising after the long fall that he had had. What was surprising was that he had survived that fall. He had to have been falling for at least a few minutes! As he got up, he felt like his head was swirling around, but it soon went away. Looking around, he found that he was in another cave. He knew it wasn't the same one that he had just fallen from, because the rocks and dirt looked different. "Where am I?" He asked out loud to no one in particular. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he received the reply "In the Digital World, silly!"
Quickly turning around, he looked for the source of the voice. Before him stood what looked like red Velociraptor, About as tall as he was, it had a white stomach which had what looked like a hazard symbol on it, and it's arms ended in three, razor-sharp claws. It was looking at him with big, yellow eyes, it's head tilted slightly to the left. "Are you ok?" it asked, clearing up the question of whether that thing had talked or not. "You turned really white. Did you digivolve?"
Jacob wasn't really sure what to do here. He had fallen through a cave floor, ended up in another cave, and now had a talking Velociraptor looking at him. So, he did the first thing that came to his mind. He ran away screaming, sprinting out of the cave, and into a forest. He could hear the dinosaur-looking thing behind him, chasing him! 'I'm going to die!'
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He was close now, so close to where the disturbance had been. He would arrive there in a few minutes, and find out what was going on. And probably burn whatever was there to ashes.
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"All right, so let's try to get this straight." Started Jacob. He had eventually been chased down by the red raptor. After being knocked out after tripping on a rock (official story-definitely NOT passing out from fear) he had been awoken by said raptor, who had then introduced himself as Guilmon. Turns out, Guilmon wasn't actually dangerous, though who could blame him for freaking out a little? He had seen Jurassic Park, and knew what happened when you saw a raptor!
Anyways, after calming him down, Guilmon had led him to the others of his group, using Guilmon's apparently excellent sense of smell. The first person that they had found was Joshua, who miraculously still had the backpack full of supplies. As well as a little red-and-purple dog-looking thing, which introduced itself as Elecmon. Jacob was impressed by Guilmon's nose, though became exasperated when he immediately began pawing-clawing?-through the packpack to get at the granola bars that were in there. They eventually found everyone else, who all had little monster friends of their own. They had all met up where Hannah was sitting on a rock, nursing her still-injured ankle. It wasn't looking too great, but she didn't seem to be in any excruciating pain. Though, she still made a big fuss about it.
But now they were all together, they were getting an explanation. "This place that we are is called the Digital World." Jacob continued. "Yep!" replied Hagurumon, the monster who had seemed to befriend Kurt. It was essential three floating gears that connected with each other. The middle gear was twice as large as the others, and had a face consisting solely of two gear-shaped eyes and a zig-zag mouth. "You guys are called digimon." Jacob continued. "That's right!" Chimed in Ashley and Hannah's monster friends together. Seemed even their monster pals were besties. They both looked kind of like knights. They had full plate armor, golden face-plates, spears, and round shields. They would have looked super cool, except they only stood about waist high. So instead, they looked chibi. The only difference between them, was that Hannah's wore black armor, while Ashley's wore white.
"And, you're like, our, partners?" Jacob concluded. "Heh heh, he catches on quick. Only took him half a day to figure it out!" came the sarcastic voice of Stephen's partner. That Digimon definitely gave him the creeps. It was small, only about a foot and a half high, and it's body was shaped like a ball. The top half was a dark-blue, almost black, as were it's bat-like wings. The lower half of it's face, and it's red-taloned feet, were a lighter shade of bluish gray. It had a skull symbol above it's eyes, which looked a lot like the one on Stephen's shirt. And it had vampiric looking fangs in its mouth. It called itself Demidevimon.
Jacob frowned at Demidevimon. He really didn't like the thing, it reminded him too much of Stephen: sarcastic and kind of a jerk. "Well sorry for being confused after falling into and entirely different world!" He snapped back. Though, truth be told, he was actually pretty excited about this. He loved reading fantasy and science fiction books, and here he was, smack dab in the middle of one!
"What I want to know," began Stephen, causing everybody to look at him. "Is why we're here, and how we're supposed to get back." Now, all of the human kids turned to look at their 'partners.' None of them could give an answer beyond Guilmon's "To be friends!" The Digimon didn't seem to know how Jacob and the others had gotten there any more than they did. "Do you think that it has something to do with the things we found in the cave?" Asked Joshua, hesitantly. His device was in his hand, and he was looking at as if waiting for it to do something. Which it didn't, unless you count sitting there and doing nothing as doing something. "Probably. The tremors started after Jacob pulled his out." agreed Ashley. "Typical. You can't even pull something off a wall without causing a cave in." That comment came from Stephen. Demidevimon cackled at the statement. Jacob was beginning to seriously dislike the both of them.
Suddenly, Guilmon started sniffing the air, his normally large, round irises dilating to reptilian slits. "I smell a Digimon!" A creepy cackling came from the forest around them. Out from the trees, came a creature that Jacob was sure to give him nightmares. It certainly got a scream from Hannah! The thing looked, vaguely humanoid, with blood-red robes, which had eyes all over it. It's eyes were a terrifying yellow, though that was all that they could see of his face because of the hood that it wore. They could see it's hands, though they wished that they couldn't. They were a disgusting sight, a light, sickly-looking purple. Everything about this guy just screamed 'EVIL.'
Daemon looked at the group of pathetic children. Of course he had run into some immediately after getting here. However, he seemed to be in luck. From the way they were talking, it seemed as if they had not been here for very long. Perfect. He was about to blast them with fire, when he remembered the 'souvenir' that he had gotten from that failure, Ken. Having a minion that would do his bidding would be nice. He watched them as they stared at him, frozen with fear, though their partner Digimon were already in front of them, growling and threatening. Ha. As if all of them together could even inconvenience him. He noticed the tallest of the males, a blonde with a black shirt with a skull design on it, step in front of what looked like a smaller version of him. 'Probably brothers.' He mused. He considered the taller one. He had a spark of darkness, no doubt about it, and he seemed to be partnered with a Demidevimon, of all things. He was about to send out the dark spore, when the small one with red hair and glasses caught his eye. There was a core of darkness in that one, smoldering. Looking at it, Daemon could feel where it came from. Neglect, anger, and loneliness. He would do wonderfully. Holding out his hand, he willed the Dark Spore towards its victim.
Kurt was terrified. That Digimon, which he assumed was one, gave off a nasty aura. Looking to sparing a glance around him, he saw that the other Digimon had put themselves in between them and the evil one. Meanwhile, Stephen had stepped in front of his brother, Joshua, trying to shield him with his body. A pang of jealousy and loneliness hit him. He had never really had anyone that cared about him like that. He had grown up in an orphanage, and while the caretakers were ok, he had never felt like anybody liked him. The other children put him down, teasing him. He had had no one his entire life. That is, until Hagurumon had showed up. Hagurumon had immediately wanted to be his friend, though Kurt didn't quite trust him on that yet. He had had too many people claim to want to be his friend to just believe it right off the bat. He looked back at the robed figure, just in time to see his hand rise up, pointed towards him. "I won't let you hurt him!" Shouted the metallic Digimon. In a flash, Hagurumon was right in front of Kurt. "Dark Gear!" Shouted Hagurumon, shooting a large, black gear from his mouth at the figure.
Daemon saw the Hagurumon throw the Dark Gear at him. "Pathetic." he intoned, catching it in his hand. He then got a brilliant idea. Smirking under his hood, he began to infuse the Dark Gear with his own essence, causing it to turn even darker. He took the new Dark Gear in his hand launched it straight at Hagurumon, hitting him in the middle of his still open mouth! At the same time, he shot the Dark Spore at Kurt, hitting straight in the chest, right over the heart. 'Much better than having it stuck in his neck.' He watched as the other Digimon and children looked on in shock at the figures convulsing on the ground in front of them. "Darkness will cover this land!" Exclaimed Daemon, "And there is no one who can stop me!" The rest of the Digimon and destined looked on in fear as both Kurt and Hagurumon rose up, a dark aura surrounding them.
A/N: So, we finally meet our new destined! It seems like they are going to have their work cut out for them though, as already Daemon has appeared! Will Kurt and Hagurumon be able to hold off the Dark Gear and Spore? Find out next chapter in Digimon: The Fallen World!