Digimon Tamers: Crimson Ash

Chapter 1

A young red head girl was running towards what seemed to be a thick cloud of fog. She wore a simple attire of blue jeans and a shirt, white with green short sleeves and a green symbol of a broken heart on the front. A pair of red studded shoes and purple lensed glasses completed her look as she raced forwards. She was Rika Nonaka, digimon champion of the famous trading card game, and a lesser known detail tamer of the digimon Renamon. Her digivice and cards were strapped to her belt, appearing to be replica born of a true fan to the untrained eye.

Speaking of her partner, Renamon was racing along with her, sticking to the rooftops to avoid the eyes of the humans nearby. Seeing something like her would only incite fear in them, and fear would lead to her destruction. She had a tall slender figure portraying grace and speed in equal measure. Humanoid in stature yet resembling a fox with paws and a tail, adorned with yellow fur with a white mane around her neck and down her chest. White fur covered her front and ends of her tail, ears, arms and legs alike. Black claws tipped the end of her three fingers and toes and purple arm guards covered her lower arms. The yin yang symbol decorated each guard at the wrist with a purple replica upon each thigh. A thin purple line waved underneath each sapphire eye set in a sea of black, giving her a constant piercing look. Small winglets decorated each shoulder, though their purpose was unclear. Overall she possessed a frightening beauty, a fact she knew and used to her advantage time and time again.

They both closed in on the fog, each preparing for the fight that normally followed once they entered these fog banks. These fog like formations are in fact digital fields, an anomaly consistent with bioemerging digimon. Usually preceded by a blue pillar of light, this field allows digimon to stabilise as they cross over from the digital world. Usually they come seeking fights to get stronger, loading the data that all digimon are created of into themselves to reach a higher form. Most of these rogue digimon end up being deleted and either loaded by the victor, or have their data scattered into the field where it returns to the digital world. Much like how they fight in their world, only in the human world.

As they neared the field though, it suddenly dissipated. Rika and Renamon both stopped confused. The other two tamers that lived here couldn't have got to the rogue before them, they were too far away. Something else had dealt with the rogue, or this was a fluke anomaly. A third possibility was for the rogue to have left the field already, but Renamon would have sensed it as it left. So that wasn't what happened.

As the fog lifted, a lone figure was seen loading the data of the rogue that had come across, meaning it was obviously a digimon. A fact that was reinforced when it stood up, showing it to have a humanoid form with a long tail. Rika and Renamon couldn't make out any other details of the digimon before it jumped to a nearby roof, landing gracefully before it simply vanished into thin air.

"What was that?" Rika asked Renamon through their mental link. They had formed this link the day they became each others' partners, a trait of Renamon that came in handy in a lot of situations.

"I don't know Rika, but it deleted whatever came across and left without engaging us. It can't be a normal digimon, but there are no other tamers around here." Renamon sounded just as confused as her partner.

"It seemed to phase out much like you do, so we can't track it. All we can do is keep an eye out and find out what we can about it." Rika concluded, starting back for home. Renamon followed closely, still using the roofs as her preferred method of transport.

Unknown to either of them, the new digimon was still on the roof it had disappeared from, watching both of them intently.

'A tamer with her digimon, most eventful. I need to be careful now, don't want to get into any scraps with partnered digimon. That would be unpleasant to say the least.'

The digimon turned as it reappeared and took off away from the other two, avoiding the eyes of the humans around as it did so.

Renamon's ears twitched slightly, detecting a digimon nearby, but lost it before she could pinpoint the direction. A slight growl of annoyance escaped her as she continued home.

XXX

Rika was at school the next day, something she really hated besides fan boys. She was the digimon queen after all. It wasn't the people here, or the lessons themselves she hated. It was the fact Renamon could not be nearby when she was here. She kept a close watch, but had to remain at a distance to keep unnoticed. She couldn't remain out of phase for great lengths of time. Being at this distance meant their mind link wouldn't work either, so Rika had to spend the day on her own. Dealing with the fan boys as well.

Renamon was watching for the usual signs of digimon as she always did. She found this just as boring as Rika found her school life. But she knew it needed to be done. She was making another sweep with her sharp senses when she felt something. The same signal from yesterday, faint and moving just around the edge of her senses. It obviously thought it hadn't been noticed yet, so Renamon decided to keep the element of surprise. She phased out and moved within range of her partner so their link could work.

"Rika, I can sense a digimon nearby. It seems similar to the one from last night. I'm going to see if I can find out more about it and deal with it if necessary. I will be back shortly."

"Okay Renamon. Don't let your guard down though." Rika's concern was evident.

"I won't."

Renamon took off towards where she could still sense the digimon, remaining out of phase to sneak up on it. She didn't want to risk an engagement in the open without Rika's support, so information was all she was after.

She tailed the digimon for a few minutes, still unable to get a visual look of it. It seemed to possess close to the same speed as her. It stopped upon a roof as she closed in, still wary of a surprise attack. She circled around to the side to get a good look at this digimon. What she saw surprised her.

The signal she was tracking came from a red furred humanoid figure, strikingly similar to her. All her features were on this other digimon, except a few. This digimon didn't have any arm guards or her markings on its fur. Instead it had a black tribal design upon its head, continuing down over its amber eyes. A black flame pattern decorated the ends of its arms and legs, with amber claws glinting in the light. Overall it was similar to her, yet very different.

The red digimon glanced around a few times before vanishing again. Renamon had noticed its ears twitch just before it disappeared, giving the possibility it had sensed her slightly even with her being out of phase. However she was corrected when her own sensed picked up Guilmon nearby, that must have been the reason the red fox phased out.

Sighing to herself, she returned to Rika's school to inform her of what she had found.