A/N: Second chapter- Digimon, development, and a bit more humor this chapter now that I've got some of the nuts and bolts taken care of. As per always, read, review, and enjoy!

Rise of the Tamers

Chapter 2- Welcome to the Life of a Tamer

2:37 p.m.

Vernon Hills, Illinois, United States of America

"This isn't good," Ani said briefly as the bug started walking towards them. And then it growled.

"This is really, really not good," Christie confirmed. And then things went from bad to worse.

"Twin Sickles!"

"Move!" Devon shouted a second before blades of red energy slammed into the sidewalk right in front of the teens, throwing up chunks of concrete at them.

The five of them dove away from the flying debris, forcing the monster to divide its attention. Another set of energy blades lanced out towards Devon shortly after he had scrambled to his feet, missing the top of his scalp by mere inches and crashing into the base of the brick walls of the movie theater. Bricks and chunks of former bricks blew outwards over Devon's prone form along with a healthy (or rather unhealthy) amount of dust and crushed brick. Coughing, he looked up to see the monster now standing only feet from him.

"Oh, bad day," Devon managed to mutter out as he rolled to the side just as a blade slammed down into the concrete where his face would have been, avoiding what would have been a very painful meeting. The second claw crashed into ground moments after he'd pulled himself to his feet, barely able to stay on them long. A grinding noise like metal against rock told him that standing wouldn't be enough for this go around, and ran as hard as he could, slipping once and bracing himself on bloodied palms.

"Twin Sickles!" The attack hit the ground inches behind him, causing the glass that made up the front of theater to shatter, some shooting outwards toward the monster, some flying towards the now-empty lobby, with the rest falling to the ground.

Devon fell to the ground hard, a burning pain coming from his lower leg. Glancing down to see his cargo pants sliced raggedly on the back of the leg and already begin to darken red, he managed to crawl into a sitting position against the corner of two portions of wall, his leg stretched out and near useless in front of him. He turned just in time to see the monster plod its way towards him, the debris and refuse on the broken sidewalk shaking with the deliberate and heavy steps. It knew exactly what Devon knew- he wasn't going anywhere fast.

Daniel dove to the ground, scrambling behind the corner of the movie theater, with an explosion behind him alerting to him all was not well. Next to him were 3 of the others, all covered in dirt and breathing hard to escape the monster.

"What in the bloody hell was that?" He exclaimed more in shock than in hope of finding an answer.

"I have no idea," Catherine panted, hunched over, her hands on skinned knees showing through tears in jeans. She glanced up, looking around at the others for a moment. "Where's Devon?"

"I thought he was with you," Daniel panted. Another explosion, followed by the distinct sound of shattering glass pulled their attention back to the front of the theater, the four of them peering around the corner as a cloud of dust and powder rose into the air. "Oh bugger."

Ani leaned hard against the brick, taking another glance. "I'm going to hate myself in the morning for this," he said before dashing around the corner.

"Ani? What are you-?" Christie asked as he tore around the wall. "Oh God, he's going to get himself killed!" She ran after him half a moment later, picking up a two foot-long piece of pipe that had been blast loose from the building.

"Come on then," Daniel said before he pushed himself up from his resting point, but was stopped by Catherine grabbing his wrist.

"No! We've got to get Devon while they're distracting that thing," she said. "This way!" Catherine hunched over, running to a nearby car, its windshield filled with spider-web cracks from flying bricks.

Daniel shook his head once, smirking a bit. "Bright one, she is. Don't know if I like her or hate her yet." With that, he took off behind her, keeping his eye on the next hiding place.

Funny…I didn't think dying would hurt this much, Devon thought, gasping for breath as the towering creature stepped closer and closer, finally stopping just in front of him. Devon watched with a cold hand closing around his heart as the blades on its' hands began to glow once more. Well…at least it'll be quick…

"Over here, you overgrown cockroach!" Ani shouted, leaping onto the monster's back just as the attack shot out, diverting the aim of it, causing it to hit the wall above Devon, and raining more debris down on him. Holding on with every bit of strength he had, Ani locked his arms around the bucking monster's neck. His legs swinging free without some sort of grip, Ani gripped his own arms in a deadmans' grip as the monster whipped around to try and get him loose. Throwing itself back into the wall of the building, the creature turned around quickly for its size, finding Ani lying on the ground, grimacing as he clear his head. Charging its attack again, the monster stood ready this time to finish the job quickly.

"Twin Sick-" The monster was again interrupted, this time as a metal pipe flew from the side of its vision to nail it in the side of its insectoid head with a loud 'clang'. The source of the pipe stood with a smirk on her face, another pipe in her hands.

"Liked that?" Christie taunted. The creature turned slowly to her, growling. Uh oh…nice going Christie…I just made it angry. She tossed another piece of pipe, it twirling and hitting again with a blow that probably would have cracked its skull; if it was human.

"Uh oh…" Christie said, starting to shuffle backwards as the blades began to charge again.

"Twin Sickles!" The ground in front of her erupted in a shower of asphalt and dust, several pieces hitting her as she was tossed backwards, sliding against the car Catherine and Daniel had been hiding against moments ago.

Devon had managed to pull himself up to a sitting position, his leg still bleeding freely, when the other two members of the rescue arrived. Daniel just grinned in a way that screamed "adrenaline rush". "How you doing boyo?"

"Not too bad," Devon replied, shifting towards him. "All things considered." He took the offered hand of Daniel to stand, while Catherine came up under his arm on his weak side and supported him. He winced as he tried to put weight on his injured leg, stumbling and nearly falling over.

"Twin Sickles!" The monster was back again, his attack knocking the three of them back against the side of the building, part of the wall collapsing on top of Catherine's leg, while Daniel was knocked against the concrete base of a stop sign. Devon was left just in front of the pile of rubble cover Catherine's leg, pushing himself up just as the monster looked around the group and starting making its way towards the three of them. Daniel looked to be unconscious while Catherine was struggling to get a large portion of brick off her pinned appendage.

It can't end like this, Devon thought, looking over his friends. Ani was coughing and trying to get to his feet in the crushed remains of what had been a wall. Christie was slowly coming to, but had barely managed to pull herself up against the car she came to rest at the wheels of. Daniel was breathing and slightly stirring, but otherwise looked to be out of commission nearly 15 feet away from him and Catherine. Catherine was frantically trying to push off several bricks and portions of concrete that held her leg down and kept her in place. Devon himself was forcing himself to stand, ignoring the shocks of pain running up his leg, by leaning heavily against the remains of the wall. He staggered over to Catherine, helping to move one piece of rubble off her leg, but just needed to look over his shoulder to see the creature making its way toward them.

"Go," Catherine pleaded. "I'll distract him while you-"

"No chance," Devon cut her off, still working on freeing her leg. "I'm not running now." He turned as the monster stopped 20 feet away from them, staring down at the humans that had caused it so much misery. Bracing himself on the wall, Devon stood in between it and Catherine, panting heavily, too tired to run even if he wanted to. The blades of the creature rose, almost in slow motion, glowing with a sinister red energy. And then they came down.

"Twin Sickles!"

Time slowed to a crawl as events unfolded in front of his very eyes: Devon put his hands up in front of his head, a futile gesture, but a natural one. The energy shot out towards him, the air around the blades rippling as they tore through the molecules as the blades made their way towards him. I won't let it end this way, Devon's mind raced despite the apparent slowing of things around him.

Are you certain?

What?

Are you certain? Wouldn't it be just easier to quit and let it all end now? A booming voice, all around him, yet nowhere at the same time, echoed through Devon's mind as his body tried to defend itself against the unstoppable.

It would be easier…but it wouldn't be right. And I can't just give up now, not after we've held on this long.

Then you are ready.

Ready for what? But the voice didn't answer this time, as the blades started to speed back up, as did Devon's reactions. As the heat from the blades began to warm the flesh of his arms, a bright flash of light suddenly interrupted everything. Devon slowly looked out from behind his arms to see the monster in a state of shock as its attack had, for lack of a better explanation, disappeared. What the…?

Devon looked down at his hand, noticing for the first time that a device rested in it. With a round screen and a border of dark gray around it, the device sat in his hand, feeling like it naturally belonged there, like he had never put it down, with the device itself had a main color of royal blue. Looking up from the object in his hand, he looked over at Catherine, finding her in a similar state of bewilderment and holding a device identical in design, with the exception being a green and white color scheme instead. Both Ani and Christie appeared to have similar objects in their hands as they climbed to their feet, while Daniel had one near his limp hand on the ground.

Devon's attention was again brought to a new source as a cry from high above caught his ear.

"WAAAAHHH!" The cry ended as a blur of white and black crashed into the ground in front of him, throwing up more dust around him. Coughing and waving some of the dust away, Devon eventually found himself staring a catlike…thing. About two feet high and with white fur and black stripes, the creature looked up at him smiling. "Hi there! You're Devon, right?"

"How do you know my name?" Devon questioned, trying to absorb everything happening.

"I'm your partner! I'm a Digimon!"

"A Digiwhat?"

"A Digimon! My name's Tigramon and I'm here to help you!" Devon just blinked at the energetic display of emotion. More crashes near his other friends told him that other such Digimon were here…hopefully to help.

A beeping noise from the device in his hands brought his attention to it as it flashed a picture of the monster in front of him.

"Snimon, Champion level insect Digimon of the Vaccine type. Attacks are Twin Sickles, yeah, knew that one, and Slamming Attack," Devon read aloud. "Okay well that helps a bit…" He pointed it at his "partner", looking over the information given. "Tigramon, Rookie level cub Digimon of the Vaccine type. Attacks are Tiger Claw and Pouncing Strike. Sounds absolutely terrifying…"

"Hey! I know sarcasm when I hear it!"

"Well, do you mind taking this guy down first?" Devon asked as Snimon began to move again towards him.

"Not at all! Tiger Claw!" Tigramon jumped up and sliced at the insectoid Digimon, making it cry out and lash with its blades.

"Fire Mask!" A shot of flame slammed into Snimon as it flailed at the source of its pain, a small figure that looked like something out of a samurai film from Japan.

"Kotemon, Rookie level reptile Digimon of the Date type. Attacks are Fire Mask and Thunder Gauntlet," Devon read aloud, looking at Ani, who was standing up a bit shakily and looking on with awe as his partner attacked the larger Digimon.

"Scissors Attack!" A small, blue and orange crablike Digimon crashed its claw down on Snimon's leg, making it stumbled into the side of the building.

"Ice Howling!" The second attack came from a short, puppy-looking Digimon in cream colored fur and with a golden collar inscribed with unreadable markings. Devon pointed to each one of these in turn, looking at the information given from his device.

"Crabmon, Rookie level crustacean Digimon of the Data type. Attacks are Scissors Attack and Crab Meat Bomber. The other one's Salamon, Rookie level mammal Digimon of the Vaccine type. Attacks are Ice Howling and Petit Punch."

"Mud Blaster!" The last of the attacks came from a brown-tan mixed colored penguinlike creature. A bit taller than Tigramon, the Digimon puffed out its feathers and stood between Snimon and a reviving Daniel.

"Tierramon, Rookie level bird Digimon of the Vaccine type. Attacks are Mud Blaster and Rock Crusher." Devon looked at the five Digimon arrayed against Snimon- none of them by themselves seemed that strong or intimidating. Yet, they were beating back the monster when moments before Snimon had been laying waste to Devon and his friends. Certainly not going to look a gift horse in the mouth- not in the state we're in now.

"Twin Sickles!" Instead of shooting the attack towards one of the Digimon, Snimon's attack hit the ground in front of it, throwing up dust and debris in front of the Digimon. Once the dust had cleared, only the retreating sound of buzzing insect wings was any proofing that Snimon had once been there.

Devon slumped back against the ruined wall of the movie theater, sliding down to the ground as his wounded and bleeding leg collapse underneath him. Tigramon appeared a moment later, putting his head on Devon's knee and looking up at him. Devon reached over and gave him a gentle pat on the head, closing his eyes. And today started out so quiet too…

"Come on boy- give me a hand with something." Devon slid over to where Catherine still lay pinned under some bricks, Tigramon following in a more exuberant manner. "How's your leg feeling Catherine?"

"I think okay," she replied, moving one of the bricks off her leg. "Can you give me a hand with some of these?"

"'Course." Devon grabbed one of the bricks, pulling it off the pile. A few more bricks later and Catherine was free from the debris that had threatened to entomb her in a final resting place. Resting against the wall again, Devon closed his eyes to ward off the resurgence of pain from his lower leg as he noticed that blood was starting to drip from the torn pant leg of his pants onto the broken concrete. "Catherine?"

"Yeah?" Catherine looked up from Salamon, who had ambled over to her a few moments before.

"How's Daniel doing?"

Catherine went over to where Daniel was slowly coming to, lying on his back and rubbing his head. "Daniel?"

"Oy…not so loud," he replied in a thicker accent than normal. "I think me head might explode if ye do." Catherine chuckled lightly as the Irishman took her offered hand up to sitting.

"He'll be okay, I think." Ani and Christie came over at this point, their partners, Kotemon and Crabmon respectively, shortly behind. To their right, near the former entrance of the movie theater, a circular portal opened, and out stepped a young man, no more than a year or two older than any of them. With spiky hair and dressed in a dark red sweater and black jeans, he had a smile…no, a smirk on his face that exuded confidence and a tad bit of arrogance to go with it.

"Who're you?" Devon asked as Tigramon jumped in front of his wounded partner.

"Heh…thought I'd get a reaction like that." Looking around with a somewhat sheepishly reaction, he gestured to the destroyed façade of the theater. "Sorry about the mess."

"Mind telling us what happened here?" Ani questioned, his hand clamped on a flowing gash on his left arm.

"Well, what happened here was an attack by a Digimon by the name of Snimon. It was sent here for the purpose of attacking the new Tamers here before they received their Digimon."

"Tamers?" Daniel blurted out, slowly regaining the control over his accent as he rubbed his throbbing temple. "What the bloody hell is a Tamer?"

"Well, you are- all of you that is," the teen replied. "Like me, you have Digimon partners. And with them, your job is to help protect the Real World from Digimon that attack it." For now at least, he thought.

"And who exactly are you?" Christie asked, emphasizing on the question asked by Devon.

The new arrival sighed, knowing he couldn't dodge the question at hand. "My name is Ryo Akiyama. I was sent here to teach all of you in becoming Tamers by one of the Digimon Sovereigns." Seeing the mix of blank stares and blinking eyes, Ryo sighed again. "Have any of you seen the television series called 'Digimon'?"

"Yeah," Devon responded after a moment of thought. "My sister's really into it actually. I used to be for a while."

"And what about the Card Game?"

"Devon and I used to play that all the time," Ani cut in. "What's that got to do with anything though?"

"Well," Ryo said, thinking how exactly he was going to explain this in a somewhat sane manner. "Your Digivices," Ryo held up his own, which was similar to the devices each of the Tamers held in their hands, "have slots that allow for you to swipe cards through them to modify your partner's traits and attacks."

"So any card we have can be used to help our Digimon battle?" Catherine asked, tilting her head to the side a bit.

"Pretty much," Ryo nodded. "Though be careful with what you use and when- the right card can be the difference between victory and a LOT of bandages later. And the wrong card can turn the tide of battle against you just as quickly."

"Wait a second," Devon frowned. "You mean the television show is real?"

"Well…kind of. Digimon are real, but not exactly in the way the show displays them as," Ryo explained. "The Digital World is not all fields and flowers." Ryo's Digivice buzzed in his hand, causing the Legendary Tamer to look down at it. "Oops. I've got to be somewhere else now- I'll be back though to help you guys out for a bit. Oh, and by the way," Ryo snapped his fingers once. "A little gift from the Sovereign who sent me. See you guys later!"

And with that, Ryo Akiyama stepped through the portal in the ruined remains of the local theater, leaving the five newly christened Tamers in a state of awe.

"Well…" Daniel muttered, getting to his feet. "That was odd. What was the gift he gave us anyway?"

"I think," Devon interrupted, standing up and testing his leg, "it was something that made up for the wounds we had. Look- no gash." Devon twisted his leg slightly to show blood-strained fabric and a bit on his leg, but unharmed flesh underneath. Ani lifted his hand from his arm to find it in similar fashion.

"Not bad," Ani commented. "Good as new- or there abouts."

"Guys? I think we should be going soon," Catherine pointed out. She gestured to the slowly thinning fog that had surrounded the battleground since they had come out of the theater. "The last thing we need now is to be the only ones at the scene of a crime and with real, live Digimon with us."

"Exit, stage right," Daniel agreed in an impeccable impersonation of Snagglepuss of cartoon fame. And with that, the five of them grabbed their Digimon and quietly vacated the area of the destroyed theater and their first brush with things to come.

A/N: So it didn't have much in the way of humor. That'll change now that the Digimon are here, along with another part of the plot coming up. As always, read and review- feel to email me any comments, criticisms, and other assorted etc.

For the next chapter of Rise of the Tamers…

Life becomes a bit…interesting with the welcoming of their partners to the Real World. Along with trying to adjust to hiding their new friends, the Tamers have to deal with emergences in the Real World, as well as a shadowy character that threatens to throw even more chaos into the mix.

Keep an eye out for the next chapter of Rise of the Tamers!