Chapter 2: The First of the Rogues
Disclaimer: Don't own
He walked though the front door of a warehouse. He knew that his employer wanted to see him again, and he was prepared for anything. Normally, he'd be out squandering whatever money he had from playing guitar on the side of the road at the nearby arcade, but that wasn't going to happen tonight.
Life was simple. He didn't have to worry about school anymore, nor did he have to worry about food. Of course, he didn't have to worry about food before this, but now he had freedom, and as he walked through the warehouse with its myriad gears in the background along with pieces of high technology that abounded, he thought about how much life sucked before coming here and accepting the offer of his mysterious employer.
"You finally made it," the employer commented from his chair. He couldn't be seen in the shadows of the warehouse, which had been abandoned after the D-Reaper invasion because of the owners getting it repossessed. The times were tough economically because of said event, and the country didn't seem to be recovering.
"Yeah, I just had to get a few things."
"Of course. It seems there's another Tamer in the north section of town. You may want to go investigate him."
"Him? You're sure that this new Tamer is male?"
"Quite certain. I monitored the game frequencies and it turns out that a Dracomon made it through into the real world. The time has come to start gathering your team. The Tamer's name is Nathan Beckenstein, the latest runner-up in the city tournament."
"Wait, he's the son of the director of Somnus, isn't he?"
"Yes. I'm thinking of recruiting his friend from New Mexico as well, despite the distance."
"Why couldn't the Digignomes have picked the winner?"
The Employer stood up and turned away from his servant. "Because, the girl who won is already a Tamer. You may know her."
The rogue looked at his employer in shock.
Nathan woke up late. Then again it was summer and summer in Vegas meant blistering 110 degree heat, so that meant that he wasn't going to be able to do much outside other than swim. However, he wanted to go out and at least bug his friend Marcus and he had wanted to get up earlier than ten o'clock while he was at it.
He woke up suddenly, jumping up out of bed. Dracomon on the other hand woke up slowly and saw his partner run to his dresser and grab a change of clothes from it. That piqued Dracomon's curiosity and he got up out of bed himself and followed Nathan across the hall to the bathroom. That was when the boy stopped and looked behind.
"Uh, what are you doing?" he asked the Digimon.
"Seeing what you're doing."
Nathan didn't like the thought of his Digimon following him into the shower. "Yeah, us human's have this thing called bathing and well, we prefer to do it alone."
"Why?"
Nathan had no idea how to explain this to the diminutive dragon that was following him and had no clue how most things worked. "We just do. It's a matter of privacy, I guess."
He was sure that the Digimon could care less about seeing him naked, but that just felt wrong. Still, Dracomon just twitched his tail and shrugged. "Well, okay, whatever that means. I guess I'll go watch TV then." He walked off and Nathan walked into the bathroom.
After he was down to his green boxers, however, a thought crossed his mind: Wait a second. Does he really know how to operate the remote control?
Upon thinking that, he ran out the door in his underwear and into the living room where his Digimon was sitting on the couch calmly, watching television. "Wait, how did you know how to turn on the TV?" he asked.
"I saw you mess around with it last night, remember. So what channel is that show we watched on again?"
"Uh, that show only comes on late at night."
Dracomon looked at him confused. "Why?"
"It just does. Let's see real quick." Nathan picked up the remote real quick and pressed a couple buttons. For some reason, Dracomon decided to turn it to a Spanish channel where a really bad telenovela was playing. The buttons he pressed caused a menu to show up on screen showing the schedule for numerous TV shows. "I know, how about Cartoon Network." He switched stations and Dexter's Laboratory was playing.
That was when Dracomon said something really bizarre. "Wow, your skin changed colors." As if he wouldn't have noticed that the night before, right? By the time Nathan changed, Dracomon was actually asleep on his bed. He was amazed that his dad hadn't found him in the morning.
"That's called a change of clothes."
"Status report?" Beckenstein requested from the girls operating the computer searching for anomalies.
"So far, no indication of where the next Bio-emergence will be," one of them, the black one, said.
"And what about the new recruit?" Beckenstein asked.
"Per your orders, Marika and Diego are searching North Las Vegas this very moment. Summer vacation seems to have come at the right time."
Diego was actually excited for once. He had found the signal for the guy's digivice and it was nearby. He was currently at the northeast corner of two streets named Craig Road and Allen Lane, waiting for the light to change so he could cross the street.
Unfortunately, his patience was starting to get the better of him as he shook, waiting for the light to actually change. Normally it wasn't this long. Gaomon was standing right next to him with a concerned look. "Are you alright, Diego?"
"Yeah, perfectly fine." When most people saw Gaomon automatically thought that he was just some little kid in a costume.
Finally, the light changed. "Alright, Gaomon, lets go get him!" he yelled out.
"Yes, Diego!" Gaomon shouted, following his partner down Craig Road and turning down a street going north into a housing development.
Diego slowed down in front of a house. "Okay, it should be about here." He walked up to the door and knocked on it, a woman answering a few seconds later.
"Hi, I was wondering if your son or daughter is home."
"I'm sorry, but I don't have any children."
"Have you seen anything looking like this?" he asked, showing off his digivice. The woman shook her head and shut the door, locking it.
Gaomon sensed something, though. "Mast… I mean Diego, there is a Digimon around here."
"Yeah, it's in front of us. Hmm… Maybe it's in the house behind this one." Diego thought about it for a second. He briefly considered climbing the wall, but realized that it would be too suspicious. After all, the woman did deadlock her door because of him. He walked down the woman's driveway and then went north down the street. He felt, hoped that it would be quicker going this way.
"Master, look!" Gaomon yelled pointing his boxing glove down the street at someone riding a bicycle with a suspicious-looking person covered in a blanket riding on the back of him. Diego looked at his digivice to confirm his suspicions and sure enough, the digivice was right over there. Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to catch up with the bike since he left his at home. The noon heat was bad enough as it was.
"What do you think, Gaomon?" he asked.
"If I digivolved…"
"Are you kidding. That woman's already suspicious about us. Doing that in front of her house would make her call the police." Diego looked at the house in question and saw the woman staring out the window at them.
"Maybe around the corner?"
"That sounds like a good idea to me." Diego and Gaomon ran a ways, and then once they were around the corner and out of the sight range of that woman, he slid a card through his digivice. "Card Slash! Super Evolution Plug-in S!"
DIGIVOLUTION_
"Gaomon digivolve to…!"
"Gaogamon." The Digimon's new form resembled a blue wolf with white fur in areas such as around the mouth. Diego mounted the Digimon. "Alright, if you head that way, the woman won't see us," he said, pointing east.
Gaogamon nodded and started running that direction and turning on another street. The housing development was pretty big, though not as big as some in Vegas.
Nathan stopped his bike in front of his friend's house which was on as street just off of Allen just before Ann. He walked up to the front door of the guy's house with Dracomon just behind him and rang the bell. A few minutes later, a tall, skinny black woman opened. "Oh, hello, Nathan. How are you doing today?"
"Oh, pretty good. Is Marcus home?"
"Yeah, you want to come on in?" she asked.
"Sure." Nathan had Dracomon on his back and just hoped that the woman didn't look under the blanket he was covered in. "I just got something to show him, that's all."
"Oh, okay, just go up to his room."
"Okay, thanks!" He walked through the house and up the stairs, though climbing them with Dracomon on his back was tough. Then he opened his friend's door. "Hey! What's up, Marcus!"
"Oh, hey! Not much, man. So, how's your 'Digimon' doing?" he asked and Nathan put Dracomon down in the middle of his friend's floor and shut the door behind him.
"Come on out, Dracomon," he said and the green dinosaur got out of the blanket that was covering him. "See, I was telling the truth."
Marcus was dumbfounded. "Oh, man! You've gotta be kidding me! How… what the heck, man! How come you've got a Digimon before me?"
Dracomon shrugged. "I don't know. Why are you asking me?"
"Oh, man, this is so cool! Can you imagine how much money we'll make?"
Nathan had a slight laugh at the though but didn't like it. "Are you kidding me? The first thing you think of is money."
"Oh, sure man. I'm sick and tired of having to save up for a new X-Box. It's taking forever."
"I was just thinking about fighting enemy Digimon that come from the digital world. Think about it for a second: I'm probably the only Tamer here. Well, there may be others, but what are the chances of them being on this side of town?"
"Good question, man. Oh, just a second." Marcus walked over to his dresser. "You know what a first Tamer needs, right?" he asked rhetorically before answering his own question: "Goggles! Just like every digidestined or chosen child leader that has ever existed. Think about it: you'll be living up to Tai and Davis' legacy."
Nathan chuckled. "Yeah, right. In case you forgot, those are fictional characters, as in, they don't exist."
"Oh, well, at least there's that one goggled Japanese tamer. You know, the guy with the red hair and the orange goggles who appeared naked on Japanese national television much to the dismay of their FCC that requires tentacles in place of…"
"Okay, I got it! I think you should do your research a bit..."
"Here you go, man," Marcus said as he placed the black, round goggles on Nathan's head. "I bought these for myself actually, but since you're the first, you can have them."
"How much are you gonna charge?"
"Oh, nothing. Just think of them as a free gift for filling out a survey at a bank."
"Gee, thanks." Then Nathan looked in the mirror and didn't really like what he saw. "Maybe I'll just wear them for battle."
"Are you kidding, man? You're the leader of the Digidestined, so keep them on all the time!"
Nathan turned to his partner Digimon, asking: "How do I look?"
"Um, I have no idea what those are… I guess they're alright."
"Sweet!" Dracomon turned toward the window and looked out at the street. He felt something. Something was out there, looking for him.
"Um, Nathan…" he said.
"Maybe I'll just put them away when I get home. I don't want my dad knowing I've got a Digimon," Nathan said, trying to take off the goggles.
"Are you kidding, man? Taichi never took off his goggles!"
"Nathan…" the Digimon Dracomon sensed was closer now. He had no idea what it was. He had felt a Digimon presence earlier, but this one was different. It was a Virus Type of sorts.
"Well, not until he gave them to Daisuke, quite stupidly, I might add. Daisuke didn't even lead the team, or at least not in the American dub."
"Eh, I just watch the subs online nowadays. It's amazing what high-speed internet can do. You've got to admit, though, he was pretty much the same in the original."
"How can you even afford that?" They heard the doorbell ring, surprising the two. A few seconds later, Marcus' mom opened the door.
"You friend Ezekiel is here," the woman said.
Nathan looked at Marcus in confusion. "Who's Ezekiel?" he asked.
"To be honest, I have no idea." The two of them followed Marcus' mother downstairs and saw a skinny boy their age with slick, black hair combed back, circular sunglasses and a black outfit consisting of a long-sleeved shirt and long khaki pants. He was sitting down, skipping through the channels and stopping at an overacted Spanish soap-opera once he saw the others.
"Hello, Nathan. How is your partner Digimon doing?" he asked.
"Uh, great… um who are you?"
"My name is Ezekiel Guevara," he said, holding out his hand for a shake, which Nathan returned, hesitantly. "I'm here to give you a purpose. You see, I'm organizing a team to go to the digital world. In a matter of weeks, our assistance will be needed and we will be headed there."
"Whoa," Marcus said in astonishment. "Wait, you serious?"
"Absolutely."
Nathan wasn't too sure about the whole thing. "So, where's your partner Digimon?" he asked.
"Just outside, waiting."
In fact, it wasn't 'just outside'. The Digimon in question, a brown-furred Dobermon was face to face with another dog-like Digimon, Gaogamon. "Turn back now! You have no business here!"
"Dobermon! Where's Ezequiel?" Diego asked, standing next to his partner.
"None of your business! Now scram!"
A woman and her kid walked past the two. "Mommy, look at the doggies!" the little girl said.
The woman was astonished by the size of the animals and subsequently picked up her daughter and ran.
Diego arched an eyebrow. "I need to talk to him. He's… I mean the two of you have been missing for over a month. Where have you been?"
"Again, get out of the way!" Dobermon shouted.
Gaogamon got between Dobermon and his tamer. "Sir, get to the location of the digivice signal, stat! I'll take on Dobermon."
"Got it!" Diego ran down the street. He didn't know why Ezequiel's Digimon was acting this way, but he intended to find out. He reached the house where the digivice signal was coming from, tired and out of breath as the two canine Digimon continued brawling in the middle of the street. He only hoped that nobody was about to head home at this time, which was unlikely since it was long before rush hour.
He knocked on the door loudly, before a black woman opened it up, hearing what was going on outside. "Good lord! What is happening on our street?" she asked, walking out and not noticing Diego, who slipped in without her notice. "I'll be it. Those monsters were bound to come to Vegas someday."
Diego walked even further into the house to see Ezequiel talking to two kids he didn't recognize. "Um, Ezequiel, what's going on?" he asked.
"Oh, it's about time you caught up with me. I'm recruiting for a trip to the digital world to save it."
Again, Diego raised an eyebrow. He was incredibly nervous about meeting new people, but it had to happen eventually. He could already see that one of them had a Dracomon as a partner. It was just a question of which one, which since the woman that answered was black, it had to be the blond guy. "Okay, I'm not sure what you're talking about, bro, but you're going to have to elaborate: save the digital world from what?"
"That I don't know yet. Keep in mind that you're going to have to leave your families behind to help out."
"Okay, I have a question," Nathan said, "Why us? Why not go recruit the team from Japan that beat the crap out of the D-Reaper? Besides, I can't leave my dad behind. I'm all he's got left."
Ezekiel smiled. "I see Diego has planted a seed of doubt in you."
"No, it's just common sense. There's a team just across the ocean that can do the job better than we can…"
"… and they don't speak a word of English… well as far as I know."
Marcus' mother stormed in, scared out of her mind. "Boys, you're going to have to get out of here! There's a monster battle outside!" Then she noticed Dracomon. "Um, what is this?" she asked.
"Uh, sorry, that's just my partner. I'll take him out of the house."
"You better! I don't want that thing in my house."
"Hey, I didn't break anything," Dracomon said.
"Let's just leave," Marcus said, walking out. He was starting to have second thoughts about having a partner Digimon. Walking outside brought them to the spectacle of the dogfight in the street.
"Ezequiel! Could you please call off Dobermon?" Diego asked.
"Holy, crap, Champion Levels! I think I have Dobermon's card in my collection," Marcus said, "or at least the part of my collection that my dad didn't throw away."
Nathan looked at his friend in shock. "Oh, man, that sucks."
"I can blame it on the one time he saw an episode of Digimon. It was the episode with the prophecy and VenomMyotismon in the first season. He wasn't impressed."
Ezekiel was smug as ever. He pulled out a card and proceeded to turn it into a blue card. "Dobermon, time to go to the Ultimate Level!" he shouted. Unfortunately, just as he was about to slide the card, a large dome of mist formed over all of them, including the feuding Digimon.
"Ezekiel, I'm going to need you to return to base with Dobermon. I don't want Somnus to get involved," he heard his employer say through his earpiece.
"Understood." He proceeded to get run out of the dome and then, using his digivice, call his Digimon out of the battle.
"We are to go back to headquarters," he told his Digimon.
"Oh, man, you have got to be kidding," the giant Doberman said as his tamer mounted his back. "I was starting to get an edge on him too."
"No excuses. Besides, we have to keep headquarters in line while our master is off in New Mexico."
"Oh, great, babysitting."
Inside the digital field, things weren't exactly going well. There was an enemy Digimon shaped like a giant, flying, green insect running rampant and causing significant damage to Gaogamon and attempting to skewer the kids on the surface.
"Hey, blond guy!" Diego called out, "What's your name?"
"Nathan." Nathan had promptly put his goggles over his eyes to shield his eyes from the mist while Diego had sunglasses on.
"Take this card and use it!" the overweight guy said, giving Nathan an evolution card.
Nathan and nodded, and after thinking up a funky and cheesy new term yelled out, "Digi-Modify!" while sliding the card through the digivice, "Super Evolution Plug-in S, activate!"
DIGIVOLUTION_
Dracomon found himself in a data-sphere that was rotating all shades of green. "Dracomon Digivolve to…!" the Digimon yelled as his skin peeled off, revealing the matrix underneath and causing him to change form into a far larger, blue dragon with larger wings. "Coredramon!"
Coredramon looked up at the Snimon headed his way and with a flap of his wings, flew up to meet him, filling his mouth with blue flame as he launched a blue fireball at the enemy Digimon. "Blue Flare Breath!"
Flight was a trait that Diego's partner didn't have. If this battle was any indication, Nathan was going to be a viable member to the team, that is, if he actually wanted to join. The Snimon took the fireball attack head on, suffering quite a bit of damage, and attempted to strike with its scythe-like arm, which was caught by Coredramon, who proceeded to dig his claws into the giant bug's chest.
Then he launched another attack with his tail, going straight for the Digi-core. "Strike Bomber!" The Digimon then proceeded to disintegrate. Coredramon absorbed the data into himself, nourishing himself with it. It was something that members of Somnus weren't allowed to do but since Nathan wasn't a member and Coredramon didn't know any better, Diego was going to let it slide this time.
"Good job," Diego complemented Diego as the mist disappeared from the street.
"Thanks." Nathan watched as Gaogamon devolved back into his lower form. "By the way, I don't think we got an actual introduction," Nathan said, holding his hand out to shake it. "My name's Nathan."
"Diego, Diego Guevara," he said. Nathan couldn't remember Ezekiel's introduction earlier other than the first name and how Diego pronounced it weirdly, so he didn't make the connection.
"Good to meet you. Been taming long?"
"A couple months."
"So, when's Coredramon supposed to de-digivolve?"
"In a few hours," Diego replied, causing Nathan's mouth to open wide in shock.
"Wait, you mean I have to wait for this guy to revert?"
"Um, don't worry, he'll do it eventually. I work for an organization called Somnus who monitors Digimon and their Tamers. Actually, just take this card." Nathan slid the card that Diego gave him and Coredramon reverted to Dracomon.
"Do you guys go off to save the digital world?"
"If only. We haven't heard of anything that it needed to be saved from recently and even if the Digital World needed saving, we wouldn't have any way of getting there."
"So, do I have to have anything to do with these Somnus guys or…?"
"Well, you have to let them know you're around and whether or not you want to help us stop bioemergences or not."
"I'm coming!" Marcus called out, walking toward the duo. His mother wasn't out so she couldn't object. "So, where's this Somnus group supposed to be, anyway?"
"Eh, it's top secret. Believe me: we've got too many people from the tabloids trying to start up conspiracy theories about us as it is."
"Still, man, I've gotta come with you, man."
"So, any other questions?" Diego asked.
"Eh, I'm just worried about what my dad would think if he found out about this," Nathan asked. "Oh, and when do we go?"
Diego smiled. "I can call a ride and we can go there now, if you want."
The car came quicker than expected and surprisingly it was a limo. The three boys and two Digimon piled in and the limo was surprisingly spacious. The only drawback was that the windows were blacked out. "You think you can set me up with a partner Digimon?" Marcus asked.
"Eh…" Diego trailed off, not knowing how to answer, "That's not something we do."
"So, are we going to, like, Area 51 or something, because the blacked out windows are overkill?"
Nathan understood the use of blacked out windows. "If the place is supposed to be secret, they're needed, especially since one of us here in the car doesn't exactly need to know where Somnus is at."
Diego smiled while reclining. "He's right."
"Yeah, I know about this stuff because my dad works at Area 51. I don't know what he does but he had to go there during the D-Reaper invasion for something."
Diego's eyes widened. "What's his name?"
"Johnny Beckenstein," Nathan responded, invoking a frightened response from the overweight Latino. "What? Don't tell me you know him."
"That's my boss! Holy crap! You're his kid that he didn't want getting a partner!"
Nathan was dumbstruck. "Wait, so my dad runs Somnus?"
"Well, he runs the Las Vegas division, anyway."
Nathan was silent for several seconds, letting it all sink in. "Marcus, brace yourself."
A/N: If you're confused about Ezekiel/Ezequiel's name, don't worry, both spellings are right. Ezequiel is the Spanish version, pronounced eh-seh-KYEL. Most of the time, though, he's just going to go by his English name.
