Chapter 4: The Other Rogue

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon.

The hot water felt good as it hit his back, went down his body and toward the ground. He often lost himself in such moments when the stress of the world around him seemed to go down the drain. He was long done with scrubbing down and just enjoyed the moment. Then it all ended when he heard a knock at the door.

"You've been in there too long! By the way, your friends are here."

Oh, crap! Of course his mother would ruin things. Oh well. He just had to dry off and put on the clothes that he put on the bathroom sink. Then he exited the bathroom and walked just across the hall to his own room where he saw both Nathan and Marcus going through his yearbook.

"Hey, what's up?" Nathan exclaimed upon seeing his friends. Diego was surprised that Nathan still had the goggles on since he didn't seem to like them that much the day before.

"Not much," Diego responded, drying out his ear with the white towel. His room was clean, like always and his bed was on one side, perfectly made with a blue comforter covering white sheets, while his desk, where Marcus was sitting at, was on the opposite side. In between, there was a window against the wall and the floors were hard wood. Diego kept his clothes in the white dresser at the foot of his bed. "So, you guys are early."

"Uh, we just have something we need to get done later on," Marcus said.

"Yeah?" The yearbook that Marcus was looking through had a gator on the cover dressed like a 17th century explorer for some reason. Oh, the plan was underway already.

"By the way, we found your sixth grade picture," Nathan said. "You had glasses, huh?"

"Uh, yeah. I don't need to wear them anymore since I got contacts last year."

"Check out the band pic," Marcus said, "Man, I hate that I took explorations instead of trying to learn how to play an instrument. Hehe, check out this dude: Tyler Wergin. I wonder who he was."

"Why does this black guy here reminds me of you?" Nathan asked.

"I don't know but he sure has one wacky last name. I mean, Lightfoot, I wonder what his ancestors were on to think of that one."

Diego just wanted this evil plan to go underway. "Can I see that for a second? I gotta show you a picture."

Marcus gave Diego the yearbook. "Let me guess, you got a funny autograph or something," Nathan assumed.

"Nope, look at this picture," Diego said, showing a group picture in the back of the yearbook. At first, Nathan had no idea what Diego was getting at. Then he saw it. Oh, how he didn't want to see it. But it was there in front of him.

"What are you talking about, man?" Marcus asked. Nathan pointed at it, eliciting a response from Marcus. "Wait! What the heck! How the heck did that get published in a yearbook?"

"Yeah, seriously, this puts our POW camp 8th grade picture with the gang signs and glum students to shame," Nathan said. "Now, seriously, I hope that chick got expelled for that. Either that, or I hope it wasn't intentional."

"Are you kidding me? These are middle-schoolers, so that was intentional, end of story."

"Still, I wonder why the publications department didn't bother editing it. All it takes is drawing a..."

"I think you've seen enough," Diego said after getting the response he wanted and getting tired of his friends' banter. "So, where's your Digimon?"

"Just outside behind your air-conditioning unit on the side of the house. We flew him here and didn't know how your parents would react with him in the house like that."

At that moment, Gaomon walked into the room holding a tray with a bowl of cereal on it. "Here you go, Diego," the anthropomorphic canine said, setting it on Diego's desk.

"Thanks, man," Diego said as Marcus got up, letting him sit down at the desk to eat. "So, what are we going to do today? We have a free day until the next mission comes up."

Marcus smiled, "Yeah…"

"Just remember, you can't come along."

Marcus held out his gray and red digivice, "Says who?"

"He's been bragging about it ever since he came by my house this morning," Nathan said. "Believe me, it gets old after awhile."

Diego was extremely surprised. "But, how…?"
"I found a blue card yesterday," Marcus said, smiling. Of course, he wasn't about to disclose the source of the card, namely a certain Rogue Tamer.

"Wow, that's great. I take it; it was in your card collection by chance, huh?"

"Oh, yeah. Now I just gotta go get my partner." Marcus pressed a button on his D-Arc, shifting to a compass. "The egg's already hatched. We just gotta go find it."

"It's somewhere to the south of here," Nathan said.

"What did you get?" Diego asked, prompting Marcus to hold up a card. "Hm… that'll be a good partner. I just know a couple of its higher forms, but one of them probably doesn't count since it's technically a dark digivolution."

"Yeah, the one that showed up in V-Tamer?"

Diego nodded. "Yup, a potential Mega form that was reached using some of Arkadimon's data. From what I remember reading, AeroVeedramon had a hard time beating the thing."

"I'm surprised you read the Manga," Marcus said.

"I looked it up online after hearing about it from you guys. I haven't actually read it, just looked up info on it."

Nathan nodded and Marcus asked impatiently, "So, are we going to go or what?"

Diego was talking on the phone as they walked out of his neighborhood. "So, why the heck does he get a cell-phone?" Marcus asked.

"I think he got that for working for Somnus ," Nathan responded.

"So, what's a phone for?" Dracomon asked.

"To talk to people who are far away."
"Man, do you have to explain everything to Dracomon?" Marcus asked.

"Just about. He's new to this world, so he doesn't know that much about the goings on here. I think I'm going to attempt to teach him to read soon, just to help him along."

"Good luck with that."

Diego walked up behind them. "Okay, here's the thing: Beckenstein knows about the emergence and already sent Marika and Claire to investigate and get the Digimon. He figured that since it's a Rookie, he'd just have them capture it and bring it to Somnus Headquarters."

"Did you tell him that it was my partner?" Marcus asked.

"Actually, I didn't, well, not yet, anyway. Apparently, the emergence point's on the opposite end of town, near Henderson."

"Dang, man, that's nuts. There are emergences there?"

Diego nodded. "Yeah. There was a small D-Reaper bubble on the strip, not that big but big enough to cause some trouble."

"Now, what I'm wondering," Nathan said, "…is why most of the emergences lately have been in North Las Vegas. Aren't we a bit far from the strip."

Diego nodded. "Yeah, but some other things have happened. Most of the emergences only started about two months ago, shortly before I got Gaomon. The latest are a bit different."

"Yeah, how so?"

"They're being set up by someone or something. Each of the emergences for the past few weeks has been in strategic points on the barrier between worlds so that if enough of them were breached, something big would come from the other side."

"How big?" Nathan asked, warily.

"An Ultimate Level, at least."

Claire didn't know what to expect when Marika seemingly came out of nowhere at the mall. The mall in question, Meadows Mall, was a massive two-story shopping complex. Claire and her friends were walking out of JCPenny when the girl walked up to her. "Hey, Claire, what's up?"

"Who is this chick?" one of Claire's friends, a brunette, asked with disdain. Marika reacted coolly, trying her best not to harbor any resentment.

"I'm just someone she knows from her neighborhood. I need to talk to Claire for a few minutes." Marika gestured and the two girls walked a little ways from Claire's friends. Claire was wearing a pink shirt and some form-fitting blue-jeans.

Oddly enough, Claire was the first to speak. "Hey, sorry about my friends. I wasn't expecting you to be here. What's going on?"

"Well, we have a mission."

"Great, I was going to go get some new clothes."

"Sorry about that. It turns out there's a bioemergence on the south side of town and Beckenstein wanted us to investigate. It's a Rookie-level so it shouldn't be a problem."

Claire nodded. "So, what should I say to my friends?"

"Well, good question. I take it you didn't tell them about Lunamon like Nathan told that one black friend of his?"

"Um, no. None of them know about my obsession with Digimon and most of them think that Lunamon's just a stuffed toy. What are we going to do about her?"

"I dropped by your house earlier; that was how I found you here. While I was there, I picked up Lunamon."

"Thank you. I guess I'll just have to say that something came up at home and I have to leave for a little bit."

"That's good enough. You're not lying either."

Claire's friends didn't particularly like that she was going with some 'ugly Goth chick,' as they called Marika. Marika didn't really self-identify with that sort of subculture, however she wasn't easily offended.

They talked a little bit while they rode; however, they didn't have much in common. Claire liked regular old pop music and boy bands while Marika preferred edgier underground alternative bands that Claire had never even heard of. It was a relief when the disguised government vehicle stopped.

"Sierra Vista High School. Funny how I had never heard of this place," Marika commented, walking out of the car with Plotmon in her arms. As they walked toward the emergence, they talked a little bit.

"What school do you go to?" Claire asked.

"Odyssey Charter School," the girl replied. "It's an online program. I had a hard time finishing eighth grade because of circumstances and I had no other alternative. You're going to Cheyenne, right?"

"A-Tech, actually."

"I wanted to go to that school. Didn't get a call back from them, though, and with the way things are going right now, I'd rather finish High School as soon as possible. It's rough out there in the world."

"I'm sure. Why did your parents…"

"…kick me out?" Marika chuckled. "My dad hated Digimon ever since he heard about them attacking Tokyo almost two years ago. You remember when Vikaralamon attacked, right?"

"He's the giant pig, right?"

"Yeah. Well, after that and later on after the D-Reaper, my dad hoped that the Digimon wouldn't come back. Later on they did, first with the Parasimon and then others after that. He joined an anti-Digimon group. He didn't like that I had all this Digimon merchandise, so he made me get rid of it. I kept my cards though and stored them all where he couldn't find them. One day, though, while looking through my collection to figure out new strategies for my deck, I found a mysterious blue card."

"That's just like how I got mine."

"Yeah, I've heard a lot about other kids getting Digimon through blue cards. I didn't have a Digimon at first, just an empty digivice. However, when my dad found it, he immediately accused me of bringing a Digimon into the house."

"Then he kicked you out?"
"Not before giving me over to some rogue organization. Believe me; you don't want to hear about it. However, I escaped and now I'm here."

"I'm glad my parents don't seem to mind much. They just don't want me fighting with Lunamon."

"Who can blame them?" Marika smiled at that. "At least they care."

They were at the location of the bioemergence. It was in the middle of the school gym. Unfortunately, it was locked. "Do you have a hairpin?" Marika asked.

"Sure, here you go," Claire responded, giving the other girl something out of her hair. Marika took it and messed around with the lock a little until it clicked.

"Marika used to do this to sneak into her house," Plotmon said.

"Only a couple times," Marika said. "I had to get my cards sometime. Meanwhile, I borrowed some food."

The Digimon wasn't there yet. The digital field was just started to form and was taking its time, right there in the middle of the gymnasium. Then it burst forth, tossing the two girls backwards. "Great! I hate it when emergences are like that!" Marika exclaimed, getting up despite being slightly bruised. Unfortunately, as she was getting up, a large blue Digimon walked in front of the doorway. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me. That can't be what emerged."

"You're right, Marika," she looked behind her and leaning against a tree was Ezekiel, smiling smugly and adjusting his sunglasses. "That, my lady, is Veedramon, Cody's partner."

Marika looked up on the room and saw an extremely muscular boy with brown hair looking down at her, smiling. She could tell from his glazed eyes that he was half-mad.

"You've got a teammate. How come we didn't detect his partner's emergence?"

"It emerged out of your jurisdiction. Keep in mind, though, that Veedramon's a powerful champion level, strong enough to take on Ultimates."

Cody jumped down. "So, ready to get it on?" he shouted, overly macho and grinning incessantly. Marika looked at his black and blue digivice, which was attached to his belt. He was wearing a white, tucked-in muscle shirt and some blue jeans and was above average in height, taller than both her and Ezekiel.

"You're a monster," Marika told Ezekiel.

"Yeah? I'm only working toward the goal of saving the digital world. As they say, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

Marika rolled her eyes and slid an evolution card. "Claire, do you have an evolution card you can use?" Marika shouted.

"No, all my cards are at home," Claire replied, having not expected to be stuck in such a predicament. Marika tossed the card at her and she caught it.

"Card Slash! Super Evolution Plug-in S!" they yelled, sliding their cards through their digivices: Marika's was gray and black while Claire's was gray and white.

DIGIVOLUTION_

"Plotmon digivolve to…" Plotmon turned into a taller, more humanoid form with four wings, a couple swords, one big, one small and a staff with what looked like a small Patamon on top. She also had a red scarf going around her head and neck and a golden mask covering her eyes. "D'Arcmon!"

"Lunamon digivolve to…" Lunamon turned into a larger, rabbit-like form with more ears than originally, blue armor covering her upper body with appendages sticking out, black gloves adorned with crescents and a metal helmet surrounding a crescent on the front. "Lekismon!"

First, before anything else, Marika had to call for backup, so while avoiding the two boys that were in front of and behind her; she pulled out her black cell-phone and called Johnny Beckenstein out of regulation.

The three boys were at the game shop playing demos of coming releases when Diego's phone rang, the ringtone being 'Wherever you may go' by 'The Calling'. "Hello?"

"Hello, Diego. It turns out that you will be needed. The girls have encountered two rogue tamers who are blocking the way into the high-school gymnasium where the emergence took place. Where are you?"

"At the game store over off Craig and Simmons."

"Got it. We're sending a vehicle to pick you up. Anything else?"

"Yeah, I've got the newly emerged Digimon's tamer with me. You want me to bring him along?"

"How did you find him so fast? And why isn't he over on that side of town?"

Diego shrugged. "I have no idea. He showed me the digivice, though. I have Nathan with me, too."

"Good. All three of you can go down there. I'll talk to you later."

"Alright, bye." Diego hung up. "It turns out we have a mission. The girls are having trouble with two enemy tamers' Digimon and wanted backup."

"Your brother went ultimate, didn't he?"

"I don't know the specifics, but it wouldn't surprise me. Still, he has another tamer working with him. I have to know who would work with him and why."

"You think that maybe he's working for somebody?" Nathan asked.

"Like on that movie the other day," Dracomon added. From over the counter, Eric looked at the little green Digimon, half-chuckling.

"Like my brother would work for anyone. Well, he worked for your dad, but that was only because I did and because it was the only way for him to give his partner some experience. Oh, and he thought Marika was hot."

"Hey, she kind of is," Nathan said.

"She couldn't be hotter than my breath," Dracomon commented.

"Not that kind of hot, Dracomon!"

"So, what card are you looking at, Eric?" Marcus asked the guy behind the counter, who was looking at a brown dragon card with massive wings, startling him.

"Just a card," he said, nervously adjusting his glasses.

"Examon, huh? All I know about him is that he's a royal knight."

Eric nodded before smiling. "Yeah, a powerful one at that."

The fight was taking too long and the two girls were already exhausted from the heat. They also had an unexpected feature to the battle that they weren't expecting: the tamers fought them while the Digimon duked it out. For Marika, it wasn't too bad, since she studied martial arts at one point as a child. Claire, on the other hand, didn't. Because of this, she had to dodge every strike from Cody who, thankfully, wasn't that fast to begin with.

Soon, though, Claire thought of something. By chance, she had come across a fallen branch beneath one of the trees bordering the soccer field. She picked it up and swung it at Cody, who backed up. "Okay, I don't know what your problem is, but you're going to have to back off, okay?"

"Oh, and leave a cute girl like you behind. Forget it!" Cody lunged forward and Claire struck him in the side.

"Ow! That hurt, lady!" he yelled.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Then the hulking idiot took advantage of the situation and grabbed Claire's arm, causing her to drop the branch. "What the…? Like that's supposed to work!" She kicked the guy in the stomach and he recoiled, causing her to grab the branch that was lying on the ground and attack the brute that confronted her.

Her partner, on the other hand, wasn't doing so hot. Veedramon's strength was only part of the reason why. Her attacks involved throwing balls of water at the opponent which were oftentimes warded off by the blue dragon.

Thankfully, the giant rabbit did have a bit of a trump card. Veedramon was strong, but wasn't all that fast and, taking advantage of this, Lekismon was able to get out of Veedramon's sight for a couple of seconds, long enough for it to be too late for the blue dragon since she had jumped into the air for one of her attacks. "Moon Night Kick!" she yelled, falling down to the ground and landing right on top of Veedramon, slamming him to the ground.

However, the blue dragon quickly got up and counterattacked. "V-Breath Arrow!" he yelled, shooting a blue, arrow-like beam at the Digimon, who barely got out of the way, getting a nasty slice in the arm in the process.

Marika's partner, D'Arcmon, was actually doing decent due to having a flight advantage. She flew up in the air, causing Dobermon to attempt to follow by jumping up a tree, and then she proceeded to attack using one of her swords: La Pucelle, and yelling out: "Dancing Sword!" Her attack caused Dobermon to fall to the ground in an effort to evade it, yet the oversized dog landed on his feet.

"You see, Marika, why Tamer battles can be so exhilarating?" Ezekiel asked. "You have to fight on two fronts, not just one like with bio-emergences."

"What if one side is outnumbered?" Marika asked.

"Well, in that case, the tamers would just have the Digimon battle for them."

"You know, Ezekiel, I wonder what's gotten into you. You seemed so cool when you joined, but now…"

"How am I not cool?" Ezekiel asked. "I'm now independent from the government puppet that is Somnus . Kind of ironic that it was originally set up by a Japanese man who was originally one of the Wild Bunch who created the Digimon back in the eighties."

"Whatever you say. You're working for someone. I can tell that much. Who is he?"

Ezekiel smirked while dodging another blow from Marika. "Why do you say that?"

"Because this whole thing, all these bio-emergences, all your shenanigans, you couldn't possibly be doing it all on your own. The tech needed is incredible."

"Yes, that's true. How, though, are you sure that the bio-emergences are caused by who I'm working for, if that person exists?"

It didn't take long for Marika to think up the answer. "Simple, how come a bio-emergence popped up out of nowhere when Dobermon was fighting Gaogamon yesterday?"

"I'm pleased that you were able to put things together."

"Tell me who it is. Is it one of the Wild Bunch gone rogue?"

"Well, no. The identity of my employer is simple, but complicated, and you won't be able to figure out who he is by name."

"Give it to me!" The words were hardly out of the girl's mouth when Gaogamon appeared with Coredramon close behind.

"Got tired of waiting for a ride," Coredramon commented. "So we're here to join the party!"

Marcus got off of Coredramon and landed on the ground, along with Nathan. Using this opportunity, Ezekiel decided to ask Marcus a question. "So, ready to join?"

Marcus wasn't too hesitant. "Are you kidding me? You're trying to fight girls. There's no way I'm joining a group that dirty!"

"Wait, so you mean the blue card you got was from…" Diego looked at Marcus in shock.

"Whoa, way to take advantage of the villain, Marc!" Nathan high-fived his friend.

"Oh, yeah, man!"

"If that's the case…" Ezekiel pulled out a card and formed yet another blue card. "…then it's time to get serious." Ezekiel was about to slide the card when he got tripped by Marika, causing him to drop the card in the process of falling on his back.

Diego proceeded to slam his younger brother to the ground. "Gaogamon, support Dobermon!" Diego ordered, while attempting to grab the blue card that his brother dropped

"Oh, brother, did anyone ever bother telling you that you're so fat?" Diego rolled his eyes at the thought. He had enough stress at the moment, being irritated at Marcus for the whole thing. If Marcus hadn't have accepted the blue card, this fight probably wouldn't have happened.

"Coredramon! Go for… Veedramon?" Nathan ordered in shock, seeing an old friend of his go after a girl a mere twenty meters from where he was at. "Cody! What the heck do you think you're doing?" he yelled out, causing the hulking madman to glance his way. The split second was just enough for Claire to hit him in the head.

Marcus, meanwhile, was taking advantage of the situation. He went into the gymnasium to find his partner nowhere in sight, causing him to pull his digivice out of his pocket to follow the Digimon's signal.

The digivice led the African-American tamer to a far corner of the gym, where the Digimon was hiding behind some bleachers, scared. It was bear-like, wearing a red baseball cap and had red fur.

"Hey, there, little guy. I'm not here to hurt you." Marcus showed the bear his digivice. "See, Bearmon, I'm your tamer."

The small bear tackled him out of joy. "You came!" he yelled.

Finally, despite all the chaos surrounding the place, Marcus had his partner.

A/N: The scary thing is that looking things up, Bearmon and Gaomon's Champion forms are a bit similar. Thankfully, the Ultimate and Mega forms are a bit different. I also considered giving him Coronamon, but didn't really like the design of that digimon.

For the most part, the world of this fic is modeled after the year 2003. In case you were wondering, the yearbook in question that the tamers were looking at does exist. It has a disturbing picture in it too.

I do have to apologize for not focusing as much on the digimon as I should. I'm hoping to change that.