Chapter 4: Shining One
Disclaimer: Don't own.
The business meeting finally came to a close and he walked out the door of the conference room along with everyone else. The subject of the meeting was what to do with the digimon card game, which wasn't discontinued despite the protests of anti-digimon groups, and the anime itself, which was still cancelled. The rest of the episodes of Season 3 weren't going to be released, despite how they would have served as a good warning for the future on behalf of the tamers of the world. Also, the plans for Season 4, tentatively titled Digimon Frontier, were scrapped. It was a shame since the season was going to be a Digimon Adventure prequel and the man wanted to see an accurate portrayal of his time in the digital world for once.
Then again, if it would have been green-lighted, there was a chance they would try to distance the show from Adventure shoddily like they did in other worlds.
The man pulled out a small, grey device, a D-Terminal. He had received the device from Koushiro Izumi who in turn got the device from Tanya who got it from Daisuke Motomiya's son. It still had all ten retrieved digimentals on it, the only missing ones being Destiny, Darkness, Desire, Boastfulness and Tenacity, the whereabouts of which were still unknown. Anyway, he pulled it out to check his e-mail.
He had to restrain himself from gasping in shock at the contents of it.
The man looked around the room suspiciously as he typed in a reply.
If that is the case, then we'll need to let the Tamers know immediately. Have you figured out how to contact the Tamers in the digital world yet? If not, then we might need Juri Katou's help. I would assume you applied the same updates to her digivice, despite her not having a partner. If not, then you'll need to do so.
The man felt haunted. He remembered a meeting with Jacob McCloskey more than 20 years in the future.
"He sacrificed his life so I could get away. That thing already killed my brother and then it killed him."
"I'll keep that in mind. Since I'll be entering the reality where you became a Tamer first, I'll rescue your team and then once the Unification occurs, I'll rescue mine."
The man realized then and there that he was probably going to need to reveal himself to Hypnos and risk invoking the wrath of Janyu Lee. The only thought that went through his mind at that point was a simple one.
What would Takuya have done?
Kyle heard Takato spout off some gibberish in a language he didn't know. He figured that the guy didn't speak any English, so he decided to attempt something.
"I am Kyle," he said, pointing at himself.
"Kairo?"
"Kai-uhl. Kyle."
"Kyle," Ruki said almost effortlessly. "I speak English. This is my friend Takato and his friend Hirokazu."
"Oh, good. You guys are the Tamers from Japan that fought the D-Reaper, right?"
"Uh, yeah," Ruki replied, accidentally eliciting an enthusiastic handshake from the brown-haired boy.
"Wow! It's so great to meet you guys! So, what are you guys up to in the digital world?"
"We came here to find our partners," Hirokazu blurted out, much to everyone's surprise, especially Takato's.
"Wait a second, how come you can speak English but I can't?" The goggle-headed Japanese boy asked in his native tongue. Hirokazu just shrugged.
"Hey, I liked learning English in school for some reason."
"But I thought you didn't even like school."
"Eh, whatever."
Ruki gazed at the trio and then looked at her digivice. "How come two of you are tamers while only one of you has a partner with you? Where's the other digimon?"
Kyle didn't know what to say. The other two were surprised. "Wait, you mean that two of us are Tamers?" Steven asked.
"Yeah, there are two digivices here," Ruki stated.
With that, Kyle pulled out his digivice, a grey device with a purple ring around the screen. "Yeah, you got me."
"What? You mean you've had a digivice all this time?" Jacob asked in shock.
"Yeah? When were you going to tell us?" Steven inquired, looking down at the shorter boy his age with suspicion.
"Hey, it was going to be a surprise. This thing was leading us to my partner, anyway. I was just expecting you guys to find yours there as well."
The next one who spoke, surprisingly, was Cupimon with great innocence. "What's your partner?"
Kyle just shrugged. "I have no idea. I just got this digivice one day."
Ruki had a hard time believing that and so did Renamon. "Which way is your partner?" the vixen asked.
Kyle pulled out his digivice and brought up the compass function, indicating the direction. The fox's eyes narrowed. "There is a very dangerous digimon that way."
"TysiachaGlazkovmon," Ruki said. "A digimon consisting entirely of eyes. I detected it with my digivice."
The goggle-headed American looked up at the mention of eyes, the memory of an eye opening up out of nowhere in the real world coming to mind.
"Maybe we can go around it?" Kyle inquired.
"I don't think that'll work," Steven said.
"For all we know, your partner digimon was found and loaded by it," Renamon added.
The group paused for a couple seconds before Jacob spoke up again. "So, can you train us to become better Tamers?"
Ruki smiled at the thought. "Renamon, would you like to spar with Cupimon while Takato and I teach this guy a few things?"
"I promise I'll go easy on him."
Cupimon shrank back in fear.
He missed his best friend's antics. Right about that moment, Hirokazu would have been complaining about how far they've had to walk and about how much farther they had to go until they reached their partners. There was no way they could make it in a reasonable amount of time. It was as if they had to cross the continental United States and then some to find the digimon.
"You know, I'm beginning to think that going through a data stream might not be a bad idea," Kenta heard Ryo, of all people, say calmly. "Because we might end up near our teammates far faster."
"Don't you remember that those things send you places at random," Jenrya asked. "For all we know we might end up in some evil digimon's lair."
Ryo chuckled at that one. "There are worse places I've been."
Jenrya thought about that for a second and then spoke. "So, you knew someone by the name of Koushiro Izumi, huh?"
The legendary tamer looked over at Jenrya, his normally calm demeanor changed. "I… I guess."
"And you happened to know a Ken Ichijouji as well."
Ryo was definitely shaken while Kenta was merely confused.
"You're talking about fictional characters as if they were real," the bespectacled boy said.
"They're apparently real where he comes from, hard to believe."
Ryo had to admit defeat with that one. "He's telling the truth. I… I moved on from that."
Kenta looked at his role-model with surprise. "You knew… the events of Digimon Adventure and 02 actually happened?"
"Adventure, yes, but I left before the events of 02 were supposed to happen. I can't confirm or deny anything from that series. Like I said, I left that all behind."
"But you knew Taichi," the bespectacled boy said.
Ryo stopped dead in his tracks. It wasn't like they were really getting anywhere anyway. "Have you ever been manipulated?"
Jenrya had no idea what to say. "You mean that… they used you for something?"
"Yeah. You see, at one point, all the Chosen were kidnapped by an evil digimon named Milleniummon. I was somehow the only one who could stop him. Later on, Milleniummon came back and the Chosen had this tournament. The tournament turned out to only be a ploy to train me to take on Milleniummon again. In the end, the only other Chosen who didn't know about it was Ken."
Jenrya and Kenta realized they hit a hard spot for Ryo, who continued speaking. "In the end, I defeated Milleniummon, but I ended up getting warped to another world, a world where he ruled, and I had to fight him again. It seemed like a never ending battle for me. After all that, though, Monodramon sacrificed himself by merging with Milleniummon to defeat him for good. Then I was given a choice: I could go back to my old world or I could come here. Because of what happened back then, I decided to come here."
The Chinese boy knew that Ryo had been through a lot, but he had no idea. He put his hand on the Legendary Tamer's shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll never do anything like that," he said.
"I know."
Jenrya pulled out a piece of paper. "Apparently the person who sent us on this mission was a member of the very first team of Chosen from your world. He didn't tell us his name, but he mentioned Ken having a son named Osamu."
Ryo looked at Jenrya in the eye. "The guy must have been a time-traveler or something."
"That's what I'm guessing."
Then Kenta thought of something. "Have you guys ever seen the leaked info on the planned fourth season?"
"Fourth season?" Jenrya asked.
"Yeah, there was going to be a Season 4 about the original Chosen and it was going to be called Digimon Frontier. You didn't hear anything about that?"
Both of the other boys shook their heads no. Kenta grabbed the backpack he was carrying and pulled out a few sheets of paper. "Apparently, there were going to be five main characters: Takuya Kanbara, Koji Minamoto, Junpei Shibayama, Izumi Orimoto and Tomoki Himi."
"Wait, so you think it may have been one of those five?" Jenrya asked.
"Maybe. He did say that he was a member of the original Chosen team, right? So we just have to narrow it down to who he was."
"I met a Junpei Shibayama once. He worked at a fast food restaurant near my house." Ryo just shrugged.
"So, there's a chance this group is from your world?" Jenrya said.
"Yeah. I remember him having a girlfriend who was from like Italy or something. However, I can't really see him working with us in such a roundabout way. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing a digivice on him or anything."
"Any others look familiar?" Kenta asked, handing Ryo the character designs he got off the internet. Ryo glanced over them.
He thought about it for a second. He may have seen some of them around town, but none of them really jumped out at him. The fact that the art style really wasn't realistic either didn't help matters either. "No, not really."
So far, Jacob's training was going surprisingly well. The kid seemed to grasp the concept of using Card Slash to improve his partner's strength pretty easily. Strangely enough, despite the small angel digimon being only an in-training level digimon, he seemed to hold his own against both Renamon and Guilmon even without the use of cards.
The digimon was powerful, too powerful.
"So, what do you think of this kid?" Ruki asked Takato. During the entire time, she has basically been acting as his interpreter, which was a strange thing for the red-head to do.
"Kid? He's only a year younger than us," Takato replied. "He's definitely got potential."
"Yeah, he just needs more experience, right?"
"Exactly."
At about that time, they heard Hirokazu shouting in anguish. The duo looked at the guy who was playing against Kyle in the card game.
"Come on, let's make it three out of five matches," Hirokazu said, seeing that he lost once again.
"Hey, I won, fair and square," Kyle said in response, smiling.
Ruki just rolled her eyes. "Hey, Kyle, how about we play a match?" she requested.
"Sure thing. I never lose," the brown-haired American responded. A few minutes later, he looked on in shock as Ruki took away the last of his points, winning the match against him.
"You're decent, I guess," Ruki said while picking up her deck.
"Hey, I play online all the time," Kyle said.
"Yeah, but I'm one of the best players in Japan."
"Who's the best?" Kyle inquired while gathering up his cards.
"Oh, a guy named Ryo."
"He another Tamer?"
Ruki nodded glumly before getting up and turning towards Hirokazu and speaking to him in Japanese. "By the way, this is the last time I'll cover for you."
"Hey, I didn't ask you to do that in the first place."
Takato decided to congratulate Ruki. "Good job on that match."
The girl smiled back. "Oh, it was easy. Kyle's a Veemon specialist and since I use the Renamon line, I had a type advantage even though he reached the digimon's Ultimate form. I swear, his only objective was to turn that Veemon into Arresterdramon and then protect it with modify cards."
Kyle had an idea that they were talking about his strategy. Of course, he had other decks online, such as an Elecmon deck, but the Veemon deck was his favorite for some reason, even though he was sure he wouldn't get one as a partner. He looked over at his red-haired friend who looked like he was bored out of his mind. It didn't help that they were waiting to move until dawn when they would actually be able to see where they were going.
Then he noticed Guilmon. The digimon seemed to be sniffing the air for some reason, and then the dinosaur digimon unleashed a fireball in a small patch of grass, causing another Rookie to pop up out of the brush, this time a small yellow-furred dragon with black samurai armor on its head and back jumped out.
"Hey, what was the big idea?" the yellow digimon asked, angrily.
At this point, everyone had their attention focused on the small digimon. Renamon recognized him immediately. "You were with Daemon, weren't you?"
"Yeah? What of it? I wasn't about to head to the human world. I'd rather go help fight that giant eyeball thingy, anyway."
Impmon rolled his eyes before speaking. "So, bub, do you think you can digivolve without a partner?" he asked.
"What? And you can?"
Impmon's form immediately grew into the humanoid biker that is Beelzemon, startling Ryudamon. "You bet I can!"
Ruki put her hand against her forehead. "Don't you know that part of the reason you guys were going to our world in the first place was so that you could eventually fight TysiachaGlazkovmon?"
"Yeah, so? I didn't want to wait."
Steven glanced at the small digimon. You don't think that this guy's going to be your… no, nevermind. That's wishful thinking.
As it was, the red-head was kind of jealous of his brother and his best friend, who both had partners. The guy decided to walk away from the tree he was leaning against and toward the small beast digimon. "The name's Steven," he said.
"Ryudamon!"
Nope, no digivice appeared in the air at the moment the human and digimon shook hands before Steven decided to just head back to the tree he was sitting against. "Good to meet you."
"Wait, do you have a partner?" Ryudamon asked as the red-head walked away. The guy shook his head. "How about we be partners, then?"
"And how do you expect to do that?" the red-head asked while sitting down.
The small dragon shrugged.
"That's what I thought."
Ruki looked at Takato and spoke to him in Japanese. "Any ideas?"
Takato shook his head. "I didn't even hear a thing the two said. I guess we could continue training Jacob."
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."
Kyle and Hirokazu looked over at Steven and Ryudamon, who both looked bored out of their minds, sitting against a tree. "You think they might become partners?" Kyle asked.
Hirokazu just shrugged. "Maybe, I just became partners with Hagurumon over here by healing him."
"What's the highest level he can go?"
Hirokazu shrugged. "Well, when I first met him, he was an Andromon, but then he devolved into Guardromon. That was his form during the entire D-Reaper invasion."
"Um, Hirokazu, would you be able to help me reach my Champion form once again?" his partner decided to say just then.
"Uh, sure," he said, pulling out his deck. "Man, where are my Super Evolution Plug-ins? Ah, here we go!" He pulled out the card, put his deck back in its box and then slashed it. "Card Slash, Super Evolution Plug-in H!"
"Hagurumon digivolve to… Guardromon!" The gear's new form was that of a round, rust-colored robot. "Now that's the form I remember."
Just then, Hirokazu recognized a series of characters on his digivice's screen.
"What does it say?" Kyle asked.
"Uh, it says that I don't need to use a card. I just have to say the phrase: Digivolution Activate and my partner will automatically digivolve."
"Can you do that now to make him become Andromon?"
"Let's see. Digivolution Activate!" Nothing happened. "Eh, I guess I'll still need a blue card for that one!"
Kyle thought about things. "Hey, Jacob!" he greeted, walking towards the heavy ten-year-old who was powering up his partner. "I just found something out about the digivice. Say 'Digivolution Activate' while holding out your digivice to make your digimon digivolve automatically."
"Uh, okay. This is going to be so cool!" he exclaimed, holding out his digivice.
"Kyle, he can't do that!" Ruki objected, walking towards the trio.
"Hirokazu just did it to bring his partner to the Champion Level."
Ruki looked at Jacob and back at Kyle. "Okay, try it."
Jacob then held out his digivice towards his partner and shouted. "Digivolution Activate!"
At that exact moment, Cupimon became engulfed in white light. "Cupimon digivolve to… Lucemon!" Now the digimon had the form of a small boy with twelve wings and a very serious expression on his face. The angel digimon turned around to face his partner. "It seems you have helped me reach the Rookie stage."
"Yes!" Jacob cheered.
"Lucemon…" Ruki scratched her chin. There was something very wrong about the new Rookie.
"What about it?" Kyle asked.
"Nothing."
The brown-haired American knew it wasn't nothing, but the red-haired girl didn't want to talk to him about it so he didn't push the matter. Instead, he watched as the girl walked over to her own goggle-headed friend and pulled him to the side, chattering to him in rapid-fire Japanese.
It seemed to Kyle that Takato was the only one she truly got along with here. Then a question went through his mind: Are they a couple or something?
It was at about that time that Daemon went through one last data stream. He used the data streams to move about the digital world as quickly as possible, despite how random they all were. After each stream, he then had Terriermon try to contact his partner.
"I think I got him!" the dog-bunny exclaimed at the cloaked digimon's feet.
At about that time, Jenrya finally got a call from his partner. He had never been contacted by his digimon like this before and simply assumed it to be a new feature of the upgraded D-Arc. The Chinese tamer brought up his screen to see Monodramon, MarineAngemon and a third digimon that he didn't recognize. He clicked the screen to see that it was a digimon called Shoutmon. "Terriermon?"
"Yeah, this is me. You see, this big scary Mega's giving us a ride and he wants you to tell him where to go."
Terriermon wasn't going to show him the Mega for some reason. He knew since it obviously wasn't Shoutmon who was a Rookie. Watch, they were on Zhuqiaomon or something. "Okay, I'll do that."
A few minute later, he was shocked to see the digimon being carried by a Daemon of all Digimon. "See, I told you we got a free ride."
Ryo looked the most shocked. "That's an evil digimon!"
"He's not so bad once you get to know him," Monodramon said.
"Don't worry! I know where you're coming from," Daemon said. "In fact, I'll probably go right now. Shoutmon? Are you ready to go to the human world?"
"Wait, Shoutmon's going to our world? Why?" Jenrya asked in shock.
"It's because of the digimon, TysiachaGlazkovmon. The Sovereigns are sending every single Rookie digimon they can muster to the human world to find partners in case they can't defeat their enemy. They will be randomly dispersed throughout the human world as soon as they're gathered."
"But, that's… that's got to be thousands of digimon," Jenrya objected.
"On the contrary, the number of digimon still in the digital world now number merely in the hundreds."
Jenrya didn't realize how desperate the situation in the digital world was. It was no wonder they couldn't find any other digimon in all the miles they've walked. Then his attention was directed to the program that Shibumi put on his digivice to bring to the digital world. He wondered what it was.
"Well, I better get going. Hurry up and meet with your friends, will you?" Daemon said right before flying off with Shoutmon.
"We will."
After doing the dishes, Juri heard her father talk on the phone and then hand it to her. It was Shibumi. "Hello?"
"Oh, hello Juri. I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time."
"Oh, no. What do you need?"
"I need you to bring your digivice to Hypnos as soon as you can. I might need it to contact the Tamers. You see, there's a slight emergency. I found something about one of the American Tamers that they were sent to rescue."
"Okay, I'll be down there as soon as possible. Bye!" She hung up the cordless phone and gave it to her father. "They need me at Hypnos."
Her father nodded in response. "Okay, I'll take you there."
"Thanks, dad!" Her relationship with her father and stepmother has greatly improved since the D-Reaper invasion separated them from each other. Her father has been very supportive of the girl. Apparently he learned his lesson since she was kidnapped by the giant digital abomination and used by it to further its twisted agenda.
They left for Hypnos. He dropped the girl off at the front of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building and then went to go find a parking space. Just before walking into the building, though, Juri was stopped by a tall, hooded man.
"Excuse me, Miss Katou, but I need you to bring this to Shibumi," he said. The girl took the small storage device and eyed it.
"What is it?"
"It's a message for the tamers."
That was when the girl realized who she was talking to. "Wait, you're the guy who warned the others!"
He smiled. She could see that much at least. "Yes I was. Now I must leave."
The man started walking away when she asked a question. "Can I at least know your name?"
He turned back towards her. "I'll tell each and every one of you in due time."
The man made a run for it and Juri followed, yelling for him to wait. He finally ran into an alleyway.
It was then when she noticed a tall, mysterious digimon come up behind him along with a bulky human boy with blond hair that wasn't much older than she was. The digimon grabbed hold of both his tamer and the mysterious man before disappearing. The girl pulled out her digivice and identified the digimon. Strangely enough, she didn't detect the digimon's Tamer. The digimon was a Baalmon. She saw that it was related to Impmon, a possible Ultimate form, perhaps.
She thought of the blond boy for a second and then realized who he reminded her of: Kentaro Takaishi from the third season of the TV Show. She pondered the whole thing while walking in.
It couldn't be real, could it? I mean, we know that digimon are real but the TV show is fiction, right? That couldn't actually be…
She was so deep in thought that upon exiting the elevator, she accidentally bumped into Akihiro Kurata on the way out.
"Oh, you," he said smugly, before going into the elevator that the girl had just come out of. The man sneezed, briefly. Something about that man was seriously off.
"Ah, you finally made it!" Shibumi exclaimed when he spotted the brunette walking into the room. The monster maker led the girl to the computer room, where Yamaki and the others were also waiting.
"I hear you might be able to contact the others," the blond stated.
"Maybe."
"It's a part of the new communication system I installed in the digivice," Mizuno said. "However, I'm not sure if it will work though the barriers between worlds."
"Let's get to work, then."
Before continuing, Juri spoke again. "Um, I was given something." She gave the flashdrive to Shibumi, who eyed it. It seemed to be able to carry a ridiculous amount of data, 100 terabytes.
"Who gave that to you?" Yamaki asked.
"I don't know, exactly. I didn't see his face." Other than his smile.
"Any other information?" Janyu inquired. "Where did he go?"
"A digimon teleported him, a digimon named Baalmon. He had a Tamer too, a blond boy around my age. I think he may have been Kentaro Takaishi from the third season."
Shibumi looked at her inquisitively and then turned to his computer to bring up a program. "I'm sorry, but that couldn't be possible. There aren't any other tamer in the Tokyo area. And including you, there are only four tamers in the entire world. I have a list of the four digivices they have as well as their locations. All but one of them is currently in Tokyo. And the one that's not in Tokyo doesn't have a partner that can teleport."
"Wait, you mean there's a digimon that has been in this world since the D-Reaper invasion that we didn't know about?" Janyu asked. "How come he didn't go back to the digital world like the others?"
Mizuno scratched his beard. "To be honest, I think it might have something to do with his partner having lived in the human world for years. Remember back in 1984 when Daisy claimed that a digimon emerged from her computer screen, one that wasn't like any of the others in the digimon project?"
Janyu thought about it. "Vaguely," he replied.
"That was the digimon, a Veedramon. You could almost say that he and his partner are the first human-tamer duo, though they didn't own a digivice for years afterwards until I developed the first prototypes."
"What if… maybe they have a different digivice that you can't detect," Juri suggested.
"That is possible, though I'm not sure how they could receive such a thing unless somehow they really were from another world or from the future." Shibumi thought about that for a second. "There may be a way to scan for digimon that are still in this world. I would need to somehow trace their digital matter."
"Do it then, we need to get to the bottom of who this person is that is pulling all our strings," Yamaki ordered. "How long have you two been talking, anyway?"
Shibumi thought about it. "Ever since the end of the D-Reaper invasion. One of the first things he sent me was suggestions on how to improve the D-Arc. Then he followed with actual programs and data to simulate digimentals so that Tamers could armor digivolve if need be. He only sent anonymous e-mails and phone calls."
"So, are we still going to connect my digivice to talk to the others?" Juri asked.
"Of course. I just need to connect it to the mainframe." The girl handed him the digivice which he took. He then opened a port on top and then connected the device via USB cord. Then he brought up the holographic display on the digivice and pressed a few buttons, bringing up the communications screen. The device showed Shaochung's digivice as well as Ai and Mako's digivice since it was using digivice communication on a city level. There was a button at the bottom of the circular hologram that said 'Connect to the Digital World.' Since it was already linked to a computer, all Mizuno had to do was press it, causing eight other names to pop up.
"Who should we talk to first?" Shibumi asked.
"Takato," Juri suggested. Janyu and Yamaki both agreed.
"That would be a good idea," the blond man said.
"Okay, let's do it!" Mizuno exclaimed, pressing the button on the digivice. Now a screen with a message saying 'Connecting…' was on it.
All they had to do was wait for the connection to go through.
So far, the training with Jacob and Lucemon was going exceptionally well, even though the two senior tamers had to have their partners reach the Ultimate level to be on an even playing field with the powerful angel digimon. So far, Taomon was doing a good job shielding her and Megalogrowlmon from Lucemon's Grand Cross attack. Also, it seemed the angel digimon needed to learn better defense.
"So, how do you think we'll fare against TysiachaGlazkovmon?" Ruki asked Takato. The two of them were sitting next to each other on a nearby log.
"With someone like this, it's going to be a piece of cake. I can't believe this guy's only a Rookie."
"Yeah, I know, right? Oh well, whatever happens, you'll be there. Thanks for translating for me, by the way."
Ruki gave him a smile. "Any time. However, you're going to have to pay attention better in English class!" she teased.
"Hey, I did pay attention. It's just… you know. It's hard to remember all those words and all that grammar. How'd you do it anyway?"
Ruki chuckled at the memories. "My mom made me sit in front of the TV and watch at least an hour of English television every day. I mainly watched cartoons. I've even watched the dub of Digimon."
Takato was surprised. "That's it?"
"Well, there was all the schoolwork I had to do and my mom goes to the States a lot for modeling work. I was bound to pick up something."
"I've never been out of the country. What's it like over there?"
Ruki shrugged. "Well, there's more crime. It seems like everybody has guns, though I don't think these guys do. They don't seem like the type. What, you want to go there?"
"Someday. There are a lot of places I'd like to go, if only I had enough money."
Ruki smiled. "Maybe one of these times my mom goes there and drags me along, we can take you. It would be fun."
Takato smiled. "You really mean it?"
"Yeah. Besides, you're probably one of my closest friends."
The rest of their conversation was interrupted by Kyle. "How's it going?"
"Fine, and you?" Ruki replied.
"I'm a little bored but I'll survive. It's funny, after coming to the digital world, I haven't had to sleep."
"Yeah, you don't need to eat or sleep after coming here. The only reason we did it last night was because it was in the middle of the night anyway."
"What else is there that's different from the show, other than those giant beams of pink energy I mean."
"A lot. For instance, the digital world is separated into various levels. It's quite complicated."
"And another thing: is time in the digital world faster than in ours?"
Ruki looked at him like he was nuts. "Nope." Steven looked up from the tree he was leaning up against in shock.
"Wait, you mean that the same amount of time has passed in the real world? Oh man, I am so grounded." The large red-head got up and walked up to Kyle. "You said that they would be different!"
"Hey, it was just a thought. Besides, it's not like Apocalymon attacked the real digital world."
Ruki couldn't keep herself from rolling her eyes before bursting out laughing.
"What were you guys talking about," Takato asked.
"Oh, Kyle told the others that time was faster in the digital world than in ours."
They looked at Jacob who simply stood there appearing confused.
Suddenly, SaintGalgomon appeared in the sky, coming down with Justimon, Kenta and MarineAngemon on his shoulders. He let the three of them get off before the two Megas devolved.
"There's no way I'm doing that again," Terriermon said.
"How'd you guys get here so fast," Ruki asked.
"We went through several data streams and then used Kenta's radar to find you," Ryo replied.
"It was a pretty rough ride, though," Kenta added, MarineAngemon saying a few incomprehensible things as well.
"So, I see you found the other tamers as well," Jenrya saw.
Kyle walked up to him and shook his hand. "Kyle Dibenko."
"Jenrya Lee. It's nice to meet you," the Chinese boy said in response.
Why is it that everyone can speak English except for me? Takato asked himself. However, it seemed Kenta and Ryo were actually quite confused as well. Apparently Takato wasn't the only one who didn't speak the Americans' language. So that was half and half. Somehow Hirokazu actually paid attention to the ESL teachers they've had over the years, somehow Ruki learned it from TV, school and going abroad and somehow Jenrya learned from playing video games in the language.
Why did Takato have to be left out?
At least he had Ruki to translate. The thought of the red-haired girl made him smile.
Well, it made him smile for a couple of seconds until his digivice started to beep. "I have a call?" he asked himself.
Steven didn't like being around people he didn't know all that much. And now there were far too many in the area. Six Japanese tamers and the other two that came with him to the digital world were a bit much for him to handle, especially since only half the Japanese kids spoke English.
Oh well, he thought, wishing he hadn't gone with Kyle to the digital world.
"So, what do you think, Ryudamon?" he asked. It seemed that the Digimon could understand just about everyone, no matter what language they spoke. Steven wondered how that could be possible.
"Think? About what?"
"Nevermind. I guess I should have stayed home."
"Hey, at least you met me!"
"I guess so."
Then he noticed that the others were all gathering around the goggle-wearing Japanese kid. "Hey!" called out Ruki, "We have a message from the real world!"
Steven got up, followed closely by Ryudamon. "What is it?"
"I don't know. Takato just tried answering it."
All the sudden, everyone's digivices started glowing and they found themselves surrounded by holographic projections of Juri, Yamaki, Janyu and Mizuno.
"Well, what do you know, it worked," Mizuno said in Japanese and then in English.
"So now we can communicate using the digivices?" Janyu asked.
"It seems so," Yamaki said, deadpan. Steven didn't understand any of this nor did he know who these people were.
"Okay, what's going on?" Steven asked.
"Well, we need to talk to something. There is something you all need to know. It's about Kyle's partner."
Kyle tensed up a little bit. "What is it?"
Shibumi looked the goggle-headed American straight in the eye. "Do you even have any idea what it is?"
"No, what about it?"
"Kyle Dibenko, your partner is TysiachaGlazkovmon."
Next Chapter: To Be a Tamer
Ridiculously long A/N: Anybody figure out that revelation. Man, and now I'll have to update Digital Union: Echelon. Hehehe.
Yeah, it's kind of nice having Takato rely on Ruki for something since it seems like too much she turns into a damsel in distress to be saved by her one true love. Besides, this way their feelings develop slowly. Anyway, the next chapter is a flashback chapter meant to flesh out the OCs. There are a lot of characters in this fic and it's going to take some time to get through all of them.
I know Arresterdramon didn't have a card at this point. Still, I think he would make a good Ultimate for ExVeemon. It just fits.
Another thing: yes, Kentaro is Takeru and Hikari's kid. How he ended up with a digimon of the opposite kind from his parents' partners is a mystery. No, he's not going to play a major part in this fic. The same goes for his two teammates.
The short story Digimon Tamers 1984 mentioned the very first biomerge (in the eighties!). This is my theory as to what happened to it. Also, the other digimentals appeared in the Wonderswan games staring Ryo. I'm not sure they could do armor evolution like the others.
Now, it's not likely that Frontier in its current incarnation (in our world) was intended as an Adventure prequel when it was aired, however, it seems likely that it was originally planned that way (much like Tamers was originally intended as an Adventure sequel but the plans fell apart due to Adventure 02's writing team having such a horrible time with it. Basically, it all boiled down to having two head writers with very different styles and far too many underlings along with Executive Meddling which caused the premature end of the Dagomon arc). I guess in this world, since Season 3 (also called Digimon Adventure 2027: Tamers) was a sequel, it would make since for Frontier to be a prequel this time around. 02 had to have been quite different for it to work out, though (less filler, no Destiny Stones, plots that actually went somewhere satisfying, etc).
PS. Anyone figure out the mysterious caller's identity?
