- Diplomatic Moves -

They were going to try and get the government to help. Tai wasn't sure what exactly they were going to actually get from that plan, but he'd been considering how to handle the option ever since Jane rather forcefully pointed out she wanted to do it, and she was ready to go forward now that something had happened in her world. With Upload cooperating directly, the Digimon Emperor only growing stronger, and the increasing non-human exposure they were causing it really did need to get done one way or another for his world's sake too.

Chikara Hida had used his relationship with the police to get in touch with people discreetly about the whole thing. That had gone a long way to finding the answers that Jane wanted about what plans the government had for if things went worse, and also some contact information for her own team of people from the pokemon world to use to reach out to the right people to set something up.

Tai looked over at Agumon nervously, and cringed at the sight of his brother in a suit that even DSS thought wasn't the best idea. In fact Jane and the two people she was bringing both looked uneasy with that idea too. "Are you sure you want to go to this like that?" she asked the dinosaur. "We've got confirmation that the mayor's representative, someone from the local police, and the leader of the government's monster team will all be there."

"So there is one of those?" the pokemon police officer asked. They called her Jenny, but it wasn't clear if that was her first name, last name, or some strange kind of title. "Because there hasn't been any indication from the reports I've read about them."

"We only learned that they existed at all from our work to setup this meeting," the Pokemon League representative Jane was also bringing noted. "From the sounds of things the 'Monster Response Team' is either very secretive, or not very large."

"Or overly focused," Jane complained. "They could be like DSS, and mostly working on stuff without telling people."

"Are you sure we should wait to cover the stuff you found out about their problems until after this meeting?" Tai asked nervously. Jane had come back from helping with Quagsire's normal job with a determined attitude to deal with digital world problems for both of their worlds at once.

"No, but I want to get this started quickly, and even just your issues are a lot to explain," the Champion replied. "Also I think their questions might help me explain some of the basic things that they wouldn't understand about how our stuff works, but you're too knowledgeable about your own digital world to spot beforehand."

"Joe's said something similar about the difference between digimon medicine, pokemon medicine, and our medicine," he admitted unhappily.


Ryuuji Kubo looked at his Monster Response Team's office with a bit of despair. They had three small rooms in an old building that was barely maintained, a far cry from the start of the team back in the days right after the major attack about four years ago. Back then they had been eager and certain that they could establish a group to actually prevent a third disaster of that kind. Back then they had their own building, and over fifty people working on the problem.

Two years ago they had no results, no new data, and new issues they couldn't actually do anything about. So they suddenly started to rapidly lose people, space, and funding to other groups that actually had something productive to do. Now they had just this small space in a totally different building, a budget so small that they were using alternative sources to just keep replacing equipment, and five people total. One old man that had seen it all, one technical expert that could almost claim results, their public relations expert who actually had productive stuff to do, a receptionist with so little of her intended job to do that they had started sending her to investigate things, and him, their leader who's closest encounter with a monster had been watching the big battle four years ago from several blocks away.

Kazuo Matsushita had been too old for his job back when the Highton View Terrace incident happened, after all his grandson Akira had been eight back then, but he was the last person they had who worked on that particular event. The eldest member of the team was effectively retired, and none of them even had a reason to think this job was anything but somewhere to spend time.

Kurou Ogawa was currently neck deep in one of his bargain bin computer systems that supposedly were critical to finding the monsters. The only reason that they put up with his many attempts that resulted in broken equipment was the assurance from other groups that what he was attempting wouldn't normally break things like that, and as a result it looked enough like evidence of what Kurou said he was after to at least justify the attempts.

The largest pile of actively used papers in the office belonged to Kichiro Ono. Most of them were drawings for his art books full of monster designs that honestly had nothing to do with their job, except that Ono actually justified working on them while on the clock by filling out their funds with some of the profits. The public relations expert often joked that they all just worked for him.

Finally there was their secretary, Aiko Hoshino, who had just arrived from looking into the odd story that Kazuo's grandson had told them a while back about the drummer of the band the kid was in. Apparently the other kid's mom ran a group that claimed to connect people to past lives, and a few months ago the drummer had mentioned that some of the people who went through it experienced being a monster of some kind. "Why exactly did I just listen to some woman gush about how her kid used to be someone else's pet dog?" she asked the group darkly.

"Because my grandson has been a bit too quiet about that for a couple of days," Kazuo grumbled and continued to revisit old reports. "Are we talking normal dog or monster dog?"

"Honestly it sounded more like being a pet wolf, which is why I'm wondering if the kid is just humoring her with his band's name," Aiko explained. "Didn't fit with any of our stuff though. Sounded like a totally different world."

"Make a report on it then, and maybe we can get paid for finding something to use as an excuse for any new sightings," Ono sighed. "You know, it's odd how much harder it is to pay for things now that we actually have a bit of work to do. The Polite Snake and these other sightings might barely need us to do anything, but we still didn't get any support for even that."

"Hopefully this meeting I've been called to is to fix that issue," Ryuuji told his team. "Apparently something has happened to have the mayor interested enough to bring us in directly." He looked at the short stack of documents he had on their recent developments. "With any luck they are finally taking us seriously about this being a new issue."

The four others looked at him dubiously. "Let me know if they approved getting another server," Kurou said sarcastically. "Or if they're finally shutting us down."


The office was in the middle of town, fairly normal, and took three attempts to get both Tai and Jane to the right floor because of their young age. This was honestly a bigger problem for the three pokemon world people than it was for him, and the leader of the Digidestined was actually a bit worried about how seriously the two adults Jane brought with her were taking that complication. He was now fairly sure he had underestimated how important Champion Trainers were to that world.

As soon as they were in the room Tai let Agumon out of his pokeball, and their entire group was quite relieved that it hadn't messed up the digimon's suit. They were there first, which had been the plan to give them time to setup their presentation and get around the documents they had made for this meeting. "So, this isn't going to be your mayor, right? Just someone who works for them?" Jane asked for the third time just today. It apparently was a lot easier to talk directly with a city's leader in their world, and a part of him was still really worried that Jane might actually be more of leader in her world than they said she was.

"He's a busy guy, and I'm pretty sure that he will need more proof before he looks at this stuff himself," Tai told her as they got started getting the room ready.

"Not to mention that even the people we know that knew we existed didn't really have a good idea of what happened," Agumon added a touch sadly. "We're still explaining things to our parents."

"Some of that you're explaining to me too," Tai noted with a laugh. "But you should remember that we're not entirely used to monsters yet, let alone these guys."

"Great," the League rep grumbled. "Champion Felsic, I have the basic pokemon information guidebooks you recommended, but if monsters are that uncommon here they might still be a bit too high level."

"They apparently don't have any at all according to the reports from the item storage company," Officer Jenny replied while giving him a look like she expected him to refute that. "Which if true means that we might be in for a meeting that is mostly just explaining what a normal monster attack looks like before we can even start on these new ones."

"That's why we're here early to setup all this stuff," Jane dryly informed the two adults as she got out another stack of papers.


Ryuuji was not sure about them meeting with people he'd never heard of in an office building that was clearly selected because it was not a normal government office. He was even less sure about the presence of the local chief of police, who definitely knew more about whatever was happening now than the mayor's representative. Least of all was the fact that this wasn't about his group's current activities, but rather a call to a job for them to do that he was not properly informed was happening.

"Mr. Kubo, I am sorry for dragging you away from your work," the representative said to him as they approached the room, clearly not sorry at all. "But you are in charge of dealing with things like kids seeing monsters around, right?"

He very badly wanted to point out that they had been just recently visited by a massive talking snake that was traveling with what honestly sounded like another talking snake that could at least mostly look human. Ryuuji looked at the police chief for help, and cringed harder at the amused look on the other man's face.

The sight they were met with when they entered the conference room was not at all what Ryuuji Kubo was expecting. There were two adults in the room, one a man with hair an unusually deep shade of red with black tips, and the other a blue haired woman in an unfamiliar uniform that looked almost like a police officer. Between the two of them was a young girl with a very serious expression that did not fit her age. Nicely stacked sets of paperwork that were worryingly tall lined the room, with three seats clearly set aside for his group with files already placed in front of them.

The remaining two people in the room were the ones that made the bottom drop out of Ryuuji's stomach. The second of the two kids was Taichi Yagami, one of a list of people small enough for the Monster Response Team to actually know the faces of. Specifically the set of people who were involved in both the Highton View Terrace event, and the larger one four years ago. Even without anything else the sight of someone from that list would have made Ryuuji consider the situation with complete seriousness, and the orange dinosaur in a suit next to the kid was almost not needed for him to know this was the big one.

The monsters scales were a very familiar shade of orange to the leader of the MRT. He would never forget the three massive monsters he saw fighting in the ruins, and this dinosaur had the same scales as one of them. It still was enough of a shock to see that he wasn't able to keep from reacting as badly as the mayor's representative to the appearance of the monster, and even the police chief looked uneasy with the presence of the inhuman creature.

"Hello," the young girl said cheerfully. "I am Jane Felsic, the latest Flameheart Champion. This is Officer Jenny of my world's International Police, and Zane who is acting as a representative for the International Pokemon League. We are here along with the leader of the Digidestined to discuss the current issues with digital monster threats to our two worlds, and hopefully establish ways to work together to develop effective methods of dealing with those threats."

From the amused look on the police chief's face and the embarrassed one on the representative s Ryuuji was fairly sure the two people with him had a better idea of what she meant than he did. "Taichi Yagami, Digidestined of Courage," the other kid present introduced himself. Although he sounded like he found the title awkward, unlike the girl who had sounded far more serious and proud about her own strange title. "This is my partner digimon Agumon," he then introduced the monster, who said hello to the three of them. "We have a lot to cover, and we weren't sure how much you already knew." The young man was clearly searching their faces to try and figure that out.

"I've heard a little from Chikara Hida," the police chief noted. "Along with a rather impressive display of how monsters are quite real." Taichi looked a little unhappy with that explanation for some reason, while the mayor's representative looked a bit betrayed.

The two other adults in the room were acting a bit strangely. Both of them looked like they were just waiting for more important people to bring them into the conversation instead of being in charge of the two kids that were with them. "Alright then, let's start by explaining the situation overall," Jane said as she nodded at the 'League' representative, who honestly looked like a subordinate as he started up the projector in the room to show an image of three spheres. Two were very close together, one marked 'Here', the other 'Digimon World', while the other sphere was much farther away and marked 'Pokemon World'. "I'll start with the most important detail. Other worlds exist, and they can and have interacted with your world. Myself and my team are a direct example, as we are all from the Pokemon World," she added pointing at the more distant sphere. "But the important example is the digimon world, which is the home to the monsters that have invaded your world in the past."

"That is where we come in," Taichi said nervously while 'Agumon' stood a bit straighter. "A group from the digimon world 'recruited' the Digidestined to fight the groups that led those invasions, and paired us up with digital monsters from that world to fight those enemies."

A rather strange explanation of the background behind that incident followed, and it was rather concerning how the 'Digidestined' claimed that the attack on earth was only a minor part of the overall conflict. The two adults mostly joined in when the young girl had something she wanted them to explain, and it was increasingly clear that he wasn't the only one who wanted them to take over for the kids. Admittedly he wasn't going so far as to direct questions to the two of them instead yet, but by the time they reached the actual invasion the mayor's representative was clearly only asking questions to the adults. This was noticeably not helping the mood of the three who claimed to be from another world.

"Officer, is this sort of travel common in your world?" the man asked after Taichi finished explaining the risks they took with activating a gate to earth from the digimon world.

The room suddenly became much hotter as Jane's body suddenly expanded outward without warning into the shape of a large orange dragon with a flaming tail. "Enough," the new monster said strongly, but not angrily. "If my age is that much of a problem in this world then you can put up with my true form too."

"Champion, generally you don't just show humans your pokemon form," Zane said as he also transformed, this time resulting in a large fox monster, and the third member of their group actually looked just as surprised by that second transformation. "I did mention I was selected for this role mostly for my unusual nature didn't I?" he asked the otherworldly Interpol Officer a bit jokingly.

"I had hoped that the news I had heard about this job mostly involving talking monsters only meant these 'digital monsters'," she replied a bit too loudly.

"Please focus," Jane asked with a glare that was a lot more impressive now. "We had just reached the part that actually involves this world directly." Ryuuji did not think that would be enough to get things back on track, mostly because he was too busy pressing himself against the wall due to the sudden appearance of a dragon in the room where a little girl had been, and he was taking that better than his two companions.


They had run over the planned time, and Tai was fairly sure that the only thing they had accomplished was confusing someone the mayor sent to talk to a kid with a silly story. The good news is that the guy had grown far more serious after Jane's display of transformation. At the moment the guy looked like he had a serious problem with no good solutions, and he kept shooting glances to the Monster Response Team Leader that had actually shown up.

"Mr. Kubo, how quickly can your group begin working with these people on this issue?" the representative asked the MRT Leader after they covered the last thing they could fit in the day.

"We can start immediately," Mr. Kubo replied with a tone that said the guy did not think they could help at all. "This honestly covers all of our ongoing projects, and it is a break we needed." Tai had watched the man go from pale to depressed as they explained, and he was starting to worry that the MRT was not going to be the kind of help the Digidestined were hoping for after finding out they existed.

"Chikara downplayed things a lot more than I had thought," the police chief said and looked at the Kubo guy. "I'll definitely recommend that your group gets more support to deal with this."

"Would it be an option to meet with the rest of the Monster Response Team directly?" Tai asked as his group began to pack up. "I want to get things going with that as soon as possible too."

"Tomorrow, there should be time for that tomorrow," the other team's leader said with a sigh.


"Well Ryuuji, how'd it go?" Ono asked as soon as he got back to the office. The public relations specialist putting down his art pad with an amused grin.

"Get everything cleaned up, we have visitors tomorrow," Ryuuji replied a bit brokenly as he tried to figure out how this was going to work. "Kazuo, it looks like your grandkid might be in a band with someone who's fighting a monster war in another world, and we just got the job of figuring out how to help some kids fight it."

That stopped everything in the room rather quickly, and gave the leader time to hand the pile of paperwork he had brought back to the oldest member of the team. "Wait, what?" Kurou asked and abandoned some computer project to look at what he had brought back over Kazuo's shoulder. "The meeting was about the Highton View Eight?"

"Taichi Yagami was there, along with the orange dinosaur that I saw fighting," he explained tiredly. "Apparently these monsters can grow giant, which is why they appeared out of nowhere. Oh, and they're from another world, and there is a different other world that the snake monsters came from."

"Kurou is right about these being computer monsters?" Kazuo asked dully as the old man scanned the paperwork.

"I've told you that there was clear evidence that they arrived using computers!" the tech complained, and then froze. "Wait, we have conformation. Please tell me that you got some info on how to get past the protections."

"So, does this mean I'll finally be able to do my actual job instead of being an extra person to send out to chase rumors?" Aiko asked dryly as she handed him her report on the past lives thing. "I don't suppose they talked about 'pocket monsters' too?" she asked sarcastically.

"I've just met two of those," he replied before his tired mind caught up with the fact that she should not have known that specific term. "The past life thing involves pokemon somehow?"


"So, the plan is for us to give some of them a tour after you're done at their place?" Izzy asked over the phone as Tai approached the building that apparently held at least the core of the Monster Response Team.

"That's my plan, but it depends on how things turn out," Tai told him and double checked the building. It was apparently the right place, but from the signs there seemed to be at least a half dozen businesses here. He admittedly was now rather used to having too much space in his own office building.

From there he had to be directed to the right floor by one of the overall building's receptionists, who apparently thought that the group was a bunch of artists that made monster themed stuff. After an elevator ride the Leader of the Digidestined had started to worry, because the other company on this particular floor took up a lot more of it than he had expected.

"Taichi, you're here already," Mr. Kubo said as he approached the doorway. "We might have found a new issue."

"Please tell me it has something to do with Yamato Ishida's band," Tai sighed. They knew that Yutaka had known about pokemon somehow, but Matt had not seen the kid since the band's visit to their base. "One of them somehow knew about pokemon before anyone told him."

"That, that is exactly the problem we've just discovered," the guy replied with a sigh. "His mother is doing something with past lives, and apparently the kid remembers being something called a 'Lycanroc'."

"That means we have to do something about that," the Leader of the Digidestined complained dully. "Hopefully it can wait at least a little while. Are you ready to show me this MRT office?"

"The only office," Mr. Kubo specified. "We kind of have been in a bit of a slump. The Monster Response Team doesn't draw a lot of resources given how few attacks there has been."

The door opened to reveal a rather small amount of space from what Tai could see. A very small amount of space. He could already see how easily the set of rooms that were here could be moved directly into the Digidestined base without actually impacting any of the areas they had setup so far. Inside was only four more people, and that was the real reason he had to hold back a groan. "Is this everyone?" he asked aloud with what was hopefully a calm tone.

"How many people do you have?" the old man there asked critically, and it also sounded like that was a 'yes'. Tai had no idea how to explain that he always had more people than this.

"At least eight," the guy halfway into a computer sighed. "I don't suppose we get to see where you've been working too? Those files were really well made, so you have to have access to a pretty good setup."

"If you had time I had hoped to show some of your team around our base too," Tai admitted. "But if this is everyone then we might as well just all go. I'd like to at least start off here though."

The group wasn't eager to introduce themselves, and even less enthusiastic about actually explaining what they had been doing. Which was mostly exactly what the building's receptionist had said, making books of monster drawings. At least that seemed the most productive thing they were working on, even if it was mostly one of their team using the office equipment for a personal project. Other than that the group only had old files on the digimon incidents, and a bunch of times when they were asked to look at something that turned out to be totally unrelated to actual monsters.

Knowing that Shawn and Serperior was the first break they had gotten in a long time was really uncomfortable, because they apparently weren't able to do much about even just a guy and a talking snake going shopping. Jun and Momoe had a short file as well, but that appeared to just be the official report the TV station had warned him about. They seemed to be doing alright with figuring things out from there, and Kurou had actually identified some of the times when they traveled to and from the pokemon world somehow. They seemed to be at least capable of helping, but the big thing Tai was after with this plan was some way of genuinely getting support from the government, and these people honestly needed it more than the Digidestined.

"Would your budget work out better if you had a cheaper place to work?" he asked after hearing everything. "Because a part of me wants to just move all your stuff to our base and have you work from there."

"Can you provide office supplies too?" Ono asked a touch jokingly.

"The entire eighth floor of our base is full of alien machines that just make that kind of stuff out of electricity," Tai replied dryly. "Our tech guy is even using some similar stuff to make new computers."

"I'm sold on that," Kurou said eagerly at that information. "How far away is this place?"

"Well, the only real way to get there is teleportation," he said getting out his phone. "Our tech guy is standing by to bring you there with me when I get done here."

"From here?" Aiko asked rapidly with a bit of horror. "You can just teleport anywhere?"

"I've gotten so used to it that I forgot it was a scary thing to be able to do," Tai admitted with a cringe.


Ryuuji looked at the massive office building he had just teleported into, one clearly bigger than the entire building the MRT was based out of now. Koshiro Izumi was right there at a rather advanced looking computer, and Sora Takenouchi was just a short distance away talking quietly with a pink and red bird monster. "The Emperor is using a lot of covert units against our data centers all of a sudden. We aren't sure what he's after yet though," he overheard the bird say.

"Tai, I see you found a good sized group to come along," Koshiro said to Taichi. "Welcome to the Digidestined base."

"So, are we going to just move here, boss?" Kazuo said thoughtfully as he took in what they could see so far. The old man looked a bit revitalized by actually having some answers.

"Tai?" Koshiro asked at that remark with a concerned look.

"This is the entire Monster Response Team," Taichi said seriously. "Can you take most of them on a tour of this place? Without the monster battle this time." The leader of these kids then looked at Ryuuji seriously. "I'd like to talk with their leader in my office."

That was a fairly intimidating statement to the leader of the MRT, but he knew he was the only one of his team to have seen how adult these kids actually were. The others easily went off with the other kid to explore the place, while he followed the young man who had just the previous day calmly discussed efforts to fight a war. They went up a flight of stairs to a really nice office with a pair of desks, and it was almost better than what Ryuuji's old bosses had back when the MRT seemed like it would matter, even with how Agumon clearly shared the space, given the monster's presence at one of the desks looking over paperwork.

Sitting down at the other side of Taichi's desk actually felt a little like back when Ryuuji had started at the MRT, when there was actual leadership above him. As the team was whittled down he had ended up closer and closer to the top, until finally there was nobody left above him in the group and he was simply holding onto things.

"You know, this morning I was worried that the Monster Response Team would try and take us over," Taichi said humorlessly. "Now I'm worried that I've just stolen a government organization for myself. We need the help, and official ways of getting money in our world. I have to ask if your team can help with that, because that's the whole reason we contacted you, but from what I've seen today we would be solving more of your problems than you can help with ours right now. How quickly is that going to change because of that meeting yesterday?"

Ryuuji cringed at that line of questions. He couldn't deny that these kids clearly had a better handle on the situation, and better gear to work with. "Our group started off a lot larger, and I can't say for sure how things will go now that we've had this break, but after yesterday I can't be sure how much this 'pokemon world' is going to influence that either," he admitted. "The leadership and legal system of an entire planet have put you and your group at their own level, and from what I've seen you might end up getting that sort of position just because that can get our world access to their technology."

"There are some really serious side effects to that technology," the Leader of the Digidestined said seriously, and with an extremely grim look. Then the young man sorted through the papers on his desk for a moment. "Actually, that's probably a good place to start. We're worried that we might have exposed Yutaka to enough of the energies of the pokemon world that there is a risk of him transforming into a pokemon." Ryuuji could feel himself pale at the mere idea. "Your group actually has more information on what is going on in our world than we do for that one, but we know how to deal with the monster stuff. Do you think that would be a good place to start working together?"

"The kid's mom didn t just find a monster past life for him," the Leader of the MRT said a bit faintly. "Aiko heard that at least a couple other people there claimed to have similar stories."