Viral Menace

Rika stared at this new boy, and then pointed her D-Arc at the digimon, the holographic display was black, the name Razormon then typed itself across just before that three-pointed star symbol appeared with three flashing words over it; WARNING, Data Corrupt. Rika raised an eyebrow and looked up at the digimon, noticing Alex trying to attract her attention,

"What?" she asked,

"I was just going to say thanks, if an entire gatefull of Yamimon got loose it'd take a hell of a lot of chasing to get them all" he told her, holding out his hand, she shook it and notices several scars criss-crossing his arm

"What were those digimon?" Rika asked as Alex pulled his hand back

"Those were Yamimon, rookie level, the most basic of Viramon's troops, individually they're nothing, but an entire gatefull can actually be rather deadly" he told her, turning to go, Rika's D-Arc logging all the information

Rika had noticed the swords on his back and had to ask, "Why do you have two swords on your back?"

"You see I'm kinda from out of town. Where I come from they're necessary," he told her, still walking away,

Rika pondered this, "Where are you from?" she asked as Razormon opened a dark gateway and stepped through, Alex paused, just about to follow,

He turned back to face her, a small grin on his face, "Now that is a more interesting question than you know" he told her, before stepping into the gateway, the dark portal closing behind him.

Takato tossed and turned in his sleep, he was having another one of those prophetic dreams again, the kind that had shown Rika to him before. Now they showed an older boy, around 17, with two swords battling alongside a tall, black digimon with long claws. They were fighting squat little digimon with pointed heads and sword and gun arms, they were poring out of what looked like a doorway of darkness, and the two were fighting their way towards the doorway.

They reached the black gate and the boy looked into it, a look of horror showing on his face as he saw what was inside, quickly the black digimon began to absorb the gateway, closing it just as a scythe blade began to emerge from the darkness.

The dream began to fade as Takato was brought back to the land of the living with concerned shakes,

"Takatomon, Takatomon are you alright? You were mumbling and turning about in your sleep, bad dream?" came a child like voice

"I'm not a Mon," he replied sleepily, "and yes, it was a bad dream"

Since he had come back from the digital world after the D-Reaper incident, Takato's parents had let Guilmon, Takato's self-made, red dino digimon, sleep in the house, as long as he kept away from the bread.

"What do you want for breakfast?" he asked his friend, knowing the answer

"Bread!" cried Guilmon

"Guilmon bread?" he asked

"Yay! Guilmon bread, Guilmon bread, it's a loaf shaped like my head!" sang the digimon, dashing downstairs.

'I wonder what that dream was about' thought Takato as he got dressed.

The dark gateway opened into an apartment near the school and a digimon and a human stepped out into their temporary home.

Two days ago they had come here, they had rented the apartment with money created from the samples brought back by the probe and had settled down with the few items they had brought.

"I'm going for a shower" Alex called, walking to his room, taking of his top and revealing many, many scars, some looked like they were done by claws, some by teeth, others blades and there were a few burn marks there as well.

After his shower he put on some new clothes, he had been wearing the other ones for three days. He put on black jeans with buckles up the sides, a black, dragon-patterned shirt with buckles across the front and a black headband with dark fire emitting from the three-pointed star symbol in the centre.

Buckling the arm guard back on, placing his belt with his things hanging from it back around his waist and strapping the swords on his back, he sat down at a table with a laptop on it and flicked the on switch, he then took a cable from one of the pouches on his belt and removed a device from its holder.

The device was black, edged with blue, and was shaped like a three-pointed star, it had a screen in the middle with a few buttons around it, and on the back was a sunken port for some kind of chip, it was here Alex connected one end of the cable, the connector shaped like the object the Yamimon's data had been captured in earlier.

He plugged the other end of the cable into a port on the laptop.

"OK, lets find out a bit about where we are" he said to himself, beginning to hack the governmental database, finding his way into something called 'Hypnos' that had the files he was looking for. "Looks like hanging around with Techno for so long paid off," he said as he began to read the files.

In this world, humans with digimon partners were called Tamers, their digivices were D-Arcs and they used cards from a game to empower their partners with different abilities. All the tamers were listed,

Rika Nonaka partnered with Renamon, known as 'The Digimon Queen' for her abilities in the digimon card game.

Takato Matsuki partnered with his created digimon, Guilmon.

Henry Wong partnered with Terriermon; his father was one of those who created digimon here.

Suzie Wong partnered with Lopmon, sister of Henry.

Jeri, partnered with Leomon, partner destroyed, used as a pawn by the D-Reaper program.

Kazu, partnered with Guardromon, avid player of the digimon card game.

Kenta, partnered with Marine Angemon, Kazu's 'sidekick' and the last to get a digimon partner.

Ryo, partnered with Cyberdramon, was lost in the digital world for a long time, sometimes referred to as 'The Digimon King' for his card playing skills.

It seemed that to reach mega level, Renamon, Guilmon, Terriermon and Cyberdramon could merge with their tamers, fusing human and digimon together in a process known as Bio-Merging.

Alex's luck ran out and he encountered a seeker program within the Hypnos mainframe, designed to catch hackers, it terminated his link with the mainframe and froze his outbound comms in the laptop. Closing the laptop down with a grumble he put the cable back in the pouch, and reattached his digivices to its holder on his belt.

'A very interesting place here' he thought, making a decision, "Razormon, can you open a gateway please, we're going to see the Tamers" he called to his digital friend, stepping through the gateway, bound for a place the Hypnos files had mentioned as the tamers' meeting place, a park, not to far from the apartment.