Chapter 8: Uneasy Alliance

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon, just the OCs that are littered throughout the story.

"Lucemon, that's a Rookie-Level angel Digimon, right?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah, and a strong one at that." Steven responded.

"You guys have no idea how strong," Eric responded. The entire group looked at him.

"How strong?" Johnny Beckenstein asked.

"Like final boss of the fourth season strong. Like destroy the entire digital world and its moons strong."

"Fourth season? There's no fourth season," Nathan objected.

"There's one where I'm from," Eric shot back. "Digimon Frontier. It was actually the last season I watched. Aired in 2002 and it didn't exactly do well. One can blame the filler and the lack of major character development other than the long lost twin brother and Takuya kind of learning from his mistakes."

"Where are you from?"

"Let's save that for later," Beckenstein said. "Still, this is major. What are the Digimon's digivolutions?"

"Chaos Mode for Ultimate and Shadowlord Mode for Mega."

"No Champion form?"

"Nope, just mode changes, pretty nasty ones too."

"So, how did your brother get this guy as a partner?" Nathan asked Steven.

"Give me something to eat and I'll tell you guys," he said, sitting down.

"We have a potentially world-destroying Digimon out there and you want something to eat?" Beckenstein objected.

"Get him something. I'm sure he spent the past few weeks wondering when he'd get his next meal," Shibumi said, sitting down himself. "Also, get all your tamers together. Something tells me this is going to be an important meeting."

"Alright, let's start from the beginning: how did you get your partner?" Beckenstein asked.

"It was last year. I was playing a game when my Digimon got brutally defeated while on a mission. That was when I felt a strong desire to help him. I noticed that the card I had in my hand wasn't one of my usual cards, instead it was a strange blue card."

"Yes, the blue cards. It amazes me that they've shown up here," Shibumi said.

"Sliding that card caused my Digimon to emerge into the real world. My younger brother was there at the time and saw the whole thing. He wanted a partner of his own, but neither of us had any idea of how to get one. Not only that but we had a broken monitor and my mother couldn't afford a new one." Johnny glanced over at Nathan.

"When did your brother get his partner?" Beckenstein asked.

"About two months ago, he found a blue card of his own and slid it through his card reader. Since he didn't have a partner lined up, it just stayed there empty for a few days. That was when he got the bright idea of sliding a Digimon card through the thing. I had no idea any of this was going on at the time, though, so I couldn't stop him, but he looked for the strongest rookie Digimon he could find."

"Lucemon," Eric glared, prompting a nod from Steven.

"Exactly. The next day, I found out when I saw him going the opposite direction of our meeting spot when school got out. I decided to follow him and that's what led me to finding him and his partner Digimon. When he found the Digimon, it was like a baby in its personality, knowing very little. I had no idea it would be like that and yelled at him to get away from the angel when he came across it."

"Relax, this guy's my partner. Don't you get it; I've got a partner Digimon now!"

"It was sometime after that that we found another Tamer, one that had been taking care of the various Armor-level bio-emergences in the area. Things went pretty well until about two weeks ago, when the anti-Digimon guys found us. They used a bio-emergence as a trap and captured my brother and his partner, taking them by surprise, even causing a dark digivolution. The other Tamer and I escaped north to Cheyenne, Wyoming and then to Rapid City, South Dakota, using our Digimon's champion forms to cover more distance. It was in Rapid City that we found out that we were on an anti-Digimon website."

"That was where I found you," Shibumi said. "I don't habitually visit such sites but I signed up for a tamer-alert newsletter. So, what happened to your friend?"

"Well, when I found the description of a Tamer that was similar to my brother's profile, I decided to investigate, thinking that he might have escaped. So I came here. My friend is still in South Dakota, surviving as best he can. We've tried our best to keep in touch with our parents by e-mail, realizing that telephone lines could easily be tracked."

"Of course, so can e-mails," Shibumi stated.

"Yeah, I made my best efforts not to give away my whereabouts. Anyway, I decided to head this way when, looking on the internet, I found a description of a Tamer in this town that matched my brother. As it was, I was wrong."

Beckenstein decided to speak again. "Well, then, I'll have some of my best hackers track down the location of the Anti-Digimon website in question. We should have an answer in a couple of weeks…"

"On the contrary, I already had some hackers find the location of the website: California," Shibumi told the group.

"California? Where in California?"

"Somewhere in the greater L.A. area. We haven't been able to narrow it down exactly, but that much we know. Apparently the group in question has some sort of blocking program that prevents us from finding them."

"Then let's get going!" Nathan exclaimed.

"No," Beckenstein responded.

"Wait, you mean that one of my closest friends is down there and you say no? Come on, we should go down there, find the anti-Digimon guys, kick their butts and save any tamers they have in custody."

"There's a chance that they may have superior firepower, Nathan. Besides, you can't just go into a place and kill a bunch of people."
"Hey, I never said anything about killing them. Come on, who's with me?"

Cody raised his hand, accidentally making Claire uneasy in the process. "Cody, you're going home tomorrow and that's final!" Beckenstein objected.

"Hey, come on. New Mexico is boring!"

"I'll go," Steven said. "If there's a chance these freaks have my brother, I'll take it."

"You'll need someone smart along so you guys don't get caught too, so I'm coming along," Marika stated.

"That leaves all our best Tamers gone!" Beckenstein exclaimed.

"Come on, the most powerful Digimon you'll be getting are Champions. Besides, if things get too hairy, then Eric's gonna intervene," Nathan rebutted.

"Actually… how about this, Nathan: you and Steven will go straight to Oxnard, find Diego," Shibumi suggested.

"How do you know he's in Oxnard?" Nathan asked.

"That's where his parents said he was. I called them. It makes sense since the town was where he was born and lived up until a few years ago."

Marika agreed. "Sounds like a good idea for me. Shame, I was hoping to get to know these two boys. The red-head is kind of cute."

Steven's opinion was that she was a creepy Goth chick, but he didn't tell her that. He was just glad she wouldn't be coming along. The blonde on the other hand…

"By the way, I do have an idea of who you can stay with tomorrow night. There's a girl that lives in the Bay Area named Alice," Shibumi indicated.

"Is she a Tamer too?" Nathan asked.

"No, but she has helped the Tamers in the past. Her grandfather even worked with me on the original Digimon project nearly 20 years ago. She won't be too shocked by the sight of your Digimon."

"Alright, cool. So I guess we'll be headed out tomorrow."

Beckenstein still wasn't certain. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked Shibumi.

"They will have to deal with such groups eventually. Besides, if you want peace between humans and Digimon, you'll have to convince such groups that what they're doing is wrong."

It was decided later that night that both Steven and Cody were going to stay at Nathan's house. Cody wanted to at least hang out with his friend for a little bit while Steven didn't want to deal with the guests' barracks. Strangely enough, Marika had her own room at the base since she was practically living there permanently.

"So, what do you want to do?" The bulky brown-haired boy asked while they were in the living room at Nathan's house. The couch had a bed that could be pulled out and Cody was laying down on that. Steven opted to sleep in a nearby recliner while Nathan was lying on the floor. The Digimon were all with their humans in their in-training forms.

"I don't know. Get some videogames, play them until about three in the morning. Sounds like a good idea to me."

"That might be a bad idea since we have to get up tomorrow to go to California," Steven objected. "But, it's been forever since I've played anything. What do you got?" Nathan walked over and gave the red-head his game collection. "They're mostly RPGs. Wait, you have Digimon World 3, huh?"

"Uh, yeah. I beat Galactimon in about a week. Clocked in 60 hours of game time, too. Hate how you can't do anything after a certain point and… well, I'm too lazy to start a new game to finish all the side quests."

"Oh, so you made the mistake of going into that one room at the enemy headquarters, huh?"

"Yeah, that's what I get for constantly using FAQs on games. I liked the game a lot though. Too bad GameSpot gave it a 4.9. Then again, they seem pretty prejudiced against Digimon, anyway. Best Digimon game ever, in my opinion."

Steven smirked at the thought of him and his brother playing the game non-stop for a week themselves. That was a fun time. "So, do you have any siblings?" Steven asked Nathan.

"I have an older sister. She moved out in '01 after she graduated from high school and now lives in New York. Heck, a few months ago my dad had considered going there to help at Somnus headquarters. I'm glad he didn't since I didn't want to leave all my friends."

"Yeah, moving across country is kind of hard. I actually have four siblings, including my brother. My mom ended up moving us from Connecticut to Denver when my parents divorced about a year ago. It wasn't fun. Heck, I think the other Tamer, Broc, is actually the first real good friend I got there. He's kind of goofy but he's a good guy."

"That's good."

"So, Cody, got any siblings?"

"Nope, I'm an only child."

"He's spoiled like one, too," Nathan joked.

"Heard that!"

Steven chuckled. "Your parents aren't together, are they?"

"No, my mom… eh, let's not talk about that."

"Don't worry, I understand. So, how's this Diego guy?"

"He's nice, though strict. He wrote some nasty comments about me in his reports to Somnus, but other than that… I don't know. I guess I don't really know him that well. His brother's a rogue, though, who tried deleting Marcus' partner." Nathan put his fist in his palm. "If I find that idiot, I'm so going to teach him a lesson."

Steven didn't know what to think of that. At least he's enthusiastic.

Dracomon was just outside, watching from the rooftops when Ryudamon decided to appear. Veemon, Cody's partner in his rookie form, climbed up himself. Dracomon sniffed the air, taking in the foreign aromas of the world around him. From what he could tell, the next door neighbors were using some sort of illegal substances and there was a long-haired and overweight cat across the street, glaring at him and practically challenging him to catch it. He felt it was amazing that some pit-bull didn't get it. Several of the neighbors also had pools, something that he wanted to try out as soon as everyone was asleep.

"So, what are you up to?" Ryudamon inquired, causing the green lizard in front of him to look over his shoulder at him.

"Keeping watch."

"Aren't there Somnus agents around? That's what I heard," Veemon commented. Dracomon gave no answer.

Ryudamon looked up at the starless sky. The night reminded him of his sojourns throughout the city where he lived originally. Of course, Las Vegas was a foreign place for him. He would probably end up getting lost here like he almost did a couple times in Denver. Still, he was amazed that there was a place with fewer stars in the sky than that city. It doesn't help that Las Vegas is far brighter.

I swear that I'll find your brother, Steve. Ryudamon smirked upon thinking of the redhead.

The following morning, Marcus woke up in a strange white room on top of some sort of operating table. He thought the entire thing was absolutely bizarre. One moment he was walking out of Nathan's neighborhood and the next he was here.

He looked at everything and made sure he was still intact. He ran a hand through his curly hair and thought, dang, what happened? He had a bit of a headache and wondered if that was a side-effect of the drugs that were injected into him.

After getting up, he walked out of the small room he was in, hoping to possibly see Bearmon. Instead, there was a man in a lab coat sitting down in a folding chair in the middle of a hall right in front of his door. The man, who had short brown hair and small, black-rimmed glasses, was writing something down on a piece of paper when he noticed that Marcus had walked out of the room. "Ah, you're awake," the man said in a slight British accent.

"Uh, yeah, so, where am I? And where the heck's my partner?"

"Your partner is elsewhere. My name is Benjamin Holmes and I am one of the scientists at this location. You see, we're here investigating ways of separating Tamers from their partners."

"And why would you want to do that?"

"Simple, to bring things back to normal. Ever since the Digimon have started coming into our world, things have been getting steadily worse."

"Yeah? Come on, man, most people don't even have partners. How many instances of crime caused by Tamers can you think of?"

"None, currently, however if the wrong people get partnered up with Digimon, the results could be catastrophic."

Marcus rolled his eyes. "So you're saying that because of that, you're going to tear Digimon away from people who won't do anything wrong with them?"

"Really, things could change overnight. It is not uncommon for people to go from being kind, law-abiding citizens to hardened criminals in a short time span."

"Okay…"

"I'm sure you want some breakfast. Come with me," Benjamin got up and walked down the hall to the right of the room that Marcus woke up in. In some ways, Marcus wanted to beat the crap out of that scientist, but he realized that wouldn't be an option. After all, there had to be guards around.

"Here is the cafeteria. Feel free to sit anywhere in here," the scientist said as they walked into a room with numerous chairs and tables. There were only a handful of kids in the room. Evidently it wasn't the usual meal time. For the most part, they were separated from each other. The main exception was some short, brown-haired guy with blue eyes who looked to be about ten, maybe younger. He was wearing a simple orange shirt and some blue pants. The other guy at the table was taller and possibly in his early teens with black hair and dark brown eyes. For some reason he looked familiar, though Marcus couldn't place him. He was wearing a yellow shirt and a pair of grey shorts.

There were three others in the room, a curly-haired redhead who was listening to his headphones, a chubby black-haired guy with rosy cheeks that was reading a book, and a blond girl with blue streaks in her hair that was drawing some picture. In some ways, Marcus wanted to go talk to her, but after getting his breakfast, consisting of a couple of waffles, four sausages, and several strips of bacon, he was called over by the short brown-haired guy to come to his table.

That was when Marcus recognized the black-haired guy. His eyes narrowed into a glare as he muttered his name. "Ezekiel…"

"Good, you remember me," the black-haired teenager responded with a smirk. Marcus sat down right next to the kid with the wavy brown hair. "By the way, this is Davy. He's from Canada."

"Hey, great to meet you," Davy said, holding his hand out to shake, to which Marcus returned the gesture.

"Likewise. Now, what's going on?"

"I see that like me you're a prisoner. You see, they're trying to sever the links between us and our Digimon."

"Yeah? Then why don't they just kill our Digimon?"

"They already tried that with one person. It resulted in him having a mental breakdown from the shock. After that, they've been trying to safely undo the bond to no success. Somehow I get the feeling they'll have to dissect us to find that out."

"Man, I didn't think you were dumb enough to get captured."

"I'm not. You see, I got captured intentionally. I was told there's a tamer here with an extremely powerful partner Digimon. Unfortunately, all I have to work from is a picture of his brother and there doesn't seem to be anyone that looks like they could be related to him."

"Hm, alright. So if you're smart enough to get us out of this joint, then why the heck aren't you doing it?"

"I haven't figured that out yet, either."

Ezekiel was interrupted by the scientist from earlier. "Attention, please, your host would like to have your presence in the gymnasium."

Marcus didn't want to go, but Ezekiel was headed out there along with the other four kids in the room. Marcus followed the group to the gymnasium and could tell that Ezekiel was busy examining the redheads in the audience from afar. There happened to be one side of bleachers in the gym and Marcus found himself in between the rosy-cheeked fat guy from the cafeteria and Ezekiel, but with plenty of leg room. Why did it have to be him of all people? In turn, Ezekiel had that Canadian kid right next to him.

Eventually, a man with long black hair and pale skin came out of one of the doors on the other side of the auditorium, someone who Marcus felt was beyond creepy, reminding him a little too much of Michael Jackson, an artist that the guy was not fond of.

The mysterious man walked up to the podium in the middle of the gym and spoke into the microphone. "Well, it's good to see that you're all here right now. Currently there are 33 of you here, up two from yesterday when we found Ezekiel Guevara and Marcus Deveraux. Please stand up." Marcus and Ezekiel did so, the former feeling extremely awkward at standing side by side with his enemy. "My name is Desmond Klein and you may know me from movies such as 'Four equals Death' and 'The Alphabet Killer'. You may sit down now. Don't worry; we might be on the edge of a breakthrough as far as finding a cure to your malady." Jeers could be heard from the crowd. "In the mean time, enjoy yourselves, get to know each other."

Jacob McClosky immediately registered the names of the two newcomers in his head, much like he tried to do with everyone. Of course, he didn't feel much like talking to them; especially Ezekiel who he knew had a picture of his brother somehow. That was a bad sign. He wasn't going to be someone's tool. As it was, he caused enough damage when Lucemon dark-digivolved.

He still hadn't figured out Marcus' personality, though. It was obvious that the guy was a bit of a big eater and despite that, he remained skinny. As far as partner Digimon, he didn't know what either had.

Upon leaving the auditorium, he stuck a drawing of Lucemon in the pocket of a nearby person, letting it stick out a little bit. He figured that since the person had blond hair, he would be a good red-herring.

The twelve-year-old was just glad that neither person figured out who he was. He figured that as long as he hid in plain sight, that shouldn't be a problem.

As it was, it was only ever apparent that he was Steven's brother when they were standing right next to each other.

Ezekiel spotted the drawing quickly. Wow, this is far too easy. The Hispanic boy walked up to the person who had the drawing and said. "Hey, Jacob, how's it going? I see you have a picture of your partner. Can I see it?" The spiky-haired blond guy turned around and glared at Ezekiel, giving him a dirty look with his brown eyes. He was wearing a red hoodie and a pair of baggy blue jeans and the most noticeable feature of his face was a large beak-like nose.

"What do you want, weirdo?"

"Simple, I want you and Lucemon to join my team. First, all we have to do is get out of this place."

"I think you got the wrong guy," the guy responded, turning around and walking off. Ezekiel then proceeded to grab the Lucemon drawing. Unfortunately, he wasn't very stealthy about it and received a punch to the face, causing him to fall to the ground with a bruised cheek.

"Don't you dare touch me, you freak!"

Ezekiel then attacked the boy, who instantly kicked him in the gut and beat him up. Marcus and Davy stood there, stunned at the whole thing.

Then again, maybe I shouldn't have done that. Cletus Jurgemeyer is a bit too hotheaded, Jacob thought while watching from afar. Still, it's pretty notable that neither Marcus nor David joined in. At least this gets Ezekiel off my back for a little bit. Jacob pulled out a music player he found while wandering the grounds of the mansion they were in and turned it on, opting to listen to some Matchbox 20 for a little bit.

About an hour later, Ezekiel was released from the nurse's office. Marcus' question while wandering the complex was who funded it? Then again, the person who owned the place was a movie star who made millions of dollars by starring in slasher movies that he had never even heard of.

"So, how do I look?" Ezekiel asked upon walking out of the office.

"Terrible, man."

"This means we're allies, right?"

"Not a chance. Somehow I get the feeling that Jacob set you up somehow. Then again, I can't blame him for not wanting you to find him."

Ezekiel smirked. "Oh well, as if that can stop me."

Elsewhere, Nathan and Steven were playing a game of cards while waiting to leave. Their match was on the dining table in Nathan's house and Nathan was winning, much to Steven's dismay. I can't believe this guy had it in him. He didn't seem like that much of a strategist when I met him yesterday.

Steven glanced at the combo Nathan performed to digivolve Greymon to BlackWarGreymon. Of course, I didn't really give him a chance to use any of his abilities in battle.

Then he pulled another modify card, and wiped the floor with Steven, lowering his life points to 500.

"Looks like you got me in a bind, man," Steven said with a smile.

Nathan smiled back. "I tend to do that. Hey, it's nice to have someone to play against other than Marcus for once."

"You ever played in tournaments?"

"Yeah, a number of them. Won a couple, too. The last one I played, though, I lost against Marika."

"You mean the boy-crazy Goth chick from Somnus?"

Nathan nodded. "That's the one."

Steven shrugged. "She kind of creeps me out."

"Don't worry, I don't know her much myself. She's… interesting, I guess. All I know is that her parents basically kicked her out when she became a tamer."

Cody walked into the room. "Um, guys, you ready to leave?"

Nathan nodded. "Uh, yeah, but where are our partners?"
Steven's eyes narrowed to slits and he got up to look for them. It turned out that all three Digimon were actually sleeping around the backyard and smelled strongly of chlorine. Apparently they decided to go swimming in the next door neighbor's pool.

"Hey, guys, wake up, it's time to head for the airport!" Steven called out as soon as he got out of the house. Dracomon instantly got up.

"Really?"

Nathan nodded. Johnny already had everything set up to take them all to the airport, where Cody would be dropped off. Before doing anything else, though, the brown-haired guy gave a note to Beckenstein. "Give this to Claire when you can, okay?"

Johnny was taken aback slightly, but he nodded and replied that he would do that for him. The letter itself was one of apology since Cody didn't have the chance to say it to the girl himself. After that, they packed their bags and headed off to the airport. Once they got there, they would split off, Cody flying to New Mexico with Veemon while Nathan and Steven were escorted to California by a member of Somnus.

"Well, we're here," Nathan woke up to the driver. The blond boy grabbed onto his suitcase and groggily got out of the car. It turned out that they were on the grounds of a stately mansion. Steven got out of the other side of the car and, due to not bringing much along, simply pulled Ryudamon out.

The two were startled by the one that came to greet them, a solemn blonde girl with her hair in pigtails, wearing a puffy black dress. Alice McCoy was there to meet them.

A/N: Well, that makes three canon characters to appear in the story: Johnny Beckenstein, Shibumi and finally, Alice. Mwahaha!

Feel free to guess who Jacob is. During the next couple chapters, you'll also see tamers from other areas. Most of them aren't even main characters and'll be gone by the end of the mini-arc, though.