Altered Rules

Chapter 1

Completion

Beelzemon blocked HiAndromon's arm with his left, and jabbed his claws through the android's stomach, the nails piercing through the other side. HiAndromon gasped and stumbled back. Beelzemon slammed his elbow into the digimon's head, knocking him onto his back. He reached into his holster and pulled out one of his double barreled shotguns.

"Pathetic." He muttered, then fired twice, the bullets piercing HiAndromon's SteelDigizoid skull.

Barbamon looked at his brother. "You come into my realm and dare attack my servants!"

"Can it!" Beelzemon snarled, bringing his double barrel level with Barbamon's head. "Now where are the Tamers?" he demanded.

"What are you talking about?" the old wizard asked.

"You lie enough times and people start to distrust what you say." Beelzemon told him.

"I can't tell you what I don't know." Barbamon shot back.

Beelzemon lowered his gun and Barbamon's staff dimmed it's energy. "You really don't know, tower dweller?" he insulted.

Barbamon snarled, "Maybe you should do your research before you go and start killing off my servants." He demanded

Beelzemon looked over at HiAndromon, "He'll be fine." he told his brother. The tension finally started to abate. Beelzemon looked up, "So, if you don't know where they are, then who do you know that does?"

Barbamon shrugged, "Got me. It's not something I would spend my resources on."

"And if I were to say I could transfer a few thousand bits into your account?"

"Well then, I could probably check out a few rumors." Barbamon said.

Beelzemon smiled, "and if I wasn't your brother?" he asked.

"You would have never made it past HiAndromon." he told him.

Beelzemon laughed and started to walk out of the mansion, "I'll back in a week, tell me what you can find."

The doors shut behind him, and waiting for him was his bike Behemoth. He got on it. So that rumor's a dead end. Beelzemon thought. This was driving him nuts. It had been three days since he had seen that human Tai and his digimon Agumon. As well as the other one, BlackAgumon, that digimon bothered him. He seemed to be trying too hard to fix his past mistakes, instead of just trying to continue on with his life. Since that day he had chased down one other rumor besides his brother. It ended up being a dead end as well.

He was getting real sick of dead ends. Whoever captured them, wasn't a Mafiamon for sure. If that had been the case then he would have heard about it already. No, whoever had done this was laying very low.

He continued his ride down the dirt road, heading towards the west quadrant.

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Tai sat inside the X house that Jijimon had. It wasn't the largest of places, but it gave the younger X's a place to stay without too much fear of an attack. There were still a few digimon who tried to attack all the young one's, but it was safer then out on the street.

"What you doing Hero Tai?" A Tokomon X asked jumping up on the table. Tai shook his head. They had started calling him Hero Tai when he arrived. He and Agumon were spending the night at an Inn, when he overheard a conversation between a couple of Mojyamon and a RedVegiemon about taking out the X horrors before they had a chance to grow up. Needless to say, he followed them, and after a quick battle between Greymon and BlackAgumon against them, they quickly fled. All the In-training's had seen him as a "hero" since. It didn't help that the story of his victory against Armageddonmon had gotten around to the little ones as well.

"It's just Tai." he told the young X.

"What's Just Tai, Hero Tai?" he asked.

Tai chuckled at the young digimon. "Well," he explained, "I'm looking at the set up of where this house is, and trying to figure out the best ways to defend it. Black has already rigged up the forest on the east, so we don't need to worry about that too much, however we still have the river behind us and the road in front of us, not to mention the field to the west were little digimon could hide."

"Like us!" Tokomon asked, thinking he already knew the answer and grinning.

"Not quite, I was more thinking along the lines of Mamemon and MetalMamemon." Tai said.

Tokomon looked at the map of the area. "Couldn't you dam up the river?" he asked.

"I've thought about it, but their would be to many legal things to go through." he said. "I more worried about the road, because legally we can't booby trap it all to protect ourselves, and if we set up to many traps anyways, you little one's are going to get caught in them." Tai sighed, "It's a pretty big problem." he said.

Tokomon X just grinned, "You'll figure it out. After all, you're Hero Tai!"

Tai petted the little digimon's head, wishing he had as much confidence in himself as the Tokomon X had.

Ryudamon came bursting through the door. Ryudamon was one of the two rookie X digimon that stayed with Jijimon, the other being Dorumon. She was a fairly cool digimon who studied a lot, and for some reason, Agumon acted slightly odd around her. Not like he did around Biyomon or Palmon, but odd. "Tai, we've got trouble." Ryudamon told him frantically, "there's a Mammothmon coming down this way, and he... he's on a rampage." she said out of breath. Tai stood up and they heard to digimon yelling.

"Pepper Breath!"

"Black Pepper!"

Tai ran outside. "TUSK CRUSHER!" he heard and saw the two explosives slam into Agumon and Black, sending them to the ground, both de-digivolving to Koromon. Ryudamon stood by Tai's side, and Dorumon came up to his other, ready to fight for their home.

The Mammothmon laughed at the sight, "you think a couple of rookies will stop me. I will prevent these Digimon from living a life of fear. I will end their misery right now. You seem to be content, and unafraid, so if you'll step out of the way, I'll spare you're life."

"You're a maniac." A voice said from behind Tai, "who gave you the choice to decide whether or not living in fear is better then not living at all. That's a choice only each individual can make." Tai felt a warmth come over him as he heard a voice that he had not heard in over six months.

"Joe?" Tai asked. Joe grinned, his medical bag at his side, with Gomamon having a sniper rifle aimed right at Mammothmon.

"Because I am older and more powerful! That give me the right!" the Mammothmon roared. He charged forward, ready to run over all of them.

Gomamon shot three times from his rifle, each Chrome-Digizoid bullet penetrating straight through Mammothmon's steel eye. Mammothmon roared in pain and veered off his course, running in a blind panic towards the side of the house.

"Baihumon!" Tai swore. A blue and green blur shot out of the water and wrapped itself around Mammothmon, slamming him to the ground. Michael came up from behind Joe, "Hey Tai." He said.

Tai grinned at his friend. "Mon, I haven't seen you guys in ages." he said. Michael grinned and turned to Seadramon, "His neck, go for his throat, it's one of his few weak spots!" he yelled.

Seadramon understood, and slipped himself around the struggling Mammoth. He clamped his jaws through the digimon's throat and Mammothmon digitamasized. Tai turned to the two, "thanks, If you two hadn't shown up, we would have had to rebuild for the third time this month.

Joe grinned, "Well you know, we can always be counted on." he said.

Tai folded his arms, "so what are you two doing here anyways, last I heard you were going down to the South quadrant."

"We were." Michael said, "We've been their for the past six months."

Joe nodded, "yeah... and we met one of the missing tamers. Now were trying to find him. I don't suppose you've heard anything?"

Tai shook his head, "Sorry, I've been dealing with all these attacks. Haven't had too much time for rumors or anything else."

Michael raised his eyebrow, "is the fear of X's really that bad here?" he asked.

Tai nodded, "this is about the worst spot. I've been wanting to go home for about a week now just to see Kari and everybody, but I know this place will be decimated when I get back. So there's really not much I can ethically do."

Joe thought for a moment, "Well, we could stay and help out with the attacks, and still see what information we can dig up about the missing tamers." he said.

Tai raised his eyebrows, "Really. That would be a great help."

"Sure, no problem." Michael said, "it's about time I slept in a real bed."

Tai laughed, "Yeah right, there's hardly enough beds for all the little in-trainings."

Michael's face fell, "oh well, it's not like I haven't been sleeping on the floor anyways."

"Just one last question."

"What?"

"Where in the heck did Gomamon get a sniper rifle?" Tai asked.

Gomamon looked up at him and grinned, "Momenti, I won't have too much fun with it."

Joe sighed and Michael laughed.

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Hazard, Deva and Ice fell out of their stasis tubes. Ebemon smiled, they were completed. Even though they were still very weak, he knew their power. He grabbed the half conscious Hazard and put him into a cell made up of pure energy. He then grabbed the other two and shoved them into their own cells as well.

Henry watched all of this from his own energy cell. He could hardly stand to look at them. His two best friends and his own sister were now completely changed, not human, and not digimon, but a mix of the power of both. He knew their strength, because it was him who had figured out a lot of the process of making the combination run smoothly. The Dream Reader had done it's job, every night it would force his subconscious to do all the work of figuring out how to do everything, while his conscious could do nothing but be horrified at what he was doing.

Ebemon turned to his cell. "Well, well. Looks like are creations are finally finished, Henry." Ebemon laughed.

Henry glared at the digimon. "What now. You going to turn me into one of them too?"

Ebemon laughed, "Tempting, but no. You see, while my creations are finished, I don't have full control of them quite yet." he said. Henry's eyes grew in fear. "Now, I need you to figure me out a way to control them, while I plot my revenge on the digidestined."

Henry stared in horror, and a familiar knock out gas filled his cell. Ebemon reached in and grabbed the Tamer. We walked over to the Dream Reader, and put the boy in it. "Now, my slave. Make these one's as loyal as you are too me." Ebemon laughed, as the Dream Reader turned on, and delved into Henry's brain.

Ebemon watched as the data came though, and he started to brim with excitement. Soon, his revenge would come, it would be sweet.

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Betamon X: so, we're still trying to decide what pairings to use.

Gomamon: and more importantly ... WHERE IS TERRIEMON!

Ummm..., you'll see.

Betamon X: we've heard that one before.