Author's Notes

Tags that apply to the entire fic: Adventure, Fantasy, Original Character

Tags that will come into play in later chapters: Female/Female Pairing, Original Character/Original Character Pairing, Romance, Slow Burn, Adult-Themes (Trigger warnings will be added to the relevant chapters)

Special note for Digimon fans: This fanfiction will feature a single fanmade Digimon and will not feature any canon characters from any media (Any Digimon you see here will be its own entitiy, unrelated to any previous or future appearances in Digimon media). It's best to think of this as a new anime season, as that is what I'm trying to go for with this story.

Chapter 1: The World of Monsters

"Coronamoon, I'm boored~" Came the voice of a small creature.

There was a group of 6, counting the one that had just spoken, all of different shapes, sizes and colors. However, they had something in common. All their bodies were round like a small ball, and none had any type of extremities. No arms, no legs, they just bounced around to move.

The one that had spoken was slightly bigger than the rest. It was covered in fur, had a tail and was wearing a metallic helmet that covered half its body and face, but with two holes for the eyes so it could see.

There was also one more creature in the group – a taller, more developed one. It had the height and shape of a small kid, but with the features of a small lion with orange fur. It turned around upon hearing the first one speak.

"I know Kapurimon, but we're not safe here." Coronamon looked around. All he could see was a plain that extended as far as the eyes could see, which was far considering it was a clear day with not a single cloud in the sky. The only other thing that could be seen in the distance was the beginnings of a forest, which was where the group was headed.

But even in these conditions, the seventh creature seemed restless. He tried to give the small ones one last push. "There, see? The forest is right in sight. Just hold on for a little longer, okay?"

"Okay." Kapurimon replied resigned, only agreeing because it could now see the end of the long trip. Coronamon wasn't surprised everyone looked like they were having a rough time; they had been walking for hours. He would have run if he could carry all of them, but he didn't have enough strength with everyone on top of him, he had tried. Instead, they had been walking, not as fast, but continuously.

He turned back towards the forest and continued walking. However, before they could move more than a few steps, something happened that made everyone stop. A beam of light came down from the sky right in front of them.

"What's that?" Asked Kapurimon.

Coronamon looked back, all the small creatures were scared, including Kapurimon. "I don't know. Stay behind me."

He tried to hide his own fear in his voice. He couldn't let everyone else be even more scared. Looking back towards the strange beam of light, he could tell something was descending through it. He stood ready, prepared for the worst case scenario.

After a few seconds, the beam was gone, just as quickly as it had appeared. All that was left after it disappeared was a person lying on the ground. Coronamon stood in place, getting ready to fight should that be needed.

The person that had just appeared was a woman in her early twenties. The woman slowly got on her feet, shielding her eyes from the sun until they got accustomed.

"Ugh, what just happened?" Once her eyes got used to the light she started looking around, seeing nothing but grass everywhere.

"Who are you!?" The voice startled the woman, who turned in its direction. "What do you want!?" Coronamon continued. She didn't speak, she just stood there, scared. Coronamon noticed this and let his guard down a little. He took a step forward. The woman replied by taking a step back.

Coronamon was now convinced: she didn't mean any harm. If anything, she was more scared of them than they were of her.

"Hey-"

"Stay back!" The woman's shout startled him, and he hesitated to take another step. He looked at all the other creatures. All but Kapurimon were on the verge of tears, surely scared by the sudden shout from the stranger.

"Hey, listen" he tried again. "I don't know who you are, but we don't mean any harm." He explained. The woman looked again at all the creatures. They were all small and would hardly pose a threat. The biggest of them all was barely the size of a child. Looking closely, there was nothing really scary about them, other than the fact they were things she had never seen before.

She watched as Coronamon took the time to kneel down and comfort the small creatures. She even found some of them cute. He looked back at her and smiled.

"You can come closer, they won't bite." He shot a glare at one of them, who was green in color and had two horns and two small wings, then added "Usually."

She hesitated for a second, but took a step forward cautiously, trying not to startle them. She continued moving closer like that, until she was finally at an arm's reach of everyone. They were all looking at her, curious.

"I'm sorry for startling you earlier." The woman extended her hand carefully, attempting to pet one of them. They looked at each other and one of them, who was covered in white fur and had purplish-pink ears and a round tail of the same color, moved closer. She patted it, and it smiled in return. "So soft."

Coronamon let everyone play for a bit with the new arrival, mostly to let them unwind from the long travel. However, he moved closer to where everyone was not long after.

"Sorry, we kind of got off on the wrong foot there." He told the woman, who turned to him.

"I'm sorry as well, I was really scared. You know, being thrown in a completely different place out of nowhere and all." She replied. They both laughed it off.

"I'm Coronamon, by the way."

"Oh, um, I'm Tachibana Hanami." The woman replied.

"Huh, that's a strange name for a Digimon." He said, surprised.

"Digimon? What's that?" Hanami asked, confused.

He laughed at the question, but noticed she wasn't laughing, so he quickly stopped. "Wait, for real?" The woman just nodded. "Well, us." He said, pointing to himself and all the small creatures she had been interacting with before. "We are all Digimon. I'm guessing you're not one, then?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm a human? Wait, you don't know what humans are?"

This time it was Coronamon who shook his head. "Never heard that word before." Her heart sank.

Hanami dreaded the answer to her following question. "Say, Coronamon?"

"Hm?" He was confused by the sudden tone of worry in her voice.

She took a second before continuing. "Where… are we?"

"Well, if I had to guess, I'd say somewhere between Format Village and the Forest Area."

That answer had surprisingly raised more questions than it had answered. She shook her head. "That's not what I meant. Are we still in Japan?" She gulped. "Is this even Earth?"

"Uhh… Well, we're in the Digital World, if that helps?"

Hanami fell to her knees. The possibility of being trapped in a strange world with no way back home sinking in.

Coronamon moved closer to her, all the small Digimon still surrounding her. "Are you okay? Oy! Tachibana Hanami!"

She didn't respond, staring off to nowhere in particular.

"What's wrong with her?" Kapurimon had moved next to him.

"I don't know."

The small ones looked at each other and started bouncing up and down, trying to get her attention. Seeing no reply, one of them, a Digimon covered in black fur, with big, round, yellow eyes and two ear-like protrusions on the top of its head, jumped into her arms.

"Botamon?" Coronamon asked, seeing the small Digimon. It jumped from one arm to the other, then to one of her shoulders, finally stopping next to her face, where it started nuzzling her. She snapped out of her trance long enough to see Botamon right next to her, who closed its eyes in what she could only guess was a happy gesture.

"Glad to have you back." The biggest Digimon smiled at Hanami. "Please don't do that again."

"Oh, right, sorry." She looked down.

"Anyways." He said, in part trying to change the subject. "Sorry to bring it up now, but we need to keep moving. It's still a bit more until we reach a safe place."

"Oh… Wait, safe place? What do you mean?" She asked.

"I'll explain more as we go. For now, let's just-"

"Uhh, Coronamon?" Kapurimon cut him off. "What's that?"

Coronamon turned in its direction. Seeing how there was nothing else to block the view around, it was easy to tell what he was talking about. It was far away, so it was hard to distinguish any features, but it looked like someone, or something, was on the horizon. Not only that, but it was growing by the second. It was coming towards them.

Coronamon could only think of one thing that could be coming from that direction.

"Sorry, the explanation will have to wait." He turned and grabbed 2 of the small Digimon with him. "Tachibana Hanami, could you carry the rest of the Digimon?"

"Uh, sure, but why?"

He just shrugged. "I hope I'm wrong about this, but if I'm not, we need to run!"

She had just finished grabbing the other 4 Digimon – she actually grabbed 3, Kapurimon had jumped on her shoulder – when Coronamon started running towards the forest a few hundred meters away.

"Hurry, let's go!" the Digimon in her shoulder ushered her. Without missing a beat, she started following the Digimon in front of her.

Hanami had been too caught up with everything else going on to notice, but once she started running it became plainly obvious that her clothes were not meant for such activities. Her long skirt got in the way and she couldn't take long steps, she was constantly in danger of tripping and falling. Between that and the small Digimon she was carrying, she couldn't spare a single second to look back.

"Coronamon, what are we running from?" She asked between breaths. He looked back, making sure the threat was still far away. It was, but it was getting closer.

"Most likely, one of the Digimon that attacked Format Village." He saw the confused face Hanami gave him. "Simply put, it's a really bad Digimon. If you get caught, it's over."

The two of them continued running, the forest was now within their grasp. Unfortunately, their pursuer was also right behind them. It was a wolf-like Digimon, the size of a car, with black fur.

"That's a BlackGarurumon, no wonder he's so fast." Coronamon pointed out.

He could see the Digimon clearly now that he was about a hundred meters away. Finally, the group reached the forest, but continued running further. This proved too hard for Hanami however, who's skirt got caught in the branch of a tree trunk that had fallen down. She lost her balance and fell to the ground, but managed to land on her side so she didn't land on top of the Digimon she was carrying.

"Oy! Are you okay?" Kapurimon's voice caused Coronamon to look back and see Hanami on the ground. He quickly went back to where she was to help her up.

"Sorry, my skirt got caught in a branch and I couldn't-"

"Don't worry about that, we need to-"

A growl made everyone shiver and turn towards its source. BlackGarurumon was already in the forest. The small hiccup was all it needed to easily catch up with the group.

"Tachibana Hanami, take the babies and go. I'll try to give you some time." Coronamon had moved between everyone and their pursuer and was ready to fight.

"No, you can't!"

"Please. I'm begging you. Take those Digimon somewhere safe." He asked, not looking back.

"I… I…" Suddenly, a dark flame came directly towards them. The Digimon closed his eyes, ready to take the full hit to protect everyone behind him.

"Leaf Cyclone!"

Hanami watched as a hurricane of leaves came from behind her and clashed with the fire, preventing it from spreading forward. Coronamon opened his eyes after a second, noticing that nothing was happening, only to see BlackGarurumon standing in front of him, but otherwise still fine. The woman turned back to see a big lizard-looking Digimon with leaves and even some trees sprouting out from its back.

"Thousand Spike!" The Digimon shouted again, this time sticking its two tail-looking branches into the ground. Seconds later, multiple vines came out from the ground around BlackGarurumon. The Digimon jumped backwards after getting hit by the first few, but once in midair was unable to dodge the rest of the vines that came afterwards. Multiple of the vines impaled the Digimon, who let out a final growl before its body turned into data – composed of 0s and 1s – and floated up in the air. The data gathered together and turned into a DigiEgg which flew away in the direction the Digimon had come from.

Hanami had ducked and covered herself and the baby Digimon with the second attack of the lizard-like Digimon. It wasn't until she heard BlackGarurumon's growl that she looked up just in time to see it turn into data. She watched confused as the DigiEgg flew away, but then turned back to the other Digimon, who was now approaching them.

"Why have you come to this forest?" He pointed to Hanami and Coronamon with his tails. "Depending on your answer, you'll end up just like the other guy."

Hanami was scared and couldn't utter a single word.

"Um" Coronamon grabbed the Digimon's attention. "We came here looking for refuge. An army of Digimon suddenly attacked Format Village, and Jijimon…" He looked down. "He put me in charge of these Digimon." He pointed at the group of baby Digimon. "Said Rafflesimon? could help us."

The Digimon looked at everyone, then pulled his tails back. "I see."

Coronamon and Kapurimon breathe a sigh of relief. Hanami couldn't bring herself to do the same, seeing as the Digimon was still staring at her.

Noticing the awkward silence, Coronamon spoke. "I'm Coronamon, by the way. And this is Kapurimon." He nodded. "And these are-"

"Save it." The Digimon cut him off as he was about to introduce the rest of the group. He waited a few more seconds before looking away from Hanami and everyone else, turning towards the direction he had come from.

"Name's Petaldramon." He said, to Coronamon's surprise. "You can leave the introductions for later. For now, follow me."

"Follow you? Where?" Coronamon asked, confused. Petaldramon looked his way.

"You wanted to meet Rafflesimon, didn't you?" His face lit up. Petaldramon then turned towards Hanami. "I'm sure she'd be interested in seeing another human."

Hanami looked straight at the Digimon for the first time. "Wait, 'another'?"

"Heh." He just gave what looked like a smug grin, turned away and started walking.

Coronamon and Hanami looked at each other and nodded.

"Come on, we're almost there." He reassured the rest of the Digimon, before everyone started following Petaldramon.

Author's Notes

I hope you enjoyed the first step in this long journey, I know I had a blast finally putting the story into words. This story will span well over 30 chapters (rough estimate, could change in the future but probably not to something lower).

There is no set schedule for when a new chapter releases. The plan is to release a new chapter every few months, but I can't be more specific than that since this is something I'm working on in my free time, and life tends to get in the way more often than not.

I will say that this is my first time ever writing anything, but I'm definitely double and triple checking to make sure each chapter is as good as it can be.

If you enjoyed the story in any way, feel free to leave a comment, I'd be more than happy to know that people are having fun reading it. In the same vein, if you have any constructive criticism, don't be afraid to mention it no matter how small, as it will help me improve the quality of later chapters. Either way, thank you so much for reading this far and I'll see you in the next chapter!