Authors note: Thank you all for reading part one, please leave a review if you're enjoying the story so far! Apologies for any stray spelling or continuity errors.

- Chapter 2 -

Joe Kido hated to be late. Which was ironic, because he so often was. As he barrelled down the school hallways to the computer room, he tried his best to ignore Gomamon's running commentary on the situation. "Wow Joe, you can really move when you want to!" said the ever-cheery little digimon, who peaked out from the back of Joe's backpack. "Thanks buddy" said Joe with not a small amount of sarcasm. "Now if you could only get a haircut you'd be unstoppable" chortled his partner. Turning a sharp corner with an audible skid, Joe at that moment very nearly collided his increasingly ungainly body with the unmistakably diminutive form of Koushiro "Izzy" Izumi.

"Oh, there you both are!" said Izzy. Wasting no time he grabbed Joe by the arm and guided him down the hallways. "The others sent me to look for you, everyone's already here!". "Sorry for the delay" said Joe looking abashed at his tardiness. "Our train got delayed, some kind of electrical fault apparently". Izzy looked at Joe gravely "I know, I've been monitoring the situation- technology all over the country has been going haywire since last night". "Wow…what's going on? Tai's message earlier really scared us!"

"It's best you see for yourself, come on!" Sliding open the door to the computer room, Izzy walked in with Joe in tow. Joe immediately noticed two things- the first was that a boy in blue goggles Joe didn't recognise was sat beside Tai with what looked like a red and black dinosaur digimon at his side with Koramon sitting comfortably on top of its large head, the second was that the group were not whole- he knew Matt was touring America with his band and that Mimi was working for a modelling agency in Paris, but apart from that- he couldn't see Kari. although the assembled Digidestined and their partners turned to watch him enter, to his surprise they all seemed very quiet. Yolei who was sat next to Ken shifted uncomfortably in her seat with Hawkmon in her lap, a tearful expression on her face. Sora lightly patted her back, clearly comforting her from some terrible news.

In the early hours of the morning, Joe and all the other Digidestined had received an email from Tai, simply reading "Guys, we all need get together- no excuses, something terrible has happened and we need your help!". And so by one means or another every Digidestined in the country had feigned illness or injury, dropped their morning classes and made their way to Odaiba. As Joe sat down next to Cody he looked at his younger friend for context, but the serious young man simply stared directly ahead, as if perplexed by some great mystery.

"Hi Joe, it's great to see you bro" said Tai, rising from his chair. "As I was saying- the explosion you may have heard about on the news last night was at my families apartment…and Kari's been taken."

"Taken?" said Joe "Taken by who?". Tai leaned forward in his seat "a LadyDevimon attacked the apartment and stole Kari. She seriously hurt Gatomon too…she's back at our apartment now resting. We don't know where Kari is or why she was taken, but we know she doesn't have her digivice." said Tai, producing Kari's pink D-3 from his pocket.

"This is so crazy Tai, how did a LadyDevimon just swoop in from the digital world and take Kari like it was nothing?!" yelled Davis rising from his chair, a gesture almost instantly mirrored by Veemon who leapt on a desk, pointed at Tai and said "How come you and Agumon didn't kick her butt?"

"Because she wasn't alone, and strictly speaking she isn't from the Digital World…at least not *your* Digital World" said the boy in the yellow goggles. All the assembled kids turned to look at Takato, but it was Davis who asked "Tai, who is this kid?"

"Well…" said Tai, struggling to know where to start. After Takato saved his life the previous night they'd spent hours talking as they looked for Koramon in the debris of the building he'd smashed through in his form as WarGreymon. Now though all he had heard felt like bad fanfiction, and the prospect of recounting it all dizzied even him. Luckily, it was Takato who spoke up. "My name is Takato Matsuda, and this is my partner Guilmon…this is going to sound crazy, but we came here from another reality…" in the wake of his words, a silence overtook the room as the assembled Digidestined took it in. It was Davis who punctured the silence.

"Yeah right, we're meant to believe you're some kind of traveller from an alternate dimension, like from a sci-fi movie?" Said Davis shortly. "I suppose the idea isn't that unbelievable, considering everything we've experienced so far…" said Ken, raising his hand to rub his chin pensively. "We speculated a long time ago that the digital world we knew was just one of many alternate realities…I suppose the idea that there's one like ours that also hosts human life shouldn't be too far-fetched."

Yolei had up to this point contained herself, but now she rose and pointed her finger at Takato "Who cares where you come from, why don't you tell us what this has to do with Kari, and how do we know we can even trust you?" Takato reflexively raised his hands to defend himself, but it was Cody who spoke next "Come on Yolei, yelling isn't gonna solve anything!"

Takato turned to Yolei and said softly "I know how weird this must be, but we're here to help I swear. Listen, I've got friends back where I come from, and they're relying on me now just like Kari is relying on you, and I believe that together we can help them both!"

"Let's listen to him…" said TK, the emotion in his voice irrepressible. Everyone turned. TK had been absolutely quiet up to now, but now everyone could see the tears streaming down his face. "Kari is gone, she's probably terrified wherever she is, if this kid is offering his help then no matter who he is or where he comes from we need to take it!".

"Takato please, can you tell us why you're here?" asked TK.

"Ok, well the first thing you should know is my reality is a little different from yours, and our Digital Word is even weirder…" with that Takato weaved the tale of how he'd come to be partnered with Guilmon, him and his friends and their quest through the Digital World, and their battle with the D-Reaper.

"When we went back to The Digital World to get back our partners, we found that it was a lot different than when we'd left it." Explained Takato, "After the fight with the D-Reaper, the four Digimon Sovereigns were too weak to keep control over their world, and with so much hardship and desolation after the fight- it wasn't long before someone rose to challenge them."

"His name is Barbamon…" said Takato gravely, "He's an insanely powerful Mega Level Digimon who has the power to turn other digimon's hearts towards evil. He drew all of the most evil Digimon from across the four corners of the digital world to him, and started a crusade to invade and conquer our world".

The gang listened intently as Takato told the story of his last few months. At first simply a few Digimon had "bio-emerged" calling themselves 'Emissaries of Barbamon'. But as time had gone on, more and more came through, becoming increasingly violent.

"But we had no idea what was about to happen" said Takato darkly. "It all changed a few days ago…"

—xx—xx—xx—xx—

That morning Takato had watched Guilmon happily scarf down three hot bread rolls that were speared on his claws. "I'm surprised my dad let you take fresh rolls this morning" said Takato, amused.

"Me too…" said Guilmon vaguely, before finishing his last bite with a chomp.

"Takato, tell Guilmon to stop stealing bread from the oven!" called Takato's father the bakery's busy kitchen. Takato looked across the room to the guilty dinosaur, who all the same wagged his large tail just like a puppy.

"You are incorrigible, you know that!" said Takato, stifling a laugh at his digimon. "I know…" replied Guilmon, crossing the room and nuzzling his huge nose against Takato's chest. Takato couldn't help but smile. Despite the recent disturbances, having Guilmon back had been everything to him.

The summer break had allowed him to spend all his time with his friends, and when they weren't fighting these new "Emissaries of Barbamon" they'd actually managed to have some good times. Takato and Guilmon had gone fishing with Henry and Terriermon, spent whole afternoons at the arcade with Kazu and Kenta, and against all odds Rika had even invited all of them over to her house for her birthday. Every now and again he found time to spend days with Jeri, where they'd go for walks and talk, and sometimes get ice cream. He was sure if he told Kazu or Kenta about these meetings, they would classify them as "dates", but even Takato didn't know if that's what in fact they were.

One thing had been bothering him though. Yamaki. Since their return from the Digital World, Mitsuo Yamaki had stopped returning Takato's calls. He was sure Yamaki still worked for Hypnos and must have some opinion about what was going on, but for weeks now all communication had stopped between him and the tamers. On one occasion Yamaki's girlfriend Riley Ohtori had shown up in the bakery buying bread, and Takato had asked her where Yamaki was. "Oh don't worry, Mitsuo just took a leave of absence after the D-Reaper incident, he's fine!".

"Well ok, but if you could get him to call me I'd appreciate it…" Takato had said uncertainly. Riley assured him she would. Since then he hadn't seen her. Takato had even considered showing up at the Hypnos Headquarters and asking for Yamaki directly, but thought better of it, psyching himself out that he was just being paranoid.

Takato thought of all of this as he walked down the street, on his way to a martial arts lesson with Henry and Rika. Henry had, in his own fastidious and logical way convinced them that if they wanted to become better warriors in their Bio-Merged forms with their partners, they should take up the practise with him as their sensei. Takato was self-admittedly lousy, with Rika quickly far surpassing him. Many times their Digimon partners had clapped politely while Rika had flung Takato from one end of the room to another.

Smiling to himself, Takato turned a corner onto a large and busy street. It was then that the world turned upside down. In what felt like a single moment, the sky ripped itself apart, and a thousand bright sparks came roaring through. Takato watched as they careened on their own paths, impacting into buildings, streets, into the river and the park. Five hundred feet from him, a large bright spark landed in the street and split the concrete all the way to Takato's feet. People screamed as smoke and dust billowed n thick clouds down the wide promenade. Takato watched as out of the clouds, the toothed face of a Tyrannomon looked down at him and Guilmon.

"Guilmon, let's go!" yelled Takato, reaching for his digivice. As much as the creature had already caused a lot of destruction, Takato restrained himself, knowing that many of these "Emissaries of Barbamon" were simply being controlled and were not truly evil at heart. Gallantmon wouldn't be necessary for this fight.

"GUILMON DIGIVOLVE TO…GROWLMON"

Growlmon's shaggy horned head hit the Tyrannomon hard in the stomach, and Takato was almost deafened by its titanic roar of pain. Growlmon followed this up with a swipe to his enemies nose, sending the dinosaur barrelling backwards into a glass building. Recovering, the dinosaur opened its wide maw and shouted "Fire Breath!", a bout of flame followed after the words. " Pyro Blaster!" roared Growlmon in returning, cutting through the flames entirely with his own blast of red energy. The powerful blast impacted against the Tyrannomon, causing the building he was partially trapped in to collapse around him. The rubble shuddered for a few moments, then lay still.

"Come on Growlmon, we've gotta find the guys!" yelled Takato. Growlmon nodded and ran back to his partner. Just then, a gleaming metal sword launched itself high from the rooftops and embedded itself firmly in the red dinosaurs back. Growlmon roared in pain, and through their connection Takato was dropped to his knees in sheer agony.

"I hope you don't mind if I *cut* in…"

Through his pain and blurred vision Takato looked up and was able to see what looked like a clown wearing four swords on his back.

"The name is Piedmon, and as you can see- I'm a barrel of laughs!"

-Continued in Chapter 3-