Disclaimer: I don't own digimon.

A/N: So I got to talking with fellow writer Ruki44 and we went back and forth on various ideas, and one of them that came up was how Tamers would be if some characters in Tamers were originally Digidestined (Riley being Yolei and Yamaki being TK) and the Tamers world were originally the Adventure world. What changes would follow? Looking at it logically, it would be a progression. Adventure introduced us to the digital world for the first time and 02 brought us back to it, making it harder and harder for the digital world to remain a secret from humans until finally it just couldn't be hidden at all no matter how good the cover up. It became one of those, "You have to write this" moments.

So what would life be like post 02? Its ending paints a nice pretty picture, but life, as we know, rarely works out like that with dream jobs and babies-ever-after. Especially since the last 02 Drama CD hinted that something terrible was just starting…a new enemy had emerged, breaking through the digital worlds defenses. Fast forward from that, and we're in the Tamers time. What kind of world exists now?

Let's explore the hypothetical…

###

Prologue

There it was, framed against a black void broken only by the shining field of stars that lay behind it, the planet Earth. Matt Ishida placed a hand against the window of his spacecraft, smiling at it. On that tiny, blue orb, lay his heart and all the cares and worries that went with her. One of the most important and special people in the world; Sora Takenouchi. He could picture her in his mind's eye; her brown-eyes and ginger-hair. He wondered what she was doing right now, but he couldn't contact her just yet to find out.

"We're ready for communications blackout, Matt," came a husky voice from behind him. Matt glanced over his shoulder at the blue-furred, short and rather rotund, wolf-like creature with a horn on his forehead. Matt smiled at the creature as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about his presence. Indeed, his expression indicated long familiarity and camaraderie.

"All right, Gabumon," he said, pushing away from the window and floating over to his seat at the head of the capsule. "I'll fire the thrusters one more time. Tell Izzy to strap in."

"Got it," Gabumon nodded before pushing away from his seat and ducking downward toward the entrance to the Lunar-Lander section of their vehicle. Matt looked away from his instruments one last time to take another look out the window. The Earth was still there, accompanied now by the first glimpses of the Moon's surface.

Unlike their adventures that started all those years ago in a faraway summer camp, they knew exactly where they were right now, well on their way into exploring another great unknown.

Gabumon returned with a man with hair that appeared to be almost red in appearance, and the two of them strapped themselves in.

Matt tapped the thrusters and inserted their vessel, Friendship One, into Lunar orbit.

Digimon Trinity

By: Crazyeight

Chapter: 01/Anomaly

Beneath a sky dominated by white light, a large, horse-like creature covered in silver and gold armor with golden wings raced across a landscape composed of green and gold circuits, chasing after a tiny, white-blog of a creature with large, green eyes. The horse, a creature known as a Maildramon growled at the blob, his hooves pounding upon the ground.

"Stay still!" he howled, becoming enraged as the creature suddenly ducked to the left, and then right, his menacing tone only serving to encourage its flight. Although he was faster, Maildramon didn't turn as easily as this tiny creampuff of a digimon. Confound it! How did it escape the cage? he wondered. It was sealed! There was no way it could have gotten out on its own!

Of course, as Maildramon knew, there was no such thing as something being impossible, but the sheer improbability drove him insane with rage all the same. Only beings of the most high could have broken free.

None of that mattered now however. His first duty was to reclaim the Catalyst and take it somewhere safe; somewhere…anywhere. As long as it was far.

So he chased after the Catalyst.

"Oh, oh…" the Catalyst whimpered, continuing to run on its tiny legs. "Maybe we should talk about this. If you give me a chance I'm sure we could work this out!"

There is no working this out! Maildramon thought, stamping after the Catalyst. There would be only one way this would end. He made that very clear. Return to the cage and they would proceed from there. Why didn't the Catalyst understand that?

"I just wanted to play!" the Catalyst continued to plead. Oh, that infuriated Maildramon all the more. Play? Play?!

The safety of the digital world depends on you, and you broke free, endangering everything just to play?!

If the Catalyst weren't so important to the digital world's survival, he'd stomp its miserable existence into dust, end it all right there. That was not the way of the forces of Light however. No. Hate it he would, but he'd do his duty.

Finally, the creampuff tripped and tumbled to the ground, muttering a barely audible "Aw nuts" as it did so. Triumph surged through Maildramon as he put on the speed. At long last this wretched chase was over, and he could get back to doing his duty in the service of the Sovereigns and…

Suddenly a collision.

A black-scaled dinosaur-like creature—a DarkTyrannomon slammed into him, nearly knocking him to the side and snatching hold of his horn between his jaws. Maildramon gaped in astonishment at this. To think that the forces of Darkness had managed to come this far already? Were things that bad? Maildramon didn't dwell on it for very long and quickly turned the tide, throwing all his bodyweight on the dinosaur and crushing it to the ground. This battle would end quickly. The DarkTyrannomon's body was already blurring and becoming distorted, its bodily structure struggling to keep itself together in the face of Maildramon's overwhelming power. The horse laughed delightedly. To think that the Darkness would be so foolish to send such a weak foe against him…

A gleam of light from where the Catalyst still lay caught his attention just then, and Maildramon had only a second's worth of dawning horror come upon him before the DarkTyrannomon exploded in a glorious firestorm, from which it emerged…transformed! It was larger now, grey-colored with mechanical parts dotting its body. A MetalTyrannomon now, and as a show of power to go along with its new form, it casually brought a massive claw down on Maildramon.

His vaunted armor, a pride amongst the forces of Light, didn't so much as put up even a pitiable defense. His body was destroyed before he even knew what was happening—save for how badly he failed in his mission—and the last thing he heard upon his death were shouting of the words…

"GAME OVERRR!"

###

Calumon didn't understand why he had been in the cage when he first opened his eyes, or why there were so many angry digimon, ignoring his pleas, carrying him around, running, shouting…fighting. The only answers he received for his questions were the loud stampings of feet, battle cries and shouts about something called a Catalyst. Then…this place. Wherever this place was. Not that Calumon cared. It was calmer than the other place had been with less digimon trying to destroy each other and a lot more shiny lights. There seemed to be glowing creatures too, with odd, arm-shaped wings and a funny sprig upon their heads. They giggled and chirped so much that they looked like they were having a ton of fun. Why, such laughter had to mean they were going to be much more interesting than the Maildramon that carried him, but…oh, how he wished he could get out and join them.

Then suddenly he was, and then there was more chasing and fighting—especially fighting once the black lizard showed up. And then the explosion that propelled him into the air, far away, but still plenty close enough to watch in horror as the newly transformed MetalTyrannomon destroyed the Maildramon with frightening ease.

It was game over for him, and even though the Maildramon had been mean to him, it made him feel rather sad. He seemed to be greatly concerned about something. Something big.

The force from the explosion continued to propel him through the air, past the bright light and toward a rippling blue sky with a glowing grid. The sky warped upon his approach and there was bright light again…and the next thing Calumon knew he was nearly crashing into a strange metal…thing—the best way he could describe the helicopter—with rotating blades keeping it aloft in the air. He tumbled through the air, ears expanding and transforming into wings to rebalance him and keep him from falling. He heard the sound of horns honking and there was the hot smell of sunlight baking metal and stone…and something else he had no name for. Having finally righted himself, he tilted his head to one side and tapped a paw upon his mouth questioningly as the helicopter moved away from him, oblivious to his presence, not something he was used to.

Quickly brushing it aside, not wanting to pay attention to something that obviously didn't care to do the same to him, he turned his attention to the vast expanse of city that lay below.

I hope the other digimon here aren't as rude as that one, he thought, his eyes glimmering a little with hope.

###

Within a small, dinosaur-like hut on a playground, a young, light-brown-haired boy wearing a blue hoody slapped a card with the image of a grey, cybernetic dinosaur on the floor, grinning triumphantly.

"Bulls-eye baby! DarkTyrannomon digivolves to MetalTyrannomon which makes you history!"

Seated across from him with a card displaying an armored horse, a Maildramon, was a boy wearing a black shirt with a golden cross emblazoned on it. He clasped his hands around his hat, crying in dismay as he realized that he had just lost their game.

"Ohhh man, that hurt! That was like something I would do! How did you think of that?"

Smirking, the boy lifted a card from next to his MetalTyrannomon and slid it through the small card reader he held in his hand. Numbers whipped by on its screen as it scanned the microchips printed into its side and displayed the final score.

117.3184. More than enough to win their match

"What can I say?" he said haughtily. "You're dealing with a super genius!"

The other boy snorted as he gathered up his things and quickly boxed them up. "Yeah, in your dreams doofus," he said before slipping down the side of the dinosaur hut and heading outside. "Takato!" he called out almost as soon as he landed. "Will you hurry it up? If we're late Ms. Kamiya's going to make us wait in the hall again!"

Takato's head poked out from the exit. "I'll be right there! Don't leave without me!"

Pulling himself back up, the red-eyed boy resumed packing his things, dumping his cards into his box. Unnoticed by him, the box, placed precariously on the edge of the hut's entrance, began to tip from the added weight and within short order spilled out, eliciting a cry of dismay as he realized too late to stop it from its inevitable date with gravity.

"Oh man…" he groaned watching helplessly as cards flew everywhere. While they floated down, one of them, a simple blue-embossed card with a yellow-dinosaur image reflecting upon its surface, caught his eye. Confused, he hopped down and picked it up from the pile.

"Wow," he said, turning it over thoughtfully in the sunlight. "I don't remember having a card like this."

Curious, he brought the card up to his card reader and slid it through, thinking that it would give him some kind of identification or at least a score number that he could cross reference in his memory. He was an avid fan of the digimon card game—had been ever since he got his first look at one of the artificial intelligence creatures known as digimon. To have a card that he didn't remember, whether it was from his own collection or from the card index was…odd to say the least.

The result from the card reader were, to put it lightly, unexpected as he found himself on the receiving end of a shower of electricity and blue sparks. Dropping the card reader, Takato quickly backed away, throwing his hands up to guard his face.

"What…was that?!"

He eyed the card reader warily, like a snake that might strike if he made so much as the wrong move, while on its screen numbers raced across it nonsensically as it continued to smoke and spark.

"Um… This is new," he said, watching the device continue its path of breaking down before he noticed that his friend had vacated the area.

"Oh great. My card reader goes mental and I'm late for school again!"

Quickly sweeping everything back up, card reader included, he stashed them back into the box and tossed it into the dinosaur hut before snatching up his book bag.

"Thanks for waiting, Kazu!" he exclaimed, running off.

###

Kari Kamiya heard the sigh from outside the door. Pausing in the middle of her lesson, she turned an eye toward the window where she saw a mop of brown hair.

"I heard that," she scolded sternly. "You know the rules. If you show up late, you'll have to wait."

"Who? Me?" came the reply, followed by a round of giggling. The mop hair shuddered a little at the sound and became more subdued. "I…I'm Sorry I'm late Ms. Kamiya."

Kari sighed despondently, returning to her lesson, only a bit more slowly. This class, as many classes did before, frustrated her, and every year it felt like it ate away at a piece of her sanity.

Headaches, Mori, constantly grading, and the fighting and not paying attention… It seemed so simple when I started. She sighed and closed her eyes, resisting the urge to lean her head against the board. I thought it would be anyway.

Her students however proved her wrong. Her rule for instance seemed so simple and easy to remember. It was designed to be easily memorable. Yet here was Takato, chronically late. He wasn't a bad student, and easily one of her best behaved ones, but he let himself be easily distracted by his fantasies.

She supposed she was in part to blame for that.

Unable to take the distraction in her thoughts anymore, she set the chalk down and headed out into the hallway where she found the boy, sure enough, doodling out a digimon on a small pad of paper.

"Yeah… Red is definitely a power color," she heard him say with glee, causing her to shudder a little. The youth was so wrapped up in his dreams that it didn't take much for him to sink back into it even when reality was staring him right in the face.

"I'll give him the strongest attack ever! No one will expect that, especially from a Rookie! I'm going to make him even better than Agumon. I'll call it, Pyro Sphere!"

"Are you designing a Halloween costume?" Kari interrupted. Takato barely glanced up as he continued scribbling in colors.

"Hm? No, it's a digimon. Don't you know anything?"

Something clicked in Takato's brain no sooner than the words were out of his mouth. Kari rested a finger on her chin in an authoritative manner while she let him finish processing. True to form, Takato's mouth moved faster than his ability to think through his responses before replying.

"Well Takato," she continued. "Despite your apology, you certainly don't seem very sorry about being late, do you?"

He looked up, his eyes widening at having sealed his own figurative doom. Too late. He almost seemed to nervously laugh at himself for being so unbelievably clumsy with his words.

"Ah…yes?" In short order he was on his feet, hopping up and down like a rabbit and apologizing profusely. "I-I m-mean no ma'am. No, a-actually I do mean yes! I mean I-I'm sorry! I'm really sorry!"

Kari would have felt better about punishing him if it weren't for the fact that he really did mean to be sorry.

###

The school day was ending, and Takato remained sitting at his desk, writing his letter of apology to Ms. Kamiya. It remained unfinished, with eraser marks smudging its surface from numerous starts, stops, and rewrites of specific parts so as to not make his teacher think that he was merely sucking up to her in order to get out as quickly as possible.

Her place in history as one of the eight original Digidestined demanded that he give her the respect that she deserved.

He admired her. Her and her digimon partner, Gatomon, whom he saw from time to time. Her and the others…Matt, Joe, Mimi, Tai, Izzy, and Takeru. It felt so amazing to be in the presence of someone as famous as her. He heard all the stories—had committed them to memory—about the adventures of the original Digidestined. He couldn't imagine what that experience must have been like, to do something so amazing. To save the world and to have a partner that you could always trust to watch your back and have fun with… The battles. The light of digivolution as you realized the totality of the depth your friendship with your partner ran… Of course, it would never happen. Not to him anyway. Even without everything that happened since the War of Darkness, Takato felt that there was nothing particularly special about him that warranted his becoming a Digidestined, or even a 'Tamer'—the term used in the card game to distance itself from the events of the War and by some who dealt with those digimon who occasionally entered the real world. He was just a random boy who went to school and worked at his parent's bakery to help make ends meet.

Still, he could dream, even if it wasn't likely.

While he dreamed, his eyes sought out his sketch pad and the digimon that he dreamt up on its pages. Stats littered it, but the digimon as yet had no name.

Now what should I call him? Red…Dino…Firemon.

…No that's stupid.

Blazing…Dragon…Lizardmon!

That one didn't sound any better either. Yeah, get real. Lifting up his sketchpad he looked it over. A thought came to him. A smile bloomed onto his face.

"Hey… How about…Guilmon?" He tasted the name and rolled it around in his head. "Cool! Now that's a name!"

Suddenly an orange sock puppet was thrust in front of his face with a ruff from its owner, startling Takato with a yelp.

"I'm…I'm almost done…" he spilled out, tripping over his words before hastily adding a ma'am out of respect. "I'm just taking a timeout!"

Whatever he was expecting, it certainly wasn't the giggling Jeri Katou kneeling by his desk, peeking out from behind her puppet. "You're kinda funny!" she laughed as Takato looked at her, slightly confused.

"Um… You see…" he began as she left his desk and began to route through her desk. "I'm having a really off day."

"There it is!" Seemingly taking no notice of his excuse, Jeri pulled out her flute from her desk. "Bad flute! Bad!" she scolded it with her sock puppet. Takato blinked, taken over by a sense of unreality at the girl's behavior. She had always been a touch odd, but there were some days where she seemed even…odder than normal.

"Oookay…" he said quietly as she left the room, now having gotten what she came for. As he watched, Jeri turned to the left of the door, and then her sock puppet popped back and started barking at him.

"Ruff! You'd better hurry up and write that apologyyy!"

With another giggle, the girl immediately began running down the stairs. After a moment, Takato blushed lightly and smiled.

Weird or not, it was rather cute when she talked with her puppet. Sometimes odd could be a good thing.

###

In a dark room, A woman with dark-red, almost purple hair—Yolei Inou—typed upon her control panel, her visor feeding her data from the screens surrounding her and her coworker. Below them, their superior, Takeru Takaishi, flicked the lid to his lighter open before snapping it closed. The screens displayed a number of expanding yellow rings.

"I'm picking up an abnormal germination energy pattern," Yolei said. Below, Takeru slowly flicked the lighter open, and then closed once more.

"Is it a Wild One?" he asked.

"I can't tell yet," Yolei replied. "But the levels are increasing at an exponential rate. I've never seen anything like it!"

###

Clouds gathered in the sky as Kari made her way down the hall of the school, her expression distant, yet thoughtful. Pushing open the door to the teacher's lounge, she allowed herself a small smile as she spied a familiar, white-furred, cat-like digimon with yellow gloves and a gold-ring balancing on the end of her tail, seated on the couch in the corner, calmly flipping through a magazine. Upon looking up, the cat's bored demeanor quickly changed to one of elation and she was on her feet, all smiles and purrs.

"Kari," she greeted, stretching and yawning. "You couldn't have come a little later? I was about to have another nap."

"Sorry Gatomon," Kari replied, seating herself down next to her partner. "Takato managed to finish his apology essay early, so I sent him home. If you'd like I can buy you some fish to make up for it."

Gatomon grinned devilishly. "Oh, you know me too well," she purred. "All right. I'll forgive you this time."

Holding out her bag, Kari pulled it open for the cat to climb into. Gatomon made a face, but there was little that could be done. Hate it though they did, they had to get by in this world. Upon Gatomon's taking up of the offered bag, Kari closed it up snugly—long practice from her elementary days—and soon left the room, just barely missing her fellow coworker, Mr. Mori, and more than grateful for it. He was another headache that she could do without.

Making her way down the stairs, she heard a steady beeping coming from her bag. With a squirm, Gatomon poked her head and a paw out, producing a small, oval-shaped device with a pink-colored handgrip with an antennae on the end. Its screen glowed slightly as it beeped over and over.

"Kari…" she began. Taking it from her partner, she looked at the screen worriedly, hitting the detect function.

Something was coming.

###

"Oh man… What else can go wrong?"

The wind blew as Takato made his way through the park, hand over his forehead to keep his hair from blowing in his face as he bee-lined toward the playground. Electricity danced from one manhole cover to another before landing on the dinosaur hut wherein his cards lay. Takato broke into a run, missing the clock on the hut as it suddenly spun forward two hours.

"I hope my card reader isn't busted…" he said, running into the hut and climbing up where he kept his cards. His jaw dropped open in amazement as he found his card box glowing, electricity sparking around it. Overtaken with awe, he crawled toward the box. His brain told him this was dangerous, that he needed to turn right around and rush home as quickly as possible before the storm hit.

His instincts took hold of him however, and commanded his hands to take up the box. The electricity, oddly enough, didn't hurt upon his touching it as he shook it open. Cards spilled all over the ground. Amidst all of them, crashed his card reader, glowing intensely. Almost as though it were waiting for his arrival, the card reader changed shape, becoming arc-shaped with a crimson ring in the center, surrounding a screen with a single button below it.

With the light dying down, Takato barely noticed the calming of the storm around him as he leaned in for a closer look.

"Hm? I'm…dreaming."

Reaching out, he touched the device. It was cool to the touch, but its reality caused him to recoil slightly before taking hold of it again. "Wait a minute. This is…real!"

A small smile briefly crept across his face as he lifted the device and turned it over.' "It's…impossible. I'm going nuts! I'm sitting inside of a dinosaur…with a digivice. Right?"

Curious, he touched the button, perusing the screen, only to be greeted by blinking red lettering: No, followed by a pair of lightning bolts.

"Hey… It's empty."

A crash of thunder resounded upon the air, bringing the boy back to attention. Grabbing his things once more and piling them all back into the box, he dropped out of the dinosaur hut and took off at a run.

###

Kari arrived at the park, Gatomon peeking out of her bag, eyes scanning for danger. Bringing up her digivice, she reactivated the detect function. She narrowed her eyes.

Whatever it is that it was picking up before, it's gone now, she thought. She sighed and closed her eyes, half wondering why she was even here to begin with. Old instincts die hard I guess.

"Kari?" Gatomon asked, her eyes tracing up to Kari's face questioningly. "What's wrong? You look like you just met up with Mr. Mori."

"It's nothing Gatomon," she replied with a shake of her head. "I think it was a false alarm."

Either that, or Takeru took care of whatever it was…

Feeling foolish for even coming out here in the first place, Kari turned and started for home once more.

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