New Blood
Chapter 1
Tai, the leading scorer and team captain of Tokyo University's Men's Soccer Team, was walking slowly with his fiancee Sora, a team member on the Women's Team and a part-time flower arranger. The couple walked, arm-in-arm, toward their condo. Tai's uniform and Sora's sundress flapped in the breeze.
Agumon and Biyomon were at their jobs; all of the digidestined's digimon had been accepted into society as contributing members. Agumon was a captain in the Japanese Self Defense Force (the Japanese military), while Biyomon was an airline pilot.
"I wonder how Mimi and Matt are doing," Sora wondered. Mimi and Matt had been married last week; Tai had been one of the best men, while Sora had been the Maid of Honor.
"It's not THAT hard to imagine, hon," Tai replied. "It IS a honeymoon."
Sora blushed.
They arrived at their condo and walked inside. Tai went into the bathroom to change his dirty soccer practice clothes, while Sora went outside to check on her garden. The phone rang and Tai, wearing a Nike shirt and shorts, walked out of the bathroom and picked it up. A familiar voice came over the line.
"Tai?"
Tai covered the speaker and yelled to Sora. "Sora! It's Izzy!" Even though Izzy was still 17, he had already gotten a doctorate in computer science and was currently the president of Microsoft's large Japanese branch, and was a very busy man. Although he visited all the digidestined in their bi-yearly reunions and many other times in between, he really didn't see the others that often. So if he had called, then it had to be important.
Tai uncovered the speaker and said, "Izzy! Bud, how are ya?"
A friendly chuckle came from the other end. "Not bad. You know, living life." Boy, was that an understatement. With his computer genius and high position, he was one of the wealthiest menn in Japan, probably the world. And he was still not even 20.
Sora walked into the living room, and Tai put it on speaker. "Izzy?" Sora sked.
"Hi Sora, how are you?"
"Fine, thanks," Sora replied.
"Listen, I won't beat around the bush. This is very important. I just got an urgent message from Gennai on my personal mainframe. He sent an email that was encrypted up the ying yang--my software's still working on deciphering it. If he went through all this trouble to put security measures like that on the message, the message must be really important. What's more, there are probably bad guys out there, and he doesn't want them to know about the message or find out what's on it."
"Are you saying we're gonna have to go back to our old digidestined evil-fighting days?" asked Tai, glancing at his nervous wife. Neither of them wanted another nightmarish episode of "kill the bad guy before he destroys the world".
"I don't know, I hope not," Izzy answered. He shared their worries.
"Just in case, we'd better get the gang notified and ready," Tai told him.
"Good ol' Tai," Izzy commented. "I knew you'd know exactly what to do. You should've gone into politics or the military instead of soccer."
"Another life, pal, another life."
"Yeah."
"Alright, you get Matt, Mimi, and Joe; Sora and I will get TK and Kari. Let's do it," said Tai. "Bye."
"Bye."
Tai hung up the phone and dialed another number.
*****
Ever since the digiworld, Joe Kido had always had an urge to prove that he wasn't a wimp...to prove that he was a good teammate, that he was courageous and skilled, not just reliable and cautious.
After he had finished high school, his family had moved to America, since both his father and his older brother Jim had gotten jobs as doctors in Virginia. Instead of going to a medical college, he had shocked everyone by applying for West Point Army Academy.
He had proved that he was good. Very good. He had really toughened up physically, and could now run 5 miles nonstop every morning without getting very tired. His mentality had also improved; while not as reckless as some of the other digidestined, he had reached that point right between planning too much and running right in with your hair on fire. He had proved that he was a very good soldier, a far cry from the wimpy old Joe he had been. Some laser eye surgery had deleted the need for glasses, so now he even looked completely like a soldier.
So, he had applied for Spec Ops at Fort, North Carolina. This time, no one had been surprised. After months of intensive training, he became a captain in the legendary Delta Force.
Now, he was commanding an elite platoon of anti-terrorist commandos at MacDill AFB in Florida. Because of the secretive nature of his work and his life, he never got many calls, so he wasn't expecting the phone at his desk to suddenly ring. He picked it up. "Hello?"
An hour later, he was online, logged onto a special videoconference chatroom that the digidestined had reserved in cyberspace.
*****
"Oh God! That was tremendous!" Mimi gasped as she and Matt lay next to each other in their honeymoon suite in Bermuda.
Matt, his face flushed, his breathing rapid, replied, "Yeah! You--you were really great."
Mimi rolled on top of him and kissed him deeply. When they parted, she giggled, "You weren't so bad yourself, big boy. Wanna do it again?"
"G-give me a few minutes," Matt told her.
Suddenly, the phone rang, and Mimi picked it up. "Hello?"
"Mimi?"
"Izzy? How'd you get our number?" asked Mimi. After all, this was a hotel room.
"Oh please, I'm the president of Microsoft's Japan branch, I can find out Elvis's number if I want to."
"True," Mimi conceded.
"Listen, I called because I have something important to tell you..."
*****
Oh I love this song," Kari remarked as she took TK's hand and pulled him unresistingly to the dance floor of the semi-classy dance club that they were in.
"Kari, you know I'm bad at slow-dancing," TK told his girlfriend as he walked onto the dance floor wtih her.
"So? Just follow my lead, sweetie," Kari replied.
"I dunno..."
"Oh come on, we're always so busy, what with midterms, projects, studying, and all. This could be one of the few chances we get for a romantic evening," Kari convinced him. They were indeed always busy, since both of them were juniors in high school and were preparing for their college entrance tests. Kari was planning to major in art (including photography), while TK was the basketball team's captain and was going to major in psychology. He had aspirations to play in the American NBA.
"TK, Kari!" yelled a voice. They both turned to find Tai and Sora making their way towards them.
"Tai? Sora? What're you guys doing here?" asked Kari.
"We've got a situation. Gennai's contacted us, and we've gotta get ready for possibly another mission."
"G-gennai? You mean we might have to go back to the digiworld?" inquired TK, who was getting concerned.
"Maybe."
*****
In a few hours, all the digidestined were logged onto the videoconference chat room. The message from Gennai had been decrypted, and it explained everything. Furthermore, it revealed the identities and the location of the digivices, but not the tags and crests, of the 12th and 13th Digidestined.
Joe volunteered to find the digivices and the two new Digidestined. After all, they were all right there in America.
Chapter 2
"Ostrich!" 14-year-old Kevin Zhu yelled at his friend, 15-year-old Eric "Ostrich" Morris, who currently had the ball. Kevin was running down the court, having slipped by two defenders.
Eric saw him and threw the ball to him in an overhead pass. Kevin jumped up, caught the ball, and dribbled toward the hoop. Another opposing player popped up in front of him, seeking to block his way. Kevin hurled it back at Eric, who was now alongside him. Eric dribbled past, found Kevin open again, and passed the ball again. Kevin leaped up, caught it and shot it while he was still in the air, and landed, breathing hard. The ball made a satisfying cllllink sound as it landed perfectly inside the hoop and brushed against the metal net.
"Nice alley-oop," Eric commented.
Kevin grinned at him. "Getting better everyday, Ostrich."
"Me or you?"
"Me, of course. You still suck."
That got a laugh from Eric. "Yeah, right. Is that why I kick your ass almost every time we play 21?"
"Not everytime," Kevin snorted. "Besides, what about last game? I one-hand tipped you while you were still at 4."
"Rematch?"
"You're on."
Just then, the air seemed to be sucked out of the area. Everything was still. Suddenly, what looked like a rip IN THE AIR appeared and rapidly expanded. A creature that looked like a small cheetah that stood up on two legs was the first to appear out of the rip. He had on a green beret and camouflage fatigues that changed colors like a chameleon to fit in with the background. There was what appeared to be a pistol barrel attached to his right arm.
Next, a small dragon that looked like a green version of Spyro leapt out. This one had a single horn on its head and a picture of a flame tattooed onto its chest.
The cheetah ran away from the rip and swiveled his body and arms back towards the rip. The dragon was flying right next to him, its head turned twoards the rip.
A squad of black and blue bats that looked like bowling balls with wings streaked out of the rip after the cheetah and the dragon. One look at them, and Kevin could tell that they were evil.
"Demi Dart!" one of the bats yelled. These guys could speak English! It fired a dark energy dart towarrd the cheetah.
The cheetah nimbly dodged it with a jump and twist to the right. He landed, crouched, aimed his right arm at the offending bat, and yelled, "Sonic Round!"
A superfast energy bullet streaked out of the pistol barrel on his arm. The round connected with the bat who had fired, and disintegrated it.
"Sonic Round!" More energy bullets flew out, striking and evaporating more bats.
The small dragon joined in. "Wyrmling Flame!" A small column of fire flew out of its mouth and killed another bat.
The two creatures continued firing their attacks until all the bats had been destroyed. "Cleared!" the cheetah yelled. It looked around, and then stopped to stare at Kevin. "You're Kevin, aren't you?"
The dragon pointed to Eric. "And you're Eric."
"Uh, do we know you?" asked Eric.
"I'm Soltamon," said the cheetah.
"I'm Wyvemon," introduced the dragon. "You two are the 12th and 13th Digidestined, and we're your digimon."
Before the two teens could ask questions, another creature appeared out of the rip. A large beast with the heads of a lion, an eagle, and a snake flew out of the rip, using its dragonlike wings to glide above the basketball courts, blocking out the sun.
By now, all the other students had already departed, screaming. Only Kevin and Eric were still left, staring dumbfoundedly at Soltamon, Wyvemon, and the newcomer.
"That's Chimeramon! He's a dangerous ultimate; there's no way we can beat him!" Wyvemon exclaimed.
"We've got to try. Sonic Round!" Soltamon replied as he fired.
"Wyrmling Flame!"
The two attacks harmlessly bounced off of Chimeramon, who then countered with his own special move, TriStrike. A dazzling myraid of energy beams flew out of its three mouths, incinerating anything they touched. Soltamon and Wyvemon managed to drag Kevin and Eric to cover.
Suddenly, another voice rang out. "Gomamon digivolve to Ikkakumon!"
Out of nowhere, a large hairy sea elephant with a horn appeared. "Harpoon Torpedo!" it yelled, and launched a missile from its horn that blasted back Chimeramon (by now, all the Digidestined's digimon had many years of fighting experience, and were much more powerful than they had been during their first couple of adventures).
A tall, blue-haired man wearing a military uniform rushed out from behind Ikkakumon and ran over to Kevin and Eric. He quickly threw two items at them. "Take them!"
Kevin caught his and examined it. "What's this?"
"A digivice! Hold it! Believe in its power! It'll let your digimon digivolve!" yelled Major Joe Kido.
"What?" asked Eric, who had also caught his.
Suddenly, Soltamon and Wyvemon began to glow.
"Soltamon digivolve to Cydrotamon!" Soltamon rapidly morphed into a different, larger creature. He retained the basic look and body structure of a standing cheetah, though larger and with a much more muscular body. He had a cool metal helmet and tough metal armor on his chest, shoulders, knees, hands, and feet. He was about as large as an average adult human, and looked like he was very fast and dexterous. He had a large autocannon on each arm that looked like they could chop up a battalion of Tankmon in seconds.
"Wyvemon digivolve to Draconomon!" Wyvemon also changed. He grew to the size of a school bus and sprouted large wings. His arms and legs got large, more muscular, with 4 fearsome claws and a couple of metal spikes each. He grew a large horn on his nose and another smaller one further back. His skin color changed to blue; he was an ice dragon.
"Whoa, what happened to them?" asked Eric, looking at Draconomon with awe.
"They digivolved to their champion forms," Joe replied.
"What?" from Kevin, who was staring at Cydrotamon.
Chimeramon moved to attack, but Cydrotamon and Draconomon beat him to it.
"Autocannon!" Cydrotamon yelled, firing his autocannons very rapidly. In the space of 2 seconds, about 40 high explosive rounds slammed itno Chimeramon. One head exploded in a bloody mess, and deep scorches and wounds appeared all over its body.
"Arctic Circle!" Draconomon announced as he spat out a ring of frigid energy. One of the heads and both wings were frozen solid and shattered. That left one head to go.
"Ikkakumon digivolve to Zudomon!" The hariy sea elephant briefly glowed before turning into Zudomon, a giant turtle with fangs, a horn, and a big hammer. "Vulcan's Hammer!"
An energy arrow shot out as Zudomon pounded his hammer into the ground. The arrow destroyed Chimeramon's final head. Headless, the beast disintegrated. All three good digimon went back to their rookie forms.
"Okay, now you wanna tell us what's going on?" asked Kevin.
"Later. Come with me and I'll explain everything," replied Joe.
"Hold it, I'm not going anywhere with you. You'll explain right now," Kevin told him firmly.
"Very well, but at least let's go somewhere less public...and with computer access," Joe reasoned.
"Fine. Looks like everyone's gone and school's out anyways, so we'll go to my house. No tricks, okay?" said Eric.
"Okay. Let's go."
*****
Once they were at Eric's house, Joe explained everything. Kevin and Eric were the 12th and 13th Digidestined, respectively. Kevin's crest was the Crest of Warfare, and Eric's was the Crest of Chivalry. The tags and crests were hidden somewhere in the digiworld (Joe had already explained about the Digidestined, the digiworld, the digimon, and all their past adventures) and had to be found. The reason was that Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori (the 9th, 10th, and 11th Digidestined [from Season 02]) were missing and trapped in the digiworld by some new evil force, and the other Digidestined had to go rescue them. Gennai had said that the three were trapped in some secret niche in the digiworld, accessible only by a sealed portal in a place called DeviCastle. The portal required the power of a minimum of 10 tags crests to open. The portal's evil designer had purposely made it that way, because he knew that once the 9th, 10th, and 11th Digidestined were captured, there would only be 8 tags and crests left; not enough to open the portal. However, he hadn't counted on the arrival of two new Digidestined.
Once Kevin's and Eric's tags and crests were found, they could be combined with the powers of the other 8 to produce the necessary power to open the portal. However, to do this, the Digidestined would have to go back into the digiworld, into the unknown.
Eric's parents were not home, and it would be hours before they'd be back. Joe explained that for every 20 hours that they spent in the digiworld, only a minute or so would go by in the real world. They could go in and make it out without anybody knowing where they had been and what they had done.
Kevin and Eric agreed.
"Alright, logging on," Joe told them. He turned on Eric's computer and went into the chatroom, where the other Digidestined itnroduced themselves to Kevin and Eric. Then, when everyone was ready, Izzy activated his digiworld linking program. Energy beams flew out of all the Digidestineds' monitors and connected with their heads, transfering their minds and consciousness into cyberspace...and the digiworld.
*****
Simultaneously, the 10 Digidestined and their digimon appeared on a seemingly barren beach. Kevin and Eric looked around, dumbfounded.
The 8 original Digidestined introduced themselves to the two newcomers. Kevin grinned at them and replied, "I'm Kevin, a smart-ass and a military enthusiast. I guess that's why my crest is the Crest of Warfare."
"And I'm Eric. I'm a bit more...normal than Kevin," Eric added.
"I'm sure we'll get along just fine," Tai told them.
"Do you guys know what this place is?" Kevin asked, glancing around.
"Yeah, File Island. It was here where our digimon adventure first started, years ago," Matt replied.
"Charming," Kevin deadpanned. Matt glanced at him. In return, Kevin just grinned and said, "Told you I was a smart-ass."
Mimi and Palmon wandered around. "What happened to this place? It's completely barren!" Mimi exclaimed.
Izzy felt around the ground. "Not exactly. There's something buried here." He and Tentomon began digging. What they saw shocked him. A badly-damaged Andromon was lying there, spasming, his armor broken and his internals badly mauled.
"Andromon!" Izzy yelled, and everybody ran over. Izzy glanced up at the others. "He's badly damaged. If we don't find a way to repair him soon, he'll go offline."
TK and Kari looked at each other and joined hands, then placed their hands on Andromon's chest. A light flowed into Andromon, and began healing him rapidly. "There, he'll be fine," said Kari.
"T-the Digidestined. I knew you'd come," Andromon gasped as his speech centers came online.
Then he saw Kevin, Eric, Soltamon, and Wyvemon. "Who are you?"
"We're heroes-in-training," Kevin told him.
"Nice to meet you," from Eric.
"You're-you're the two new digidestined?" Andromon asked.
"That's right."
"Then I believe I have something for you." He held up two tags. "I believe these are yours. I stole them from under Tyranmon's nose, and he sent his pursuit forces after me, and almost destroyed me...they left me for dead. Then you came along. Thank you."
"No, thank YOU, Andromon. This is what we were looking for," Tai told him. He handed the tags to Kevin and Eric.
"Who's Tyranmon?" asked TK.
"Hold on, I'm patching my laptop to Andromon's data banks. We should find out in a moment," Izzy replied. "Ah. It says here that Tyranmon is a metalloid digimon. Looks like a cross between Metal Greymon and DarkTyrannomon with their power multiplied a hundredfold. It's got one of the meanest tempers of any digimon around. Hmm, that's funny. It's not listed as Champion, Ultimate, or Mega. It says 'Level Unknown'. I wonder what that means?"
"Tyranmon is one level above mega. We haven't created a term for that level yet, but just know that Tyranmon is extremely powerful. He destroyed or scattered all the good digimon that act as guardians of the Digiworld, and now rules with an iron first as a tyrant," Andromon supplied.
"Where should our first stop be?" asked Tai.
"Primary Village. Somehow, a powerful light force protected it from Tyranmon's evil. You could find some of the good digimon there," Andromon told him.
"Primary Village it is. Izzy, got the location on your laptop?" said Tai.
"Affirmative. It's moved since the last time we were here. Now it's 9 kilometers to our east," Izzy replied.
"Then let's get a move on."
"I will join you," Andromon offered. "You could use the extra help. Tyranmon will soon detect your prescences, and will send his armies after you. His warriors are extremely vicious."
"Thank you," Tai told him and smiled. "Alright everyone, let's go!"
"Jesus Christ, that guy's even more gung-ho than me," Kevin whispered to Eric.
"Let's not exaggerate," Eric whispered back.
And so, the heroes were on their way.
Chapter 1
Tai, the leading scorer and team captain of Tokyo University's Men's Soccer Team, was walking slowly with his fiancee Sora, a team member on the Women's Team and a part-time flower arranger. The couple walked, arm-in-arm, toward their condo. Tai's uniform and Sora's sundress flapped in the breeze.
Agumon and Biyomon were at their jobs; all of the digidestined's digimon had been accepted into society as contributing members. Agumon was a captain in the Japanese Self Defense Force (the Japanese military), while Biyomon was an airline pilot.
"I wonder how Mimi and Matt are doing," Sora wondered. Mimi and Matt had been married last week; Tai had been one of the best men, while Sora had been the Maid of Honor.
"It's not THAT hard to imagine, hon," Tai replied. "It IS a honeymoon."
Sora blushed.
They arrived at their condo and walked inside. Tai went into the bathroom to change his dirty soccer practice clothes, while Sora went outside to check on her garden. The phone rang and Tai, wearing a Nike shirt and shorts, walked out of the bathroom and picked it up. A familiar voice came over the line.
"Tai?"
Tai covered the speaker and yelled to Sora. "Sora! It's Izzy!" Even though Izzy was still 17, he had already gotten a doctorate in computer science and was currently the president of Microsoft's large Japanese branch, and was a very busy man. Although he visited all the digidestined in their bi-yearly reunions and many other times in between, he really didn't see the others that often. So if he had called, then it had to be important.
Tai uncovered the speaker and said, "Izzy! Bud, how are ya?"
A friendly chuckle came from the other end. "Not bad. You know, living life." Boy, was that an understatement. With his computer genius and high position, he was one of the wealthiest menn in Japan, probably the world. And he was still not even 20.
Sora walked into the living room, and Tai put it on speaker. "Izzy?" Sora sked.
"Hi Sora, how are you?"
"Fine, thanks," Sora replied.
"Listen, I won't beat around the bush. This is very important. I just got an urgent message from Gennai on my personal mainframe. He sent an email that was encrypted up the ying yang--my software's still working on deciphering it. If he went through all this trouble to put security measures like that on the message, the message must be really important. What's more, there are probably bad guys out there, and he doesn't want them to know about the message or find out what's on it."
"Are you saying we're gonna have to go back to our old digidestined evil-fighting days?" asked Tai, glancing at his nervous wife. Neither of them wanted another nightmarish episode of "kill the bad guy before he destroys the world".
"I don't know, I hope not," Izzy answered. He shared their worries.
"Just in case, we'd better get the gang notified and ready," Tai told him.
"Good ol' Tai," Izzy commented. "I knew you'd know exactly what to do. You should've gone into politics or the military instead of soccer."
"Another life, pal, another life."
"Yeah."
"Alright, you get Matt, Mimi, and Joe; Sora and I will get TK and Kari. Let's do it," said Tai. "Bye."
"Bye."
Tai hung up the phone and dialed another number.
*****
Ever since the digiworld, Joe Kido had always had an urge to prove that he wasn't a wimp...to prove that he was a good teammate, that he was courageous and skilled, not just reliable and cautious.
After he had finished high school, his family had moved to America, since both his father and his older brother Jim had gotten jobs as doctors in Virginia. Instead of going to a medical college, he had shocked everyone by applying for West Point Army Academy.
He had proved that he was good. Very good. He had really toughened up physically, and could now run 5 miles nonstop every morning without getting very tired. His mentality had also improved; while not as reckless as some of the other digidestined, he had reached that point right between planning too much and running right in with your hair on fire. He had proved that he was a very good soldier, a far cry from the wimpy old Joe he had been. Some laser eye surgery had deleted the need for glasses, so now he even looked completely like a soldier.
So, he had applied for Spec Ops at Fort, North Carolina. This time, no one had been surprised. After months of intensive training, he became a captain in the legendary Delta Force.
Now, he was commanding an elite platoon of anti-terrorist commandos at MacDill AFB in Florida. Because of the secretive nature of his work and his life, he never got many calls, so he wasn't expecting the phone at his desk to suddenly ring. He picked it up. "Hello?"
An hour later, he was online, logged onto a special videoconference chatroom that the digidestined had reserved in cyberspace.
*****
"Oh God! That was tremendous!" Mimi gasped as she and Matt lay next to each other in their honeymoon suite in Bermuda.
Matt, his face flushed, his breathing rapid, replied, "Yeah! You--you were really great."
Mimi rolled on top of him and kissed him deeply. When they parted, she giggled, "You weren't so bad yourself, big boy. Wanna do it again?"
"G-give me a few minutes," Matt told her.
Suddenly, the phone rang, and Mimi picked it up. "Hello?"
"Mimi?"
"Izzy? How'd you get our number?" asked Mimi. After all, this was a hotel room.
"Oh please, I'm the president of Microsoft's Japan branch, I can find out Elvis's number if I want to."
"True," Mimi conceded.
"Listen, I called because I have something important to tell you..."
*****
Oh I love this song," Kari remarked as she took TK's hand and pulled him unresistingly to the dance floor of the semi-classy dance club that they were in.
"Kari, you know I'm bad at slow-dancing," TK told his girlfriend as he walked onto the dance floor wtih her.
"So? Just follow my lead, sweetie," Kari replied.
"I dunno..."
"Oh come on, we're always so busy, what with midterms, projects, studying, and all. This could be one of the few chances we get for a romantic evening," Kari convinced him. They were indeed always busy, since both of them were juniors in high school and were preparing for their college entrance tests. Kari was planning to major in art (including photography), while TK was the basketball team's captain and was going to major in psychology. He had aspirations to play in the American NBA.
"TK, Kari!" yelled a voice. They both turned to find Tai and Sora making their way towards them.
"Tai? Sora? What're you guys doing here?" asked Kari.
"We've got a situation. Gennai's contacted us, and we've gotta get ready for possibly another mission."
"G-gennai? You mean we might have to go back to the digiworld?" inquired TK, who was getting concerned.
"Maybe."
*****
In a few hours, all the digidestined were logged onto the videoconference chat room. The message from Gennai had been decrypted, and it explained everything. Furthermore, it revealed the identities and the location of the digivices, but not the tags and crests, of the 12th and 13th Digidestined.
Joe volunteered to find the digivices and the two new Digidestined. After all, they were all right there in America.
Chapter 2
"Ostrich!" 14-year-old Kevin Zhu yelled at his friend, 15-year-old Eric "Ostrich" Morris, who currently had the ball. Kevin was running down the court, having slipped by two defenders.
Eric saw him and threw the ball to him in an overhead pass. Kevin jumped up, caught the ball, and dribbled toward the hoop. Another opposing player popped up in front of him, seeking to block his way. Kevin hurled it back at Eric, who was now alongside him. Eric dribbled past, found Kevin open again, and passed the ball again. Kevin leaped up, caught it and shot it while he was still in the air, and landed, breathing hard. The ball made a satisfying cllllink sound as it landed perfectly inside the hoop and brushed against the metal net.
"Nice alley-oop," Eric commented.
Kevin grinned at him. "Getting better everyday, Ostrich."
"Me or you?"
"Me, of course. You still suck."
That got a laugh from Eric. "Yeah, right. Is that why I kick your ass almost every time we play 21?"
"Not everytime," Kevin snorted. "Besides, what about last game? I one-hand tipped you while you were still at 4."
"Rematch?"
"You're on."
Just then, the air seemed to be sucked out of the area. Everything was still. Suddenly, what looked like a rip IN THE AIR appeared and rapidly expanded. A creature that looked like a small cheetah that stood up on two legs was the first to appear out of the rip. He had on a green beret and camouflage fatigues that changed colors like a chameleon to fit in with the background. There was what appeared to be a pistol barrel attached to his right arm.
Next, a small dragon that looked like a green version of Spyro leapt out. This one had a single horn on its head and a picture of a flame tattooed onto its chest.
The cheetah ran away from the rip and swiveled his body and arms back towards the rip. The dragon was flying right next to him, its head turned twoards the rip.
A squad of black and blue bats that looked like bowling balls with wings streaked out of the rip after the cheetah and the dragon. One look at them, and Kevin could tell that they were evil.
"Demi Dart!" one of the bats yelled. These guys could speak English! It fired a dark energy dart towarrd the cheetah.
The cheetah nimbly dodged it with a jump and twist to the right. He landed, crouched, aimed his right arm at the offending bat, and yelled, "Sonic Round!"
A superfast energy bullet streaked out of the pistol barrel on his arm. The round connected with the bat who had fired, and disintegrated it.
"Sonic Round!" More energy bullets flew out, striking and evaporating more bats.
The small dragon joined in. "Wyrmling Flame!" A small column of fire flew out of its mouth and killed another bat.
The two creatures continued firing their attacks until all the bats had been destroyed. "Cleared!" the cheetah yelled. It looked around, and then stopped to stare at Kevin. "You're Kevin, aren't you?"
The dragon pointed to Eric. "And you're Eric."
"Uh, do we know you?" asked Eric.
"I'm Soltamon," said the cheetah.
"I'm Wyvemon," introduced the dragon. "You two are the 12th and 13th Digidestined, and we're your digimon."
Before the two teens could ask questions, another creature appeared out of the rip. A large beast with the heads of a lion, an eagle, and a snake flew out of the rip, using its dragonlike wings to glide above the basketball courts, blocking out the sun.
By now, all the other students had already departed, screaming. Only Kevin and Eric were still left, staring dumbfoundedly at Soltamon, Wyvemon, and the newcomer.
"That's Chimeramon! He's a dangerous ultimate; there's no way we can beat him!" Wyvemon exclaimed.
"We've got to try. Sonic Round!" Soltamon replied as he fired.
"Wyrmling Flame!"
The two attacks harmlessly bounced off of Chimeramon, who then countered with his own special move, TriStrike. A dazzling myraid of energy beams flew out of its three mouths, incinerating anything they touched. Soltamon and Wyvemon managed to drag Kevin and Eric to cover.
Suddenly, another voice rang out. "Gomamon digivolve to Ikkakumon!"
Out of nowhere, a large hairy sea elephant with a horn appeared. "Harpoon Torpedo!" it yelled, and launched a missile from its horn that blasted back Chimeramon (by now, all the Digidestined's digimon had many years of fighting experience, and were much more powerful than they had been during their first couple of adventures).
A tall, blue-haired man wearing a military uniform rushed out from behind Ikkakumon and ran over to Kevin and Eric. He quickly threw two items at them. "Take them!"
Kevin caught his and examined it. "What's this?"
"A digivice! Hold it! Believe in its power! It'll let your digimon digivolve!" yelled Major Joe Kido.
"What?" asked Eric, who had also caught his.
Suddenly, Soltamon and Wyvemon began to glow.
"Soltamon digivolve to Cydrotamon!" Soltamon rapidly morphed into a different, larger creature. He retained the basic look and body structure of a standing cheetah, though larger and with a much more muscular body. He had a cool metal helmet and tough metal armor on his chest, shoulders, knees, hands, and feet. He was about as large as an average adult human, and looked like he was very fast and dexterous. He had a large autocannon on each arm that looked like they could chop up a battalion of Tankmon in seconds.
"Wyvemon digivolve to Draconomon!" Wyvemon also changed. He grew to the size of a school bus and sprouted large wings. His arms and legs got large, more muscular, with 4 fearsome claws and a couple of metal spikes each. He grew a large horn on his nose and another smaller one further back. His skin color changed to blue; he was an ice dragon.
"Whoa, what happened to them?" asked Eric, looking at Draconomon with awe.
"They digivolved to their champion forms," Joe replied.
"What?" from Kevin, who was staring at Cydrotamon.
Chimeramon moved to attack, but Cydrotamon and Draconomon beat him to it.
"Autocannon!" Cydrotamon yelled, firing his autocannons very rapidly. In the space of 2 seconds, about 40 high explosive rounds slammed itno Chimeramon. One head exploded in a bloody mess, and deep scorches and wounds appeared all over its body.
"Arctic Circle!" Draconomon announced as he spat out a ring of frigid energy. One of the heads and both wings were frozen solid and shattered. That left one head to go.
"Ikkakumon digivolve to Zudomon!" The hariy sea elephant briefly glowed before turning into Zudomon, a giant turtle with fangs, a horn, and a big hammer. "Vulcan's Hammer!"
An energy arrow shot out as Zudomon pounded his hammer into the ground. The arrow destroyed Chimeramon's final head. Headless, the beast disintegrated. All three good digimon went back to their rookie forms.
"Okay, now you wanna tell us what's going on?" asked Kevin.
"Later. Come with me and I'll explain everything," replied Joe.
"Hold it, I'm not going anywhere with you. You'll explain right now," Kevin told him firmly.
"Very well, but at least let's go somewhere less public...and with computer access," Joe reasoned.
"Fine. Looks like everyone's gone and school's out anyways, so we'll go to my house. No tricks, okay?" said Eric.
"Okay. Let's go."
*****
Once they were at Eric's house, Joe explained everything. Kevin and Eric were the 12th and 13th Digidestined, respectively. Kevin's crest was the Crest of Warfare, and Eric's was the Crest of Chivalry. The tags and crests were hidden somewhere in the digiworld (Joe had already explained about the Digidestined, the digiworld, the digimon, and all their past adventures) and had to be found. The reason was that Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori (the 9th, 10th, and 11th Digidestined [from Season 02]) were missing and trapped in the digiworld by some new evil force, and the other Digidestined had to go rescue them. Gennai had said that the three were trapped in some secret niche in the digiworld, accessible only by a sealed portal in a place called DeviCastle. The portal required the power of a minimum of 10 tags crests to open. The portal's evil designer had purposely made it that way, because he knew that once the 9th, 10th, and 11th Digidestined were captured, there would only be 8 tags and crests left; not enough to open the portal. However, he hadn't counted on the arrival of two new Digidestined.
Once Kevin's and Eric's tags and crests were found, they could be combined with the powers of the other 8 to produce the necessary power to open the portal. However, to do this, the Digidestined would have to go back into the digiworld, into the unknown.
Eric's parents were not home, and it would be hours before they'd be back. Joe explained that for every 20 hours that they spent in the digiworld, only a minute or so would go by in the real world. They could go in and make it out without anybody knowing where they had been and what they had done.
Kevin and Eric agreed.
"Alright, logging on," Joe told them. He turned on Eric's computer and went into the chatroom, where the other Digidestined itnroduced themselves to Kevin and Eric. Then, when everyone was ready, Izzy activated his digiworld linking program. Energy beams flew out of all the Digidestineds' monitors and connected with their heads, transfering their minds and consciousness into cyberspace...and the digiworld.
*****
Simultaneously, the 10 Digidestined and their digimon appeared on a seemingly barren beach. Kevin and Eric looked around, dumbfounded.
The 8 original Digidestined introduced themselves to the two newcomers. Kevin grinned at them and replied, "I'm Kevin, a smart-ass and a military enthusiast. I guess that's why my crest is the Crest of Warfare."
"And I'm Eric. I'm a bit more...normal than Kevin," Eric added.
"I'm sure we'll get along just fine," Tai told them.
"Do you guys know what this place is?" Kevin asked, glancing around.
"Yeah, File Island. It was here where our digimon adventure first started, years ago," Matt replied.
"Charming," Kevin deadpanned. Matt glanced at him. In return, Kevin just grinned and said, "Told you I was a smart-ass."
Mimi and Palmon wandered around. "What happened to this place? It's completely barren!" Mimi exclaimed.
Izzy felt around the ground. "Not exactly. There's something buried here." He and Tentomon began digging. What they saw shocked him. A badly-damaged Andromon was lying there, spasming, his armor broken and his internals badly mauled.
"Andromon!" Izzy yelled, and everybody ran over. Izzy glanced up at the others. "He's badly damaged. If we don't find a way to repair him soon, he'll go offline."
TK and Kari looked at each other and joined hands, then placed their hands on Andromon's chest. A light flowed into Andromon, and began healing him rapidly. "There, he'll be fine," said Kari.
"T-the Digidestined. I knew you'd come," Andromon gasped as his speech centers came online.
Then he saw Kevin, Eric, Soltamon, and Wyvemon. "Who are you?"
"We're heroes-in-training," Kevin told him.
"Nice to meet you," from Eric.
"You're-you're the two new digidestined?" Andromon asked.
"That's right."
"Then I believe I have something for you." He held up two tags. "I believe these are yours. I stole them from under Tyranmon's nose, and he sent his pursuit forces after me, and almost destroyed me...they left me for dead. Then you came along. Thank you."
"No, thank YOU, Andromon. This is what we were looking for," Tai told him. He handed the tags to Kevin and Eric.
"Who's Tyranmon?" asked TK.
"Hold on, I'm patching my laptop to Andromon's data banks. We should find out in a moment," Izzy replied. "Ah. It says here that Tyranmon is a metalloid digimon. Looks like a cross between Metal Greymon and DarkTyrannomon with their power multiplied a hundredfold. It's got one of the meanest tempers of any digimon around. Hmm, that's funny. It's not listed as Champion, Ultimate, or Mega. It says 'Level Unknown'. I wonder what that means?"
"Tyranmon is one level above mega. We haven't created a term for that level yet, but just know that Tyranmon is extremely powerful. He destroyed or scattered all the good digimon that act as guardians of the Digiworld, and now rules with an iron first as a tyrant," Andromon supplied.
"Where should our first stop be?" asked Tai.
"Primary Village. Somehow, a powerful light force protected it from Tyranmon's evil. You could find some of the good digimon there," Andromon told him.
"Primary Village it is. Izzy, got the location on your laptop?" said Tai.
"Affirmative. It's moved since the last time we were here. Now it's 9 kilometers to our east," Izzy replied.
"Then let's get a move on."
"I will join you," Andromon offered. "You could use the extra help. Tyranmon will soon detect your prescences, and will send his armies after you. His warriors are extremely vicious."
"Thank you," Tai told him and smiled. "Alright everyone, let's go!"
"Jesus Christ, that guy's even more gung-ho than me," Kevin whispered to Eric.
"Let's not exaggerate," Eric whispered back.
And so, the heroes were on their way.