Disclaimer: The characters and story contained herein are (c) Christopher Weber, Digimon and everything else is (c) Bandai.

Untitled

My name is Nathaniel Alopex, a 22 year old canadian tech student visiting Japan as part of an educational exchange program.  Little did I know what the fates had in store for me.  A drastic change in my life would see me thrust into an unfamiliar role, and stand at the crux of events that may well damn far more than just myself.

Chapter 1 - Answering the call

	"I play Freeze Bug to counter your Verdant Force, your Greymon's attack remains weaker than my Ikakumon's defense so you take another 15 damage." Commented a light baritone with an air of triumph.  "You have no more attacks to make, which makes it my turn."

	I groaned and stared back at the short black haired student who sat across the lunchroom table.  I could see my own disappointment reflected in his glasses and dropped my eyes back to my cards.  "Why didn't I expect that coming from you Yoji?" I asked idly as I tapped the damage into the tracker.

	"Because Nate-san, you always overlook the simple strategies when you think you are winning." Yoji responded, shifting the position of his cards and dropping one from his hand.  "I play Blue Energize and use it for Harpoon Torpedo."

	"I play Inferno Shield to give Greymon Ice element immunity, which negates your ..."  I calmly stated while playing the card from my hand when a sharp ringing interrupted the game.  "I guess that cuts our game a little short.  I was sure I had you that time too."

	"Perhaps, but as I had just drawn a matrix digivolve card, you would have fallen on the next turn." He stated flatly while quickly picking up his cards and tracker and placing them in a tin case.  He dropped the case into his bag and swung it onto his shoulder.  "Perhaps I shall allow you to try again after classes, Nate-san."

	"I'm pretty confident things would've turned out in my favour, but still, I look forward to our next match Yoji.  I'll be in the third floor lab working when classes are out."  I replied, glancing down at the Mecurimon's Shield card in my hand before neatly gathering my cards and slipping them into their box and pocketing it.

	I stood to shake Yoji's hand as he rose from his seat, towering over the 14 year old gradeschooler.  Yoji Kurasawa was one of the few english speaking students at Shikira Middle School, and brought the persona of geeky teacher's pet to a whole new level.  Thin and a bit pale with round glasses ringing a long face he was also one of the few people to approach the 'strange american' tutor outside of a classroom.  Our friendship had kindled when he found out I had a hobby in battle card games and was one of the beta programmers for the newest english edition of Digimon cards.  Not that my inside knowledge of the card game itself nor my collection of ultra-rare cards stopped him and the dozen or so other kids who played from thrashing me with humiliating ease.

	The educational exchange I was on through the University of Calgary had me tutoring advanced mathmatics and some basic computer programming to the middleschool's honor students while taking an entry level japanese language course.  Funded almost entirely by Digi-fun inc., the american developer I worked for, this was also a meet and learn trip to team up with the japanese side of the card game's programming team.  Which did give me quite a bit to occupy myself with once the whole wonder of Japan wore off.

	'And wear off it did,' I thought.  'It's only been two months since arriving and I'm already taking a lot of convenience for granted.'  I turned away from Yoji as he rushed off toward a few waiting friends waving at him from the lunchroom door and started gathering the rest of my things.  Digi-fun had just dropped a load of code for me to parse through and I was going to be quite busy over the next few days.  'At least these small breaks of fun were a light among the monotony of work,' I smiled inwardly.

	As I was putting my cel phone onto my bundle to leave I noticed it had an unread text message waiting.  'Strange,' I thought, 'I didn't hear it chime that a message was received, and I'm sure it was clear before we started our game.'  I keyed the message up, and noting the "sender unknown" header I was about to just delete it when I noticed the title line.  "To the Fox:"  'Noone here knows my old highschool nickname, now I'm curious.  It takes a fair bit of effort to cover up the sender tag enough to be unknown rather than anonymous.'

	I opened the message and read it through.  "You stand at the crux of fate, and your choice will save the damned or doom the innocent.  If you would don the mantle of light, and stand against the rushing tide of darkness as champion of spirit, then remember: HEED THE CALL."  'The hell kind of mumbo-jumbo is this?' I puzzled, 'Some kind of psychic network spam? I bet it's a joke from one of the students, some of them are certainly smart enough to pull it off. But what's with the cryptic fate crap?'

	'Bah, I've got better things to bust my brain over,' I thought disgustedly and tapped the delete button.  I set the cel back onto my bundle and picked it up, heading for the lunchroom exit.  Yawning a little at the door I turned left to take a stop at the teacher's lounge for some coffee before heading to the computer lab.  'I need to stop pulling so many late nights working here and head home early.  I should skip the coffee and just leave when the school lets out,' I decided, turning a quick 180 and heading for the stairs.

	A brisk 2 minute jaunt later and I had settled into the comfortable teacher's chair with my laptop set up on the desk.  I had my feet up chewing on a pen waiting for the system to finish loading up the files I needed to parse.  I stifled another yawn as the beep signifying a complete load brought my attention tot he screen.  Slipping my feet down I pulled myself closer and got to work, paging through lines of code and taking notes of important pointer addresses and variable names.

	I wasn't sure how long I was staring at that screen before fatigue brought on another yawn, but it couldn't have been more than an hour or I'd have heard the bell ringing for end of afternoon class.  I set the pen down and leaned back in the chair, massaging my closed eyes.  'Maybe I should have grabbed that coffee afterall...' the regretful thought teased.  Leaning further back I stared up at the clock.  'Or maybe I'll take a 20 minute cat-nap before Yoji pops in here when classes end...'  Figuring that would be a fair prospect I slipped my feet back up on the desk and closed my eyes.

	I awoke with a start to a loud reverberating boom.  My eyes flew open and in a moment of disoriented panic I nearly fell out of the chair.  Too many things were wrong with my surroundings for my still fogged up brain to evaluate.  I sat up and took a deep breath to slow my pounding heart and started to evaluate my situation.  It was dark save for the solid green glow of my laptop's power light, casting an eerie illumination over the computer lab.  The only sounds I could hear were the low hum of the laptop's fan and the steady ticking of the clock above my head.  'Then what was that loud boom that woke me?' My brain puzzled.

	A second deafiningly loud peal of thunder answered my question, followed by a shrill scream full of terror as the whole classroom lit up a brilliant silver.  Again, adrenaline made my heart beat faster, and panic fought with confusion and wonder for control of my thoughts.  Always the intellecual, curiosity and reason won out and I hopped out of the chair and rushed to the window overlooking the school field.  Shikira Middle School was shaped like an L, with the front entrance at the outer corner, and a soccer field streaching out from the inner bend.  From the third floor I should have had a perfect vantage of the whole field and the surrounding buildings.

	What I did see was a very dense fog barely illuminated by the schools night lights under a cloudy sky so black it looked like ink.  There were no stars or moon to be seen, just the massive blackness of stormclouds, and the next burst of sheet lightning only brought to my attention that the fog sat unnaturally over only the soccer field, and not the roadway beyond.  And my memory swore I heard the scream come from inside that fog.

	Too many questions assailed my mind.  'Did I really hear a scream?  Why didn't Yoji or the schoolbell wake me?  Maybe this is just another student prank?  Why did that fog seem so unnatural?  Did I bring my umbrella for the walk home?'  A beep brought all the whirling thoughts to a halt and my hand moved with reflex to pull my cel from it's belt case.  I flipped it open to see a simple one-line text message, no sender, no header, just 3 words in capitals.  "HEED THE CALL."

	Before I could even start to think about this newest strangeness, I was interrupted by another scream.  I don't understand much of spoken japanese, but "Help me!" is one of those sets of words even an idiot knows.  It definately came from down in the fog and judging from the amount of pure panicked fear, whoever was screaming genuinely meant it.  Phone still in hand I charged out the door and ran for the stairs, descending them at breakneck speed and using the railing to round the corners of it's spiral as quickly as possible.

Racing along the bottom floor corridor toward the doors leading out to the field I looked out the windows into the fog.  Another crash of thunder echoed throughout the building, and I could just make out the outlines of two rough shapes in the fog, but the only details I could garner was that one was larger than the other.  'One of the students?' I asked myself as protective instinct pushed me to simply slam the outer door open and rush into the fog.

	It was almost like smoke, and dense enough I felt like I was pushing my way through a soft wall of cotton.  For an instant I couldn't see and the air was so thick it was hard to breathe, and then it was over and I stood at the edge of the soccer field.  The entire area was domed by the white fog and strangely illuminated by a dusky ambience akin to bright moonlight.  In the center of the field I saw the source of the scream.

	A young girl with shoulder length dusty brown hair and wearing the Shikira school uniform was on the ground holding an arm up in defensive posture while pushing herself away from another figure with panicked energy.  The other figure was still hazy from this distance, but appeared to be a large, muscular man holding a heavy club.  My mind was a blur of affronted rage.  'Assaulting a juvenile, on school property?  Not while I'm here!'

	It was a horribly stupid thing to do in hindsight, but reason hadn't quite broken it's clarity through the rest of the emotional garbage that was driving my decisions, and I shouted a challenge at the assailant as I rushed further onto the field.  "Get away from her!" I called out and threw something at the assailant to get his attention.

	I closed to roughly 20 feet of the assailant as my phone struck the back of his head, bouncing away to land just to the side of the student.  "I said, Get away from her!" I called out again as the assailant turned around and I stood to my full height.  Honestly, I don't precisely give off the most intimidating of airs, with my thin, barely-athletic form, and soft unweathered face.  I do however have a height advantage that gives most people pause, standing just over six feet in height I'd gotten used to towering six or more inches over 90 percent of the adults and a good foot and a half over the students.  My silver-blonde hair, normally drawn back in a shoulder length queue, was tussled out and hanging partially free, giving me a slightly feral look, exemplified by brilliant green eyes full of fury.

	At least it started as fury until another peal of thunder and lightning brought the dome's illumination up enough to get a good clear look at the assailant.  For one horrified moment I thought I'd walked onto a movie set for a horror film, because the first thing I noticed was that the assailant's skin was a deep leathery green.  An ugly smile spread over an even uglier face and red eyes stared back filled with a lust for violence.  It ran a hand over it's orange mohawk and gave the shoulder of it's weapon arm a shrug, limbering up for a swing.

	I should have been terrified, but reason finally cracked through the haze that had brought me to this point, and cloaked in that same protective instinct it told me I couldn't back down.  I'd taken some self defense courses, was if fairly decent shape, and while a yellow belt in hap ki do wasn't much, it was better than no experience at all.  I dropped to a defensive stance, fists up and ready, feet spread to shoulder width front and back, presenting a 3/4 forward posture with a low center of gravity.  And then some remote part of my mind identified my opponent, and I knew I was either dreaming, or I was about to die, because what was slowly approaching with a nail-ridden club, was Goburimon, a digimon straight from the games, and even though I was taller, it wasn't the least bit intimidated.

	Sheer will was all that kept me from standing there frozen when the first swing came, and long practice took over.  The club came in on a diagonal arc and I stepped in and to the outside of the swing, bringing my left hand up to pat the side of the club as it came down, deflecting the blow, and faster than the Goburimon could counter, I struck.  The jab is quite possibly the most basic attack in existance, but from close range, and with knowledge of bodyweight distribution, could be quite potent.  Shifting my center of balance into the blow my right fist snapped out to strike the ribs just below the Goburimon's weapon arm, and my fist landed solid with my whole weight behind it.

	Both the Goburimon and I both recoiled, it more from surprise while I staggered a back clutching my right hand to my chest in pain.  It felt like I had just punched a brick wall and from the looks of the digimon it had as much effect.  All I'd done was piss it off and prove that I was definately not a threat.  I started to circle while panic threatened to murder the clarity that my mind was experiencing under reason's rule.

	The next swing came in backhand and horizontal, and left me no choice but to dodge, and I leaned back as the club whistled past bare inches from my head, then dove forward and to the side and the Goburimon changed it's grip to double handed for the return swing.  My roll wasn't quite fast enough, and halfway through the dodge I was clipped by a nail on the club.  Pain exploded through my hip and back and I was thrown offcourse, the nail tearing the side of my pants and halfway up my shirt, and the contents of my lefthand pocket spilled to the ground as I tumbled away.

	I couldn't move, my leg was on fire with pain and it felt like my hip was lava.  I couldn't even roll onto my back the pain was too intense, I just lay face down in the grass, head tilted to the side to witness the Goburimon ignore my battered body and return it's attention to the female student.  Perhaps fear had kept her from running.  'Or the hope that I might actually save her.  Heh, doom the innocent was right.  And now we're both dead,' my mind mocked with morbid contempt.

	She was screaming in panic now, but my pain-blotted mind couldn't understand a word of it.  The Goburimon just kept walking closer, swinging it's club back and forth menacingly.  Another peal of thunder shook the ground and a heavy rain started to fall.  The rain crushed all hope with oppressive weight and helplessly I watched the student stare at death with wide eyed fear.

	Something must have snapped in her, and her screaming repetative gibberish took on a more defiant note even as her voice began to give out under the abuse.  She grabbed at objects on the ground and began to throw them with frantic energy.  First was my pen, fallen from my torn shirt, but it just bounced off it's chest uselessly.  Next was my deck of digimon cards, which were intercepted by the Goburimon's open hand, swatted away like the falling rain.  Lastly was my phone, and as her hand closed around it lightning flared again.

	I didn't hear the booming crack of thunder.  I heard a hoarsly whispered voice speak, pleading, "Help me.  Please..."  Somewhere deep inside I found the strength to move, and pushed myself to a crouch.  I could feel the blood flowing down my leg, I know my hip was probably broken for all the pain moving the leg generated, but that pain was a distant thing now.  Somehow I managed to stand up, and while I wobbled a little and was definately favoring my right leg, my posture screamed defiance.

	"I'm not done yet!"  The words came out barely above a whisper, but they carried like a trumpet, and thunder echoed with them.  A brilliant light blazed forth, starting from the my cel phone and engulfing the entire dome of fog.  In that light my pain faded, replaced by a calm and centered strength I hadn't known existed.  The strength burned inside, but not like the raging wildfire of pain, it was like the powerful controlled blaze of a forge.  It consumed my doubt and fear, fueled by that protective will, and when the fire went out, all that remained was purpose, like a tempered blade.

	Lightning struck, piercing the fog and blasting the toolshed near the corner of the school's L into flying splinters of burning wood.  It took the light with it and the fog had thinned, letting in some of the ambience of the school and street lights.

	"I will save you."  The voice wasn't mine, but it carried the full force of my purpose behind it.  The statement struck the Goburimon like a whip and it spun around to face me, still blinking at the brilliance from seconds ago.  And what it saw drove home a fear as intense as the pain its club caused me.  It didn't have a chance to run, I didn't let it.

	I rushed forward while it was still stunned by my appearance, and the fury of my blows mirrored that of the flames spreading away from the lightning strike.  Unabated and indignant of the rain driving down both the fire and my fury blazed forth.  Half a dozen heavy punches followed by an exceedingly powerful thrusting kick sent the Goburimon flying through the remains of the shed and directly into the blaze behind it.  It screamed as the flames licked at it, consuming its club and burning its flesh.  The force of the collision caused the shed to collapse inward, completely covering the Goburimon.

	I walked over to the student and placed my hand on her head.  "It's alright.  It's over now." I soothed, again surprised that the voice was not my own, and I looked down at her.  I almost panicked when I saw the hand on her head had pale blue and white fur, gauntleted by a steel grey wristguard and marked with a black and white yin-yang symbol, and quite unbelievably connected to my own arm.

	Sobbing, the student turned up to look at me, then with fierceness in her teary eyes she hugged my leg, her weight nearly pushing me offbalance.  "Thank you." she said between sobs.

	I simply looked downward dumbfounded while my tails wrapped around her shaking frame.  And all I could think was, 'What the hell?'

	Unnoticed by either of us the burning wreckage of the shed shook as the Goburimon dug itself free and readied an attack.  Power welled up in its hand and a small globe of fire formed, then T-ball style it tossed it up and batted it toward us with its heavily charred club.  "Goblin Strike!" It cried as the globe of fire flew straight at my strange form.

	I was totally unprepared for the attack as it slammed home directly into my back, erupting with explosive force.  I was knocked clear off my feet, or what passed for feet, and tumbled through the air.  The student, shielded from the attack by my body, was knocked over as her grip on my leg failed.  With impossible agility I caught the ground with my left hand, slowing my momentum and cartwheeled to my feet, turning to face my assailant and sliding on the slick grass in a crouch.

	The Goburimon looked a little worse for wear, but certainly far from beaten.  That fireball however left me in similar state, as I could feel the burned spots on my back tingling with mild pain under the falling rain.  'If that thing can land another hit or two like that it might still win.  I need some way to even this up quick before it can use that special strike again.'  My mind raced for ideas in the tempered calm of combative focus.

	I began to circle, separating myself from the student so she wouldn't be in the line of fire.  She had pulled herself back up into a sitting position, clutching something to her chest while her blue eyes darted between myself and the Goburimon.  Scattered all around her were the contents of my box of cards.

	The Goburimon launched another fireball my way, which I nimbly dodged, somersaulting to the side before leaping forward in a rapid dash to take advantage of the opening presented by the club's overbalancing swing.  It hadn't recovered when I struck, landing a powerful jab right into its gut and following up with a spinning kick that caught it right in the jaw.  It staggered back from the blow but recovered quickly and brought the club swinging in a vertically circular arc faster than I'd anticipated.

	I brought both arms up in a crossed guard, catching the blow against my wristguards.  The impact of the blow was stronger from the full circle of the swing and all the body weight the Goburimon threw behind it and I was driven down to one knee before I could redirect the strike to one side.  I twisted my arms as the club continued its path to the ground and layed my hands on it, pushing downward as I shifted my center of gravity toward the Goburimon.

	Overbalanced from my pushing down on the club the Goburimon was utterly defenseless against my counterstrike.  Gripping both hands together in a double fist I twirled as I stood up, bringing my hammer-fist up in a rising full circle and striking the Goburimon in the side of the head.  The blow knocked it flying backward several feet to land on its back.  I backed up, taking in the minor numbness in my forearms from blocking the heavy attack.

	'Physical attacks aren't working...  I may have a speed advantage, but it's definately the harder hitting.  Too bad I havn't the faintest clue what kind of special attacks I might have like this.  There's got to be some other way...'  I thought, glancing around the area while adopting a defensive stance again.

	It was then I noticed what the student was holding.  In one hand was a small blue object that looked very much like the toy Digivice marketed as a collecter's battle card reader.  Only this one was no toy, not if the rest of this was real.  At that moment a strategy popped into my head, remembering the evenly matched fight against Yoji earlier in the day.

	"The cards!  I need you to find a card with Mercurimon on it!"  I shouted in that strange no my voice, trying to get the student to break from her shock.  "Quickly!"

	The last word seemed to work, breaking through the fear at least slightly, and she started looking around her.  Unfortunately, my shouting also brought the Goburimon's attention on her, and it formed another globe of fire as it stood up.

	I started to dash toward her as the Goburimon gave the globe it's initial toss, winding back with it's club.  The student's eyes flared wide as she scrambled forward grabbing frantically for a card on the ground.  "Goblin Strike!"  the Goburimon cried, batting the globe with extreme force aimed directly at the student.

	In the short second of that fireball's flight, two things happened.  I got in the path, skidding to a halt directly in front of the student, crouched down with both arms crossed again in front of me.  The student also swiped the card she had grabbed from the ground.  She shuddered a little as the blue Digivice beeped and a computerized voice spoke.  "Mercurimon's Shield, Activated."

	There was a short surge of light, and a circular disc appeared in front of me, hovering just short of my crossed arms.  The fireball struck against the mirrored surface and was swallowed up with a liquid ripple.  The outer ring of the shield glowed a brilliant crimson, and then another, larger fireball spat back out with ferocious speed.

	That reflected fireball struck the Goburimon square in the chest and erupted in a brilliant conflagration, flaring up like a miniature sun and tunneling past in a conical blast that tore across the thinning mist and into the side of the school.  The Goburimon, merely a shadow inside the mass of flame, screamed before exploding into a cloud of blue wisps of light.

	Then, in an instant, the blue light and the surrounding fog were sucked into the Digivice held in the hands of a shock-frozen 14 year old middleschool student.  The rush of the battle left me, and a terrible fatigue took its place as another soft radiance engulfed me and I started to fall forward, unable to move my arms to catch myself.  Everything faded to black before I hit the ground.  The radiance contracted as silver wisps of light flowed off and into the Digivice.

* * *

	Across the street, a short figure in dark jeans and a black raincoat pushed a pair of glasses further up his nose.  With a curious glance toward where a field of fog had just been moments ago he chuckled.  "Heh.  Looks like someone beat us to the punch.  I don't think I've ever seen that tamer before either."

	"It would seem her digimon overstepped it's limits in the fight.  I would call her quite lucky she even survived the encounter."  A squat figure with a horn stated flatly.  "I don't recognize the signiture of her partner though."

	The glasses wearing figure lifted his right hand, looking down at his own digivice.  "Rokomon?  An In-Training level digimon, but that's all the scan gets.  No stats, no bio, not even it's elemental alignment.  I think we should keep an eye on this one."

	With that he pocketed his Digivice and turned away, pulling the hood of his raincoat tighter over his head he walked away, followed by his digimon.  In the distance, the female student was busy collecting everything from the ground with one hand, while holding a small silver form under her arm, illuminated by the blaze of the burning school.  The sound of sirens was only just starting to blare in the distance as police and fire trucks sped to the scene.

	Finished with her task, the female student dumped everything into her backpack, and holding the small dog-like silver form against her with both arms, ran from the scene before anyone else could arrive.  She never saw the shadowed pair who were watching, nor would she have cared.  Home was a fair distance away, and the rain was starting to come down harder.