Soo, once I realized that the account I've had with FA to lurk and snag pictures from my favorite artists could also be used to upload things (Holy cow when did that happen?!) I thought "Maybe I should post what little bit I've actually written on my Digimon story."

So, here it is! The Damned World takes place on earth, an undetermined ammount of time after the beginning of Digimon Adventure 01. The premise is that, in their final confrontation with Devimon, something went wrong and the original Digidestined failed. Simply put, Matt didn't trip trying to knock TK out of Devimon's reach. Simple, domino effect resulted in their loss. Some died, were deleted, were injured, and some escaped, but none of the original pairs.

With Nothing in their way, Devimon, Etemon, Myotismon, and eventually the Dark Masters made their way to earth. With no one to stand in their way, it took next to no time for Digimon to flood the earth and decimate the world. Some time later, new digidestined begin to spring up as the Digital world still tries to defend itself, without prophesies or destined to guide it.

And so, It Begins...

(PS, I don't own Digimon, but I'd like to keep a few given half a choice...)

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The Damned World

Even when the world falls apart, things have a way of settling into a day to day grind. Jake sighed as he let the melencholy thought roll through his head a moment, before dismissing it in favor of the much simpler, "I hate hardware duty..."

Living in The Hole ment contributing. Scavaging for food was left to people who knew how to cook, and Jake wasen't intimidating enough to be put on guard duty, so he was sent out to do the odd bit of 'fetch scavving' that was needed at any given time. Things like hand tools, nails, and camping supplies were useful in making the abandoned bank they had taken shelter in more habitable. Which was all fine well and good, but a sack full of such supplies tended to be two things... Noisy and heavy.

Heavy was bad enough, but having to be extra careful not to jostle the bags and call attention to himself made everything take longer. Still, he was fairly glad they could dig through things as easily as they did... He heard some cities were crawling with monsters. Or heaps of rubble. His own little town was hardly spared, but it was far better off thanks to the fact that only a small group of digimon had chosen to stick around.

Which made it all the more surprising when he heard a yelp come from the opened back door of the abandoned department store. He froze at first, the canvas bag hovering inches off the floor. The next pointedly effeminate shriek was enough to make him drop it, gently, and move towards the back of the store, stepping softly and moving his hand to his belt.

Wrapping his fingers around the brown leather holster at his hip, he quietly thumbed the button free as he glanced around the corner. They had long since learned that guns were every bit as effective as throwing rocks. However, if you could get close enough, hitting them with something seemed to work just as well as it did on people. As long as they weren't much stronger than an average Champion level. Thus many had taken to carrying around a baseball bat, a knife, or even just a stick or weight. Anything you could hold in your hand seemed to work just fine. Jake however had come across a nice little toy belonging to one of his former neighbors. The guy had a rather large stock of guns that had proven quite useless, but after he was taken, Jake did manage to find a two foot long retractable steel baton and sheath in his home, along with the supplies that got him through those first few tough months.

He felt its reassuring weight in the palm of his hand as he slowly crept across the smooth blacktop behind the store. Approaching a simicircle of three digimon with their backs to him, he could see they had someone cornered against the side of a dumpster and the building. Another yelp of pain issued forth, and now he could make out their taunts. "-ght you could just get away from him?" "No way it'd be that easy!" "-ill wish he'd found you first." "I say we have some fun before she goes back where she belongs..."

His blood boiled as he listened and made his slow approach. It was two Gazimon, rather common digimon who looked like a cross between a thug and a rabbit, and a Veggimon. That one would be a problem. The bunnies were rookie level, which apparently ment they were essentially child strength digimon. Children with electric firepower. Veggimon however was a Champion, more than a match for any full grown adult, and armed with spiked clubs on the end of his spindly arms, that packed a mildly toxic punch.

Jake still couldn't see the girl, but he could see that things were not going to get any better for her unless someone did something... He was almost close enough now, and his breath came shallow and silent as he clutched the still retracted baton in his fist. He thumbed the release switch, barely letting it contain the tightly coiled spring. Taking one step closer, he trembled with anticipation. He knew he coulden't fight them all. Hell, he probably coulden't fight the Veggimon alone, but if he could just stun them long enough for him and the girl to get away...

He froze suddenly as one Gazimon lurched to the side after kicking out at the figure huddled in the corner. In that instant, he saw the girl they were apparently tormenting. And he knew that no girl he'd ever met was quite that blue. He hesitated as he heard her grunt once more at the kick, her eyes squeezed shut parting slightly to look past the little nose horn, spotting briefly the still figure behind her tormentors. Then a burst of electricity elicited a shriek as the eyes slid closed and she curled tighter into a ball.

Jake knew that most people would have left the digimon to her fate. He knew that was probably what he should do. But the sadness in the poor things eyes was all it took to convince him that nothing had changed. His knuckles were white as he jammed the release button. His hand came down with a high 'ShhhhhHICT' as the tip of the baton raced to the end of its length, carrying extra weight and momentum into the hard sideways swing that crashed into Gazimon's partially turned face. He barely had time to turn his muzzle right into the imact, to barely register suprise on his face before it caved around the hard shaft. His head and shoulders rocked back from the blow, the rookie hitting the ground on his back and sliding several inches as bright red splashes contrasted steely grey fur.

Jake felt the rush of adrenalin as he turned to whip the rod out towards the middle, hoping to catch the others just as off gaurd. Veggimon was suprisingly quick though, and ducked underneath the lunge, leaving the other Gazimon to swear as his arm came up to block the blow, only realizing that this also wasen't the best idea. The shaft reverberated painfully in his hand as it crashed into the rookies forarm, though the yelp and immediate whimper from its first and second victim showed it had done its job.

However, as he should have known, his luck could not hold out for long. Before he could so much as think about recovering, his body bent in half around the powerful punch, Veggimon having been quick to retaliate after the near miss. The spines turned out to be too blunt to do more than scratch Jake through his shirt, but the wind rushing out of him was more than enough to drop the boy to his knees.

Jake was left trying to pull air into his lungs for several seconds as he barely hung onto the steel baton, his eyes wide as Veggimon laughed. Ignoring his partners whimpers of pain, he instead reached out, coiling his tentacle-like arm around the boys neck and suddenly lifting him up by his head so that he was forced to kneel even as he gasped for air.

"You've got guts kid, but not alot of brains if you're gonna take a swing at me!" he taunted cockily as his other 'fist' came up to swat the baton from Jake's hand. It clattered uselessly across the pavement behind him as Jake's vision blurred. His lungs were just begining to obey him once again, and now he gasped through the tight grip around his neck, fingers scrambling for purchase to pull the powerful tendril away. The green champion just smirked as he tightened his grip on the gasping boy, watching his vision go cloudy, "Lord Myotismon only asked for the girl, but I'm sure he'll be happy to have a whipping boy to go along w-AAAH!"

His eyes had gone wide in shock as he lunged forward, his grip lost in an instant as he collapsed on top of Jake. He sucked in air eagerly as he fell back, quickly bringing his knee up into the green plant and pushing him hard off to the side. It took him a moment to see that what had hit him from behind had been none other than the little Blue's forhead. She stood behind the fallen Veggimon and panted as she trembled, "I'm Not going Back! Vee Headbutt!!" she shouted and exploaded through the air to smash her head once more into the Veggimon, this time catching him in the head and knocking him senseless as she rolled off and tumbled past, lying on the ground in a heap.

Jake saw this all with a mixture of confusion and awe. Partially at the fact that she could still stand after being that beaten, and partially at the fact that he'd just been saved by a Digimon. Later he'd reflect that she probably had the same thought when he had jumped into the fight in the first place, but for now his mind went to the fact that Veggimon woulden't be down for long, and the second Gazimon was already stalking towards them.

Scrambling to all fours, he kicked out hard and managed to catch the slow moving Gazimon in the same arm he was already nursing, the digimon screaming in pain and stumbling back as Jake ran over to the blue digimon on the ground. Seeing she was barely concious, he quickly scooped up his fallen baton and then lifted her limp form into his arms. Bolting for the door, he glanced back to see Veggimon slowly starting to recover.

Thinking quickly, he kicked the stopper out from the open back door of the building, the metal door slamming shut and buying them time since it lacked any way to open from the outside. He quickly set the digimon he'd rescued (a thought that still baffled him) against the wall and ran to the front of the stoor, scooping up a few items and hurridly sticking his head out into the street. "God I hope they haven't watched any movies lately." he mumbled, taking a wrench and chucking it hard towards the store across the street. The glass storefront shattered and the sound of the wrench continuing in the store was hopefully enough...

Sure enough, the Gazimon with the busted arm was soon seen trailing after Veggimon as they came from around the side of the building and charged across the street with hardly a glance towards the darkened hardware storefront. Jake was safely out of sight as they dissapeared into the store. He gathered his things and was nearly ready to go as he glanced up to see the Gazimon he had hit first limping slowly after the first pair, holding his bloodied muzzle and stumbling badly. Jake blinked and squinted at the creature as it crossed the road. At first he thought his own vision was blurring, but then he realized that it really was the Gazimon. He almost felt sorry for him as he realized that his form was breaking up around the edges, and that he'd probably be 'deleted' soon. He felt a moment of sympathy for the creature, despite what it had done to his little blue companion.

He wasen't suprised to find her sleeping, however he fairly shocked to find that she had managed to shrink while he was leading the others off. In place of the rookie fighter with the V on her head, was a smaller version with nubs for arms no real markings or nose horn. "Thats... Different." he muttered, before quickly deciding on what to do. Grabbing a blanket that he had planned to wrap more tools in, he set it inside his bag and quickly set her on top of it before closing the flap over her, "Travel sized, how convenient." he muttered as he slipped once more out the back door, closing it silently behind him.

With one final glance back at the store as he made his way through the town, he shook his head and adjusted the straps over his shoulder. Thinking of just how much trouble he'd managed to get himself into, or at least started on today, he could only shake his head and mumble, "And so it begins..."

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There we go! Chapter 01. This one was written in full a couple years ago, whereas the rest have been tweaked more recently. Let me know what you think!

(PS, The story is still in progress, so if changes have to be made, this may be moved to scraps at a later date.)