I had a thought, the main cast of each Digimon season/series will sometimes encounter variants of existing Digimon, but those variants will almost never be partnered with the Digidestined/Chosen Children. Data Squad did have an Agumon variant, but it was still just called Agumon, and that evolved into a completely divergent Greymon line. We also saw Agumon and Gabumon have alternate Mega evolutions in the 2020 reboot of Digimon Adventure. Digimon Frontier had the Beast of Thunder be an alternate of the Kabutarimon line. But outside those cases, I can not think of any occasions where the main cast had access to alternates of prior existing Digimon.

I had a thought earlier that prompted all of this, what if there were to be a Digimon season/series that takes place in a version of Witchenly, and one of the kids pulled in had a red variant of Zubamon as their partner? And what if the RedZubamon also was basically like an enchanted sword with the Fire element in all its stages, culminating with a Durandamon variant whose name literally referenced fire in some way as the mega stage? I thought this could be a fun play on things, since Zubamon's line's stages are all based on swords and blades, and the cliche weapon for a hero is usually a sword in most settings.

What variants have you thought of or seen in the franchise that you thought could be a partner Digimon for whatever reason? Please share your reasoning.