AN: Hello and welcome, dear readers, to my first Digimon Fanfiction, Conficker. This story may not be updated as much as I'd like it to be, but I have other fanfictions on my deviantART account that are in progress as of now. But here's the prologue for you to savor, if you can. Enjoy!

Digimon isn't mine, but most of the characters in this story are. Victor Crowley is actually the property of my dA friend scarecrow1031, as is Cadavermon and his evolutions.

PROLOGUE: Exodus of Darkness

The first thing I remember was falling in that dreadful, black void... I couldn't move a muscle. I was in the realm of the dead and awaiting judgment, I thought. But I know better now...

Lilah's jade-toned eyes opened wearily, blackness surrounding her. She groaned quietly as she looked for a sign of land, sky... anything, really, just to know that she'd land somewhere soon.

"Where am I...?" Her voice, for the moment, was quiet with fright.

"You are in between your Reality and the Digital World," said a cold, powerful voice. "The life support computers you were hooked to served as a port."

The voice had scared poor Lilah senseless. She opened her mouth to say something, but it seemed the being speaking to her had read her mind. "I am called Zalgomon. You see," it sighed, "When my world was created, I was made by the Five Sovereigns. I became the embodiment of darkness, of chaos, of corruption. Unfortunately, my child, I have been sealed away for creating a race of beings called 'Viruses.' I had intended the existence of my children-- the 'Virus' Digimon-- to counteract the existence of the 'Vaccine' Digimon. What good is order without chaos?"

"Not very good at all, sir," Lilah said, her voice like that of the nightingale.

"Precisely my point. I need to get out of this place."

"Where exactly are you, Zalgomon?"

"I'm at the very center of Browser, the land of which the Sovereigns created for the Digimon."

"But what are Digimon?"

"So naive!" The voice laughed heartily. "But I suppose I must tell you. Digimon are like you humans-- each has a special place on Browser. There are the heroes and the vigilantes, which are the Vaccines, the citizens, of which comprise of the Data class, and my creations, the Viruses. Each individual Digimon is aligned with an element-- fire, water, ice, lightning, darkness, light, earth, wind, water and metal, though combinations are not unheard of. Some, if not most, have special attributes. All of these creatures have different forms in all shapes and sizes. The same can be said for their personality."

"Thank you, lord," Lilah said, bowing her head as best she could. Ground, at last! She felt an odd comfort as her fall suddenly slowed and she got to her feet. The ground beneath her was solid, the grass as green as it could get in the spring. In a near by hawthorn bush was a little spherical creature with four bat wings, one pair bigger than the other. It wore a little mask over the top of it's head with little antennae and large eye holes. Small fangs protruded from its feline mouth, which happened to be relatively close to its three-clawed feet. Whatever it was, it was asleep.
"Pardon me, my lord, but what the hell is that?"

"That is DemiDevimon, your companion... if he WAKES UP..."

The small bat-creature woke up, it's huge yellow eyes blinking as it yawned. "I'm up, Zal, I'm up..." DemiDevimon looked Lilah over closely. "This my partner? I gotta say, Zalgomon, you have good taste!"

"My name's Lilah Hackle. You must be DemiDevimon." She held her arm out as a perch for her purple bat-like creature, whom willingly accepted the offer. "Are you a Virus?"

"Hells yeah! I'm not one of those 'goody-gumdrop' Vaccines or a socialist Data, now, am I?" Obviously, the small devil was a male, with a slightly nasaly voice. "If you want a Digivice, you've already got one. It's around your neck!"

Lilah felt the onyx and opal yin-yang at the center of her choker. "You mean Mama's present when I was young... was a Digivice?"

"Not back in your world, no. But here, it is." Lilah's companion jumped up to her shoulder and buried himself in his tamer's ash-blond hair. "Mmm... warm..."

"Please, don't mind him, he's still a child. Within a century here, you'll have a human ally. For now, however, here's what you must do..."

Five years in Reality later

"Damn, I wish I had discovered this earlier," Victor said to himself, looking at the computer screen. Pock marks had already scabbed over and were in the process of making his pale skin a fleshy map of the night sky, the scars to be on his skin coming to mean the stars in the heavens. "Thanks, Saddie."

"Don't metion it, Victor." Saddie smiled in a way that made the boy's heart melt. "I only did this because you're so miserable all of the time..."
Victor's ice-blue eyes flashed with hatred. "It's all because of my parents. Had they taken better care of me," he said in his calm, Baritone voice, "I wouldn't be called a leper."

Saddie walked away a bit. "I'll let you alone. Who knows," she said warmly, "maybe you'll literaly be absorbed in that game. It was made five years ago, but yet there's only a single player. Have fun." The young girl left the room, leaving Victor to his lonesome. He sighed as he typed in his information: what city he lived in, his name, age and e-mail. He finished the form with a click of the mouse, and suddenly the screen becan to glow.

"What the fu--?" The computer screen had sucked him right in! He landed on the ground beyond that strange portal, which had already closed. He got himself up and sifted his slender fingers through his corse blond hair. "Where in the fucking Hell am I? The Digital World?"

"Yes, and I bid you welcome," said a feminine voice from behind him. Victor spun around and faced a girl of about fifteen, with brown pigtails, green eyes and ivory skin. She was clad in a black tube-top and a long skirt of the same color, with a red and gold overskirt. Her forearms were covered by silver gauntlets, and her shoulders were covered by metal dragon heads of a similar alloy. "I knew you'd come here one day."

"Who are you? Why the hell am I here?" Victor was getting somewhat scared of this place.

The sly-looking girl smiled. "I'm Lilah Hackle... the first human in this world. You're here because the Great Shadow, Zalgomon, has deemed you worthy of his notice. Not for concern-- heavens, no! Rather, he sees potential within you."

"This is insane," Victor nearly shouted. "I want out!"

Lilah's face saddened. "But you just came here," she whimpered. "And besides, where would this little guy go to?" A small, anthromorphic hyena cub peeked out from behind her and looked at Victor for a moment, and with a small, cute 'Eep!', hid behind the teenage girl.

"What was that," the blue-eyed boy said quietly. "Was that your partner?"

"No, no," Lilah said with a laugh. "The one behind you is mine."

Victor turned slowly. Before him now was a simply massive demon knight, with arms almost as long as it was tall. Crimson eyes gazed from under it's horned helmet and deeply sunken eye sockets. Around the iron horns on its helmet were real horns, like ram's horns, curving around the iron. On it's left wrist, there was a steel blade that resembled what Edgar Allen Poe discribed in 'The Pit and the Pendulum'-- a crecent shaped blade, shimmering with a wicked light, that if swung with even a low velocity could cause critical to fatal wounds. On the right was a multi-bladed and barbed scythe, obviously ment for ripping an opponent apart. Sharp, metal claws portruded from four spidery fingers. The boots of it armor had three similar claws a piece. The demon had a large pair of metal wings and a smaller pair of bat wings made of flesh, bone, skin and blood. It raised one of its hands and waved its fingers slowly as a greeting gesture.

"That's yours," Victor said, turning back to Lilah with wide, frightened eyes.

"I kinda made him like that," the girl said with a smile, "so yes, he is. Isn't MechaDevimon something? Sure, he's basically the Jason Voorhees of Browser, but once you get him to talk, he's a perfect gentleman, Right, Mr. Lovecraft?"

"I have implored you several times, and I shall do so again," MechaDevimon said with his gentle, metallic voice, "I am not the same man Lovecraft was."

The newcomer quirked an eyebrow. "Mister... Lovecraft?"

"MechaDevimon tells the most wonderful stories," Lilah said. "You'd have nightmares after hearing one if you're easily spooked."

"Then what was that behind you?"

"Ah, him? Hold on..." Lilah turned her head as far as she possible could have. "It's okay, little buddy. He won't hurt you."

The little hyena cautiously walked out from behind her. In his right ear, there was an orange tag like those Victor had seen in pictures of morgues while pathologists were preforming autopsies. The sleeves of its aged straight-jacket hardly reached it's long, black claws. The hyena's huge brown eyes looked up at Victor's face.

Victor smiled and knelt down. "Hey there, little guy," he cooed as he exstended his hand to the little hyena.

"Be careful! Cadavermon is very sensitive!" Lilah picked up the little cub, and helped the newcomer up. "I'm sorry, but he's gotten a strange glitch that I can't quite repair..."

The pock marked boy looked at the programmer confused-like. "Did you say... Cadavermon?"

"Yes. He's an undead Digimon." Lilah tickled Cadavermon's little belly. "Most of these guys hardly made it past infancy..."

All Victor could do what he believed was apropriate was smile. "I was always fascinated with death and the dead. Classmates used to call me a necromancer because I meditated in the graveyard for insight."

"Then you're the perfect one to keep him...I don't believe you told me your name."

"Victor Crowley. I prefer Victor."

"The pleasure is all mine." The viral programmer handed the jacketed hyena cub to Victor. "Be sure to feed him a few times daily until you find your tag and crest. Little Cadavermon has your Digivice in one of the sleeves of his 'security blanket.' I shall be seeing you again shortly thereafter. Come, MechaDevimon." She beackoned to her cyborg guardian. "The hour is growing late, and we need our rest." Lilah blew a kiss to the newly-initiated tamer and smiled. "Farewell...for now." She turned and left, the demonic knight at her side, leaving a confused Victor with a napping Cadavermon.