Author's Note: Before the story, I want to clarify that this takes place before "Diaboromon Strikes Back" and is set only a few years after the original movie. If some parts are not canonical, I apologize. This is simply a story with my interpretation of events in the movie and of Diaboromon's Character. Please enjoy, and review.
DIGITAL DAMNATION
BY THE YOUNG AND FREE DRAGON
CHAPTER ONE
Tai watched with disgust as Izzy drained a glass of eggplant juice. The crest barer of courage could hardly keep his lunch down upon seeing the new concoctions his mother made in her spare time, and sometimes it was just too much, seeing Izzy enjoy it. Izzy wiped his mouth and glanced over at Tai as he felt eyes upon him.
"Should I ask your mother to get another glass for you?" Izzy teased.
Tai made a retching noise in his throat, as he turned away from Izzy and the tray which contained his untouched glass of vegetable extract.
"Agumon," Tai said into the headset that just barely fit over his mop of hair. "Do Digimon suck the juice out of plants around there?"
Inside his father's old PC, Agumon and the other Digimon were floating in cyberspace. The niche they occupied had hundreds of files from Izzy's computer (which was hooked into the PC) which made up the walls. Tentomon and Gomamon were entertaining themselves by reading them aloud to each other. Biyomon and Gabumon were chatting idly as were Patamon and Gatomon though among themselves. Palmon seemingly had nothing to do, and Agumon was chatting with Tai through the headset.
"Well technically Tai, our food doesn't exist," Agumon chuckled.
Tai rolled his eyes in return and glanced over at Izzy, who was tapping on the keys of his laptop. They were waiting on the other Digidestined to arrive, and time was slipping by fast. They only had a limited amount of time to speak with their Digimon before Tai's father came home. Tai was a bit disgusted. It had been months since they had seen their Digimon and it was beginning to show in the faces of the digital monsters. Considering he had made it very clear that there would only be a little time to see their Digimon, he had figured the others would hurry over or get online the connection Izzy had made, to get as much time with their old friends as possible.
"Hey guys," Matt's voice suddenly came over the internet. "Gabumon! It's great to see you big guy!"
"Patamon! I've missed you so much!" Said T.K.
As the two began conversing with their old friends, Tai glanced back over at Izzy. The computer genius was had a strange look on his face as he was running through pages of the computer codes. Tai gazed at his friend's back strangely, but before he could question it, Izzy said; "This can't be..."
"What's wrong Izzy?"
"Something is terribly wrong here..." Izzy murmured under his breath.
"How can you tell?" Tai smirked. "It's just a bunch of ones and zeros."
"Maybe to you," Izzy snapped, and then began copying a certain amount of the code. He pasted it into a document, and reduced the font size. "But not only does it say something really bad in computer language, look at what it's shaped like."
Tai squinted at the screen. He saw nothing at first among the many repetitions of the two digits, until he began to look at the whole picture across the six pages that it inhabited. Izzy had put them all side by side and in two columns for a reason... Tai fell backwards with a cry of shock as he recognized the face of Diaboromon.
"What is he doing there?!" Tai cried.
"What are you guys blabbering about?" Came Matt's voice from the computer.
"I don't know, Tai," Izzy said, ignoring Matt. "I've always kept the emails that Diaboromon sent us-..."
"Why the hell would you want to keep them?!" Tai shouted.
"Just in case he ever returned!" Izzy snapped. "Data doesn't just go away on the internet! It leaves its mark everywhere it goes! And Diaboromon was all over systems of the world! I didn't want to lose anything from our last encounter, just in case it might come in handy in facing him a second time!"
"Why didn't you tell anyone about this?!" Tai shot back.
"Because he shouldn't be here! I thought you guys would understand that there was a possibility! It's common freaking knowledge that data doesn't just disappear from the internet!"
Matt's face popped up on the PC screen and he glanced over at what Tai and Izzy were arguing about. A look of fear crossed his face briefly before he looked back at Izzy.
"So where did that come from?"
Izzy sighed, thankful he was no longer being attacked and turned back to his laptop, opening the original email that Diaboromon had sent when he was a lower level. "I was glancing back through all my emails and noticed this one had an attachment. I didn't remember it having one and so I opened the email. "Hi!" Had become a hotlink. When I opened it, it activated the attachment and it began downloading this. The file size was giant, even though this would only run a few KB-..."
"What does it mean, Izzy?" Matt asked, cutting him off.
Izzy sighed, this time with frustration at having been interrupted but opened the file that contained the binary code.
"I really don't know. I said this is terribly wrong right when I opened it, but it has yet to do anything. Maybe it was originally intended to scare us. To show us what he was eventually going to look like, or something. I really don't know guys."
"I've never known a Digimon to be able to leave data like that before though," Agumon said, anxiously. "We are made of lots of data, but Diaboromon acts like he's an entire email address."
"I should have asked Willis more about the virus that he accidentally created..." Izzy groaned to himself. "But I really didn't think anything accidental could be this intelligent."
"What about the Digiegg that the virus attacked. Digimon don't just go away, so maybe it-..." Tai mused.
"Tai! That's it!" Izzy shouted, and pulled up a chatbox with Gennai. "If we can find out who the egg was supposed to be, we can figure this whole thing out!"
As Izzy conversed with their digital guide, the other Digidestined showed up. They all connected in a group video chat, and Tai and Matt quickly explained the situation to them, and to the other Digimon who hadn't been listening. Anxiety quickly spread and they all turned to Izzy for answers. Finally he shut them up, though he did not appear to have good news.
"The Digiegg... was going to be a Koromon..." He murmured.
"What how?!" Tai and Agumon both cried in unison.
"Do you remember the event that we witnessed, which made us all Digidestined? That version of Agumon was turned back into an egg. The virus infected it, and changed it. I don't even know if Diaboromon even knows that he technically came in contact with us before Willis. That might actually be why he was so intent on killing Willis. The virus he accidentally made is what corrupted him and kept him from having a normal Digimon's life."
"But they are so different!" Sora said.
"The original Botamon and Koromon were normal size, right?" Izzy asked Tai in his sister. They affirmed this and Izzy continued; "But it grew to an abnormal size when it became Agumon. Something must have happened there that changed it. Either way, we have no idea to what extent the virus changed the egg. As soon as I can, I will look at Agumon's digital make up and compare it to this. It won't look the same, but I bet a few lines of code will be similar."
"You may not get the chance," A voice growled from the computer.
The humans turned and gasped in surprise and horror, and the Digimon turned within their digital niche, and shared the same expression when they saw a portal had opened, and Diaboromon had emerged from it. Before anyone could react he rumbled out; "Cable Crusher" and his long arms shot forward. He grabbed Agumon and Gomamon about the midsection and pulled them back to his normal arm's length.
"Let them go!" Biyomon cried and added. "Biyomon digivolve to-..."
"Evolution Modification Pulse." Diaboromon growled, and leaned down.
A large, green, glowing orb pushed up out of his back and let out a pulse of energy that swept over all the digimon and threw them back. Biyomon had nearly completed transformation into Birdramon, but it was stopped and she was sent back to the rookie level.
"Gabumon digivolve to-...!" Gabumon shouted but nothing happened. "Hey! I can't digivolve!"
The others tried and found they too could not change. They all looked up in fear at the virus Digimon who looked at Agumon with his large, yellow eyes and then threw Agumon back into the crow of Digiomon, pummeling all of them.
"File Fissure," Diaboromon growled.
Joe was the only Digidestined to make a sound as the metal claws tore Gomamon in half. Crimson squares of blood spilled out of each half of Gomamon's body. His face and other features became pixelated and a single gasp escaped his lips before Diaboromon's voice erupted over cyberspace; "Delete Function".
The blue plates of his chest opened and a fiery hole inside loomed out like a pit filled with lava. As the Digimon and Digidestined stared in horrified shock, the virus Digimon pushed Gomamon's halves into the pit, where they dissolved instantly. The plates closed over the hole and Diaboromon appeared to be processing something within his mind, while all the others were silent.
Tai finally reacted by turning and grabbing Izzy by his shirt collar and shout into his face; "Izzy! Don't just sit there! Reload Gomamon to the program!"
Izzy stared at him for a moment, still stupefied before nodding and beginning to type on his laptop. Tai turned to the PC screen and shouted into his headset; "Guys, get out of there!"
The Digimon inside the program reacted finally, pulling out and exiting through the hole through which they had come, just as Diaboromon appeared to have finished what he was doing and turned in their direction. The portal closed behind them and they were safe; for the moment.
"What the hell was that?!" Matt cried.
"Joe! Joe say something!" Mimi sobbed through her headset.
"Mimi calm down! Izzy will get Gomamon back!" Sora assured, though her voice betrayed her fear.
"Matt!" T.K. Whimpered and held on to his brother.
Joe remained silent, staring with his mouth agape at the screen where he had just watched as his Digital friend had been consumed. Tai, caught one glace of the look and punched Izzy's shoulder; "Hurry up Izzy!"
But Izzy had gone silent and his fingers had stopped moving on his keyboard. He turned slowly to look at Tai, shaking as he choked out the words; "I can't, Tai..."
Tai grabbed Izzy again and shook him. "What do you mean you cant?!"
"He's gone Tai... Diaboromon deleted everything. Gomamon no longer exists... anywhere."
Tai dropped Izzy and stared at the computer wiz's laptop, as he tried to wrap his head around this and he saw where Izzy had sent Gennai asking about Gomamon. A message had returned simply saying; "Who's Gomamon?"