Digimon: Onslaught
Chapter 4: Viral History 101
Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, nor the Phyrexians (seriously). Its be hard to take care of these guys...
"All right, Team? Is everybody ready to go into the, ahem, known Digiworld?"
"Yes, Izumi-Senpai!" five of the six from the new digidestined agreed to Izzy's question. Unfortunately for everyone, the Inoue's family shop had an unusually busy day today, so Yolei and her digimon partner had to sit this one out.
They all directed their digivices onto Izzy's computer, signalling it to activate a special program. The Digiport entrance materialised from the monitor and shot beams of light towards them, pulling them in to the Digital World.
After a few seconds of a barrage of bright crisp colors and snazzy rock music, the Destined kids landed on to an arid desert with their feet crunching the soft sand. As always, their apparel had converted into the regular threads they wore whenever they ventured this digital plane: Davis and his fiery vest, Ken with his bland grey school uniform, Cody with his…you know. Only TK, Kari and Izzy's clothes didn't shift during the journey.
The blond boy fumbled his bucket hat and scanned the desert. "Isn't this the Server Continent?" he asked.
"Indeed it is." Izzy scratched his head. "It's the same place where Tai and Agumon first defeated Etemon."
"Do you think we'll be able to find anything about Willis's attackers here?" Ken questioned.
"The Desert is a typical place to find traces of strange alien civilisations." Kari answered.
"What gave you that idea?" TK looked at her.
She shrugged. "It's common in the movies, so it has to be true."
"Save the talking for later, guys." Izzy patted his laptop. "I think this mission will go smoother if we split up. Me, Ken and Cody will stay here and look for clues. The rest of you better go to the scene of that Phyrexian attack."
"Right." They complied, knowing it was for the best. Now, it just so happens that there was a busted old television set where they were standing. TK, Kari and Davis directed their D-3 on to it and vanished once more with the flash of light.
For fifteen minutes, the Digi "geniuses" threaded the desert, a bland repetitive sea of sand. Eventually, they spotted what looked like a giant dark hourglass structure in the horizon.
"Datamon's hideout." Izzy whispered.
A lot has changed since the digidestined first visited this enigmatic place. Ever since the demise of the building's keeper Datamon, digimon archaeologists, with the intent to satisfy their curiosity, have raided it for clues to the digipast long forgotten due to years of unnecessary fighting. Ditches have been dug around the pyramid, digichrome bricks have been pulled off, and rogue looters have stolen barely functional technology as a form of vengeance against its former keeper. It was all good though, as Etemon and his Dark Network wasn't around to stop their operations.
It wasn't long until they heard the familiar yet modified voice of a certain digital humanoid.
"Children, fancy meeting you here," said a wise but not old Gennai, looking a bit Ewan McGregor-ish as usual. The only difference was that this time he wore an expedition hat.
"Gennai?" exclaimed Izzy. "You didn't tell us you were leading this excavation."
He shook his head. "Not leading, my friend. I'm more like overseeing. The archaeologists told me to check if there was any who slacked off or nicked artefacts." He held his arms akimbo. "So, what brings you in these parts?"
"We came here looking for clues about the Phyrexians." Ken explained. "Do you know them?"
"Phyrexians, those horrible things? Yeah, I've heard about them. They came long ago and trashed the world. I haven't heard anything about them again until your friend Willis encountered them."
"How did you know about that? I haven't told you." Izzy asked.
"I keep track of every digidestined that ever existed by tracing the signals of their digivices from my place. By the way, smooth move with those girls, Ken!" Gennai pointed at him with two indexed fingers cocked like guns.
"What's he talking about?" Izzy raised an eyebrow at the second oldest genius.
The black-haired boy laughed nervously. "Long story."
The man held his chin against his hands. "I think the Gazimon group found relics about the Phyrexians within the pyramid. You can go there if you like."
The three boys continued their steps to the Pyramid, carefully avoided every second Gotsumon or metallic Kokuwamon who participated with the digs. The rookies and their champion foremen seemed hostile with their "Do ya minds?" and "Watch where yer goin's". Either that, or it was due to their breakless straight eight-hour shifts.
"Prodigious!" sputtered Izzy, taking in the glorious tomb-like interior of the pyramid. "I forgot how technologically beautiful this place was!"
"Oy, what are you kids doing in here?"
The all turned and saw a grey bespectacled rabbit digimon standing on his hind legs on a doorway holding a dusty old book
"We're here to look for pieces of interest." Izzy sincerely said.
The Gazimon didn't hop, but walked towards them pragmatically. "You do know that no unauthorized personnel are allowed here, right?"
Ken interjected. "It's ok, we're friends of Gennai."
"Gennai, huh?" The scientific rabbit blinked and whispered to himself. "Deng, curse that old coot. He's so soft." He sighed and turned back to them. "Sure, you can take a look. Just don't wreck stuff. They're priceless."
"As if Digimon have the time to go to a museum." A panting Geckomon tilted his head to the doorway and squawked at the Gazimon.
"Shut up! Some would actually pay to see this stuff." The grey rabbit patted on the wall, then suddenly pulled his arm back. "I mean to do that."
"Boss, we finally got that stubborn door to open." Came a shout beyond the doorway.
He raised his arms with simulated triumph. "Finally! Kids, you gotta go and see this. We've been trying to open that thing for weeks." He gestured them to follow him with his hand and proceeded to walk to the other room.
The group saw a heavy chrome digizoid door resting on the ground, surrounded by other archaeological rookies. A floating sphere with horns and arms wielding a chainsaw bounced a spiked mine with its free hand was in the other room, a wide smile dawning on its face.
"Boss, this looks like it held a bunch of digimon." The subordinate Giromon clicked.
"That's a possibility." The Gazimon said. "This pyramid had a history beyond Datamon, or Etemon."
"But sir." Objected a fat but educated Veedramon. "That contradicts my theory that this pyramid was a great tomb for past digimon kings."
"Screw that." A dusty Mushroomon shoved him aside. "This place was a memorial for an oasis that once grew in this big sandy mess."
"There's already one not far from here, genius!" Veedramon quipped.
"Is that a threat?" Mushroomon dared the dragon.
"Yeah!" he spat. "Didn't you see that crack on the ceiling?" He pointed to a crude opening up the room. "That proves that robbers already came here and took treasures, sarcophagus and the kitchen sink."
"You're evidence is a freakin' hole? That won't stand!"
"Um, perhaps this is a bad time to deliver my theory that this pyramid was once a Geckomon breeding ground…"
"We don't need your stupid theory!" both dragon and fungus shouted at the meek trumpeted frog who mentioned it.
"Shut the heck up, you two!" the Gazimon ordered the two bickering digimon.
"What's that over there?" Everyone turned to Cody, who spotted a white messy groove from the hole that lead back to a mass of nondescript etchings from a wall.
"Eh?" they ceased what they were doing and stared for a moment.
"This is interesting. Looks like you were right, Giro: digimons did use to stay here." The Gazimon told the floating sphere digimon.
"Just a minute. These etchings…." Ken walked to the wall and ran his palm on it. "They don't look like Digimon script."
Cody tried to continue. "They look like…"
"…the work of a Phyrexian."
The people consequently turned to the direction of the voice. They spotted a casually dressed young boy, presumably human, whose eyes were concealed under dark specs.
"Don't tell me you're friends with Gennai too?!" the Gazimon fumed at this unexpected new arrival.
Ken asked the kid. "You're saying that this room was a prison cell, for a monster?"
"Phyrexian's aren't your run-of-the-mill monsters, Ken." He tipped his specs. "You'll know more if you read it."
"Prodigious!" Izzy smiled. "This calls for a new program I installed." He opened his laptop and furiously tapped on the keyboard, as he always did.
The laptop shot a ray of blue light that scanned the wall. After a few seconds, the screen began to say "Language Error".
The shades boy ruffled his black hair and bit his lip, his hands clawed at the light highlighted etchings. "They must be enforced by a magical aura."
"Ay, my mistake." Izzy had a metaphorical sweatdrop. "It was set for 'Digimon Analyzer' instead for Universal Translator". Everyone facefaulted as he pointed out his error. "I'm so sorry. I made these programs so identical."
He tried typing again. "I've took a gander of the Phyrexian language from the online archives of a Prof. Covetto." The Computer Whiz explained. "It makes great bedtime reading."
"And just to entertain you guys," he made a final firm press of a button with his right index finger. "I've also programmed the translator to recite the etchings with a reproduction of the supposed writer's voice. Note though that this is just a simulation and not the real thing."
"Is this kid for real?" the Gazimon thumb-pointed Izzy for Ken and Cody.
The raven-haired boy shrugged. "He is our Computer Whiz."
The laptop shined the blue light once more. This time, it showed a projection of the same etchings, which gradually morphed into legible script. The device the cleared its throat and nasally growled a deep grotesque soliloquy, amplified by heavy breathing.
"We should've brought popcorn for this" Joked Ken.
Ever since the banishment of our god and father Yawgmoth from the face of his wretched home world Dominaria, his new life took root in an artificial world composed of metal and oil. That world, Phyrexia, was built like a giant onion; nine layers, nine spheres, nine hells that felt more infernal as you ventured deeper into its abysmal caverns. That world was a very harsh place; no flesh-born mortal could survive the sea of boiling oil, the hot polluted atmosphere, the sharp rusty terrain and the creatures that managed to survive long enough to kill any able-bodied stranger. It was hell, but it was home (for a while…)
Our Father was aware that Phyrexia would not last long, given that it was conceived from a mortal mind and shaped from magical yet mortal hands. For eons Our Father used his expertise in the biological and chemical sciences to breed his army of nightmarish soldiers, many of which neophytes would call "freaks of nature". Some were bred, that's right, bred like cultured pathogens from large vats tended by competent vat priests, waiting to serve Our Father until death; some are those who were once alive, dead as petrified tree trunks, yet have risen again via magical and artificial means to serve Him for as long as their bodies lasted; and then there were the machines, never alive to begin with and thus can never die, who were loyal to Him no matter what. As you can see, nothing is wasted in Phyrexia. Our Lord desired perfection, and one of these included effective resource management.
Great Yawgmoth, as I had implied, was a doctor once. Using his great mind he had devised an array of biological weapons, notably plagues, each specialised in killing specific races of man, beast and surprisingly, oddities such as elementals and spirits. The plague carriers ranged from remote controlled ornithopters that dropped booster shots from the sky to large dirigible-like brutes that sprayed their spores down below, who eagerly carried their relentless influence with them to worlds new and old.
In addition to the virulent plagues He synthesized, Our Father created a plane named Rath that was made entirely of Flowstone: tiny machines which, to the naked eye, appears like living quicksand. This living quicksand was dangerous in the hands of ambitious men, hopefully those that do the bidding of their master, Our Glorious Master. The day shall come when Dominaria gets her just desserts as Phyrexia claims her for Our Father, her ostracised son.
But that is not all; Our Lord will not stop there. Great Yawgmoth is aware that there are other worlds to explore; different planes and planets that contain life forms to be assimilated to his horde. After all, that old hag Dyfed had the courage to introduce such a concept to Him. In addition to the plans to invade his former home world, Lord Yawgmoth assigned members of his inner circle to lead search armies to seek other planes worthy of his conquest.
One world that got his attention was a place called the Digital World: a plane conceived by the human mind. A human once said that it is the shadow of his own world, a realm made from the interweaving of network connections from "computers" and other things "digitally electronic". All these things seriously sounded alien to me, yet Yawgmoth became so obsessed with this world that he sent an army to pluck it like a ripe apple. I was fortunate enough to lead our invading army, though initially I began to doubt Our Father's sanity, as this world felt as artificial as Phyrexia itself.
The moment that we stepped on the sandy shores of Server, the Digital World's supposedly largest continent, I have felt something strange about this new world. It's not like the other artificial planes that I previously visited in my travels, all of which were designed to be perfect yet brittle. The Digital World was a living, breathing place similar to that of Dominaria, the only difference being its composition of what the special artificers that visit it like to refer to as "data bytes".
Beginning with Server, the entire Digital World submitted to the conquering grip of Phyrexia in the course of three days. The moment Our Father's banner struck the crunchy digital soil we immediately flaunted our superiority upon establishing Yawgmoth's authority.
What followed was a long period of what the locals have misinterpreted as tyranny and slavery. We regularly enforced the peace and executed anyone who resisted swearing allegiance to Him, actions they mistook for racial abuse. We probed the soil, rich in untapped Digital material and stripped it bare of its natural reserves for our glorious Phyrexia; which was acceptable, as these native fools never put them to good use anyway. It didn't matter if a few casualties came about with our rule, for anyone can see: life was good.
Through the application of genetic engineering technologies I have learnt from Our Father, the Phyrexian Digital Company has spawned countless agents by combining His essence with digimon data. Those implanted with the spirit of Yawgmoth are made to see his glorious vision and have subsequently changed their body composition into that of the virus type. This special type was the simplest genetic attribute for Digimon, it was so simple that entities of its strain have immediately outnumbered their pureblood counterparts; and as many as twenty digimon that carried his mark have been assigned by me to rule the land for us.
Everything was going to plan. As I have said before, life was good. However, we did not anticipate the unlikely rebellion that followed as a result of our genetic experiments.
It seems that some digimons have acquired immunity from our mark, no doubt a mutation in their genetic compositions. These so-called Vaccine digimons formed a team, lead by a blue draconic midget, and eradicated my army. Our artillery was useless, for Our Father did not have the time to synthesise a plague effective against their strain.
You could say that this was the story of how the three main digital attributes came to be. Digimons started as Data, Yawgmoth enabled their rebirth into Viruses and some mutant turned into Vaccine and rose to defeat us.
Cowards, many of whom didn't possess the ability to even know fear, fled back to our crumbling plane, leaving me alone and the creatures we have spawned within my fortress to fend off our enemies. Eventually I was defeated, restrained of my power and exiled in my own chrome-digizoid prison. My authority over the viruses has been severed, causing our digital spawn to exhibit independent thought and abandon our ideals. And the last time I heard of the Vaccine Brigade, they disbanded and the main players sealed themselves in hidden locations scattered around the world, in case the world would ever need them again.
I, in my part, spent the days of my imprisonment scratching these glyphs on the walls; to prove to visitors who can read it that Perfection once took a chance on this sorry plane and its locals never thanked us properly for it.
I have heard from my jailer that recent digimons who followed the ideals of the Vaccine Brigade sought the help of human children whom they called the Digidestined. These children, he said, were specifically chosen to protect the digital world from destruction and evil. A being named Gennai, apparently the last of his kind, recruited these children by letting them witness battles held by great digimons of old who happened to have stopped by their homeworld. This notion of utilising digivices, crests and human aid gave me quite a chuckle in my days of exile. No such artifacts and teamwork and light can extinguish the glory that is our Lord Yawgmoth's. They only prolong the inevitable.
I sense great tension in the air enveloping the pyramid. No doubt that my jailer did as well. A battle was taking place outside in the sands; between a viral creature infused with the power of the Dark Network, and a cybernetic vaccine dinosaur, obviously aided by a human child. I only have a few seconds to scratch this on, but to my dismay the fight went in the favor of th…
After the last syllable growled out of the laptop, the device ceased the lightshow. They were all unable to speak for a few seconds.
The shades boy broke their silence with the words "You better act fast my friends."
"It can't be that serious." Izzy said. "The writings looked like they stopped after Etemon was sucked into the portal. Nothing could have survived that."
Shades Boy shook his head. "That wasn't an ordinary Phyrexian though. The creature that was kept here, it was a demon: Yawgmoth's Demon."
"Yawgmoth's?" Ken's eyes lit up as he exclaimed.
"They're not at all like the leader of the Daemon Corps, though." He continued. "They have the ability to resist the flesh rending and disorienting effects of crossing the AEther between worlds and dimensions." "Judging by the way he spoke, he seemed to have a grudge on one of your friends."
The raven-haired boy shuddered. "You don't mean…"
"He came back to his master?" Cody answered.
Shades Boy nodded. "It won't be long before he builds up another offensive and reclaim this world once more. Being a high-ranking demon though, he won't be getting his hands dirty…"
Izzy raised an eyebrow at the new arrival. "So, what does this all have to do with Willis's abduction? Even I'm kept in the dark here."
"Izzy, whatever the reason, the digital world is in danger. I suggest you to gather all your friends, stay alert and be ready". He sincerely replied.
He started to walk away, but was promptly held back by the bland haired Cody.
"Wait." The kid ordered.
"Hm?" the older kid grunted as felt his hand tugged.
Cody explained his motives. "It's not polite to enlighten us and just walk away. Who are you?"
Shade Boy sighed. "I am but a traveller of distant lands and far away worlds, a collector of tales." He produced a notebook to write something and dangled his shaking head. "Though recently, the tales I've gathered paint a grim picture of this world."
Cody pondered over these words. "That's an odd way to describe a digidestined."
He turned to the boy and shook his head. "I'm not a Digidestined, Cody."
"Is he for real?" the Gazimon whispered to the Digi "Geniuses" again.
"Then how did you get here? This doesn't add up!"
He shrugged Cody's probing question and turned to walk away again. "Let me know if there are any updates with your story, alright?" "Later" were his final words.
The three boys were dumbfounded: A stranger came into their lives, a non-digidestined, and vanished in front of their eyes. They didn't know how to react.
The bespectacled Gazimon tipped his specs. "Didn't you find it weird that that guy knew your names?"
Izzy spoke. "I think TK and Kari should hear about this."
