- Lost Souls -
Youkomon skid across the bare dirt quickly flashing a pane into existence. The flame construct quickly scrolled through data before a barrier of purple dragon fire separated him from the splashing of his serpentine foe. Then sufficiently hidden from view he dug under the ground, filling in the hole after him with a flick of his tails. He had discovered that his new form was quite a bit more capable of manipulating data in a variety of ways. Apparently his DSS Porygon traits synergized well with his new form's mystical abilities.
On the surface Serperior let out a happy laugh looking at a small scorched patch of his body before slamming a wide area of the ground with a flattened tail. "Good try Youko, but I listen to the ground too!" The snake pokemon was not holding back very much, if at all. The end result was fairly equal between them, which Youkomon found odd and Serperior clearly enjoyed.
The digimon responded to the cavern collapsing move with a literal dragon made of fire exploding out of the short tunnel he had managed to make, then continued the fight on the surface. Both of the combatants easily moved to clashing with purple flames, green blades, sharp claws, and crushing waves. Although soon the combat came to an end with the nine tailed fox glowing and shrinking back to Gazimon after a final solid hit from the Grass type.
"That was longer right?" he asked picking himself up while panting somewhat.
"It was," Shawn agreed from the sidelines. "So it does look like we can train that part of it."
"Have I mentioned that we were idiots?" Serperior asked turning towards their trainer still quite excited. "Because I think the difference just having someone at your level to practice with makes more than shows we were idiots."
"Yes, I'm quite sure that is clear now," Shawn agreed nodding. "I'm fairly sure half an hour isn't enough time for you to recover yet, I felt a bit of a drain this time."
"I thought it wasn't supposed to be a noticeable drain for a human?" Gazimon asked thinking back to what he had seen of the Digidestined. "The kids didn't even seem to notice."
"Well, it isn't said to be for mega evolution either, and the drain wasn't that much," the trainer replied. "However, I'm trained in not only using my energy, but also able to actually perform moves with it. I don't know if there are many humans on the planet as sensitive to their own energy as I am now."
"Guys, we have some news," A-0 called out from the edge of the makeshift arena looking over the now typical damage from Gazimon's training. "Clean up and head to the lab."
"The Gazi-mon evolved," Anderson repeated darkly without looking away from the data he had been inspecting. "And then rewrote the loyalty of an entire system's worth of security programs?"
"To stop the so called 'trainer' from getting hit by the strongest digital monster I've ever seen," Bob confirmed darkly while Absol padded in circles nervously. "I'm not sure it was needed given that the ball of lightning was in response to him somehow using a Solar Beam to cut through our Hackware."
"A human that knows moves, a League level Serperior with unique abilities, and a living digital monster," Absol listed. "We need to catch up. They've been fighting in digital worlds longer than us, long enough to apparently react to this overpowered security system we hit this time."
"The Gazi-mon called the big one a 'Champion' like it meant something," Alice noted. "We know that digital monsters evolve oddly, what if that is a way of measuring it?"
"It fits with the data we've recovered from DSS," the developer agreed. "The Gazi-mon remains have a property that is listed as 'Rookie' with the more advanced examples being mostly labed 'Champion' as well." He tapped at the screen. "Notably most are not going to be easily revived at full power, so they might have started at the lowest level for that reason."
"Even if it needed time to recover something that strong would be a big help," Bob argued. "It almost took the Investigator's Salamence down with the first blast."
"We will need creatures of that power to advance," Absol agreed. "I'm now quite sure that these creatures were the real benefit I recovered during my raid. We simply must use this new equipment to revive the best of the remains and see how many can be recovered."
"That is where things get interesting," Anderson said with a wide smile. "As I have found an anomaly within the data." He pointed to the screen. "This one is actually trying to piece itself back together. The most advanced of the bunch, and it might simply need just a bit of help."
"I think I have enough of a single Tyranomon to revive them," Charlie 13 said visible over a video connection before blinking to look over the paired image coming from a small camera in the Troubleshooter Lab. "Wow, everything having curves is a lot weirder looking than I'd thought."
"Are we going to move them to another site first, or is this something only you can do right now?" Janice asked looking warily at the expanse of black behind the Porygon in the image.
"The data isn't safe to move," the Administrator responded. "Which is almost good news as it means what Upload took from us is likely in a bit worse shape than what we have, only with more of it." He turned and moved slightly off camera so they could better see the distortions, now considerably smaller. "This digimon alone is spread over three of these," he informed them generating white outlines on the hard to look at structures.
"Okay, that does not sound good for putting whoever it is back together," Gazimon said queasy from the sight.
"Which is why I had the dev team get in contact with a fossil revival facility to see what their process does," the Porygon agreed. "Deepstone was glad to give us notes, and Grant's work for them meant he could translate the mess they sent us into something intelligible."
"Sadly he's probably understating things," Grant admitted. "I only know what those 'notes' were saying because I had to run the thing myself for Kabutops."
"That doesn't sound too promising," the mentioned fossil noted. "I don't remember anything from before my 'revival', so it might as well have been my birth."
"You aren't made of code," A-0 said thoughtfully. "A fossil might not be able to carry memories, while digital code might."
"Fossil pokemon sometimes remember some things," Quagsire added. "Usually not much and not clearly, but it is a possibility even for them."
"Some bad news is that we are still missing a chunk of the back of the spine," Charlie 13 told the group bringing up a wire frame of a bipedal dinosaur with a tube of material clearly missing trailing back from the base of the head.
"Now's probably a bad time to mention they were kinda enslaved, isn't it?" Gazimon asked remembering his own part in the action. "That is where a cable connected them to the Dark Network so we could control them."
"So dealing with my error was a known situation for you?" the LAS asked awkwardly. "You have done that kind of mass control before?"
"In that case we probably do have that data, it is just too closely mixed with the other bits that are the Dark Network itself to recover," Shawn said easily accepting Gazimon's confession.
"Are we really just looking past what he just said they did?" Jack whispered to Investigator Roberts.
"Given we already knew this was a typical issue for them to deal with I'd say it should be fine," the Investigator replied quietly while nodding towards LAS. "Besides, it is a good precedent for them reforming other digital life forms."
"That does mean that we might need to restrain the Tyranomon when it is revived," Serperior noted glaring at the pair out of the edge of his eye. "Who do we want there for that?"
"Has to be either you, or maybe me if I evolved," Gazimon said shaking his head. "Tyranomon is basically a fire breathing version of that Champion security program."
"We have a digimon compatible pokeball variant," the LAS added looking uneasy. "These are mostly derived from subtle modifications that have occurred to Gazimon's Dusk Ball. The number is limited, but it could possibly help."
"We do?" Charlie 13 asked surprised. "That actually would resolve a major stability problem I've been worried about. If we can use one of those in the revival process it would help greatly."
"Does it need the digimon to have a type?" Gazimon questioned looking thoughtful. "Because I can guarantee that digimon from my digital world don't have those, so we'd be modifying the Tyranomon if he needs one."
"No, we have in fact only finished this project due to your new evolutionary item," the LAS said more happily. "The type-less digimon energy it converts energy from a type into has now been identified and quantified better. For the scale of digital creature we are looking at an Ultra Ball base for the conversion to ensure safe containment. We have three such examples."
"Grant, have you worked with a Tyrantrum before?" Janice asked the fossil hunter getting a strong nod in response. "I want you with Shawn's team. From what I can tell it will be a similar creature, so you will probably end up training it. I want to try to avoid any stress with Gazimon's presence that turns up."
"I only had him for a short time after he evolved, but I still remember the advice I got on dealing with Dragon types," Grant responded before looking over at Investigator Roberts. "And I'm sure the Investigators have plenty of practical knowledge to give us on keeping their own dragons in line."
Box 113's broken area looked far less damaged overall when they arrived. A larger platform of land had been either moved or created next to the existing location and had a ring of six ominous looking pillars on its upper side. The serpent like form of the Administrator hovered between these structures and the distortions with the borderless image of the Troubleshooter Lab still floating next to him for a moment before it closed.
Grant held the quickly retrieved and notably modified Ultra Ball loosely. The typical coloration had been replaced with Porygon pink with the matching blue line. "So it's going to start off inside of this then?" the fossil hunter asked nervously walking across the rather solid path they had resorted to in order to allow him to cross the gaps in the terrain.
"That is the plan. Uh, I hate to say this but I'm not too fond of what this setup ended up looking like when I tried to make it from what I have," the Administrator replied in some confusion. "When you use technology it ends up a lot smaller, but I think the best place to get the parts we're after quickly kinda just got attacked. Maybe we have the right stuff in storage, but whoever is in charge of that hasn't gotten back to me about this."
"We don't have the specific components Upload was after, so if you are replicating those then we at least know that this is what they are doing," A-0 told its brother. "It would be quite worrying if we can tell they were after this kind of setup."
"60% part match," Charlie 13 told his sibling. "I'm pushing this a bit to make sure we have some higher end digital life forms of our own, or at least know what happens when a revival is attempted."
"Are we planning on telling the Tyranomon that?" Gazimon asked looking nervously at the distortions. "Because its probably going to be pissed enough at seeing me, let alone hearing that it is a test subject."
"Hopefully 'we brought you back to life' is a good enough response," Serperior said dangerously while moving to the front of the group. "Have the cube ready anyway. The two of us should be able to handle him."
"Right, set that down in the middle of the circle and we can get started," the Administrator instructed Grant. The trainer cautiously set the sphere in the center of a complicated looking ring of polygonal markings, and then quickly moved back to the rest of the Troubleshooters. "I'll need to concentrate for this."
The first thing to happen was the Giratina shaped Porygon spread his red tipped tendrils out to hover with each between a different pair of pillars. Then a series of grey panes formed a rough dome across the tops of them and began to scroll a very complex program. Once this scrolling concluded the panes shifted to a uniform black color and Charlie 13 floated over to the distortions.
He proceeded to tap the three distortions containing the data with the ends of his tendrils, drawing out a dark black smoke that he gathered in front of him. Holding the rolling ball of gas with his bottom four tendrils he used the top two to collect six more wispy fragments, and then maneuvered the mass back to the structure. Moving into the center of the ring he carefully split the ball into six parts and moved each to form a thin wall in the remaining openings between the pillars.
Finally he lowered to tap the pokeball with all six of his tendrils, causing another rush of text on the panels and the smoke to drain into the pattern on the floor. In an instant the panels shattered in a flash of black causing the ball to seem to glow black and the smoke followed the lines into the sphere quickly until it was all consumed by it. A moment later the black faded as the pokeball clicked announcing successful capture.
"A-0, none of you are allowed to say you're not gods anymore," Gazimon dryly told the Porygon. "Not when your brother decides to use a mystical ritual to raise the dead."
"I find myself struggling to find a way to disagree," the pokemon replied tightly. "Did it work at least?"
"There is someone in there, but we need to let them out for a better scan to see how they did," the Administrator said looking over the sphere curiously. "Are we ready to do that?"
"We're ready," Shawn said getting out the Pokedex and flipping it open, Serperior agreed by nodding eagerly.
Charlie 13 tapped the button on the digimon pokeball, and a massive bipedal dinosaur emerged. It had red scales along most of its body, with a white belly and black stripes. Green plates emerged from its spine all the way from the base of its head to the tip of its tail, with the exception of a scarred wound just after the second of the plates on its neck. Three large claws emerged from the end of each of its limbs, and its blue eyes scanned the group in confusion until it spotted Gazimon.
"You! Little rodent digging in the sand!" the digimon roared with puffs of flame emerging from his mouth, causing Gazimon to flinch slightly and prepare for a fight. "I should have stomped on you the moment the Network went mad." He then paused at the look on the smaller digimon's face while reaching for the back of his neck. "Ready to fight then for using us in your-" Tyranomon cut himself off as his claws scraped over the scarred part of his skin, grabbing for a cable that was no longer there.
"Hey, I was just a grunt," Gazimon complained. "I'm not Etemon or Datamon, at best I had to try and fix the damn thing when it went wrong."
"So you never ordered us around then?" the dinosaur countered, then frowned at the smirk Gazimon produced at the question.
"Sorry, I didn't get to give orders," the rabbit monster said sarcastically. "All I got was chances to play 'avoid the Champion' whenever boss monkey decided we didn't do a good enough job at fixing something we didn't understand. I recognize you though, and I know you've tried real hard to stomp me before."
"Now Gazimon, be fair. He was likely making the most of being allowed to try that," Shawn said jokingly. "Perhaps being under that kind of control still allows for some freedom in how you accomplish the orders you are given."
The casual addition by a human seemed to once more confuse Tyranomon, who looked between the two uncertainly for a moment. "Do not tell me you are a Digidestined," he rumbled disbelieving. "I cannot stand a world where one of you rodents was intended to save our world..." The massive digimon trailed off as he looked at the actual terrain around them, or rather the rather large lack of solid terrain. "You're supposed to go back to the Primary Village when you die," he then said worried while turning to look around the entire area, jumping slightly at seeing the form of Charlie 13.
"Heh, really?" Gazimon asked harshly. "You believe that tall tale they tell little baby mons to make them feel better when their friends die?"
Tyranomon turned back to give the rabbit digimon a look of sheer and utter disbelief, the kind reserved for a person who just declared that the sky was typically bright green. "What?" he asked in a tone matching his look. "You, what? Of course it's real. We've all been there. I." The large digimon cut himself off and sat down heavily before turning towards Serperior. "What the hell does he mean, snake digimon I don't recognize?"
"Not a digimon actually, and given no one else has started I guess I get to be the bearer of bad news," the serpent replied. "You were eaten, and then the thing that ate you had a bit of itself flung out of your universe. Gazimon here was flung with the bit of the thing, and for a while now we didn't even know your corpse was floating around in pieces."
"I believe I will start by asking about how I'm not pieces of a corpse?" Tyranomon asked dully after taking a moment to process the response.
"There is a longer story attached to that as well, but the short of it is that when we discovered the remains of the Dark Network I got started looking to find the most intact individuals," Charlie 13 supplied. "You are the only viable individual I was able to find in the part we still have. All of you was present, albeit a bit scattered across the distortions." The Porygon pointed at the damaged area of the Box with his tendrils. "I have just finished reassembling you using modified methods and equipment for reviving fossil pokemon."
"I do not like any of the things you just said," the dinosaur said sounding exasperated. "What are you exactly?"
"I am Digital Storage Solutions Box Administrator Porygon Charlie 13 Box 113. I am responsible for the form and function of the digital world around us in order to store pokemon inside comfortably," the digital pokemon replied proudly. "To accomplish that task I am bonded to this digital world, with it effectively being a part of my body, allowing me to directly control its contents in a number of ways."
"That answer just raised a lot more questions, while also making asking the questions seem like it will only make things worse," Tyranomon replied moving away from the Administrator. "Gazimon, how bad is the mess we're in?"
"We just raised you from the dead because we're worried about an group of thieves with the ability to manufacture their own primitive digimon stole from us the larger part of the Dark Network fragment we found you in," the smaller digimon replied. "They've just stole the equipment needed to revive their own digimon from it, and they can probably control them too."
"To be honest our plan for what to do with you was basically have Grant here use you as a heavy hitter when that happens," Shawn added pointing at the fossil hunter.
"You'll need to get into better shape first," Grant told the dinosaur looking at him critically. "Looks like you weren't being fed enough and had a few rough fights without proper care for your wounds. A few good meals, and couple of conditioning battles with proper medical care afterward and I'm sure we can have you back into fighting shape."
Tyranomon stared at the calm and simple statement about improving his ability to fight with wide eyes. "I didn't think humans went battle mad," he said quietly now trying to move away from all of them.
"Battle mad? I just meant some training matches, you know, to keep yourself in shape?" the fossil hunter asked quite confused. "I've worked with a monster somewhat like you before for a bit. That's part of why I'd be the one working with you, prior experience."
"You have prior experience with giant fire breathing dinosaurs?" the digimon matching that description asked dryly. "You, some random human, have experience with giant monsters that can destroy landmarks on their own?"
"Well, not the second part, I'm only a two Badge trainer." Tyranomon blinked at the terminology. "But yes, I've worked with a Tyrantrum before. A bit smaller than you, and not as strong last I saw him."
"We're in a digital world attached to a world full of battle mad monsters and the humans that live in a place like that," Gazimon told the other digimon. "Careful, it is an infectious attitude," he added breathing out a puff of purple flames.
"The Gazimon just breathed fire, can I go somewhere else please?" Tyranomon asked somewhat desperately prompting Charlie 13 to return him to his new pokeball.
"I think that went well," A-0 said sarcastically. "I'm sure he'll be fine with getting put into a tiny sphere after all of that just happened to him."
"Is it safe to take him out?" Grant asked cautiously. "He really does look to be in bad shape, but some rest in there is probably best so he can be ready to deal with what is happening."
"Safe enough, although I do hope you are going straight to Delta 2 with him," the Administrator replied. "I did what I could to put him back together, but she has the real equipment and lack of interference that would get the whole picture."
"Well Delta 2, what's he look like?" Janice asked from a new communication window after a direct transfer between the two Boxes.
"He's around the mid to low 50s in terms of level," Delta 2 answered looking at the pokeball set in an advanced scanning device. "For context Gazimon is now in the high 30s by default, and jumps to the mid to high 60s when he uses his new evolution. We also have information on what a Champion should be like from the data on Charlie 11's death, the last mission to a storage system, and most importantly the new database on the Pokedex. 60 should be around the lower bound for a Champion digital life form."
"I'm high 30s?" Gazimon asked surprised. "Wait, that's not that much lower than he is."
"Exactly, from what I can tell the only reason he's maintaining the higher evolutionary stage is that his form itself is showing this damage," the Administrator agreed. "I'm also sad to say most of you own level comes from your Dark typing. You digimon energy alone is only at the high teens, and from the new data we have you will need far more than that to evolve properly for a digimon."
"That does help explain why he can power his own Champion stage evolution though," Serperior noted. "Though given some more training you might end up not needing it eventually."
"What can we do to help Tyranomon?" Grant asked reading over a preliminary report on a nearby console.
"Your initial plan is the best we have actually. It is unclear how a pure digimon would react to that sort of training, but we honestly don't have experience with anything other than pokemon," Delta 2 answered. "I can try and patch up some of the data issues, but Gazimon at least has some self repair functions like living creatures do so I want to wait to see what just basic training does first." She picked up the small sphere from the device. "I recommend getting him used to the physical world first while finding a large meal. Maybe try and explain everything while he eats."
