Disclaimer: Own Digimon me don't.

The Four Seasons

Fourth Arc: Symphony of Thirteen/ 02

Not Your Average Summer Repeat: Part 12

A gust of wind blew across the empty desert landscape as shards of data floated through the air. The wind had an empty, hollow, haunting sound to it… lifeless even, but that did not mean that life did not exist in this stark and barren place. The shards of data that floated through the air began to congregate together in one area, not deterred at all by the wind that continuously fought to keep them separate, almost as if the very nature of this plain of the digital world was against them, the shards began to reassemble themselves. Bonds were reestablished and soon enough a form began to take shape. It was a small form, human shaped too, with one hand tightly grasping what looked like a massive sword. After a few more seconds, the last of the bits of data fused together, revealing a youthful, male human with blonde hair and dark clothing. Breathing in the life giving air, the youth collapsed onto his knees, using his massive, overbearing weapon to steady himself as best as he could without giving out entirely.

That did not go as I expected… thought the author known as Blade of Cloud as he drew in deep, ragged breaths, trying to recover from the enormous shock that he had just experienced. And no wonder; pulling yourself back from the brink of cybernetic oblivion was no easy task. Of course, the fact that he had nearly been destroyed certainly spoke volumes on the power that had accomplished such a feat, and it was supposed to be impossible! He was an author! Sure, he had been kicked off his account before… getting involved in battles against characters he had found could do that to you, especially when you underestimated them (his experience in the Fable War told him that much), but actually being destroyed?

Impossible.

And yet, for some strange reason, the impossible had just been rendered possible in this place, this alternate version of the Fanfic Domain that he had known oh so well.

The author known as Blade of Cloud reflected on the subtle irony of just how real this domain had been becoming of late, a reality that was shared with its sister site, the Fanfic Domain, and he wondered how much of this reality was being reflected in the real world. He was half tempted to log off of his account and see, but… there were things that he still had to take care of here. He had to do what he could to eliminate the OC characters that they had picked up (over his objections no less but Neo III had overridden him) and restore the CC's to their proper places in the story as it had been set up; one thing at a time here after all.

But still, Blade of Cloud did have to wonder about some of the recent turn of events. The OC's affects on the CC's, the deviations of the storylines in spite of everything that he and the rest of the Trinity had done to ensure the success of their venture, the increasing reality of the stories, and the fact that he, an author, a power unto himself when it came to the realm of fiction and fan fiction, had been defeated… and not just defeated, but destroyed. It bothered him to say the least. He knew that in the real world he would be all right, but his Avatar form would have been affectively gone, and with it any stories that he had created. He was lucky that he had thought ahead and backed up his data in the event something like this happened. Though he had never experienced anything like this when it came to stories and characters, he had dealt with a computer virus at one time that had essentially done the same thing. He had learned his lesson after that.

I wonder if incorporating Milleniummon's data into the Domain is responsible for this… for everything that's been going on. Of course, the OC's are perfectly capable of pulling off the things that they've been doing up until now since my comrades and I never created them…

Blade of Cloud paused for a moment, reflecting on the irony of that fact since he and the other authors of the Fanfic Domain had never created any of the canon characters either, but he quickly shook his head and returned his thoughts to the present; something to think about later perhaps.

…but we installed certain protocols that should have deleted them by now, or at least rendered many of their capabilities useless, so why aren't they responding?

Blade of Cloud's eyes narrowed as he pondered on the conversations that he had had with his fellow authors and partner's in crime, Neo III and Demon Dayz. The idea behind using Milleniummon's residual data alongside that of the Lord of Fantasy's D-Leter program had been to create a self-contained reality in which to install the digimon characters and remake them as they saw fit, while D-Leter would wipe out anything that tried to gain access into the newly created fan fiction zone. The only way in which something could enter was if they were allowed to enter, and even then if they weren't wanted the D-Leter program would destroy the intruder's automatically. Yet lately, ever since those OC characters had been allowed to enter (Blade of Cloud gritted his teeth in anger at Neo III's foolishness regarding the decision on those characters) they not only had been allowed unprecedented interference with the storyline (one of whom had not only been placed in the story, but had been integrated into the stories script, taking over the role that a canon character was supposed to perform), but the D-Leter data had mysteriously vanished and the Milleniummon fragments had been chasing after its former partners, Ryo Akiyama and Monodromon before following D-Leter's course of action shortly after a battle with an OC character in the Tamers level. The walls of the Domain zone were becoming weak now, its defenses crumbling. Blade of Cloud could feel it, and so could Demon Dayz, though for some reason Neo III never seemed to notice. Well, he always had been the most unstable of the three of them anyways. They were a long ways off from the point where they would have to deal with the issue of Milleniummon and D-Leter's absences or watch everything crumble (especially now after another author avatar had, for a short while, infiltrated the central server of the Domain, even with the extra security that they had installed just in case something like that happened).

Oh well. Demon Dayz had made an upgrade to the defenses and was off to handle things in season three before that went out of control, so that author Avatar wouldn't be able to try anything with the server again. The thought made Blade of Cloud smile. At least that was one thing that was going to go right.

Once we've finished up with the OC's we can return our attention to repairing the damage that they've caused, track down Milleniummon's data and use it to restore things as they were in all seasons, and no one from the Fanfic Domain is going to stop us!

But first… a little editing is required.

Closing his eyes, Blade of Cloud narrowed his concentration and reached out into the reality that is fan fiction, searching for something that could help him.

His brow furrowed in strain. Something was wrong here. It felt like something was resisting him! In his mind's eye he saw an image of what looked a glowing, static filled entity. He couldn't easily discern what its identity was, but he didn't need to. He had been charged with keeping it on a leash ever since they had been using it to snag characters after all, even if he had failed in that task.

Milleniummon? Thought Blade of Cloud with a gasp. His grasp on fan fiction reality almost slipped, and with a growl he latched hold of it once more with his mind while in the physical realm his hand followed suit, phasing out of view for a moment until he found what needed and swiftly he pulled on it! Nothing was going to stop him from getting what he needed! Not even the remains of a fictional digital god!

There was a pop sound and Blade of Cloud fell backwards, breathing heavily once again before cracking open his eyes to see what he had pulled into this world. There was a childish giggle and Blade of Cloud heaved a heavy sigh at the tiny, diminutive creature that stood before him, blinking its big, impossibly cute and wide eyes at him as its ears expanded to lengths that should have been impossible given the digimon's size and lack of any visible place for the ears to emerge from.

"Hi!" The little creampuff of a digimon cried happily. "Are you here to play?"

Calumon, groaned Blade of Cloud in exasperation as he shook his head. Why did I get a Calumon? Of all the luck… Other authors get digimon as muses when they start up their accounts… Ultimates, Megas, Rookies, Champions, canon or personalized… sometimes, if they're lucky, even main characters. But me? What do I get? I get a Calumon…

Blade of Cloud again sighed as he looked down at the tiny In-Training level digimon that served as his muse, weighing the pros and cons of the creature that served as his Muse ever since he signed onto the Fanfic Domain. He never understood how he was unable to get rid of the Calumon, though he supposed that there was a type of Digidestined partner type bond involved. There were times where he wanted to believe that the annoying cuteness of the little large eared, cream puff consuming digimon was really something that had belonged to another author that just happened to wander in onto his account (as it had been known to happen before to other authors), and firmly wished that the original owner would just stop by and pick it up or something, or at least post Lost threads in the 'Have you seen my muse?' community forums (a popular attraction for those suffering from writers block at the Fanfic Domain), but no such luck had ever arisen. If this Calumon was an abandoned Muse (and how something like that had been pulled off was information that Blade of Cloud was dying to know) it would seem that his previous author hadn't liked him all that much either.

But as usual, each and every time Blade of Cloud looked at the Calumon that had served as his muse for the past two years on the Fanfic Domain, such thoughts died a slow, painful death. There was just too much cuteness there for any person with a heart to hate completely.

I suppose that it's better than a Terriermon, thought Blade ruefully. At least Calumon doesn't make sarcastic comments in the background. Still, I do wish that he didn't eat so much…

Sitting up on his haunches, Blade of Cloud looked his partner in the eye.

"Sure we'll play Calumon, but first I need you to do something for me."

Calumon looked into his author's eyes as he raised one tiny hand up to his mouth, his nature as a Muse instinctively responding to Blade of Cloud's request, already knowing what it was that he wanted and reaching out through the stories world to find what he desired.

The red triangle on the top of his head began to glow and suddenly there was a powerful gust of wind that nearly blew Calumon away, but reacting on pure instinct, Blade of Cloud caught the In-Training Muse and smiled, looking over his shoulder as he saw that his desire had been fulfilled. No matter how much he was annoyed with having Calumon for a partner for all the silly cute things that he did and all the food that he ate, he always got the job done, did it efficiently, and rarely, very rarely, disobeyed or questioned the reasons as to why things were being done a certain way. That was one thing that Blade of Cloud liked about the little digimon.

"Whoa…" said Calumon peeking over Blade's shoulder at the two figures that stood behind Blade and staring incredulously at the duo. "Did I do that?"

"You sure did Calu," said Blade with a hint of pride in his voice that made the Calumuse giggle. "Now, if you would be so kind as to be quiet while I negotiate with our guests?"

And with that Blade of Cloud placed his Muse on top of his head so that he could amuse himself there for a while and assumed his best supreme lord of evil stance, even flinging one hand back dramatically as though tossing aside a cape and drawing up to his full height, raising his head so that he could look down upon his visitors.

Had there not been a giggling bundle of joy sitting on top of his head the affect would actually have been impressive rather than comedic, but Blade of Cloud wasn't worried about such things at this moment in time. He had everything that he needed right now…

"Arukenimon," said Blade of Cloud in a respectful tone before nodding curtly to the other figure, garbed in a blue outfit. "Mummymon," Blade added almost as an afterthought and turned back to a white haired, human looking woman wearing a red witches outfit and dark shades.

"How nice of you to arrive in such a timely manner."

The two figures that he had identified as Arukenimon and Mummymon simply blinked in confusion at the Author.

Like shooting fish in a barrel, thought Blade of Cloud with a devious smile on his face.


"My author is not going to be happy about this," said Chris in a forlorn tone as he looked at his digivice, his expression somewhat fearful as he stood there, taking it in. Next to him, Ken Ichijouji looked away from his base's computer council and raised an eyebrow, taking note of the OC's worried expression.

He was like this yesterday too, Ken thought.

"What do you mean?"

In response, Chris raised his digivice and showed it to the former Digimon Emperor. Instead of the T-shaped digivice with red trim that had been a regular part of his character design there was a rectangular, gold chrome plated device with silver trim around its screen, markings of digi-code etched into its surface along with the symbol of Miracles that had once emblazoned the surface of the Golden Digi-egg that still remained within the power core of the Digimon Emperor's base. Ken cocked his head to one side; not at all comprehending why it was that Chris was all up in arms about his digivices change in appearance.

"Um… I don't…"

"Look at it, Ken! It's… different! Don't tell me that you didn't notice it change after that card did that whole light show from that fight we had with that Mark II Kimeramon! Aaaagh… My author is so going to be pissed about this! This is the second digivice that he's going to have to replace in three weeks! He wasn't at all thrilled about Ryan's digivice destroying itself in order to bypass its digivolution lock…"

"You know," said the voice of Kaio Griffin as she entered the base's control center. "Given that on both occasions your digivices destroying or altering themselves have been more for our benefit in a tight situation your author should be more grateful than angry. Otherwise we would all be dead."

"Well," said Chris uncertainly. "It's just that I clearly remember what he said to Ryan when he heard about what happened to his digivice. As I recall…"

"Who cares?" Demanded Kaio a little heatedly before blowing some hair out of her eyes in irritation. "Look. You saved the day yesterday and now you're the keeper of the Golden Digi-egg's power of Miracles. You're telling me that after everything that you went through in that fight yesterday with a half crazed, author possessed digimon you're suddenly worried about how your author's going to react to a little change in your character's spreadsheet? That doesn't sound like the hero who went and saved my partner by using a playing card and a little faith…"

Chris frowned and rubbed the back of his head.

"Yeah, well I have you and your little bop on the back of my head to thank for that. You didn't even so much as say thank you or anything. Instead all I got was physical abuse and you yelling at me for not staying imprisoned so you could rescue me…"

"I did thank you! I could have hurt you even more you know! And what were you expecting? Me to shout 'my hero' at the top of my lungs? I had been searching for you for days on end, had to fight your partner, deal with Yolie ogling everything that moved around on two legs, Mrs. Yagami's cooking…"

Chris raised one hand and massaged his temples. This so was not going the way he thought it would.

"At least saying 'thanks' would have saved me from a serious migraine afterwards," the blonde haired boy mumbled to himself.

"Phht! Forget it! You want a grateful damsel in distress, talk to Rika or something. At least in some fics she actually looks the part…"

Chris and Ken both sweatdropped at that.

"I don't think that would fly really," said Chris, grateful for the fact that his partner was off getting something to eat at the moment. Had he heard that line it most certainly would have made its way back to the red haired Tamer, and the end result would not have been good.

Kaio opened her mouth to say something in response to that before Ken interrupted them.

"Uh… if you don't mind, I'm kind of busy here, so if you two are going to continue this discussion of yours could you at least do it somewhere else? Some of us are trying to find a way back to the Fanfic Domain."

"Oh. Right," said Kaio crossing her arms and glaring at Chris. "Remind me of how you plan to do that again?"

Ken gave a small smile as he straightened up.

"Gladly. The idea comes from what Owikawa told my friends and I in the last few episodes of the 02 season concerning the nature of the Control Spires. Chris reminded me of it back when I had captured him and Caramon…" Ken's face darkened a bit at the memory but he quickly pressed onwards. "…And I thought about how the Control Spires were used to reshape the borders of the digital world. So I wondered if I could modify their original programming so that they would allow us to transcend the borders between Internet domains, allowing us to return to the Fanfic Domain or at least get some help."

"But isn't that just a fictional device set within a fictional world? How would it help us in this setting? The real world isn't quite as easily affected by events from a story…"

"That's what they'd have you believe," said Ken distantly, as though he was lost in thought. The dark haired boy rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he looked up at the computer screen. Kaio and Chris exchanged glances.

"Care to run that by us again?" Asked Kaio as she eyed the boy genius. Ken looked at the dark haired girl and blinked, startled.

"Huh? Oh. Sorry. I was just thinking out loud. Anyway even if this idea doesn't allow us to return to the Fanfic Domain at least we should be able to travel to the other seasons, or at least the two that follow after this one. Provided that the fifth season characters weren't captured as well…"

"I guess we have no choice but to cross that bridge when we get there," said Chris.

Ken nodded.

"At the very least we have a mobile outpost that we can use and allows us to maintain the uses of the Control Spires. Leaving the Digi-Egg of Miracles in the base's core has provided us with a lot of advantages and simplifies things for us as well. We have a lot of resources that we can use here in our attempts to get back home…"

"Yeah," said Kaio. "But if the stories plot is still running doesn't that mean that Arukenimon is going to show up at some point?"

"I suppose," said Ken, and then smiled after a moment. "At least this way we won't have to worry about this base blowing up or anything."

"Or maybe not," said Kaio. "My author always used to tell me that a story would try to stay on the course of its plot in order to avoid a paradox."

"But this is a fan fic," said Chris. "Who's to say that this story will follow the show's original plot at all? I mean, just look at Yolie…"

There followed a shriek from down the hall as if the purple haired girl had somehow heard his comment. Chris winced painfully and tensed, waiting for Yolie to come barreling into the room with every intention to beat the living daylights out of him, but after about a minute of nothing happening Chris relaxed.

Another weird story quirk, thought Chris irritably.

"Well Ken," said Chris. "It's been fun, but I think I'm going to take my leave for now. I've gotta make sure that Caramon is staying out of trouble and everything."

"Sure. I understand. When you get to the base's cafeteria could you see how Koushiro is doing with his calculations? I would like to know when he'll have those ready for me."

Chris nodded.

"Sure thing."

"Thanks."

As Chris left the control room he was surprised to see that Kaio Griffin was following him.

"I still can't believe that Ken has a cafeteria here," the girl muttered. "It doesn't exactly fit the evil genius persona that he had as the Digimon Emperor."

"I'm sure that it has more to do with artistic viewpoint on Ken's base. It's not like we saw detailed floor plans beyond supply rooms and prisons…"

Chris gritted his teeth as he felt Kaio's hand smack him on the back of his head.

"Hey!"

"Idiot. I was talking to myself."

Chris frowned in annoyance as he rubbed the back of his head.

I will never understand girls for as long as I live…


As the base of Ken Ichijouji made its way across the digital landscape, brimming with Control Spires a pointy red shoe came to rest upon the ground as a tall, feminine figure in a red dress watched, sunglasses glinting in the sunlight. Chuckling to herself, the woman raised one hand to her long, silver hair and plucked out a handful of them, pausing for a moment as they stiffened in her grasp before taking aim and letting them fly to their targets.

"Spirit Needle!"

Each and every silver needle struck a Control Spire dead center, and one by one they began to rise into the air above the floating base, coalescing together as a black wind began to blow in the air. Within moments a dark shape began to appear, raising massive clawed arms into the air before shrinking back onto itself.

The woman smiled.

According to that strange human, if this works, I shall have created a digimon powerful enough to destroy the entire digital world, and there's nothing that these Digidestined fools can do to stop me…

A loud laugh resounded upon the air as the dark digital data began to solidify.


Now… if I can just rewrite these data codes and get them to see past the normal digital barriers…

A sigh hung on the air.

This is going to take some time. I've got to figure out a way to make these computers recognize the fiction… the unreality that lies in the world around us. But that's difficult to do when the computer is a part of that fiction as well. What's going to happen once the computer realizes that it itself is really composed of words that are describing it? Disappear? I wish that I had some answers… or at least an author here to help me…

Suddenly Ken took note of a foreign code infiltrating the Control Spires that he had been working with.

What the…? What's going on? Something's activating all of the excess programs that are buried deep inside the Control Spires and…

Ken's eyes widened.

It looks like they're merging! But how? What kind of code could…?

Ken paused as he connected some pieces of the puzzle together.

Merging… left over programs…

Quickly calling up a map onto his computer Ken did a quick headcount of the number of Control Spires that were in the area.

Within seconds Ken hit a button on his control panel and an alarm began blaring throughout the base as red lights began flashing.

Armageddon time… thought Ken as he got up and ran out of the control room.


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