- Recreations -
Jane Felsic woke up to the comforting sound of a small fire crackling near her. Her eyes opened to the sight of flames resting just in front of her face, immediately bringing up embarrassing memories of winter nights where she would wander too close to the fireplace and simply fall asleep there.
The difference this time was the sensation coming from those flames, and more importantly from the tip of her tail in the center of the tiny fire. The day before had apparently actually happened, including the incredibly embarrassing phone call to the movie studio to learn that a TM would actually extended the time she would spend as a pokemon by a full day. Somehow, the disappointed face of the Lucario, who had returned right in the middle of the call, was far worse to see as a Charmeleon than it had been two days ago when she was still human. With that far more embarrassing thought running through her head she curled herself a bit closer together, so the the flames would block out more of the small room that had been setup for her and her brother.
"Jane, when did you get a Charmeleon?" said brother asked, clearly having both just woken up, and forgotten what had happened. "I thought dad ruined that for you," he continued, bringing up bad memories.
"It's me, Jim," she complained with an annoyed tone, regretting that his question meant she had to get up properly. "Remember how I got you your interview by getting myself stuck like this?"
"Oh," he said faintly as she stood up, and realized that she was now somewhat shorter than she had been as a human. "I was kind of thinking that was the end of the whole dream about the land of talking pokemon, but I guess not."
It took her longer than she liked to realize that he was including her in that statement. She responded with a puff of purple flames that would bypass his preferred type's typical resistance. While the consequences of using the TM were not the greatest, the benefit looked to be quite useful. "Hey, I'm not one of them, and you are apparently planning on doing this all the time," she argued.
"You are a talking orange lizard, that counts sis," he replied, then looked a bit sad. "Although I think I'd rather it be a new pokemon for a team instead of you."
She snorted a bit more fire at this. "You know I hate to be reminded of that," she complained, then paused as something occurred to her. "We told mom we'd call her today, didn't we?"
Her brother looked as horrified at that as she felt.
"When you said 'until I get back' I kind of assumed you meant farther off than the next day," Grant complained.
"So did I," Janice complained right back. "Deepstone appears to have decided on using the original code."
"Are they going to be including the scanner system Grant was using it on too?" Shawn asked giving the LAS a sympathetic look. "Or are we going to have to explain to them that those details matter when using something like this to recreate things."
The Lucario gave the both of them a tired and annoyed look. "They had scheduled three attempts, while signing off that they understand doing so may result in multiple life forms that do not match their goal," she dully specified. "First is without that part, second is with it, and the third I've managed to tie up a bit because they are asking for a conversion of a systems holding just their base code with the Upload world creation method." She then looked over at the doorway. "They are taking advantage of miss Char's little delay in that project to push this one up to before I head out again."
"Do you really think that Tyranomon might get some help in this other world you want us to follow you to?" Quagsire asked with a sad tone. "Because I'd like to give some good news to my teammates sometime soon."
"At minimum it is probably a bit closer to his world than ours is," the Team Lead replied sadly. "There is one positive out of this mess, they are willing to have us make the call on if this is safe or not. So if things go wrong with the first one I should be able to shut the others down."
"Ah, that kind of positive," Gazimon complained. "I see that my Network is supposed to be handling this?"
"The Dark Network is part of my plan actually," Janice said shortly. "I'm fairly sure that you can use that to keep control of the target area outside of the area itself. So we don't have to risk an Administrator getting controlled again. I've managed to move it to a planned expansion to the warehouses that is also being pushed through to help with that."
"Planned expansion?" Shawn asked dubiously. "They actually convinced someone to make new worlds just for storing stuff?"
"It's digital worlds she had me spend yesterday moving over here," Gazimon continued complaining. "Apparently Metagross has saddled me with salvaging any of those that the old targets don't want to use themselves."
"Yes, I have lots of people complaining at me about decisions I didn't actually make," the Lucario said harshly. "I'm doing my best here."
"Can't we wait until after I turn back?" a voice then hissed from just outside the room, clearly attempting to be quiet.
"Jane, I don't understand pokemon," another voice said a bit more loudly, and made the room realize that the first had in fact been just a hiss. "So you really shouldn't try and talk like that when we get to a phone."
"Enunciate," Janice dryly advised the Charmeleon. "Pokemon don't typically speak completely clearly, so it is easier to keep speaking human if you focus on how you are saying things." She then turned to the door to see the two Stonescale trainers entering reluctantly. "Now, you apparently are looking for a phone to use?"
"We promised our mother that we would call today to let her know how things were going," Jane replied, clearly deliberately ignoring the advice, and as a result her growling response contained no human speech at all.
"We need to tell our mom that this has happened, among other things," her brother said with a sigh, clearly thinking they had not understood his sister.
"Good," Janice said with a strong nod. "I was going to get the two of you to make that happen anyway. I'm not having this kind of issue kept from parents." She turned to the remaining human shaped member of the Troubleshooters. "Shawn can help you with that and explain why he let that happen."
"I can explain why I let it happen," Serperior countered. "Shawn honestly shouldn't have even gotten up yesterday. I was barely keeping him going, and should have just canceled the whole thing."
"That, isn't reassuring," the Charmeleon responded uncertainly, finally managing a human statement. "Are you guys really in that much of a bind?"
"We have a bunch of smaller problems that the big one caused that we need to untangle, your group included," Shawn replied sadly. "I recommend not doing much with the Stonescales today. Maybe try the local Gym if you don't have that Badge yet."
"We've actually been here before," Jim admitted, earning a dark look from his sister accompanied by a short burst of flame. "She got the Badge and I didn't, and somehow thinks that means something."
"You both already have twice the Badges I earned on my run," the red eyed trainer said with a laugh. "Although I can say that different trainers are better at different Gyms with some certainty. How long ago did you challenge Grim?"
"Second Badge for me, would have been third for Jim," Jane admitted, scratching at her head in the small area under her horn at the back. "We aren't from too far away from here all things considered."
"Then you probably have enough experience now to know what you did wrong then," Shawn argued, then motioned the pair out of the room. "Come on, let's start with that phone call."
"Walter," Grant said darkly as the other Deepstone representative arrived in the Troubleshooter Lab for the process. The monitor array was being used to show the contents of the two target digital worlds, both currently partially infested with the black cables of the Dark Network.
"Ah, Grant. You look a lot more dangerous in person," the scientist he had called during the Upload situation noted, having entered to glares from all of the pokemon members of the fossil's team and the LAS herself by being involved in this project. "Um." He turned to Janice and the two Gazis in a clear attempt to find some help, only to note that TyranoGazimon was the only one with an expression that was even vaguely kind. "I'm guessing that Mike did not actually make sure this was a good time for this?"
"No, he had not," the LAS darkly said, transcripts of the previous calls regarding the event appearing on her dome's panels. "Not that I wish to have this happen at all. I do not see the need for more of my kind."
"Uh, wait a moment," Walter said looking at one of the text representations. "Wait, what does that say?" Reluctantly the LAS moved closer so he could read it more clearly. "Who signed off on? Alright, the way I understood things we were going to just be using the Legendary Analysis System code in your method of making code into living creatures," he explained looking somewhat angry himself now. "I personally had hoped that you would have ended up a Porygon from the start. I was involved with trying to get that code working as a basis for one after all."
"And the second test?" Janice asked bringing up the original plan, including the third one clearly marked as scrapped. "The one that completely re-creates the conditions?"
"Isn't that only if the first doesn't create anything?" he asked sounding confused.
"Our incarnation system always converts this kind of code into a life form," the Lucario replied darkly. "We are definitely getting something out of the first one, the only question is if it is going to be something we can afford to leave alive."
Walter looked over at Grant. "Do we have some time to give me a bit more backstory on this? Because I feel like someone's gone around me on this one," he said, earning a sarcastic laugh from Gazimon.
"Nope, slot's been filled and we have our management strangely focused on rushing this to production," the digimon said fiddling with a clearly Dark Network infested console. "Who else wants to bet that someone is after one that wants to convert others, and thinks this is a good starting point?"
"You not being fully informed is not going to be enough for me to justify pulling the plug," Janice confirmed sadly. "Right, that makes everyone thinking this is a bad idea. I guess that means we should just get it over with."
The LAS deflated noticeably at the half sarcastic suggestion. "Agreed. Simply having this done and over with is preferable," she agreed shifting her panels to show a solid blue shade.
"I need the copy of the base code you were supposed to bring," Gazimon noted unhappily. "Preferably on at least two separate data storage mediums. One I can put on this sensor unit for the second test." He tapped a small box sitting on the desk. "And another for this test."
"If only one such device was provided I can create a duplicate," Metagross contributed. "I have access to the physical medium system," they then said at a look from A-0. "Porygon made data storage might interfere with the end result."
"That is actually a really good point," the rabbit monster noted with annoyance. "We should use the pad transporter for this one."
There was a bit of shuffling at this point to create a copy of the code, followed by a brief debate on the exact make of storage unit that would be best to use. After that had finished they finally set the selected device onto the pad, and proceeded to send it into the first of the two containment worlds.
The screen showing the arrival of the device revealed a longer than typical flash, that ended to reveal a bird-like polygonal shape. The pink and blue creature looked around the area in clear confusion. "Hello? What is happening?" it asked clearly.
"That's a Porygon," Janice said darkly, then rushed over to her console to see the scan results. "That is just a Porygon."
"I don't understand," the LAS said staring blankly at the screen. "Has the data been modified since my creation?" she asked quietly.
"No, this was an archived version from when you were put into the scanner unit," Walter said sounding a bit horrified.
"Is there a Legendary here for me to inspect?" the new Porygon asked.
"We are working on a project that required your creation," Gazimon said over the Network to calm down the created pokemon. "We will get with you in a moment, please be patient."
"Send the scanner alone," Janice said with a calm serious tone.
"Alone?" the rabbit monster asked turning to look at the Team Lead.
"The scanner system was the other thing present when the LAS was made," she clarified. "So if we send it alone, we will get whatever is made out of any code it has by default." It was clear she had some idea of what would happen.
Somewhat reluctantly the others unpackaged and started the new scanner device, and then placed it on the pad to send to the second digital world. "Transporting now," Metagross said uncertainly. After a moment the device appeared in the second world, with a small dome shaped digital life form shuffling around. "Oh," the Steel/Psychic said at this. "An Analyzer drone has been formed-"
"What?" the LAS asked sharply. "What? Data error! Explain! How?" she continued desperately.
"I think I'm going to," A-0 said darkly at the panic from the digital jellyfish. The bottom middle monitor of the array then shifted to a screen showing a vast digital ocean doted with islands, and a Manaphy shaped Administrator. "Charlie 80, when the LAS was brought into your Box, how many targets did the incarnation system convert?"
"Um, well, that's kind of a funny story," the Water type Administrator dodged the question while Grant's team rushed to calm down their fellow team member.
"Why exactly did you want the LAS left alive?" A-0 pressed firmly as the LAS began to audibly cry, a few drops of water slipping off her form.
Charlie 80 let out a sigh, looking unhappily at the crying digital life form. "There were two targets. One registered as a successful Porygon creation, with a request for a pokeball, and another for some corruption. By the time I realized what had happened, the Porygon had already been fully infected," he confessed.
"You've known that she was a Porygon this whole time and you haven't told anyone?" Janice sharply questioned. "We have procedures for this kind of thing, and Delta 2 might have been able to do more for her if we'd known that-"
"The corruption was total," the Administrator countered cutting her off. "By the time I was able to isolate her so it couldn't spread to the Kabutops there wasn't any Porygon left. After that she took me over, and it was all I could argue to get her out alive. If you'd known that she'd eaten a Pory-"
"Is a Porygon," TyranoGazimon continued the theme of cutting others off. "That honestly answers some questions I had about the process. She has a number of advanced features not present in either Salamence or the Analyzers themselves, and the common features all seem to be Analyzer related. She apparently is what happens when a Porygon is merged with one of those things."
"To be fair to my brother," A-0 said somberly. "I don't actually know if I would have realized the difference at the time. Has he been kept up to date at all on further developments with the LAS?"
"No," Janice admitted. "Which almost justifies him keeping this information from us."
"I'm taking my team to Box 201," Quagsire said forcefully. "Does the new Porygon need a checkup too while we're going there?"
"Already the plan," Tyra complained with a loud sigh. "Gazi should have the transfer setup already." The other digimon nodded to confirm.
The small conference room that Shawn led the two siblings into for their call featured a digital variation on an Oran plant. Both of the Troubleshooters were quite surprised to discover this, as it was not one of the plants they had worked with so far. As the Fire and Water duo prepared themselves to explain their current situation the two Grass types confirmed that the source had been a berry plucked by someone else working in the facility.
"You know, this might be a problem," the snake pokemon commented, while the Charmeleon argued with her brother again about just waiting until after she had turned back. "I think these pots are for people to grow a set of berries they have on hand inside of, and now there's this bush that won't go away in it."
"We'll have to talk with Delta 6 about it," his trainer agreed. "Although that second one we put out front is drooping a bit after that rush of Gym battles."
"Alright, let's get this over with," Jane complained drawing their attention. They noted the number that had been put in, then watched as the screen very briefly confirmed connection, and then shifted to static with an evil cackle.
Suddenly a purple pokemon flashed into existence in front of the group, its form appearing largely like two cone shaped pieces of fabric connected together by rounded segments with the largest having a face. "Ah, wonderful. I was really counting on that one working for this," the Mismagius said clearly. "Easy access to the rest of the family." It looked over the two siblings, pausing at Jane's current form. "And it looks to be basically halfway done for me?" the Ghost pokemon said sounding a bit unsure at the presence of the temporary pokemon.
"What?" Jane managed to ask before the fabric pokemon created a glow around her body.
"Just need to get the durations all lined up, and handle the brother," Mismagius said professionally. A flash of light obscured Jim's form, replacing it with a blue and yellow frog with his long pink tongue wrapped around his neck like a scarf. "And there we go. One family curse, courtesy of a father not listening."
"Excuse me, but as I am currently responsible for these two right now I'm going to have to ask for an explanation of what just happened here," Shawn coldly stated, fixing the Ghost type with a harsh glare that froze her in place. "I am already having enough issues with the first case of this happening to them you see." The pokemon's eyes darted to the green glowing blade in the trainer's hand, and then to the snake pokemon looming behind him.
The somewhat manic professional air that the Ghost had been giving vanished suddenly. "Ah, sorry. I just have to make it stick to the whole family or there can be some backlash on them later," she rapidly explained. "It is only for a week, a short little time being a pokemon to show why, um. It's kind of a long story so I can I start over?"
The Leaf Blade dipped a bit, but did not go away, and Serperior rested a bit more easily on top of his trainer. "R-Right, so I live in this mini-'tina's house place, and he was talking about how his brother had some trouble with some guy messing with the brother's place. They mentioned the location, and I remembered the town being where I lived back before, you know, I died. I was a human back then," she rattled off quickly. "So I decided to take a quick look around and see if I could try and scare the guy straight, do a good deed."
"Make sure I remember that a type advantage isn't a big enough difference for those two," Jane hissed quietly to her brother, the pair holding still in the face of the Troubleshooter's obvious anger.
"So I decided to start at my old home, and it turns out he was right there," the Mismagius then looked rather nervous about the results of the visit. "So I started the whole explanation for him, to make sure it was the right guy and that he knew why a Ghost was after him. Then, it kind of gets a bit silly." She sighed. "I tell him that I was a prior owner of the house, he says that pokemon don't own houses. Now that's all kinds of wrong, but I still corrected him that I had been human at the time. He says that isn't possible, that humans can't become pokemon. Now, that's strike two on saying I wasn't the owner before, and I was there to curse him already." Shawn and Serperior both frowned knowingly at this. "So, I tried to explain again that I was a spirit of a dead human that had owned the house before him. Then, he insists that humans become human ghosts, and only pokemon can become pokemon ghosts."
"Strike three," Serperior groaned. "Your father is an idiot. You do not argue with the Ghost that is there to curse you unless you want to make it worse. You get them out of there, and then find a way to fix things," he then said to the Felsic siblings.
"You weren't able to keep it from getting this bad?" Shawn asked sympathetically. "Maybe restrict it to just him?"
"It is a family home now, and he was arguing with the ghost of a former owner. The rest of their relatives are honestly lucky I was able to keep it to just the ones who claim the house as their home," the Ghost pokemon replied sadly. "With him being so focused on how I couldn't be a pokemon I was either going to have to make it turn them too, or have something worse that lasted longer."
"For the record, this kind of thing is why Alpha 45 isn't going to even attempt to teach you magic," Shawn complained to the new Greninja. "There are lots of things that will impact the end result, and you can't always predict them or compensate for the fallout."
"Um, Alpha 45? Like, Alpha 30, or Charlie 13?" Mismagius asked somewhat faintly, as a black polygonal patch appeared underneath her as she said the final name. "Oh. You're Shawn aren't you?"
A large black colored claw like set of polygons with red tips then emerged from the digital shadow to grab onto the Ghost. "Get back in here!" a familiar voice rumbled before dragging the pokemon out of the universe.
"Well. Looks like this is still a problem we caused," Shawn said annoyed. "Serp, when we're done here we need to let Charlie 13 know that he's in trouble for this one."
A minute of uneasy silence followed, finally broken by Jim poking around his body. "Oh, yuck. This is actually my tongue, this is my tongue," he said quickly untangling the body part and rapidly pulling it into his mouth. "Why do they do that?"
"I think 'we' is the word you're looking for," Jane sighed rubbing her face with a clawed hand. "Given that you are one of those ninja frogs you like so much now. A full week of this?"
"You'll probably have a good idea why Janice is so mad by the end of it," Shawn said tiredly. "Now, if you could try and call again?"
The Charmeleon nodded unhappily and once again dialed the number. This time the screen cleared to reveal a large green toad with a massive flower growing out of its back. "Oh, the Ghost got you two didn't it?" their mother asked sourly.
"Technically, I had already been turned into a pokemon by something else first," Jane complained. "Was dad really as bad as the Ghost made it sound?"
"Your father definitely earned this one," the older pokemon rumbled, clearly used to their father acting in this way. "The Ghost really looked like she was less happy with the result than he deserved."
"We got that impression too," Jim sighed rubbing at his bare neck. "Where is dad anyway? I'm wondering if he continues the frog theme or is a lizard instead."
"Your father ran away to 'prove' how pokemon and humans should be separated somehow," the Venusaur said dryly. "I've been talking with wild pokemon all morning trying to keep an eye on him. Considering he's only a Nidoran, I'm thinking I should have just shoved him into a pokeball and waited for this week to be over."
"So, our day was terrible, how did your- Why is he a pokemon too?" Janice asked with a groan as the group that had gone to the phone returned. "We have enough problems without losing more humans."
"One of Charlie 13's Ghosts got out and decided to hit the guy who donated the Magmar with the tainted pokeball to us," Shawn and Serperior said together. "Turns out that was their dad, and she ended up hitting the entire family." They continued past the door and immediately went to start up communications into Box 113. "Charlie 13 also can apparently get out of his Box now."
The Lucario sighed heavily and roughly pushed her aura sensors back, with the metal foil around them shifting heavily as she did so. "Right, small problems first. You, frog, your neck needs more moisture than that, stop scratching it and just put out your tongue. Char, go burn something. We have to have somewhere for that, and you look like you need it. Have your whole team join in. Snakes, we don't have any issues that are time sensitive right now, so take a seat and find a good distraction that isn't bothering Ghost Dragons," she said harshly while walking over to the transport pad. "I'm going to check on the others." She then vanished in a flash of light.
"To be fair, she was waiting for you four to show up before she went to do that," A-0 noted dryly. "Things got bad, Shawn. Worse than my Porygon-Z brother managing to get out." The digital pokemon turned to face the remaining human sadly. "The LAS is a Porygon, infested by the first Analyzer."
"How long are all of them going on vacation to another world for again?" the snake eyed trainer asked tiredly. "Because it sounds like it won't be long enough."
Janice arrived in Box 201 to find TyranoGazimon and the new Porygon going over the latter's condition with the Deepstone scientist, who looked just as angry as the rest of the group. "I'm shutting this little project down," he said to her as soon as he spotted the Lucario. "You don't go around sticking mushrooms on random pokemon just because that works for Paras, and you definitely don't use code that makes the Porygon you were always after in a way that makes an injured pokemon."
"How bad is it?" the Team Lead asked Tyra, slightly shocked by the harsh declaration.
"Half the reason her body has been so fragile is that it overwrote some of the physical components of her body during the change," the patchwork digimon sadly informed her. "I'm still looking into the data on the others that were converted, but so far it looks like it is only the purely digital ones that have that problem. Please tell me we can actually shut this one down, at least for a few more weeks so we can hopefully get caught up."
"It is done for," Janice confirmed strongly, giving Walter a nod. "Bringing another digital life form into being, or using a conversion to be like that digital life form, is one thing. A corruption effect made from code that we had not looked into properly? The only thing happening for at least weeks now is a through check of everyone that was exposed and a reexamination of the actual code that made Analyzers." The jackal pokemon looked at the digimon thoughtfully. "What are your thoughts on this?"
"I'm going over previous exposure and conversion incidents," Tyra noted with a cautious tone. "On one hand, this is a major problem and we need to see how it compares to those. On the other," she trailed off for a moment. "On the other hand, it shows that it is possible to survive such infections without being lost to them entirely. Which means if we understand what is safe and what isn't better we can more easily deal with any new corruption infections that were previously just being removed entirely."