- Medical Review -
TyranoGazimon shuffled nervously in front of the monitor that would be displaying her findings. She had spent the last few days going over every pokemon to ever have a permanent alteration of any kind as a result of a corruption attack, and this was the time for her to go over everything for Delta 2 to see how she did at the job.
"Alright then Tyra, this is your show. Start whenever you're ready," the Administrator said calmly. The fact that it was just the two of them for this task made things somewhat easier for the digimon. She was still uncomfortably familiar with crowds of her peers looking for any crack in her position.
"Okay. This is the collected results of new scans on pokemon exposed to corruption that were unable to be fully restored, and as a result were left with digital elements," the patchwork digimon started nervously. "In light of the revelations regarding the Legendary Analysis System's origin, it was determined that we needed to more thoroughly check the long term results of these alterations." A document with a number of pieces of information appeared on the screen. "I feel a bit weird going over all of this when you've been watching me this whole time," she confessed to her boss.
"Actually, I've been leaving this to you the whole time. I've only paid a bit of attention to this whole thing while you worked," the Chansey shaped Porygon-2 noted, causing TyranoGazimon to visibly pale. "I know about the four that have died so far, so you don't need to go over them, and none of them are directly the result of the corruption," the Administrator said a bit strongly to cut off the worst part of the issue, then sighed clearly upset despite the lack of connection.
"You haven't been paying attention," Tyra said faintly. "Delta 2, of the thirty six survivors we have eighteen that have notable changes to their bodies directly tied to the expansion of the remaining digital material."
"That's half of them. Half of them have had changes to their bodies without letting me know," the Administrator said outright harshly, glaring at the data now and making the digimon flinch. "Why is this the first I'm hearing about such a thing?"
"Because I thought you were listening in on things?" the rabbit-lizard said, her voice shaking a bit. "And all of their trainers thought that was just normal. They were apparently shown images of the Minorly affected pokemon and thought that was just the normal long term effects."
"Break it down Tyra, what's the outlook?" Delta 2 bluntly told the digimon, causing her to fold in on herself a bit.
"Right," the digital monster said steadying herself slightly. "The basic data I got at the start gave three categories. Cosmetic where the changes were just small patches of skin or such that were changed. Minor where a limb or other major body part was altered, but could be left as is without apparent risk. And Major where significant changes occurred and a limb or other body part had to be removed to ensure the corruption was no longer acting on them. There were 19 Cosmetic, 8 Minor, and 11 Major cases that I reviewed."
"I'd forgotten that Minor changes were the smallest category," the Administrator noted a bit sadly, relaxing the digimon slightly.
"As for the changes since then, I've separated those into three new categories. Regrowth, which is exclusively found in the major cases, and happened to 7 of them, where the lost body parts have regenerated as digital versions of the original," Tyra continued, with another flinch at a growl from Delta 2. "Expansion where the changed area grew to encompass more of the pokemon, with 15 cases mostly in previously Cosmetic afflictions." Another growl made the digimon visibly cringe. "Finally there is additional Abilities, where the digital components gave the pokemon the capacity to do things their species typically cannot. There are 9 of those," she finished with a bit of a shake to her voice.
"Tyra, that's 31 cases," the Porygon-2 bluntly said, with an incredibly angry tone.
"There is considerable overlap. Added abilities only appeared with one or both of the other two," Tyra very nervously added. "And four of the Major cases that regenerated also had expansion into previously normal sections of their bodies."
"Four different pokemon had their bodies not just grow back, but get worse?" Delta 2 shouted, and as a result the digital monster rushed out of the way and behind a nearby desk. "Tyra?" the pokemon asked more quietly, suddenly distracted from her anger by the rapid movement and able to notice how worried the red colored monster had become. "Tyra, what's wrong?"
The Porygon-2 carefully approached the desk, and with clear reluctance did not move so she could see the digimon. "Are you okay?" she asked more calmly, now realizing what must have happened.
It still took a good minute for TyranoGazimon to calm down enough to peek out and respond. "Sorry," she said somewhat desperately. "I just- It reminded me of doing a presentation for him."
"Oh," Delta 2 quietly, said horrified at the reaction. "I'm so sorry," Delta 2 continued sadly. "You do know I'm not mad at you right? Its the situation here, and myself not paying enough attention."
"Like he was ever actually mad at us," Tyra grumbled, clearly embarrassed with having been frightened, but still nervous. "We were just conveniently there for him to yell at when something went wrong."
"Are you going to be able to keep going?" the pokemon asked nervously. "If not I can review the information myself."
"Give me a minute," the digimon said a bit more solidly. "I need to think about how to explain it if you don't know as much as I thought," she said, clearly trying to reframe her own reaction in an attempt to save face.
"Alright, Metal Claw looks like it will be fine," Alpha 45 said as they walked out of the building where they were working on that project. "Plenty of good options and we have most of the documents already."
"I just hope we can get that dull black one to work right," Albert noted, with a confident tone from having become used to his new situation. "Some of the others are just too obvious."
"Yeah, most of the team agrees," she agreed with a sigh. "Now for the bigger issue. Are you ready to start on the more complicated stuff?"
"I think I'm up for it, but it sounds like you're having problems?" he asked, nodding at Zoroark's shadow form as it rushed into the other facility they were moving towards. "Uh. Is he okay?"
"Overslept. Which honestly isn't a reason to rush that much," the Porygon-2 said with some amusement. "I'll explain the issues once we're inside, that way I have examples on hand. You'll actually be with the RAS trio this time."
"They claimed the room across from mine," the lone human in the Box complained. "De is surprisingly the worst of them."
"De? They mostly end up stabilizing the other two, don't they?" Alpha 45 asked, clearly holding back laughter.
"They are making me help," Albert replied with a desert dry tone.
"Ouch, that explains that," the Administrator said sympathetically. They soon afterward arrived at the other lab. "Alright, we are waiting on more Grass types for this one to hit full development, but these guys should get us started on both sides of things." Zoroark and the three dome shaped digital life forms were all present inside the building, along with the Box's Sandslash, Garchomp, Lombre, and Breloom.
"Okay, the fungal growth isn't too safe looking," the final pokemon of that list was saying to the rather oddly colored Sandslash, who did in fact seem to have some tiny mushrooms growing out of the space between her spines.
"Doesn't feel too bad, but I think my Acid Armor is reacting to it a bit oddly," the typically Ground type pokemon noted.
"Please tell me we don't need to bother my sister already?" Alpha 45 asked of the display.
"Nope, still using previously proven methods of causing the change in types," Sandslash said cheerfully. "Just moving onto the ones that require a source pokemon. Professor Larch's research is helping a lot."
"And the Acid Armor issue?" the Administrator pressed.
"Very minor, basically it is just changing what my 'liquid' form is a little and that's making it look worse," the other pokemon clarified, melting an arm into an odd looking mix of sand and spores. This made the odd patches of discoloration on her body make a lot more sense. "Just some cosmetic issues, same thing happens when Lombre does it to me, only wetter."
"Alright, let's try again," Tyra said, still a bit unsteady. "We have the three new categories, Regrowth, Expansion, and Abilities. The first is only found in the cases of body parts that were removed as a result of the corruption attack, and actually includes the majority of pokemon who were in that situation. The second is the largest category, and the majority of those cases are from pokemon that had only cosmetic alterations."
Delta 2 was clearly working to keep herself calm for the digimon's sake. "How big is 'the majority'?"
"Half of the total number of pokemon that have changed since their release," the rabbit-lizard said simply.
"Only two of the minor cases have changes?" the Medical Administrator asked thoughtfully after going over the math.
"That's where the third category gets interesting," Tyra said a bit more confidently. "The changes in Abilities that happened all fall into the general degree of changes that are on record as having happened before time of release to the pokemon in the minor category."
"It's only as bad as what I let them keep?" Delta 2 asked with some relief. "Just some minor capabilities or easier times learning unusually typed moves?"
The digimon nodded, clearly also relieved by her boss's reaction. "I've got a case of all three happening that I've set up as an in depth example for this," she said with a nod. "I was mostly planning on using it for my own personal findings, but I guess I need to go over everything."
A series of four images of a Scyther appeared on the screen. The first three Delta 2 recognized easily as the file photos from the initial case, one before the incident, the second part of a recording of the pokemon's form during the events, and the third being the image she had taken after she had worked to save the pokemon as best she could.
"The first image here is the pokemon before the events," Tyra noted, and the bit of excitement in her tone made the Porygon-2 glad she was still willing to try and give the project a full description after what had happened earlier. "The second is more interesting, as it shows the full effects that the corruption had on his body during the events." The image increased in size, making the details clearer.
What it showed did not entirely look like a Scyther. While most of the pokemon was still made of the same material, his energies had been twisted somewhat by the harsh infection that had taken over his left blade entirely. The blade itself was polygonal, bent and split into an odd shape, and also had licks of particulate digital flame dancing along it. His other arm was slightly larger, with a jagged edge along the entire length of the other blade. The head of the poor creature had been widened, and a number of spikes had grown haphazardly over the entire area. The image had a large curtain of flames blocking his wings from view, but from the records Delta 2 knew that they had been made into harsh jagged shapes like the right claw, and had grown much thicker. Smaller spikes than the head's appeared on most of the rest of the body, but otherwise the rest of his shape was the same as the first image. His color had also changed to a bright orange.
"A fragment of another system's firewall defenses had reached the Box where he was living at the time," the Digimon continued, clearly confused as to how that had happened. Which wasn't that unusual, this situation was one of the less explainable times when a program had gotten into a Box. The current theory was that it had been broken off by an attack on the original system and then traveled the same way some naturally occurring digital worlds connected to each other, arriving at the Box in question by chance. "One of the mobile corruption created was attacked by the Scyther in question in an attempt to help clear them out, and due to the stuff taking 'firewall' a bit too literally its fire based powers allowed it to instead corrupt the blade that struck it. This quickly overtook the appendage, and caused secondary transformations in the rest of the pokemon's body for the duration of the event. Notably it allowed the pokemon to resist and use Fire typed attacks for the duration."
"'Notably'?" Delta 2 asked interested in the specification.
"I'll get to that in a little bit, the rest is still important," Tyra said, now much less worried looking compared to just a short time before. The monitor then shifted to display the post treatment image, of the same Scyther from the first picture, only missing the entire blade of his left arm, with only the still normal ball shaped shoulder and a thing tube of polygonal material below that remaining of the limb. All of the other modifications to his form had vanished entirely. "The corruption was removed from his body fairly violently, with Serperior severing the limb in question just above the largest site of expansion during cleanup efforts. As is typical with these cases, the removal of corrupted elements also restored the original shape of the rest of the pokemon. The remaining digital portion of his body was scrubbed of any traces of the corruption, and then an analysis of if the rest of the limb could be restored was done, with the results at the time stating that it would not be possible."
The final, and new, image now appeared taking up the entire screen. This one was closest to the third image, with the pokemon standing to clearly show the previously injured area inside of the medical Box. The Scyther had two blades once again, the right one still normal looking, and a new left blade made of well defined polygons that matched the normal side rather closely. The digitally converted section of its body had also expanded, with the entire ball shaped left shoulder and a part of the main body where it connected made into the blockly digital material. His body also had a hint of a yellow tint overall.
"This is his current state. His lost limb has fully regenerated since the incident, and additionally the altered area has expanded," the digimon continued, with a claw pointed at the relevant body parts. "From questioning the cause of this has been determined to be the pokemon actively attempting to use the small portion of his body that was previously altered in some way." TyranoGazimon turned to look Delta 2 in the eyes. "This is the common factor among every single pokemon that has shown any change, they have attempted outright to perform additional actions using the altered body parts or to promote regrowth of the lost limbs."
"That is actually much better looking than I was expecting," Delta 2 said thoughtfully as she more carefully inspected the image. "Actually that's a bit better off than some of those minor cases we have, and I'd almost say it looks like a body part off one of my siblings instead of a corruption injury."
"All seven of them are about like this," Tyra noted. "Now, you can clearly see where his body was further altered. What isn't visible is the new abilities he has shown as a result of these changes. Which is where those notable effects of the original change come in. He now is once again able to fully resist Fire typed attacks and has learned the Ember attack." She shifted a touch uneasily. "They've tested things a bit, and that move does seem to improve in power if he's hit by a Fire type move, which would make it most likely that he specifically has the Flash Fire ability now," she said, clearly uncertain of this specific information from unfamiliarity with the topic.
"So, what is the problem that's come up with Forest's Curse?" Albert asked after the group of pokemon and digital life forms went over the safety of the methods they were using for preliminary testing to the Administrator.
"The 'curse' part of the name turns out to be literal," Alpha 45 said sadly. "Which means its one of the moves that is actually a standard way of casting a spell. The one actually called Curse is the same, which is a bit of a bright spot as TMs for that have been made, but there are other complications too."
"Forest's Curse and Trick-Or-Treat being the exact same move is a big one," Zoroark complained. "They are both 'be like me' curses, with the former making the target into the user's secondary type, and the latter using the primary type."
"Curses also have downsides to using them. Curse itself for Ghost types is a sacrifice of half your maximum Hit Points in exchange for creating an effect that drains the Hit Points of a target," the Administrator continued, with a nod to the Dark type.
"You're specifying 'Hit Points' there," the trainer noted, with a frown at the rather technical term for the defensive energies everything possessed.
"Because the spell itself does so, at least in the TM version and most battle versions. That way it only takes either pokemon down safely instead of a more risky level of damage," the Porygon-2 confirmed. "Non-Ghost types instead sacrifice their speed for attack and defense."
"I'm still not entirely clear on what these two moves we're working on are 'sacrificing'," Al complained. "Unless the fact that the pokemon is already the type they make their target is the thing?"
"Being the same type as your target is typically a bad thing, actually," Albert noted. "Adding in the Grass type in particular would give resistance to the best moves a Grass type pokemon has. Honestly that's my biggest issue with making one of these for this move."
"It has some benefits, but I personally chose this one because I liked the effect and wanted to do it," Alpha 45 said sadly. "So, the cost is basically that adding a type to a pokemon isn't always a benefit, so it is a curse with a high chance of backfiring. Trick-Or-Treat is arguably riskier as it gives more power to moves that are already strong against its user, but at least improves the effectiveness of moves the user has consistently in exchange." She turned to look at De. "What were the results of the check to see if we could limit it to just Grass type pokemon?"
"Unfortunately just straight up copying the attack itself likely causes it to work as a TM pattern for any pokemon with a secondary type, but instead using whatever the secondary type the pokemon has instead of the Grass type," the dome shaped digital life form informed her. "It doesn't matter if the pokemon has Grass type for a primary or not, it always goes for the secondary and there isn't an easy way to limit it pattern wise."
"Well, there is another option," Be said cautiously. "We have gone over some ways of altering the pattern to being specifically for the Grass type, and initial simulations make that change function properly for many Grass types regardless of if that is their primary or secondary. The issue is that it remains compatible for some non-Grass typed pokemon, and in those cases the function changes dramatically."
Breloom sighed as the RAS turned to him, clearly wanting him to continue. "Non-Grass types instead temporarily gain the Grass type, but lose some speed, defense, and/or attack power as a side effect. It isn't entirely stable from what we can tell, but we'd probably need to keep at least one of those disadvantages if we went with that one," he told the Administrator. "Maybe we could have it do something else negative instead, but those are the natural ones."
"That, actually doesn't sound too bad," Albert noted thoughtfully. "If anything that makes it more desirable for pokemon that aren't Grass type instead of Grass types, but it also sounds pretty close to what happens with Curse, right?"
Alpha 45 looked far happier after he finished speaking. "That could work. I'll have to go over it with the main office, but we might be able to spin that one," she said hopefully. "What do we have for long term side effects so far, anything we can identify?"
"Formation of patches of rough bark on the body," Breloom said with a sigh. "It might end up a different material for some Grass types like myself, and we don't have any information yet on what it would do to non-Grass types other that making learning Grass type moves easier."
"Ugh, that one. I'm still not the happiest that Acid Armor makes learning Poison type moves easier," the Administrator complained. Then a beep interrupted her. "Ah, it looks like the Felsic family curse finally resolved." She drooped notably in the air. "And they all stayed pokemon, wonderful. Albert, I'm going to leave you with these guys, they should be able to get you up to speed on what the early stages of the process look like. I have to go sort through Janice's human transformation stuff to see what is worth offering to them." She then vanished with a brief flash of light.
"You know, I'm starting to wonder if anyone at MechIn realizes that her entire staff is just pokemon," Zoroark said jokingly. "It should only get worse now that you're here, because 'she has one human, surely there are others working there too to give her those results'."
"Are we going to be able to get this one done in time for a product release?" the trainer asked, clearly ignoring the joke. "It sounds like this is a longer project than Metal Claw by far."
"This is our longer term project facility at this point," Lombre replied, the continued translation making the trainer flinch at the realization that Alpha 45 could still hear them. "She probably has something else simple she can have the other one handle after Metal Claw is finished that will also be done quick to get things out of the way."
"Which means we might want to see if we can refine things down entirely to TM level for this one too," Zoroark noted. "That would make our boss much happier if we could pull it off."
"These are a lot better than I expected from such a thing," Delta 2 said, a few panes of details from the investigation floating in front of her. "I'm still not happy about these expansions, but the regrowth is actually a good sign." She sighed and slumped a bit. "It is making me wonder if we've been going to far with removing the limbs and such."
"No? That's definitely what we need to be doing," Tyra said confused. "You need to make sure you get the bad code out first, then work on fixing the problems left over." She brought up some different data, this time covering injuries to Gazimon while working for Etemon. "I think I can adapt some of our old medical work to help with replacing any limbs removed this way, and from what I've been looking into lately I have a good idea of how exactly these changes were able to happen on their own too."
"You think we can replace limbs using data?" the Administrator asked with surprise.
"For corruption issues at least, but for more than that I'd need to look into existing options," the digimon clarified. "The key thing though is that I have a better idea how exactly a pokemon is different from a digimon."
"Oh?" Delta 2 said, happy with how much less fearful TyranoGazimon had become after spending some time able to calmly explain things.
"It was mostly the scans of Giratina and Charlie 13, in both the physical world and Box 113, that helped me figure out what was happening," the patchwork monster noted, then wiggled her reptilian arm. "My own repairs here are a good example of you guys doing things differently. All the creatures I've looked at that have the type energy stuff that everything here has uses it to basically define what they are and how they function, with creatures that have it being able to manipulate that to some extent. A lot of the things you got me work to either make something not native to a pokemon be seen as part of them, or to modify what the energy of that pokemon does to make it work differently."
"And digimon don't do that?" the Chansey shaped pokemon asked uncertainly. "I was fairly sure your code did most of that on its own."
"Its the control you guys have over it that matters," Tyra said with a wide smile. "The metaphysical stuff and other things that have a way they usually work, but will work differently just fine if they are attempted to be used differently." She pointed at the image of how the Scyther currently looked. "His body fed typed energy into a simple digital construct to try and fix things. This caused it to regrow because the digital portion doesn't have anything to stop it from trying to do so, while the energy itself carried the information on how to create it to fit the rest of him." The image shifted back to the version during the incident. "From what I can tell his new fire powers aren't actually even the remains of this whole mess either."
"They're not?" Delta 2 asked, interested in the odd outlook.
"No, or at least they are only based on what he remembers of the events. The code itself that's giving him these powers doesn't match the corruption data recovered at all." A pair of code examples appeared side by side on the monitor. "It does on the other hand look a lot like code found in some natural Fire types, which helped narrow down that ability issue." The digimon cautiously created a small ball of flame over her reptilian claw. "It is a change that he produced in himself based on the metaphysical impact of the events, instead of a side effect of the events themselves."
"That's, worrying actually," the Administrator said nervously. "We don't make unspecified digital worlds specifically to avoid that kind of issue." With a deep frown she looked up at the digimon's altered form. "Is there anything we can do to reduce the chances of that? I can think of a lot of ways a pokemon can hurt themselves long term if they can make those kinds of changes to themselves."
"I think I can actually," Tyra said confidently. "And at the same time it would let me work on my old projects to alter digital life forms, and also repair any injuries that happen of this kind in the future." She then rubbed her head behind an ear sheepishly. "But, a side effect is that we might need to compromise a bit more often with adding in some new capabilities. From what I've seen these changes actually helped a lot to restore full functionality to the otherwise too primitive digital portions of their bodies."
"We were already willing to let minor cases happen. I'd much rather have more of them instead of lost limbs or uncontrolled changes," Delta 2 said firmly, but with a smile. "Thank you for working on this one."
TyranoGazimon blinked at the statement, entirely surprised. "You mean that," she said with wonder, and tears began to form in her eyes. "You, you really think my work will help and want me to keep going."
"I do," the Porygon replied honestly. "This is something to be proud of."
