- HardWare Support -

"Jack, actually managing to call?" Shawn said happily at the sight of his former rival, taking note that the Investigator's Assistant was in his pokemon form and accompanied by his entire team.

"Yeah, managed to get something like down time, and heard you ran into another villain team again?" the Decidueye questioned, with Strangle next to him giving a glare.

"Technically the local Team Plasma leader's kids showed up here," Serperior corrected. "Although from what I've heard the main group back in Unova is saying he's fully unrelated and stole the programs from them."

"Did this really have an entire family end up turned into pokemon?" the female snake pokemon asked entirely unimpressed. "We have barely even been gone."

"It ended with one guy who hates humanity turned for good, and his ex-wife and two kids deciding to go back and forth," Gazimon said a bit distractedly. "Did you know actors in this region are also pokemon?"

"'Also pokemon' like I'm also a pokemon, or how some of the pokemon they use are effectively actors?" Jack asked with a sigh. "Why am I even asking at this point. Please at least tell me that you didn't end up sending an entire family into the film industry?"

"Only the one of them that was already interested. His sister also found out she wanted to be a Charizard as much as she wanted to be a trainer, and their mom is apparently causing the rest of their home town to have to deal with her being a pokemon most of the time," Shawn said simply. "It was a big mess for us, and honestly the worst parts didn't even have anything important to do with Plasma."

"I dunno, the girl seemed a lot happier with being able to turn into a pokemon, and maybe was a bit excited to have an excuse to beat up the pokemon that messed with her as a kid," Gazimon said with a laugh.

"She did seem a lot happier than the other Charmeleon while they were training," Serperior agreed, then turned back to his sister. "So, what went wrong that caused a ghost-bird to call us?"

"That can wait until you explain the mom part," the other snake pokemon said with a deep frown. "You guys aren't upsetting the common distinctions between human and pokemon across the entire region, right?"

"Janice's original home town is entirely made of pokemon, so I think the Lucario owned town is a bit more of a concern than one Venusaur having to explain that she owns her house and used to be human," Shawn said, strangely earning a groan from everyone on the other side of the call.

"You found a town of Lucario too?" Jack complained. "That's the answer by the way, I'm in a town like that, so to make translations easier I'm just staying like this."

"I'm pretty sure we already knew she was from a place like this," Crusher noted from behind him. "Although I was thinking she was from another world too. How did that end up being in this world?"

"Ancient teleportation pad that we're bringing back up to par," Gazimon complained. "Which is apparently my job now because I have the Dark Network that make it easier from a distance." He looked at the other digimon. "Good news is that I've finished training the HardWares in how to do some support for me, so I have some subordinates now to make that a bit less of a hassle."


Light-326 looked over its small console a bit nervously. This was the first real day that it and the rest of the HardWare-Lights were working to support the many digital worlds created by Upload's rampage across the region. Administrator Gazimon had given them some old guides from when he had worked on the Dark Network, and had spent quite a bit of time training them on those.

So far it was really boring.

Gazimon had even warned them about that, and had even gone out of his way to find files to read and simple games to play. The specific ones he noted both didn't fully take your focus away from the task, and also entertained you while doing it effectively. Knowing that he had learned as a matter of life and death which of the many documents and programs inside the once evil system fit into that tight category, 326's opinion on the matter was that what should have been a rather jovial explanation felt a bit too grim.

Which apparently did not translate to its idea to not use either of those options being at all a good idea. It had been tasked with passive monitoring of three different worlds that had been targeted, two of which were apparently abandoned attempts to setup hidden bases by the criminals. Those were both basically empty spaces with some devices inside that performed the tasks that the original non-incarnated system had done, and were as a result being left alone for the time being. 326's main job there was just to make sure nobody actually went into the worlds.

The third world was a target that was hit, and a bit harder to check for access due to the presence of some simple life forms that mostly just sorted items. Those were inferior in nature to the DSS Warehouse creatures, but it seemed they were still capable of keeping that storage system functioning. The company that owned the place wanted to do things on their own mostly, and as a result only wanted to have things monitored for authorized accesses. Sadly this was only more interesting to check due to the need to verify that all the creatures inside were supposed to be there, and that there had not been any unexpected changes.

"326, it isn't going to magically get more interesting just because Gazimon isn't holding our claws anymore," Light-118 sighed at its expression. The other digital life form currently double checking her own much more interesting set of two digital worlds, both of which were natural worlds that had been determined to be sites Upload had considered for use. Naturally formed data transfer locations on these worlds made it much more common for simple digital life forms that had previously only been rarely seen to be actively investigated, and as a consequence she was much less in need of finding interesting things to do.

"You at least have wild animals to watch, 118," it complained. "I have storage security, which means I need to figure this stuff out without paying too close of attention."

"And that means you 'at least' have stuff that people actually care about staying safe," she replied with friendly criticism. "I'm doing a job that a few cameras could manage just fine."

"But you have things you can do that are part of the job. I don't want to just goof off all day," Light-326 sighed. "It doesn't feel right. Especially with what happened to the other Gazimon that got caught trying to do it."

"I'm fairly sure the boss wouldn't have outright told us about these things if he didn't want us using them when things get boring," Larry said, clearly only responding to get them to be quiet while he played one of the games.

"Larry, how long have you been on that one?" 118 questioned, eyeing the other circuitry dinosaur. Larry was one of the very few HardWare-Lights that had chosen a typical name instead of a number to use. "You are at least checking on your worlds every few minutes right?" The other digital life form huffed and simply turned back to his game in response. "I hope that he gets moved to ones as unimportant as mine," she then complained to 326.

"I think Gazimon moved him to the empty systems that are at DSS now anyway," it replied quietly. "I'm not sure Larry was told though."


"You found a town in another world," Jack asked, emphasizing the word 'another'. "A not digital one this time, and somehow that ended up with it joining our region?"

"Apparently it is all Metagross' fault," Shawn corrected just as annoyed. "So far the big thing going on is them sending people over for eye exams and glasses, and the movie studio getting help with illusion crafting and items from another world."

"The movie studio that turns human actors into pokemon actors," Strangle noted unhappily.

"And pokemon actors into human actors, with the kid starting off like he'd be the first category only to end up in the second," her brother confirmed. "Somehow he got a spot in some action-comedy that was having problems."

"I think I heard about that one from a, um I guess now it would be another, Ghost type that had tried out being the right hand mon of the villain," Vibration the Flygon noted. "Apparently the big speech was too funny to make it through. She seemed pretty sure that no Ghost could manage the part."

"How are you handling that anyway?" Gazimon asked with genuine curiosity.

Both the Flygon and the Decidueye groaned at the question. "Its terrible, we keep forgetting that walls or floors we can't see are there," Vibration said with a sigh. "And the few other Ghost types we've met lately keep asking us about when we died."

"I'm fairly sure that is just some joke we don't think is funny, mostly because the one we actually told the whole story to apologized to us for it," Jack continued unhappily. "The wall thing is a more common issue overall, and from what I've heard that's only going to end up the other way around eventually, with us forgetting that everyone can't go through walls."

"I think that you might also need to worry about how you think about plants too," Shawn noted after a moment. "Although I think it has been getting a bit worse lately for me, since I merged into Basirablemon with Serp."

"I've been a bit more sensitive since I digi-evolved too," said serpent agreed cautiously, then looked at the confused faces on the other side of the call. "We haven't explained the complications with using that one effectively yet have we?"

"No, you haven't," Crusher said while the others simply stared. "How did you two end up mixed together?"

"It wasn't mixed, they each had their own head at either end of the giant poison root," Gazimon said with a bit of a laugh. "I don't think you guys have tried again yet, have you?"

"I've done some practice with the Poison type transformation," Shawn admitted unhappily. "It turns me into a Serperior when I use it, but makes the bigger change easier," he said to his former rival.

"I am now the last person to tell you that turning into a pokemon is weird," Jack complained with a sigh. "I wish we were further along with things, but Salamence ended up panicked about the whole LAS origin issue you found out about, Roberts is stuck mostly keeping Adrian in line, and I'm being sent on temporary issues that just happen to require a good pokemon translator. Which ended up being a lot less Crusher having things to do, and a lot more of me being a bird."

"I'm a lot more upset with that than I expected," his digimon teammate agreed unhappily. "Surprising people with being able to talk is too fun to have him get to be the only one to do it, and of all of us I have the least other stuff to do."

"Keeping two Ghosts that don't know what they are doing from causing problems is not a fun job," Smile the Gourgeist complained. "The worst part is that they still don't see that they've started to enjoy messing with people."

"Jack's messing with people?" Shawn and Serperior asked with ill intent.

"I doubt they will get as bad as you two," Strangle sighed. "But they are more playful, particularly when they are actually trying to learn to use the new stuff."

They were then interrupted by Gazimon letting out a yelp.


Light-326 noticed the subtle change to one of the two mostly unused worlds, a small transfer from properly authorized systems that had not happened before in the place, just moments before it became a massive and obvious change as a whole pile of pokeballs suddenly started to flow in from the owner's location.

It quickly responded, with the first intended step in this case being to outright call the site in question as soon as possible. The HardWare-Lights had a voice only line for emergency work, and in cases where getting one of the Troubleshooters informed would take too long they were allowed to use it.

"Muk Majesty? This is Light-326 with Digital Storage Solutions," it said as it heard someone pick up on the other end. "Sorry for the lack of image right now, but I am seeing a large number of pokeballs entering the digital world we are monitoring at your site. Is this an authorized event, and do you need any assistance?"

"DSS?" a man on the other side coughed. "We have something of an outbreak and are trying to quarantine. A problem with our younger Venusaur, is there any way to get the rest of us out of the facility too?" he managed with a couple of stops to cough again.

"I'm contacting medical and I will see if I can get some transportation to you," the digital dinosaur quickly replied, while it also sent the notes it had taken so far to both Janice and Delta 2. "It looks like I can get a portal up, but if you need to keep things in the air from going with you that isn't a good option."

Off to the side 326 saw Light-118 take over its other two sites, which was good because this was an actual issue and he didn't want Larry to be the one to do so. "HardWare-Light 326, I have approval for direct transfers," Metagross said over communications, unheard by the other side of the call. "TyranoGazimon is ready for on site aid, and Delta 2 is getting 201 prepared for anything."

"Letting the air through won't work," the guy said, still sounding bad. "She let out all these seeds and pollen for some reason."

"We have better transportation available now, I will be using the video for targeting help," 326 said quickly. "How many people need to get out?"

"Seven, we're finishing the pokemon now," the guy on the other end replied with considerable relief. The digital life form turned on the image it was receiving from the phone call, revealing an area choked with spores and coated with good sized seeds that could barely be seen from all the contamination. The man himself had scaly patches on his skin that reminded the circuitry dinosaur of the file images it had seen of the effects of a corruption attack, and made it quickly send an image capture of the call to Delta 2 with a note of the similarity.

"Are there any humans that are not afflicted that need to be sent to a different location?" Light-326 asked attempting to keep its voice level at the sight.

"Nobody that isn't outside where the air is clean," the man replied, then coughed again. "If we can get everyone that affected out we can manage to clean it out inside too."


"Janice says the problem is being handled," Gazimon told everyone. "And is throwing something I said back at me over wanting to end this break early to check on it myself."

"We have the extra staff for it now actually," Shawn said still standing close to the doorway.

"Really? I'd think without me and Roberts you'd be a lot shorter than normal," Jack said looking at his team considerately. "We did add another two teams."

"Grant had barely been with us at all when you arrived," Serperior noted. "Upload was actually the first issue they got to help us with, and before that it was literally just me, Shawn, Janice, and A-0."

"What about Metagross, or Metang at the time?" the avian trainer asked.

"Their first day was actually when we found Gazimon," Shawn informed his former rival. "Which was still just a few months ago now. Compared to years without anyone else I'm actually tripping over help." He then nervously looked away. "However, its also a lot more human interaction than normal. Well, they started out human at least."

"I've met two other people who can say that about themselves already since we parted ways," Jack complained. "Not counting Ghosts that were originally human that we don't know about."

"Yeah, that sounds like Janice is right about it being something that happens to us because we're like that," Gazimon said, a frown still on his face because of the ongoing issue. "Did they have these kind of stories too?"

"I did not ask them, and they did not ask me," the trainer replied strongly. "Which I really hope isn't why most people haven't heard about this kind of thing."

"Hopefully not though," Smile said with a sigh. "Because that has bad implications with my own former humanity and how widespread it is for us Ghosts to be former humans."

"Alright, that's enough talk of such things," Strangle cut in with notable exasperation. "Let's go for a happier topic." She paused in thought. "I'm getting along with Jack better, although not too happy to help him with Grass type moves."

"That is not a happier topic," her brother complained. "Shawn has proven to want to be able to fight like a pokemon despite how he wants to look like a human."

"Having a recently transformed guy who was ranting about the superiority of pokemon look right at you and assume you're not human does not help my mood about that," the guy who mostly counted as an additional brother to her added unhappily.


"Delta 2, please tell me you have some info on what I'm looking at here," TyranoGazimon said while inspecting the discolored and scaly patches of skin on the seven humans in the rather simplistic digital world.

"I've managed to identify the issue from the pokemon that were sent over," the medical Administrator replied over the communication line. "It is a rare illness for the Venusaur line, with that stage of evolution in particular being the worst case for it. Good news is that it doesn't make anyone affected contagious to others, but the bad news is that we need to get straight to work on this now. It can be dangerous, even deadly, without treatment."

"We tried to return her when we realized something was wrong," the woman Tyra was looking over said miserably. "But her ball didn't work."

"That actually confirms it, energy restriction to that degree is one of the effects it has on the originator. Part of the overall issue is that makes them less able to control how toxic the pollen they kick up while its going on is," Delta 2 remarked sadly. "The other part of it is the immediate problem. Good news there is we have some time to go through the other pokemon, their balls have all been placed into a minor stasis system until we have time to get to them. Bad news is that once Tyra finishes her scans we need to get all of you over here for medical treatment."

"We have a bulb growing out of this guys back," the digimon said quietly, pointing to another of the victims. All of them tensed up at the statement.

"Send him now," the Porygon-2 said bluntly. "Keep an eye on the others. That is the biggest issue right now. This problem is possibly the Venusaur returning to an earlier form temporarily, with the speculation being that Bulbasaur were once more like Paras in nature than part plant by default."

"Ah, that kind of thing," Tyra said unhappily, then switched some settings on her scanner. "I'll keep an eye out for it on the others."


Light-326 was rather upset with things overall, as it turned out to its great dismay that the job could somehow still end up boring despite a problem going on inside one of his target digital worlds. There was some anxiety over if things would turn out alright, but the Box medical support staff was handling all of that on their own. Which meant that the digital life form was basically left just managing the transport events and monitoring its three sites.

"What's with the frown High Number?" Larry joked at its expense.

"Three-Twenty-Six is a perfectly fine designation," it replied harshly. "Do you really not have anything better to do?"

"He doesn't, his sites are empty and he has monitoring programs setup to warn him," Light-58 said from just past Larry.

"Fifty-eight," Larry hissed at the other digital monster. "I told you to be quiet about it."

326 sighed and went back to checking on the sites, which quickly revealed that nothing had actually changed, and that the site with an issue had been successfully cleared of humans. It made a note to have someone with data analysis skills go to the site to make sure whatever the problem was didn't spread to the incarnated equipment there, but that was a long term issue. The only thing left to do immediately was to prepare to send all of the humans and pokemon back when Delta 2 was done, but given the extent of the issue the Troubleshooters themselves would likely take over for that.

Which meant that not only had it turned out to be a boring problem overall, but one that was effectively over.

"I am going to look over the documentation on this medical issue," it said disappointedly. "That is at least technically on topic," it continued to try and justify the descision to itself.


"This is just a corruption case isn't it?" TyranoGazimon asked annoyed from a good distance away from their current group of patients.

"Similar effects but a much different cause," Delta 2 replied. "Although I guess I need to send you the file of the last of this kind of problem we had to help with. Maybe from your own research it looks more like that than I've been thinking of it."

"The difference in cause is definitely less than you are thinking," the digimon criticized. "I can actually draw quite a few direct parallels between what these seeds are doing and what an Analyzer does to its target." She used her scanner to send a file of her initial results to the Administrator. "I've already implemented some of the energy recovery methods we made for that issue on one of them, and it seems to be the same idea as one of the normal treatments only easier to setup."

"I've admittedly been doing much the same," the Chansey shaped Porygon-2 noted. "Actually, those methods are originally made from the ones I already had for this kind of known issue in the first place."

"So the minor physical changes are fairly normal for this kind of thing?" Tyra questioned. "Like the patchy skin and the small leaves these guys ended up with?"

"Ugh, yes, those changes do seem to be more of the body's own reaction to the infection instead of a direct result of the illness itself," the Administrator confirmed. "Like how a fever is the body actually trying to burn out an infection, although in these cases it is closer to the body attempting to trick the contaminant into thinking it has already spread to other areas. It is easier to see that in corruption cases, where the rate of digital conversion drops like a rock after the pokemon's body is altered in this way."

"Up until it hits the point where it is close enough for the infection to match up enough to just take over everything," the patchwork digimon said uneasily, her reptilian claw scraping across a patch of scales. "Which is the point where this current issue either makes the target into a Grass type, with a high chance of also being Poison type, or just kills them from overloading their systems."

"I can definitely stop the latter from happening," Delta 2 said firmly. "Unfortunately, by causing the former to happen more easily if it gets that bad. The good news is we still have three more days before it should get anywhere near that bad."

"When do we tell them about that part?" Tyra nervously asked.

"When it is necessary to do so. All of the humans are safe now, and the pokemon are looking alright so far," the Administrator said with some relief. "So after everyone is safe we let them know about the risk going forward, and see if we can help them setup some support if it happens again."