Welp, that was quick! More tying up loose ends and explaining a few things.
Data Fragment 35: Endorsed
Rika woke with her head throbbing and buzzing. After the disorientation passed, she found herself lying on a white bed that was as hard as concrete, a thin cover pulled over her. Above her was a web of wires, snaking down to giant tubes holding anything from loose chunks of data to Mega-level Digimon. One of the tubes was empty. Rika was pretty sure she had been in that one. In the one next to it was...
"Renamon!" Rika exclaimed, shooting up. She yelped as fresh pain exploded in her head.
"Don't worry, your partner is there for safe keeping," said a red-haired boy who walked into view. "I would never do anything to seriously hurt a Digimon or a human."
"Then why all the Digimon in tubes?" growled Rika. "And why does my head hurt so much? Who are you anyway?" Though she had little doubt he was another Digimon-human hybrid.
"I'm Izzy," said the redhead. "These Digimon here either have unusual data that I'm analyzing, or they're currently too dangerous to have roaming around. Any pain you're experiencing is probably the onset of the Saint virus."
Rika's body went cold. She touched the side of her neck, and realized the anti-viral ring was gone. Her neck was sore to the touch. If it was anything like what Henry had...
"...Though any neck pain you're experiencing is likely because of the strange program planted there," Izzy went on. "I tried to remove it, but no luck so far."
"Program?" asked Rika. " I'm not a Digimon! How's there a program inside my neck?"
"The nape of your neck, to be precise," said Izzy. "It's called the Dark Spore. It makes the host stronger and smarter, but it also makes them corrupted. It's something me and my colleagues have encountered before...in fact, some of us must have encountered you before, because you were one of the kids involved."
That...was a lot to take in. "I've met you guys before? When?"
"Oh, it was back when we were just human," said Izzy. "Do you remember at any point being lured into a truck, and someone scanning your neck?"
"...Actually, yeah." ...At least, sort of. When she was young, she apparently went missing for a little bit. Her dad was supposed to be watching her, but she scampered off, only to find a funny gray man offering her candy...She had been fine in the end, but it led to a big fight between her parents, and that started their downward slide to divorce...Rika wondered how her dad was doing, with all the insanity in the world right now...
"So you do," said Izzy. "That's when you got that corrupting program."
"I'm not corrupted though," growled Rika.
"No you're not, and that's what's so interesting," said Izzy. "For literally everyone else, either they drew power from the spore, becoming corrupted, or they refuse to use it, therefore not gaining anything from it. But you do use it. You're been using it for a long time. And yet you're not corrupted. Ill-tempered, maybe, but not corrupted. I wonder why." His pensive frown turned to a deep scowl. "Perhaps you would know, Ryo?"
A childlike Ryo slid down from the tangle of wires above, appearing no older than seven. "Aww, you found me! Hi Rika!"
Rika stared at the little Ryo in disbelief.
"Oh yeah, age is only a number, literally, so we can be whatever age we want!" Ryo replied cheerfully, before shooting a darker look at Izzy. "And you're a big meanie for doing experiments and stuff to Rika!" Despite his childish tone, his eyes showed full-grown anger.
"You're one to talk," said Izzy.
Ryo's body flickered, and suddenly he was a teenager again. "Hey, that spore may be my endorsed product, but I didn't put that spore in her neck," said Ryo. "Those were idiots trying to revive that lame Myotismon. They had no idea how those spores actually work, and apparently neither do you." He grinned. "Wouldn't you like to know though?"
Izzy glared at Ryo. "Are you trying to bargain with me, Apostate?"
"Why should I bargain?" asked Ryo. He teleported behind Rika and swept her up bridal-style, much to Rika's shock and ire. "I'll take Rika and my secrets, thank you very much!"
Rika suspected she should be just a little grateful. She trusted Izzy even less than Ryo. Boy did she want to smack that smug grin off Ryo's face though.
But she didn't have to, as Ryo's smile vanished. "The hell?"
Izzy detected whatever Ryo was concerned about. "What's going on?"
Rika felt nothing, and yet she felt a peculiar dread.
"That's...possible?" Ryo barked out a laugh. "Well well well, today's incoming catastrophe is brought to you by..."
IIIIII
Well that was something I'd been meaning to get to for a while, but there was a bunch of other stuff I needed to cover first.
Speaking of other stuff, we'll soon be getting into bigger things soon. Maybe even next chapter.