Hello again everyone! The holdup was on my end this time, my bad. Part of it was finishing up a readable beta for my original fic, part of it was Nano (though I was too burned out my the original stuff to do much on it)...but most of it was because I was too busy playing Digimon Cyber Sleuth and Hacker's Memory back to back. Really good games btw, I definitely recommend them if you haven't played them already. Especially if you like stories like Commencing Overwrite.

Anyway, enjoy!

Data Fragment 40: Thunder

"What kind of choice is that?" barked Rika. "Willis has to stay here forever, or give into his viruses? How is any of that fair?"

"Yeah, why are you being such a jerk Ryo?" Kazu shouted.

Willis stayed silent, his eyes locked on the ground. He clung to one of Terriermon's ears. Cherubimon hovered over Willis, but said nothing.

Ryo knew it wasn't fair, but it was too dangerous to be fair to Willis. Not when he had power over time, however limited. It was a power Millenniumon once had, but it was deleted thanks to the virus ENIAC gave Ryo.

It wasn't missed, honestly. One would think time travel in the Digital World would offer endless possibilities. In practice, it led to constantly redoing things, literally living in the past instead of learning from it...Consequences, and therefore choices, meant nothing if you could just rewind as you pleased...and Willis definitely wanted to only rewind.

But Ryo couldn't explain that right now. He didn't want to give Willis ideas. Besides, this led to a more immediate conplication. Normally stuff like this was what Ryo gave Rika the black card for...but right now both it and her D-Ark were temporarily unmade by the warped time-space. Another reason Ryo didn't miss time travel.

"Besides, I'm already sick too!" Rika added. "So the same thing applies to me, right? And Kazu and Kenta!"

Both Kazu and Kenta's eyes widened.

"Why are you acting like this stupid little time bubble was my idea?" asked Ryo with a tinge of irritation. "Kazu and Kenta got dragged into this by Willis, and you followed me in even after I warned you about it being dangerous. We don't even know where Renamon and...oh, nevermind, there they are!"

Across the distorted plains sprinted Renamon, the tall humanoid fox carrying a small red penguin in her arms. "Rika!"

"Renamon! You're okay!" said Rika with visible relief. "I didn't know what happened to you after our BioMerge fell apart in here! Is Muchomon okay too?"

Muchomon paid no attention to Rika whatsoever. "Willis!" He writhed violently in Renamon's arms until he got free, waddling over to the blonde boy. "Willis! It's me! Ir's me!"

"It's...you?" Willis asked, before his curious expression grew fearful. With a half-hearted whimper he stumbled back, lost his balance because of the Terriermon on his shoulder, and fell down. "N-No..."

"Now is that any way to treat a Digimon partner you created yourself?" asked Ryo with annoyance. "He may be more artificial and virus-infested than most Digimon, but the bond you share is real. But I'm sure you can already tell that just by looking at him." He smirked. "Though maybe that's why you're scared?"

Willis trembled while his Terriermon growled.

Cherubimon made the sky growl with red thunder. A weak red bolt crashed in front of Muchomon, making him leap back with a yelp.

Henry the Terriermon growled too, sounding even more feral.

"Henry?" asked Kazu.

"Danger," snarled Henry, pacing in front of Kazu and Kenta. "Danger everywhere..."

Rika gaped at the Terriermon pacing back and forth in front of Kazu and Kenta. "That's Henry?"

"Yeah, so...a lot happened..." said Kenta. "A lot of stuff we don't know about yet, actually..."

"Even more complications, I see..." said Renamon with a frown, before turning to Ryo. "Do we really have no options other than succumbing to the virus when we leave here?"

"Hmm...you do have one option," said Ryo. "Or at least, one person does."

"We do?" asked Kazu. "What is it?"

"Holy Rings suppress viruses, though they don't cure them," said Ryo. "Kenta's MarineAngemon has a Holy Ring as a collar. If you take it off, he won't be able to reach Mega form anymore, but you could give it to someone to keep them healthy and human. Not the ideal solution, but I like I said, this situation wasn't my idea."

"Does that mean everything else was?" growled Rika.

"No, but usually I have more power over things," said Ryo. "Here...well, not really."

Everyone was quiet.

"But my partner isn't even fully digivolved right now," said Kenta, looking to his Gomamon. It looked back at him with sad eyes.

"He will be once you guys leave this place," said Ryo. "Which means you guys need to take the ring quick. So you need to decide who gets the ring now so you don't waste time later."

Once again everything was quiet, except the thundering sky.

IIIIII

It was a little tricky trying to figure out how to do this drabble. Big important plot section requires more drabbles than expected, how shocking...