- Joint Operations -

Aiko Hoshino was a receptionist according to the paperwork she filled out when she got the job, and for a couple of years that was actually true. Sure the Monster Response Team was an odd place to try working for, but it paid the bills and gave her more than enough free time. Of course a receptionist for nearly fifty people was one thing, one for four people who all had their own projects to deal with was another thing entirely.

Until the recent monster sightings she had mostly been left to just handle the phone for Ono's book sales. That wasn't a very busy sort of work, but it at least was more productive than the old man re-reading old reports for the thousandth time, or Kurou breaking another computer. After the Polite Snake showed up with his maybe human friend she had found herself on more of the rare field missions that Ryuuji couldn't handle himself. Mostly because that had been such an obvious event that he had been called to reassure a lot of people that they had the event covered.

They barely had it covered up, but that wasn't her job. Her job apparently was going to random people, claiming to be someone other than a random secretary, and getting information for reports that didn't help anyone. Which for once had apparently led to her actually finding a monster problem for the team to handle.

"So, what was this woman like?" the young girl she was working on this with asked. Sora Takenouchi seemed nice enough in person, but she also had a bird monster with her that could apparently grow into a building destroyer if needed.

"Crazy. I was actually planning on having Ryuuji report her as a risk to her kid before things went crazy," Aiko admitted unhappily. "I really don't like the possibility that there is something to her ideas." The woman had been far too certain that she could get people to experience their past lives. "Especially with how she sounded like she wanted her kid to be a monster 'again'."

"That's really bad actually," Sora replied with a cringe. "Pokemon energy apparently can tell what people want, and that might make it easier for Yutaka to get transformed. Mimi ended up a different kind of monster than she probably should have been because of that kind of thing."

Aiko had to stop at that casual statement. "'Probably should have been'? That is a thing you can know?" she asked quietly.

"I have been a digimon for a while," the girl complained. "We end up what our partners are, and we know what pokemon Mimi's partner turns into. Honestly, with how things are going I really hope Tai warned you guys that we've been having a lot of people end up turned into monsters lately."

The receptionist considered that warning for a moment, then thought about her luck, and asked the question that fit best with both. "So, any advice for when that happens to me?" she asked with only a tiny hint of sarcasm.

"If you wind up a bird find somewhere to fly, beaks are hard to drink with, and feathers are not the same thing as fur or hair," Sora dully answered. "No idea what to do if you end up anything else."

They then made it almost to their destination in silence before Aiko realized something. "Your advice probably means I'll end up a bird, doesn't it?" she asked despondently, and Sora groaned loudly in reply.


Tai and Ryuuji were the last to arrive at the conference room in the DSS building. Shawn, Serperior, and TyranoGazimon had setup the space and were the only ones there for DSS, and the snake twins presence drew the uneasy attention of the MRT leader. Jane had the same two pokemon world representatives from before alongside her, with Zane once again in his human disguise.

"Alright everyone, this is the second big meeting on this two world collaboration to deal with digital world threats," Tyra said as the two of them took seats. "First one was done by Champion Felsic to get some actual authorities here from the Digidestined's world, and to get her people up to speed on the digimon issues we have right now. This one will cover the state of the digital worlds, yes plural, associated with the pokemon world, and the threat of Corruption that they face."

"To start things off we will begin with the largest difference between our own digital worlds, and the singular digital world that exists alongside the Digidestined world," Shawn began as soon as the patchwork digimon finished. "Research indicates that natural digital worlds form from influence computer networks exert outside of the universe." Officer Jenny seemed to be the only local that found that explanation unusual, and even she seemed to be willing to accept the casual explanation of something working 'outside the universe'. "The Digidestined world actually has connected most of the computers in their world into a single planet sized network," Shawn added, and both the people from that world cringed at the odd way of describing the internet.

"That means that their computers all contributed to a single massive digital world with far more complexity than any of our own, while our many disconnected networks result in a large number of far smaller worlds that are more primitive at the moment due to a lack of resources," Serperior continued as an image appeared on the largest wall showing a number of squares with a variety of colored blocks on them. "This seems like it would make it harder to interact with, but there is an unusual lack of capacity for the Digidestined's world to access digital worlds, while our own research into the topic is arguably older than our own naturally occurring digital worlds, at least we have found research into that idea older than any of the digital worlds we have found."

Only the DSS employees giving this part of the presentation didn't boggle at that statement, although by this point Ryuuji had become concerned that he would need a lot more than a couple of meetings between people with clear goals to understand the basics of his team's new responsibility.


The large rented building that the past life group used looked about the same as the last time Aiko was there just a few days ago. That actually made her worry a bit more, because she hadn't actually seen the woman's kid then either, and now she knew there might actually be something going on with him.

"I have had too many bad experiences with places that look normal," Sora complained quietly. "I can't tell anymore if this is a trap or not." The young woman had her hand resting over the small sphere that apparently had her monster partner.

"You'd know better than me," the receptionist replied as the door deeper in opened. "Ms. Kuroda, I just wanted to follow up with my visit."

The woman looked quite a bit more manic today, and Sora was now outright holding the sphere at the sight of the leader of this group. "Ms. Hoshino, you're here at a great moment! I was just showing off my new development to the rest of the group," Yutaka's mother said, and a monster stepped out behind her. It was a werewolf, there wasn't really another word Aiko could think of for a big fluffy red colored dog monster standing on two legs. Crazed looking red eyes passed over both of them, and the receptionist frowned at how unhappy the canine seemed to look despite that. "If you could just follow Yutaka here?" the woman said to confirm this was her son.

Sora went first, with a serious expression on her face that had to be more confident than Aiko felt right now. Compared to the Digidestined the werewolf looked far less confident somehow, and that was just sad to think about. The kid looked like he should have been powerful enough to get out of this mess on his own, and he had to know the Digidestined in his band would at least have an idea how to help with this issue. A quick glance back at Ms. Kuroda, however, made Aiko wonder if the kid was mostly worried about what his mom would become if she didn't have a monster around already.

That thought changed when she saw the other pair of monsters, one a snake made out of boulders and the other a rhino made out of similar grey stone, that indicated that this might instead be a different problem. There were quite a few of the people she had met before in the room, mostly looking excited, but with a couple that seemed to realize this was a problem. In the center of the room on a table was a large amber colored angular gemstone that was actually glowing a bit.

"I really hope whatever Tai is doing with your boss is important," Sora grumbled as Aiko tried to figure out what to do.


"The main issue with our digital worlds is that they are primitive compared to the digimon world, while our own technology to manipulate them is advanced compared to the Digidestined's world," Shawn said uneasily. "I know that doesn't sound like it would be an issue, but the big problem here is that we can, and have, messed things up trying stuff that wasn't stopped by anything."

"When code ends up in a digital world it becomes some thing. Sometimes just an item, sometimes a bit of terrain, occasionally a creature," Serperior listed seriously. "And worst case, it ends up becoming an alteration to a thing that was already there. The digimon world knows of this effect, we have records of evil digimon resulting from viruses ending up in the digital world and merging with them."

The pair sighed together, and then continued in their typical dual tone, which did not help Ryuuji's unease with the entire presentation. "Digital Storage Solutions encountered this problem early in our Porygon Box project, and we implemented a solution. A program exists to standardize the conversion process, making all code that enters the affected digital world into a physical form. This has the positive effect of preventing the code from immediately becoming a part of an inhabitant, like an Administrator Porygon, and theoretically allows for easy destruction of harmful results."

"The downside to that little project is that the resulting creatures can still corrupt other things into more of themselves," Tyra added with a grumble. "And they can also reproduce. So instead of one monster going bad you have a bunch of little monsters that can still make one go bad, and you need to get rid of all of them or they just make more." She stepped forward. "I have an updated presentation on the side effects of these things attacks that I'm showing all of you so you realize just how bad this change was."


"As you can see I have found a way to bring out past forms!" the madwoman said a bit too happily. The rock snake looked like they actively disagreed with that statement, and there were a few fragile looks that also hinted that maybe not all three of these people had past lives that were pokemon. "Aren't you excited to see yours?" it didn't sound like a question, and the small rock rhino shifted to glare at the pair of them. "After your visit I just had to look deeper into the place where you worked, and I was quite surprised to find out that the Monster Response Team was even a thing." The gleeful tone vanished as the woman finished the sentence, and Aiko really wished that her job was actually as impressive as the name sounded.

It was fairly clear that at least some of the people here, including the rhino monster, were dedicated to whatever the hell was going on here enough to try and fight the two of them. The receptionist quickly glanced over at the girl she had just led into this trap, and she was surprised to see that Sora didn't look intimidated at all by the dark looks the two of them were being given. "I'll call for help, get to cover," Sora quietly whispered.

Aiko had no idea what 'cover' actually looked like, but she did know that big glowing rocks weren't something you just let people have. So while the Digidestined surprised the past life group with the sudden appearance of a pink and blue bird the receptionist charged forward to the table and yanked the crystal off it. The instant she had it in her hands the world went mad, with the stone growing from filling both hands to large enough that she was basically wrapped around it, and somehow she had ended up tumbling through the air as well.

She hit the ground running despite the large rock, and discovered that she now had a better idea of where to go. There was a massive looking row of cabinets that she was fairly sure she could fit under, and with a quick series of hops she made it most of the way there before a massive grey form slammed into the ground just behind her.

"Give that back!" the rhino monster rumbled, now far larger and actually talking.

Aiko glanced back, spotting the bird monster keeping the more reluctant looking rock snake at bay, and letting her aim a quick slash of her wing to distract the other Rock type. The glowing gemstone skidded under the cabinet as she let go of it to make her attack, and her mind finally put together the reality that she had been turned into some tiny bird thing instead of everything else growing giant.

The new Archen's attack did almost nothing to the other Rock type, but the rhino like pokemon's own attempt to tackle her failed miserably as the Ground/Rock type cracked the floor while trying to get a better grip. She still tried again to smack the mini rhino with a wing, half instinctively, half to keep the monster distracted from the other feathered monster present. This didn't do any better, and the other pokemon was clearly figuring out how to fight without destroying the room.

She only barely flapped up over a second attempt to tackle her, and that only confirmed that she could not truly fly as she dropped like a stone as soon as the other pokemon was clear. Aiko hit the ground roughly, and scrambled to get back on her feet. With a faint bit of horror she realized she wasn't going to be fast enough to get out of the way again.

"Enough," a deep voice rumbled, and suddenly the rock snake was between Aiko and her opponent. "Did you really dream of being like this?" the snake added, and the receptionist realized that they had decided to help her. "Kuroda's gone mad with this thing, and it's just making us into rock monsters!"

"It's still power!" the rhino countered angrily. "Look at what we can do already." There was a loud stomp from the far side of the living boulders, and then a thump that rattled them a little bit, but Aiko had already started running back to the glowing stone.

A bright flash was able to draw her attention back to the room, where she spotted a scary looking otter creature with two tails had arrived along with a giant beetle and a lizard wearing a wolf pelt. The Archen was quite relieved to see reinforcements had arrived, and quickly collected the stone.


Tai felt sick as he looked at the images of a mantis monster that had ended up losing an arm. The meeting had moved onto what exactly this 'Corruption' stuff was, and knowing that Shawn was used to these things that made normal creatures into monstrous foes if you weren't careful around them explained a lot about why he thought just enslaving digimon wasn't anything to be concerned about. It was a lot better to only have to worry about being careful enough to cut off a Dark Ring than to need to remove someone's arm to save them from being made into nothing more than a mindless horror. Ryuuji was pale next to him, and the Leader of the Digidestined fully understood how bad this was for someone's second chance to hear about what kinds of problems existed in digital worlds.

"As you can see our Corruption issue isn't as simple as normal monster combat," Jane explained, and even her two subordinates looked to be about as uneasy with this kind of enemy as Tai and the MRT leader. Zane's human form actually looked rather queasy, and Officer Jenny had this grim look Tai typically saw when the world was about to end.

Before the Champion could continue Tai's phone went off, and he instantly moved to answer it. He was in another world, in a meeting that was very important, and arguably should have been in school instead. The only people who even could call him right now would only be calling for an emergency. Before he even got it out TyranoGazimon also moved to look at her own little computer thing. "Tai, Aiko and Sora ran into an actual problem. Izzy, Matt, and Joe all went to help but there are people turned into monsters in our world," Mimi said in a rush as soon as he answered. "We need you here now to figure out what we're going to do with these poor people!"

"'People', as in more than just Yutaka?" Tai asked a bit faintly and looked over at Ryuuji. "Are Sora and Aiko alright?"

"I don't know yet, the other's just got there," Mimi replied in a bit of a rush.

"Aiko is an Archen," TyranoGazimon said dully. "Joe just updated me on the situation and is asking for help. Sounds like the victims of whatever this is can't speak human right now."


Aiko sat uneasily on Ryuuji's shoulder while they waited for answers. She was tiny, they were in a building on another world, and she was in no way human at the moment. The only reason she could talk properly was a box in the middle of the room that could translate for her.

"Good news is that we have a stock of pokemon to human transformation methods, mostly pendants," Janice Grades complained. The leader of the Troubleshooters of the pokemon world was an imposing woman in Aiko's opinion, although given she met the redhead as a dinosaur smaller than the average dog there might have been other factors to that. "We are transferring our stock of those to the Digidestined just in case more of these incidents occur."

"Some more good news, the transformed people are stable, and should be able to use any of those just fine," a mixture of rabbit and lizard called TyranoGazimon added. "Looks like it was the result of an infusion of Rock typed energy from that gem thing that this mad lady made."

"The answer to where that came from is funny," the other rabbit monster, Gazimon, said without any humor. "From what the lady's kid said, he found some concrete at the place his band practiced that he could tell had energy because he's like Grant." Aiko did not know who 'Grant' was or if he was human. "She then tried to 'draw out the energy', which technically worked. In practice that just made more and more of it because she wasn't actually doing anything with the energy, and eventually that produced the glowing trinket we have there. Sounds like it took weeks."

"Usually this kind of thing takes months," Officer Jenny of this world's police said grimly. "I've read about a group looking into past lives like this before, with about the same outcome. They had their gemstone for months before it was strong enough to change them into pokemon." The blue haired woman turned to Janice. "Why are you talking like they all aren't going to turn back on their own? That was only the case with people who either actually had those pokemon for their past lives or that matched the type of the stone naturally. Anyone else should go back to normal."

"No one in our world has energy to start with," Taichi informed the Officer dully without taking his eyes off Yutaka Kuroda. The Lycanroc had not joined either side in the fight, and had basically just been lying down with a depressed expression ever since his mother was taken in by the police back in their world. "From what we've found out that means that anything involving energy that happens to us sticks."

Officer Jenny paled considerably at that notion. "What about sleep or paralysis effects?" the blue haired woman asked faintly and Aiko wasn't sure she wanted to hear this. It did not help that she didn't know if this question might actually matter to her now that she was a monster too, just in case she could cause those.

"We think we have a method of reviving someone from them," TyranoGazimon sadly replied. "Sleep is more likely to be survivable than paralysis, and both would turn out badly if left for any real length of time."

"What happens now?" Aiko had to ask to get the conversation back to the current problem instead of future ones, and flinched as the machine turned her growls into normal words.

"We show you, Yutaka, and the Onix how to use the pendants to transform," Janice said with a serious and sympathetic tone. "The Rhyhorn is still under observation for the time being, but you three should be able to become human again. We have some more thorough methods, but they still won't turn you all the way back permanently and we want to see how you react to the pendants first. After that we try and make sure this doesn't happen again." The Troubleshooter leader turned to Taichi. "We're getting your team an advanced set of sensor systems to help with finding typed energy sources in your world for that purpose. We have priority due to the serious nature of this issue, and we will need to go over this in a bit more detail for our talks with developing monster response in your world."


Ken felt that 'flowed' described his new form of movement best. It was a complex shifting of vines, and he wasn't entirely aware of just what every one of them was doing as they carried his body in the desired direction. 'Forward' wasn't really a thing for this kind of movement, at best it described the direction his main flower was facing, but there was a lot more of his mass in those vines than in his head. His smaller flowers could actually perceive a bit, despite not having eyes. Not well enough to know anything clear, but the small amount helped a lot with deciding where to face at any given time.

"Are you sure we can't use a smaller target?" Quetzalmon asked from next to him as they traveled. Wormmon's Light Armor form was slightly unpleasant to be around, but was the best combination of strength and mobility they had found so far. "This is one of the Hacker's border power plants, they actually defend those."

Ken's Dark Spore component had ORDERS TO MAKE KEN THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA, which was not the same thing as actually being ordered to think it was a good idea, and that was a bit of a headache to deal with even if he was trying to at least pretend to do it, or maybe pretend it had been done to him. "An Ultimate form can't be properly tested against just a minor site. This is a wonderfully unprepared example of something big enough for my needs," he said out loud and hoped his partner understood what he meant.

"We have had sightings of a humanoid at this target," the serpent digimon cautioned him, and Ken kept his cringe to only a couple of his smaller flowers. "We don't have enough data to outright confirm that they are actually only as strong as a Champion."

"Then it is two birds with one stone," the Blossomon replied, and only his deception programs allowed him to keep the tone sinister instead of sarcastic.

Team Upload's territory was far more horrifying in person. The entire area was covered in active technology emitting a variety of status updates and log files that produced an alien environment compared to the normal digital world. Worse, Ken had heard the very ground itself send out a warning message of their approach well before they actually reached the crystal-like terrain.

"Ken, what's wrong?" Quetzalmon asked quietly, and Ken considered the communications block that had dropped over them on entering the area. It was a new development by Upload, unfortunately prompted by the recent information raids Wormmon had attempted under his orders.

"They've always known when we've been coming," he replied unhappily and shifted his main flower to look at the serpent digimon. "Didn't you hear that alarm? It was part of all this noise the place is putting out."

"Noise?" his partner asked sharply. "You hear noise here? The crystal places are usually too quiet."

The Blossomon froze at that realizing he was somehow breaking into the Upload communication lines. His Dark Spore component was supposed to report a number of things to his current masters, but he was fairly sure that those would not cover this new knowledge. "I might be hearing things," he grumbled, and while he didn't quite stay in character his partner clearly understood what he meant and dropped the topic immediately before his 'advisors' could catch on if they reviewed anything they could record of this conversation. "How quickly do they usually respond?" he asked, suddenly uncertain about how much this group had been letting him get away with.

He didn't have time for an answer as a number of Hackware units teleported into the area around them, a Shrine hybrid at the back of their formation. Ken did not wait for the surprisingly chatty group of polygons to get closer before he mostly instinctively forged his energy into a collection of new thorn covered vine plants that quickly attempted to spear their foes.

"Damn overpowered Grass types!" the Shrine hybrid complained, and Ken could see that Quetzalmon had not heard this as the serpent began his own attacks. "Where did the 'Emperor' even find this one?"

"Oh? Is my new form really that unrecognizable?" he asked in an attempt to use that same communications method.

"Shit," the hybrid said and suddenly the entire area went silent. That wasn't necessarily the best outcome, but he could also see that his partner had no idea that anything had happened. Quetzalmon simply continued to battle much the same as Ken himself continued to strike with vines and pollen.

"I happen to have a question," he said in the same way again. "Would you possibly know how to subvert orders that are coded into your very existence?"

That got a thoughtful expression from the humanoid Shrine, and restarted some of the simplistic conversation among the drones. "Is this a hypothetical or practical question?" she asked more calmly, but did not wait for an answer. "No, if you're asking over these comms then you probably need more than whatever you've already found." The forces against them shifted in how they were fighting slightly, making the battle a little easier to handle but also clearly making a longer fight, and Quetzalmon seemed to notice this change.

"The control device is now a part of my body," Ken admitted as he worked to hit his opponents a bit more carefully. If he worked out how to strike only hard enough to make these constructs escape then perhaps he could produce a good enough impression to get more help. "The orders are incorrect to properly work, but I still have to attempt to follow them or there is pain."

"That's pretty bad actually," the Shrine hybrid noted as she produced a number of barriers to stop their attacks. "See if you can leave some scans of yourself in a site you can afford to lose. We will need a bit to work on that kind of issue." There was brief pause as a confusing fight between his partner and a HackQuetzalmon drew everyone's attention to the two serpents awkwardly trying to outmaneuver each other. "If you were free, would all of your forces go with you?"

"The normal Spire constructs might not," he realized over this new method of speaking. "But my new machine units are entirely my own work." He considered his opponents. "You have been delaying us." Their forces were definitely strong enough to have easily rolled over his own at the start, and if this wasn't a game then that didn't make much sense.

"I want to know more about this mind control before I discuss that," she sharply replied. "Name's Alice. Leave scans of yourself in a place we can nab them, and then we'll see what happens."