- A Gift of Light -
Arukenimon looked over their facility with considerable trepidation about her own plans. The Dark Emperor, as the former human was now calling himself, had allowed them some space in his border region to set up shop, along with the equipment to keep them occupied. A gift of sorts for making the right decision in the end, and the Control Spire at the centre was a warning that they were still being monitored for having made the wrong one the first time.
"The first session against their fire bird Mega went well," BlackWarGreymon sighed tiredly as he returned. "She is still as unused to fighting in that form as I am to existing at all." The construct had been worried about dealing with the Digidestined for that purpose, but also clearly excited for the chance.
"I'm glad to hear that," Yukio rumbled from the pillar their leader had taken as a place to commonly rest. The Megadramon had not done very much since that final battle, but what he had done was clearly in an attempt to make the rest of them comfortable. "Have they decided if the rest of us will be able to join in yet?"
"I don't think the rest of us are up for any sort of combat training yet," Mummymon nervously said to the serpent digimon. Even he had been dealing with this new future well too.
"I want it back," Arukenimon said aloud over the kind and helpful tones of the rest of them. "What he didn't leave in when he brought us back, the thing all of you clearly have. That damn Light the bastard hated so much he tried to make it evil with that cat." She looked at all of them, intellectually aware she was in the wrong with how she cut them all off but she was unable to feel whatever told them that without knowing it intellectually. "I want it back."
Shawn and Serperior arrived in Delta 2's Box with some unease. There had been a distinct lack of reason why they should arrive there, and with their current family issues going on the last thing either of them wanted was some complication with their sister's new body that was so bad nobody wanted to hint at it until they told them.
"So, these two are an actual Legendary pokemon?" a Furret from the development team asked as they appeared. "Because that sounds different than the stuff we've already tried with the LAS and those contained examples."
In an instant the pair of them went from casually observing to being right next to the now frozen mammal. "Delta 2, would you mind explaining what we have just heard?" they asked together with false cheer.
"We've found out one way the digimon world handles corruption equivalents," the medical Administrator told them in a tone that clearly said she had done nothing wrong. "Joe here brought it up with regards to the Digidestined's past experience with such things."
The Floatzel had the good sense to sigh unhappily about being thrown under their glares. "Goma reminded me with his new project. The Digivices have a Light contained within them we can use to purify digimon of certain effects," the Water type explained. "According to the documentation it was included specifically to clear out stuff like viruses getting into digimon that were good before."
"It isn't a great solution," Tyra added sounding a bit unhappy with the idea herself. "The Light scours the subject a bit, and if the corruption is particularly deep or otherwise has a more solid connection to the victim then it can only partially work, or even not work at all. It just burns or binds the target instead."
"We haven't seen that in practice," Delta 2 quickly specified. "But from what we have seen anyone who actually likes the changes, such as someone who willingly merged with an Analyzer from LAS, could become permanent very quickly."
"Delta 2, why are the two of us here now?" Serperior asked completely serious.
"Because I didn't want to try and tackle the issue of your Legendary form without a way to better remove corruption from someone," the Administrator replied with a sigh.
"If you wanted to wait for that I'm sure you have a really good report on what exactly you've found out about it," Shawn said a bit angrily.
Kari glared at the report she was working on. Giratina had admitted that she was able to understand a way of speaking that wasn't common for 'lesser creatures' to be able to understand, and usually in the pokemon world that meant you were at least related to a Legendary. Jane had noted that what he was talking about wasn't rare for Chosen Ones in her world, and that quite a few of their local Legendary pokemon were Champions that earned that status when they won their own League. Combined with the fact that Janice seemed to be one of the few DSS personnel that Kari knew who couldn't understand it she almost felt better about it from that information.
Unfortunately, she had then had the chance to look over the data the digital humans that Chose them to be Digidestined had on her Light. She had an entire pile of pages for her report just going over what information that group had scanned from her, and then worked out with their own access to Light energy. It had suddenly shifted her entire project to figuring out where they knew more than she did, and what parts they had gotten wrong.
The top page was both the part they had been most wrong about, and the part that she was the least comfortable with. The various documents on her had a clear split between her as a person, and the vast amount of Light she had. The first one was always called "the 8th Digidestined", apparently because they decided to hold off on actually using her when they discovered that the others did not have the same Light. Her power however was chillingly called the "Sea of Light" in the documents, just like what Dagomon and Giratina had both called her. The top page specifically listed all of the times when each of those names appeared in the documents, including a number that clearly implied that the Sea was in the 8th, but not a part of her.
That was actually the strangest part honestly. Kari simply had no idea what part of the scans made them think she was some Light creature inhabiting a human, or a human with a Light creature inside of them. That was honestly half the reason she was glaring at that particular page, it clearly was the case that she was some sort of eldritch Light being in human form, but those developers had been extremely careful to keep her human and Light parts separate in the document itself.
She looked down at her arm, which she flickered deliberately a couple of times between her forms. It was still really hard to keep her body in one form or another, but she honestly could not tell which she was in at all. It was a real problem, and she was starting to think that the only reason nobody had reacted to it in class was that she wasn't actually changing, just looking different to people who knew she could be either. They both were her body in the same way, she could always feel both of them at once. She could feel the Light energy was hers just like that, a part of her body like her tail or other limbs.
"Kari, I need some help on a new issue related to your current project," Tai said from outside the office she shared with Gatomon. He then rounded the corner with of all people Arukenimon. Mummymon and the human form of the new Megadramon quickly followed the two of them, and she could see her sister tense at their presence. "Arukenimon wants to go to the Dark Ocean and ask Dagomon for a favor."
Kari carefully checked her senses to look at the mix of Dark and Light in the former minions. Megadramon had the sharp Dark energy of a Control Spire, a tiny chunk of damaged Light energy that was a bit smaller than she typically saw in humans from her world, and a few cracks between the two where he was clearly still recovering from Myotismon's possession. Mummymon was flakes of Light in a mostly Dark digimon, but it did seem to be the case that the Light energy was growing from a formerly smaller amount. Arukenimon on the other hand. "I don't really see what a Dark energy infusion would do for you," she said aloud. "You don't really have any Light at all for more of it to work with, and from both Dagomon's comments and these reports you really need a bit more or just adding Dark is only going to give a slight power boost."
"Kari, I'm pretty sure there are plenty of digimon that grab Darkness for a boost," Gatomon grumbled, the cat digimon apparently returned to a normal mood by her comment.
"Yeah, but most of them have at least a little Light to work with," she specified. "Even if they don't by the end of things the reports seem to indicate that is because you can make a lot of one kind from a bit of the other. I know we probably could have used less to get everyone to Mega from how it went, I was getting some more Light out than I was taking Dark in." Kari looked back at the uneasy collection of former minions. "So I don't know if Dagomon can actually help you out with that sort of thing."
Arukenimon blinked at that statement. "You have documents on adding Light energy to digimon?" the spider woman asked uneasily, and Kari had to cringe at that particular question.
"Unfortunately yes. From the group that made the Digivices and our partners," she said glumly. "Do you know how adding too much Darkness can have bad effects on a digimon?"
"I'm quite sure your group encountered some of the less capable members of the Dark Masters' forces," Mummymon said to confirm. "Although I'm not too sure you paid that close attention."
"Light energy can be just as bad," the BlackGatomon said, and for this topic she wanted her own Dark form enough to hold it. "The best of the bad cases just went mad. I'm not quite sure how Davis is going to take what looks to be the origin of Gargoylemon, or why it has so many of those bindings to keep it from just acting on its own. I know he isn't like that in that form, but..."
"But it is like a new cybernetic enhancement to a digimon line. The original sets the evolution, but has to get it the hard way," Arukenimon finished for her. "I take it worse ones include exploding? That's typical with both cybernetics and Darkness."
"Technically becoming a pillar of Light that needs special equipment to remove before it scours the entire facility is like exploding," Kari allowed.
"I suddenly feel a lot less safe," Gatomon said a bit faintly at that admission, and everyone present looked quite queasy at the statement. "I take it this is related to Patamon dying the first time?"
"Hope is a way to make Light," she answered and started shifting the papers carefully to not mess up the stack while still getting the one she wanted. "It's a long story there, and it doesn't entirely work the way they said it does from what I've actually seen," she confessed as she found the page.
"Is there enough detail there to let one of you give someone Light?" Arukenimon questioned in a way that made clear just what she was after.
"You know Dagomon is interested in that idea then," Kari dully replied, and made sure to give a feline glare to each of the three former minions. Mummymon looked a bit panicked by the mention of that particular not-digimon. "He also is a giant kid who cheered me on as I blew holes in his world, and tried to help me make bigger blasts."
"You say that like you actually met him," Arukenimon said unhappily. "We only intended to go to the Dark Ocean and find how Mummymon got the Light he has now, not try and track down a digital god."
Kari heard that statement and felt quite a bit of sympathy for the DSS Porygon. "I had the unfortunate luck to end up born with enough Light that I apparently count as something like family to him," she grumbled about that particular theory listed in the notes specifically about the 'Sea of Light' in comparison to the nature of the Dark Ocean. "In fact he'd probably be a little upset if we didn't let him know you wanted to give yourself Light, and very upset if we leave him out of this." Her siblings both looked like they were unhappy with that idea, while Mummymon actually fell to his knees in horror at the statement.
"He's the one who managed to convince her to go here first," Megadramon explained, and it took him speaking for Kari to realize she didn't actually know his human name. "We were hoping that you had another solution."
"I'm not letting any of you go there without Giratina at a minimum," Tai said with a hand over his face. "And you have to convince them to let a creator of another universe to tag along before I ask him."
"Alright, it has taken me the better part of an hour, but I've managed to get into the right one of your little worlds," the Mew that had declared Shawn and Serperior a Legendary pokemon said midway through setting up a digital world to test the corruptive abilities of their Ultimate form. "All it took was convincing a creator of the universe to help."
"Okay, that's nice. Any particular reason you needed to do that?" Joe asked dully, then tipped his ears as he identified the pokemon. "You aren't here about how Nurse Joy and Beatrice are still swapping bodies are you?"
"Oh no, not that Mew again. No, I am not here to fix his damn mess," the cat pokemon complained. "Beatrice?" he then grumbled quietly. "Humans and their names for pokemon."
"Not sure we actually have any humans around here," TyranoGazimon said jokingly. "Or at least any that weren't pokemon to start." She looked over at the now much more nervous Furret that was going to be assisting as a subject. "Let me guess, you found out some stuff about converting people they attack into corrupted minions?"
"Please tell me I have not arrived just in time to test things," the Legendary sighed. "This kind of thing makes me want to just leave this whole Legendary pokemon mess to other people."
"But then everyone else causes problems until someone gets you," Shawn and Serperior said together. The Mew glared at the pair of them. "We tried to have a vacation once, it didn't work."
"We have a possible way to counter the effects," Joe noted to try and drag things back to the topic. "I for one would appreciate some more help on the pokemon side of things, but preliminary testing shows that it should work just fine on what these two can do. At a minimum it can clear off the side effects from exposure to the long term environmental effects."
"Falling into a pool of sludge and then losing track of where you end and it starts is a lot weirder than you'd think," the Furret said. "Not really looking forward to being molten again, but it s the job."
Most of the group looked uncomfortable with that statement. "Okay, yeah, that is odd when it happens," the Mew agreed. "I personally would not have advised attempting that, but you look to have shaken off the Poison type. That is actually fairly impressive given that context." He looked slightly unhappy. "Which means now I need to stick around to see whatever you're using for this."
"It is from my world," Joe specified, then blinked as something occurred to him. "You do know that there is another universe involved here, right?"
Shawn and Serperior took the time the others then spent explaining everything to the Legendary to change to their added Poison type forms, and then fuse into Basirablemon once more. The two of them were mildly amused to note that Joe and the Mew seemed to be getting along rather well as the discussion progressed. "So, are we sticking just with the toxins, or do we cover the thorns too?" they asked together when they judged enough information to have been covered.
"What thorns?" Joe and Tyra both asked in a matching set of annoyed tones.
"I did not try to mess with the plants," Furret added uneasily. "I've already had to be a Grass type mushroom thing for Alpha 45's stuff, I do not want to go with that again."
"You guys aren't even going to be surprised to learn that corrupting others has turned out to be a thing even normal pokemon can just learn to do, are you?" the Mew asked upon hearing that detail. "The older Mew I met with about that wouldn't even explain that much without first making sure I could transform other pokemon along with myself."
"One of the Administrators actually got permission to try that once," Tyra said dubiously. "That didn't last long once they started getting actual results, but just last week they asked to try again now that I'm on the medical staff." She looked over both of the Legendary pokemon in the room. "I'd recommend that you find a way to not appear in our reports on this, or you might end up recruited to help them," she told the Mew.
"Honestly I might as well distribute this knowledge to people that can and would use it," the floating cat pokemon admitted unhappily. "Especially the part about how to remove your energies from a target yourself."
"Explain, now," the blue eyed head of Basirablemon demanded.
The creature that had just arrived was made of shadow and gold as far as Arukenimon could tell. Giratina also was the most clearly 'not a digimon' creature she had ever met, with a strange power flowing off him that she could not recall experiencing before. It felt like what ghost like digimon tried to be, something that was truly dead but also still there to make problems.
"I can see the issue," the alien god said after looking at her and Mummymon for a long moment. "And why most would miss it. The two of them are not quite reincarnated, not quite restored to life, and I can see the path the one who revived them took to remove what he did not want them to have." One of the red clawed wings made out of shadows themselves drew closer to her. "There are flakes of Light left, although I'm not really aware of their specific effects. Remains of when she had those parts removed, which look normal because it was done as she was being revived. The holes were filled, but the cracks were not properly patched." He turned to look at the leader of the Digidestined. "I understand Myotismon's evil much better now. That monster did not intend them to last a long time."
"So we have to give her some Light then?" the BlackGatomon asked disappointedly. The Dark cat digimon at least had given some rather good reasons why she was hesitant to do that, but Arukenimon still had to level a glare at her for that comment.
"There are likely other options, but if that is the one she wants then we should at least determine if it can be done," Giratina confirmed. "Dagomon also needs to be questioned on how he already partially corrected the issue with Mummymon. Although in that case I'm more concerned with how carelessly that appears to have been done. I have some personal history with this kind of unrestrained experimentation, although in my case it is anger problems more than Science problems." The arachnid digimon/human hybrid shuddered at the implications of a creature like this having that kind of problem. "Not to mention I have been reminded that Legendary creatures are safer if they know how to use all of their abilities."
"You mean me, don't you?" BlackGatomon asked, and the other Digidestined looked upset with that possibility.
"Yourself, and the 'snake twins'. I have just sent a Mew to the two of them to deal with an even less palatable ability of the same kind," Giratina said sympathetically. "If properly developed you three might be able to use such a skill to save others," he then added with a meaningful look to the odd sphere the Dark cat had on a belt.
"I'm not sure Wizardmon would take being a Light digimon better than a Ghost pokemon," the normal Gatomon said, and Arukenimon realized with some horror who exactly she had been fighting. She had no doubt heard this detail before her memories were restored, as Dark Tyranomon had complained about the cat monster, but this was the first time she was confronted with the context of who the digimon of Light was.
"Wait, you were Myotismon's Gatomon?" Mummymon questioned far less tactfully than Arukenimon appreciated. "How did you keep Dark Tyranomon from killing you?"
"By being too dangerous for her to actually kill," Gatomon replied with a surprising amount of regret. "For what it s worth, I'm sorry I didn't try and help you two after I decided to go against him."
"Didn't even know you had the chance," Arukenimon grumbled at her. "We were stuck at the edge of the area he had staked out, and honestly the plan was for none of the rest of us to get there until-" She cut herself off from the wrong thing to say right here.
"What exactly is Kari learning to do here?" the Digidestined's leader asked, and apparently meant BlackGatomon. "Actually, considering how things have gone so far, is that something I might need to learn too given I'm her brother?"
"Technically she's the only one with the active concern as far as I'm aware, unless you have exposed others to Light before to the point where they had their properties altered," Giratina specified, and the various Digidestined groaned aloud at that suggestion. "I'll take that as a yes. This relates to..." The monster trailed off. "Energy infusion. You guys are having a problem with your entire world about that, aren't you?"
Arukenimon did not really know if they did, or where one would come from, but judging by how unhappy the leader looked with that question she figured it would hurt her chances to get her Light back to ask.
Furret braced for what came next. Basirablemon was a lot more intimidating in person, but there wasn't the dull allegiance he had felt when he had been exposed to this Legendary's power yet. The pits of black toxic sludge were unnerving, and he was not looking forward to being made of that gunk again. The most unpleasant part was strangely enough going back to having a solid body instead of just goo. "I'm ready when you are," he declared.
The two headed Legendary easily flung a rather small glob of the toxic sludge, just smaller than Furret's head, right into his face. Then the half familiar sensation of his body breaking down starting from where it landed, and before he even finished melting into a proper form he focused on his ruler with all of his attention.
"Okay, no, we're not leaving that running," Basirablemon rumbled with both voices, and suddenly Furret's mind was his own again. Which was actually a major problem for him, because without that alteration he was suddenly entire aware of what being molten felt like while it happened instead of after the fact.
"Turn me back, turn me back," he started to panic and move towards the Floatzel. "Turn me back now!" Before he could flow very far he found part of the control return and remove all of his capacity to move.
"You are contagious right now," the blue eyed head of Basirablemon said bluntly as the root god leaned down to look at him directly. "Please keep your panic from making the problem worse."
"This is why we prefer the direct approach to dealing with corruption," the red eyed head sighed. "Victims are a lot easier to contain if they're bound in vines."
"I don't think any have melted before," the blue eyed one continued as the medical professionals finally moved to make him stop being sludge. He soon found himself feeling the scouring light of the strange device the Water type had somehow both stripping sludge off of him while also rebuilding his body.
"Okay, please do not give me my mind back next time," Furret said shakily as he managed to stand up again. "Because it is a lot worse when I'm not out of it from that."
"We do not like controlling someone like that," the two headed Legendary said together. "In fact, we are now fairly sure when exactly you tried this before given this context on what that sensation was."
"Mind control is an atypical result of this sort of thing," the Mew added with a sigh. "But generally wild mental alterations are serious changes for this sort of thing. I must admit I'm reluctant to just let you try without suppressing that aspect, but from the sounds of things that issue is more common among these 'corrupted' creatures."
"I think I might have an idea on how to get him back to normal without using the Digivice, at least from us," the blue eyed head of Basirablemon said thoughtfully. "If we did let you stay under control we should instead be able to take everything back instead."
"That should be possible given your Legendary status," the cat like Legendary agreed. "Although weaker creatures, pokemon and otherwise, tend to have more difficulty with that option."
"As long as I don't have to be fully aware during it I'm up for it," Furret more demanded than allowed. "That was horrible."
"Honestly, I'm glad it went that way. Other results are showing that if you were more okay with it we might have had a harder time turning you back," the patchwork rabbit-lizard medic grumbled.
"Leaving the control will definitely make it a bit easier to turn him back ourselves," the red eyed head noted with an unhappy rumble.
The collection of nervous digimon, approximately two humans, and one pokemon waited for Dagomon for a bit longer than most of them expected. The massive sea monster took a look at the group briefly, and then only really seemed to care about Kari and Giratina. "Sea of Light, Strange One," he greeted the pair of them. "You have returned. Subjects?" the local ruler then asked with a brief interested glance at the others.
"Arukenimon, I need you to give me something to call you other than a test subject," Kari darkly asked the digimon in a quiet hiss.
"Would calling me that help?" the spider digimon unhelpfully questioned.
"We aren't test subjects," Tai sighed. "Why does my sister get the title while Giratina is just 'Strange One'?"
"Tai, what the heck are you talking about?" Gatomon quickly asked the sibling present who she had not expected to start saying strange things.
"Sibling of Light?" Dagomon questioned with considerable interest, and suddenly started to pay attention to Tai as well. "Has fragment of Sea's Light, given willingly?"
"I understand the same stuff Kari does," Tai mostly complained while his little sister looked rather relieved to not be alone in talking to Dagomon. "We are here to give some to Arukenimon," he then said aloud and pointed at the spider. "We wanted to see if you could help, and to let you see how we did it and why."
"And I will be staying for a bit longer to speak with you about some serious matters," Giratina added and the fact that the Ghost/Dragon was now in his legless form was a surprise to Arukenimon's group of digimon/human hybrids.
Dagomon then looked at those three monsters one by one, before focusing on Mummymon. "Ah! Other subject wants Light too. Asked for gift?" the Dark ruler asked Kari.
Kari groaned at this line of questioning. "Yes, she has asked me to give her Light like you did to Mummymon. I figured that you would want to know about that," she responded.
Dagomon nodded at that. "Appreciation," he intoned, and then attempted to explain what he had done to the undead digimon.
Somewhat unexpectedly it ended up being Tai that was the best able to translate what was being explained into something the others could understand. "I still have to pick this sort of thing apart from the reports everyone is giving me, and we just added a second tech that only seems to make that issue worse," was his simple reply as Giratina took that translation and found a method that hopefully would let Kari more effectively fix Arukenimon's issue.
The actual act itself was not very visually impressive for anyone involved, except from a technical standpoint on the part of those that could more accurately sense the energy changes. Arukenimon's reaction to having a good amount of Light again on the other hand was quite dramatic, as the previously deadly serious woman quickly moved to hang onto Mummymon as if her life depended on it and paled considerably. "Oh god what have I done?" she asked faintly.
"I'm fairly sure that I've caused more problems for people than you have all things considered," Gatomon grumbled. "Is this a side effect or something?"
"Likely the mental changes are a bit harsher than she implied," Giratina noted uncertainly. "Or possibly she did not fully understand the emotions that she was experiencing differently."
"I wasn't feeling them at all dammit!" the spider monster declared. "Now at least I know why I was never really able to enjoy myself. I'm so sorry, Mummymon."
"Is she going to get better from this?" said undead digimon asked, earning a smack from her. "Nevermind, she's just panicking."
"Asshole, you are a massive asshole for not trying to fix this sooner," she complained at him.
"I didn't know what the problem was," he argued, and the rest of those present sighed at this result.
"Ungrateful," Dagomon said after joining in the group sigh. "Common after gifts. Do not expect," he warned Kari, who had not in fact expected any.
"We still have to go over the rest of things," Tai reminded all of them, even if he was rather unhappy with that reality.
The black tar monster that Furret had once again become happily looked at Basirablemon, and then looked slightly worried as the tar began to pull away from his body. As it left his tail the appendage seemed to rise out of the relatively wide and flat pool it had become, despite that same pool moving forward as if it had been a covering instead of the physical aspect of his body. This process of the sludge appearing to be removed continued until a rather confused looking and no longer corrupted Furret was left behind, and the sludge itself then disintegrated into fragments of data.
"Okay, that honestly didn't feel as bad as the other way to turn back," he said shaking his head, then frowned as Joe and Tyra moved in to check him more thoroughly. "Although it was admittedly a bit stickier feeling."
"That's unfortunately because you've done this too many times," Mew commented. "Good news, you can now safely say you need to stop attempts. Bad news, if you end up turned by them again you might keep some of that sludge when it s over."
"Not quite," Joe noted. "There does seem to be some of the corruption sticking to him, but I've seen Delta 2 treat this level of it before even without using this new method."
"Yeah, honestly this isn't even the worst case I've personally seen, and I don't think it has even been six months since I started here," TyranoGazimon agreed. "I can honestly treat this little contamination right now in the field."
Mew looked at the pair of them darkly, and then turned to the two headed Legendary present. "Congratulations, now I have another reason to send pokemon here. Not only do you have experience with handling this sort of ability beyond what most Legendary pokemon I know have, but now I know you can fix some of the side effects I've actually been told could not be fixed," he said to the pair. "In fact, this only means we need to be more sure that you in particular know as much as you can about your abilities in this field."
"Is the fix for the residue something we could learn?" Shawn asked with a rumble.
"Or is this going to be another 'don't do this thing when you are the original cause' issue?" Serperior added.
"We will see," Tyra dully told the pair.