- State of the Worlds -
"I had been sure my team was mostly human before this," Teal said along with a rattle of ice crystals as he took on a Wendrago form. Digital World Response had moved to the Troubleshooter Lab after finishing their medical check, and the rest of them had gathered to get on the same page.
"Well I thought that if my team was human then I should be human too, right?" Adrian noted with a curious look at the glacial dragon. "Now that we're all pokemon I should stay a pokemon," the Mawile added with a nod.
"I'm pretty sure that just having pokemon feet isn't enough to make me a pokemon," Pam complained, the frowned as she heard her Scyther grumble something about that change being more than that. "Well it is mostly just my feet," she shot back at her pokemon.
"I was going to say that being caught by a pokeball is the only requirement, but being able to understand us too is another big one," Adrian replied with a bit of excitement.
"I didn't think there were many of you that weren't Champions," Jane noted to the Ice/Dragon to try and avoid that conversation a little longer. "But, well you are only the second Wendrago I've properly met."
"I'm nowhere near Champion combat readiness," Teal quickly said to the actual regional Champ. "I have seen the things we keep sealed in Flameheart, and how dangerous they are is a big reason why I'm not helping with the melting issues right now. They are still a risk of the glacier when it is properly sealed, let alone right now." There was a fairly loud clinking as he shuddered at the idea.
"If you aren't up for Champion combat then you've possibly stumbled onto the wrong threat," Shawn and Serperior darkly stated. "Ultimate digital life forms are Legendary equivalents." The pair was clearly still upset with Strip Mine's antics
"Most corruption isn't that bad," Quagsire grumbled. "Please don't scare off one of the better teams helping with these messes." She then glared at the very spiky dragon. "Even if they are yet another group of pokemon leading teams of pokemon."
"I'm mostly surprised this is another two trainers that were already pokemon beforehand," Jack said as he finished getting the monitor array set up with the data they had collected about the overall issue. "Although admittedly you two did know you were pokemon, instead of having to find out well after the fact."
"I now have several questions about why you have so many pokemon teams with pokemon-trainers," Teal sighed. "However, we should probably focus on this new threat instead."
"In that case I probably should make sure everyone is on the same page with what the problem actually is," Quagsire agreed with a nod at the Decidueye, who started the presentation. "First of all, the vast majority of these issues are simply the result of various groups deciding to try digital world creation on a system with some sort of contamination that produces corrupt or unexpected digital life forms." Her description was accompanied by a series of images, including a graph of the kinds of issues found.
"A good number of times that has simply been parts of their systems coming to life, and the resulting creatures having errors that needed correcting," Grant continued with a nod towards TyranoGazimon. "Our medical staff has managed to make a common set of corrections for those issues."
"The actual combat issues they have are mostly just viruses and bad systems that were already there, with the day to day issues DSS already faces being the big problem for them," Quagsire continued with a nod to her former trainer. "Janice, I think you older Troubleshooters are far too used to having Administrator Porygon around. Places without digital Legendary pokemon can't find those kinds of threats as easily, and we've had to spend a lot of effort hunting them down."
The LAS then moved forward slightly. "The suggestion is unpleasant, but we might need to look into augmentation using my analyzers to support these operations," the Jellyfish shaped corrupted Porygon noted unhappily. "Data manipulation capacity and increased sensor capability are valuable for that task."
"I've heard of some groups who've found a way to get something like that," Teal nervously admitted. "Just secondhand rumors so far. I might be able to dig into that more."
"Please do, that might be the result of corruption effects. Probably is actually given LAS here technically counts as one," Tyra firmly declared. "We need to check anything like that out just in case." She glared at Pam's feet.
"Okay, that one I get. Um, wait a second, how long has that been there?" Pam questioned and then started to try and grab something in front of her face.
"If that is little numbers about your energy levels, then those are normal for the changes that happened to me," her Scyther sighed.
"The next big threat is from systems that were previously known to have an issue resulting from them that has since been incarnated," Quagsire continued before that discussion could progress any further. "Those have some metaphysical weight to them, and several resulted in threats that took Shawn's intervention to deal with here at DSS. Which leads to the next issue, the ways groups have done it wrong." The set of images changed to show several scenes and documents that caused the other Troubleshooters to curse. "While most of the people making or attempting to use these worlds are quick about cleaning up these issues, a few have simply let them sit until the functionality of the system breaks down. That means that we end up fighting high end Rookie or even Champion stage corruption by the time they call for help."
This statement caused a bit of confusion for the Digital World Response group, and led to an explanation of the originally digimon based scale for digital life form power levels.
"Right, so the worst cases we've actually seen so far are people who aren't just ignoring any issues, but setting them up to try and make a hazardous digital life form deliberately," Jack added unhappily. "I've found two sites that the police have handled themselves that were directly making viral digital life forms to damage targets when paid to do so."
"To be fair there are some that are being made to help. Things like Strongarm, Golden Guard, and PowerLoad," Adrian countered, although the Steel/Fairy type sounded like he was looking for some good news to go with the bad.
"PowerLoad is a kind of item storage digital life form," A-0 dully told the pokemon. "They are one of our rivals, technically, and only include defenses as part of the requirements we standardized for such services."
"And those other two are both still pending official approval right now," Jane huffed with a bit of fire. "Honestly I've barely gotten any replies from those groups about how they are operating."
"We are about to take some more direct action on that front," Jack darkly added, an odd chill emanating from the Grass/Ghost type. "Jane, would you mind trying to pull the League into helping us clean house here?"
"I've already started with what I can do, although the other Champions were rather interested to hear about there being corrupt police locally," the Charizard replied. "There were a few holes in the events leading up to the glacier attack, although I'm not happy with how at least one of those 'holes' was one of my dad's 'friends'. I've had mom check to see if any of the stuff we have is from these auctions, and she's already worried some might be." The Fire/Flying type paused for a moment. "She's also confusing the neighbors because she's still a Venusaur, and they've seen my League matches now."
"Wait, your mom is a Grass type?" Adrian boggled.
Quagsire looked over her team as they prepared to move on the various sites that Strip Mine had been traced to so far. In particular she looked at her digimon teammate. "Tyranomon, are you sure you're up for more combat?" she asked the still typeless dinosaur.
"My digimon nature has proven to resist corruption exposure better than the rest of you," he replied with a tired sigh. "I do not wish to leave you without someone who can be a physical distraction."
"You still want to find a non-combat profession though," Kabutops noted quietly as the others stopped what they were doing to listen.
"I do, but I remember Arukenimon and Mummymon. My last free moments as an Agumon were still somewhat forced, but an unwilling combat instructor was still better than an unthinking slave weapon," Tyranomon rumbled in reply as he rubbed the scared patch on the back of his neck. "She was a stuck up idiot, but he had been a great fighter. My training was nowhere near as good as what this world expects, but..." He trailed off and looked over to the collection of wires making up Gazimon's reformed Dark Network. "I merely had to see the losses of those who took my classes. I have avoided thinking of those days because so many simply disappeared like those two did one day. Even that much involvement makes me feel as if I need to make up for my failing to protect them. I cannot imagine how Gazimon has survived thinking himself responsible for it."
"Tyranomon, you don't have to make-" the team's amphibian trainer began, only to be cut off by Grant.
"Quagsire, it isn't about fixing what you broke before," the fossil said with his eyes looking towards the past. "It is about trying to fix the future to even out your impact."
"It is also about protecting those I am fond of," the dinosaur countered. "I had liked the young digimon that became Mummymon, but I was not the one to protect him from harm. The four of you I have the strength and skill to aid still." He paused for a moment. "Also I do not trust Grant or Dugtrio enough to leave you and Kabutops with them."
The three domes of the team's pure Ground type grumbled with a mixture of annoyance and acknowledgement, while Grant simply nodded in agreement.
"So, we have two Legendary pokemon," Pam noted as they watched the feed of the mostly fossil pokemon team attacking what had been their chosen foe. "Does that mean we should be able to catch up to fighting these Legendary corruption?"
"There is a literal League of difference between a common Legendary like me and what you'd need a Champion to handle," Teal sharply replied.
"Not to mention that Registeel is currently configured for data manipulation," Adrian added with a sigh that used both his smaller mouth and his larger one at once. "I'll be honest here, I'm not the fighting type when it comes to pokemon. I know that's rare, and technically the only other one I actually know about in this region has basically gone human full time, but it still means I don't have the knack that normal pokemon have for training, let alone actual human trainers." The final statement clearly said in a way that did not include the other two.
"My trainer is still mostly human," Scyther grumbled. "Even if she's apparently far enough gone to understand this conversation."
"I've stopped speaking human?" Teal asked with some concern at that notion.
"Most people here aren't even going to notice that," the Floatzel medic noted as he walked up to their group. "Apparently the translation machine isn't a year old, but between that and the Administrators you can't really go anywhere around the Troubleshooters and not understand the pokemon around you." They gave this pokemon a look for that strange ending to the sentence. "I turn into one, and despite by brother's complaints about how much time I'm like this I still consider myself human. From what I've heard that is the more important part."
"Really?" Adrian asked with just a bit too much interest.
The otter monster looked critically at the fey pokemon's reaction. "That is the more important part, not the only part," he clarified carefully, but that did nothing to stop the somewhat sinister thoughtful expression on the Mawile. "Anyway, I'm here to let you know your scans have been processed." He reached into a bag he had strapped to his back, and tossed another bag marked as a medical kit with an additional Porygon shaped symbol next to the typical markings. "If you aren't going to come to a facility setup for digital corruption then at least keep this thing properly stocked up."
The Wendrago had easily caught the bag, and started to look through its contents. A small scanner attached to a manual was the only item the Ice/Dragon actually removed from the bag. "I think I see," Teal rather darkly stated as he carefully paged through the manual. "We had a lot of contamination then?"
"The only one of you who doesn't, your pokemon teams included, is Adrian. He just has a minor case of something Delta 2 called a 'binding burse'," Joe answered with some confusion on the final term. "Apparently it is a Fairy type ailment that relates to something trying to alter their natures against their will?"
"I was already doing something for that actually," the Mawile admitted a touch nervously. "Sometimes being human like I was causes issues. Humans have to do some funny things."
"I haven't even been one and I can tell that is the wrong way to say that to this group," Scyther grumbled.
"Please don't say that like that, you turning human is in fact something I need to worry about happening," the Floatzel said dully. "I have entire plans for that happening to the pokemon and digimon I meet now, because I have seen it happen before."
"Oh, you are one of those people," Adrian said moving as far as he could away from Joe.
"I hate how that is a genuine and justified reaction," Joe complained then noticed something on the feed from the battle.
"Error! Danger level exceeds prior intelligence!" the corruption said aloud, more clearly than Quagsire was used to hearing. The creatures this time had in general been a lot less damaged, and while that meant less random acts of infection and destruction, the better quality was making them harder to stop.
"Quagsire, I think we might want to bring in someone who can actually get some data out of these ones," Kabutops shouted as he attempted to take one down non-lethally for that reason.
"Hopefully they might have some data on if Strip Mine's copies were here," Grant said as their other fossil back-clawed one of the enemies.
"The Corrupt Destroyer is not here!" one of their foes called out, and the rest froze and gave a small error about incorrect information release. "Error. Information restriction files not found," the one that spoke as it visibly glitched.
"That was a title," Tyranomon grumbled. "And from what I saw of Shawn's footage I doubt that she is the type to make the repairs these have received."
"Corrupt King file transfer identified-" the same enemy said as part of an error checking process, but cut off as they were destroyed by the closer corruption. Quagsire's team did not even pause at this display, as that kind of infighting was actually fairly common among less damaged corruption. It was a common response for bad error correction, and according to the Dev team likely a misguided attempt to stop and restart the corruption.
"Joe said that he spotted you having some data issues?" Gazimon suddenly asked as the rabbit digimon-Porygon hybrid appeared right in the middle of the fight. He then followed that up with a wave of dragon fire that covered his evolution into Youkomon. "What's the plan?" the now fox shaped digimon asked.
"They have intel on multiple corruption that apparently have titles," Quagsire quickly told him, and then cringed as their foes started to just wildly attack themselves. "And someone seems to have set up a self destruct in case of discovery."
"So time isn't on our side," Youkomon sighed as he forged a number of panes into existence and started to attempt to stop the fight. "Huh, these guys have been fixed a lot more than it looks. I think this might be an even larger problem somehow."
"Really, I couldn't guess that corruption actually being capable of telling what other corruption are was a bigger issue," the salamander pokemon complained. "Team, take them alive. We can let the Dev team help pull their data."
"We are looking for any information that teams handling digital world issues have on coordinated attacks by hostile digital life forms," Jack said to the phone line being displayed by Shawn's terminal. "Any behavior could be important."
"Strip Mine has ransomed back some digital life forms and pieces of equipment she's 'eaten'," Janice said from where she was inspecting reports the Investigator had already collected while the Troubleshooter teams went about directly investigating the sites Gazimon had traced the clones as originating from. "Her functionality appears to be fairly complete for a corruption, but it looks like she has had time and support to reach that point. Earlier attacks by her lack the ransom, and include mention of errors when she tried to consume things. She was apparently particularly bad when they first incarnated her origin system."
"No luck with the data analysis of the corruption, best I can say is that whoever upgraded this group knew what they were doing," Gazimon reported from the latest target. "They had more data on where Strip Mine had gone, but that is just another of the target sites, and honestly it looks like there were still at least three key sites she went to the rest of these from."
"I've had a look at the paths," Shawn said with a shake of his head. "I think she's gone nomadic. The only thing she'd need for a base is somewhere to keep the stolen materials, assuming of course she actually is stealing instead of destroying."
"Alright," Jane said tiredly as she finished listening to the update, with a glance over to Jack as the Investigator moved on to the next corruption fighting group on their list to call. "I'm going to need some work on dealing with corruption in fights. Shawn, Serperior, are the two of you up for a real corruption fight?"
The two snake eyed Troubleshooters glared at her. "Are you and your team up for melting into toxic goo monsters?" Serperior asked gruffly.
"Some of the results are not entirely molten," the LAS sighed. "Although I must admit it is nice to not be the one asked."
"You two are the biggest threat of the kind we've got, and I need my team to at least theoretically be able to deal with the real deal," the Charizard Champion said firmly. "Being messed with by that stuff is the entire point of this training idea."