A.N.: Hey, Everybody! I'm not dead. Surprise! Sorry, I haven't updated in so long and for not updating you. I just really couldn't get into the grove things. But it's summer, and I'm ready to kick this thing into finished! Lol. I'm very proud of myself I typed this 4,315 word chapter (the second shortest) all in one day, today. Even though I promised I would start writing like 4 days ago! :) Please don't kill me, and happy belated 4th of July I(better known as they day Americans turn into Pyromaniacs in the name of their country) to everybody that celebrates. Posted on: 7/7/17 (HEy lots of sevens!) Anyway enjoy this update. Yay! I guess I should mention that I caught out all the parts that Harriet wasn't present for, which helped in the reduced word count, and is probably what will happen from now one. I'm a general! Weeee!
"We passed this place before!" Sora said as they allegedly walked back to a spot they had already been at on the savanna, though Harriet couldn't tell how exactly Sora could tell because it all looked them same to her.
"You mean we walked all the way around the whole planet!" Joe asks loudly.
"That just can't be I can't walk that far can I? I'm so tired." Mimi whined softly and fell down on her knees to the ground followed by T.K. and Gomamon.
Mimi stops for a rest followed by Gomamon and Tk.
"My feet are hot." T.K. complained as Patamon came and landed on his knees.
"Looks like we're taking a break." Matt commented from where he looked down at Mimi, T.K., and their digimon.
"Well it's not like we have some place to be." Sora said from next to Matt. Izzy and Harriet took this to mean they were okay to go sit down next to one of the trees.
"Hey, Izzy what are you doing?" Dracomon asked curiously as Izzy pulled his laptop out of it's case.
"He's trying to get his computer to turn on, right Izzy?" Harriet responded and leaned against Izzy to be able to see the screen.
"Yeah, but it's still crashed and the warranties expired." Izzy muttered back. He considered scooting away but decided against it. Out of all the kids, Harriet seemed oddly attached to him.
"Hey, Izzy, I know how to get it to boot up! You've got to give it a couple of subtable adjustments." Tai shouted and took the laptop out of Izzy's hands and started banging on the back of the screen.
"Hey, Quit it! Are your brain cells malfunctioning?" Izzy yelled back snatching the computer away from Tai and running backwards away from Tai.
"Gosh, you're acting like I'm hurting the dumb thing." Tai said childishly.
"You may not be hurting it, but you could break it." Harriet told him grumpily and lay down in the grass.
"To bad your brain isn't as big as your hair. Maybe Izzy doesn't want grimy fingerprints and dents all over his computer." Sora snapped at him from behind Izzy. Harriet having said her piece choose to leave the bigger kids to argue and followed Mimi and T.K.'s example of curling up for a nap.
"Hey, everybody, get over here! Quick!" Tai yelled from where he had wondered off to. Harriet sat up from her where she was lying and looked around blearily. Dracomon handed her her glasses.
"Huh?" Izzy asked as Sora, Matt, and Joe, followed by their digimon of course, ran in the direction Tai and Agumon had gone.
"We're coming Tai!" Sora replied as she yelled. Izzy slipped his laptop back into it's back and then the remaining digimon and kids ran towards where the others had gone, coming to a stop over looking a factory that was sunk into the ground. Everybody gasped and started working to catch their breaths.
"Looks like some kind of factory." Joe pointed out, as everybody stared down at the factory in daze.
"Let's hope they can manufacture a way for us to get home." Matt quibbed. Harriet giggled slightly, and swung her and Izzy's hands.
"Hmm I wonder what the make in there?" Joe questioned as they made their way towards the Factory to investigate more.
"I don't know but, wouldn't it be great if there's a manufacturer's outlet store? They always have some killer deals." Mimi all but squealed as the group entered the Factory.
"Don't ask me how, but there doesn't seem to be anybody here." Matt commented as they first started wandering around the Factory.
"There's gotta be someone running the equipment." Sora replied a couple minutes later as they all walked passed a bunch of moving gears.
"I don't know it seems to be doing quite well all by itself." Izzy responded and looked around the corridor. Harriet hummed softly in agreement but kept her eyes focused on the ground.
"You alright, Harriet?" Izzy asked her and ran his hand through his hair.
"Yeah. This place just makes me feel… claustrophobic? I don't know. It's weird." Harriet replied and smiled up at him.
"Matt what are the machines making?" T.K. asked curiously, as they watched the machines start putting the machinery start assembling a thing made out of metal components.
"You got me. Maybe parts for robots or spaceships?" Matt replied and looked down at his brother.
"Somebody's got to be moving those belts and people gotta eat so is there a cafeteria in this place cause we could really use a good meal." Joe said and clenched his hands into fists against his chest.
"Maybe we should split into to groups to cover more ground." Gabumon suggested.
"Alright. Why don't me, Sora, and Joe go this way. And the rest of you go the other way." Tai suggested and everybody.
"What about me, Tai?" Agumon asked and started bouncing near him.
"Well of course you guys are coming with us, you guys go everywhere with us." Sora responded and everybody nodded in agreement.
Harriet hummed as she bounced down the hallway next to Matt.
"You seem very cheerful all of the sudden. What changed?" Matt asked her.
"With less people it's less crowded and therefore less claustrophobic." Harriet responded and bounced ahead of Matt with Dracomon.
"Oh hey look at this guys, it's the generator or whatever must be in." Dracomon said when the two of them came up to a door marked 'Power Supply'.
"I say we go inside and have a look around." Patamon said. Matt nodded in agreement and opened the door, making the group gasp in awe at the sight of the giant battery directly across from the door.
"I didn't know they made batteries that big." Harriet said joking and T.K. giggled. Izzy was the first to return to his senses and rushed forward into the room quickly followed by Harriet and their Digimon.
"Prodigious! A battery like that could run my computer forever." Izzy said. "I wonder if there's a way to access its power."
Everybody filed in after the four of them and stood of to the side as Izzy slowly walked around the battery.
"What are you doing, Izzy?" Matt asked curiously.
"I'm trying to tap into this power source. If I can get this baby to fire up then we can use my computer to get some help." Izzy replied, stopping in his tracks to turn to look at the five of them.
"I'll help!" Harriet shouted and dashed back towards where Izzy had already checked.
After a while, Matt and T.K. got bored and wandered off to explore the factory so more.
"Be safe! Harriet yelled to them as they left.
"You guys too. Playing with electricity can be dangerous.
"Oh, hey wait. You should mark the walls so that when me and Izzy finish up here, we can come find you." Harriet said and dashed over to them and handed Matt a marker.
"Will do." Matt replied and mocked salute as he and his part of the group left.
"Ah-ha! I've located an access panel to the interior operations." Izzy exclaimed as he pulled a hatch open in the battery only wide enough for him to see inside.
"Hey! Let me see Izzy." Tentomon called and Izzy pulled the door all the way open and walked inside with Tentomon, Dracomon, and Harriet following quickly behind.
"What exactly do you think this is?" Tentomon asked as the looked at the weird symbols all over the glowing walls.
"Those markings are binary annotations of some sort." Izzy replied as he walked closer to the battery walls. "A computer program. A very complicated program indeed."
Izzy wiped a bit of the program away, which sends the factory into darkness. Harriet followed the glowing light of his laptop and clinged to his shirt with an inaudible mummer. "That was a smooth move Izzy, scratch that theory. Could I have possibly deleted the wrong program?" Izzy asked as he typed on his laptop.
"I think that is a distinct possibility Izzy. Why don't you un-delete it?" Tentomon suggested turning from looking out the doorway towards Izzy and Harriet. "I-Izzy, can you turn the lights back on? I don't like the dark." Harriet begged.
"Right, yeah. Capital idea, a stroke of metallic paint right here." Izzy said as he uncapped a sharpie and redrew the the symbol part he had erased, causing the lights to turn back on. "Vola!"
"Thank you, Izzy." Dracomon said as Harriet disentangled herself from Izzy's shirt. Izzy took the opportunity to sit down and began messing with his laptop. Harriet moved away from him and layed down next to Dracomon.
"That's rather mysterious." Izzy commentated off handedly and looked up from the laptop.
"And just what is so mysterious about it?" Tentomon asked curiously. Harriet thought that she might detect some annoyance from the beatl-like digimon, but he was difficult to read.
"Well you see batteries are driven by an acidic chemical reaction which generates a current this one produces it's own current independently." Izzy replied, and went back to typing on his computer.
"And what does that mean in plain English? For those who didn't major in engineering." Tentomon prompted, causing Harriet to laugh.
"Give me a nano here." Izzy replied and looked up from the program again.
"I'll even give you 3." Tentomon replied.
"If I can decode this particular program then I can trace its base functions and figure a way out of here." Izzy responded before turning back to his computer.
"I admire how you keep working while your friends are out having fun. Don't you feel sort of… left out?" Tentomon prodded a few minutes later.
"Not at all." Izzy replied, and continued typing without looking up. Harriet mumbled something, but from what Izzy could tell, she was napping again.
"So you'd rather spend your time with puzzles than people?" Tentomon questioned.
"Precisely! What can be more fun than breaking a cryptogram that nobody else can figure out?" Izzy answered excitedly looking over to Tentomon, noticing that Harriet was in fact asleep.
"I can think of a lot of things like relaxing on a nice warm beach and not worrying about been trapped in a small room with no exit. But that's just me." Tentomon responded waving around. Harriet sat up sharply and looked over towards the panel that had fallen closed at some point after they had entered. Harriet stared over towards where the door should be for a minute before laying back down. Izzy found it a tad odd and made a note of it but decided not to comment.
"I'm just trying to determine how we all got to this place and I'd like to learn more about you digimon perhaps prove some of my theories." Izzy replied distractedly glancing towards Harriet. She didn't seem nearly as at ease as she had been. Maybe he should comment?
"What are you theorising about? What's the is big mystery? I am who I am. I'm not hiding anything." Tentomon questioned, and waved his arms around. Izzy shook his head a little, and refocused on Tentomon.
"Really?" Izzy asked incredulously?
"I simply can't understand this preoccupation with who you are, is there some kind of deep dark secret in your origins?" Tentomon responded.
"Oh, well…" Izzy replied but trailed off without answering, and went into some sort of a trance, gazing towards Harriet and him without really seeing them. Dracomon turned towards them curiously but didn't say anything. After all, Izzy and Harriet were both weird kids. And Tentomon hadn't commented earlier, even when he clearly detected that Harriet was being more weird than normal, the fact that Izzy hadn't was a tad… off putting.
"Izzy, Izzy?" Tentomon called, trying to regain Izzy's attention after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence.
"Oh, what did you say?" Izzy asked, snapping back to the present.
"You were off in another world. Look at the screen." Tentomon replied and pointed towards the computer screen. Harriet crawled over to look at the scrolling mess of letters and numbers too.
"Are computers supposed to do that, Izzy?" Harriet asked curiously for where she was peaking at the screen.
"Huh? No." Izzy replied when he finally refocused on the computer screen.
"It's acting rather strangely perhaps you should stop focusing on the problem and start looking for a solution. Your friends are in trouble can't you feel it in your bones?" Tentomon replied. And now that, Tentomon brought it up Dracomon recognized the sense of dread that had settled in his stomach, and it wasn't due to Harriet alone. Harriet immediately stood up and made her to where the control panel was.
"Oh, my digivice has been activated." Izzy commented when he looked to his backpack strap to see it. Harriet grabbed hers off of the waistband of her shorts to check it.
"Mine isn't. And Sora said that you guys digivolve to protect us, so why would Izzy been in danger right now if I'm not?" Harriet asked rapidly.
"I don't know, Harri." Dracomon replied.
"Tentomon to Izzymon, are you reading me?" Tentomon asked from beside Izzy. Harriet turned back to them look at them.
"This is merely scientifically speculation but I believe I've stumbled onto something more than a simple computer game and I'm about to abandon my alien theories. Well ah." Izzy replied as the changing letters and numbers shifted into some sort of graphic. Harriet and Dracomon both made their way back to Izzy to look at the screen.
"Oh my it's getting hot in here. Ow, ow! I'm burning up! Do something quickly, I'm being zapped." Tentomon cried out and started shifting from one foot to the other.
"What's going on? Hey!" Izzy asked as he stood up and watched Tentomon dancing, a blue glow emitting from his joints.
"Oh ow, I can't stand it. Help!" Tentomon begged as he frantically moved back and forth. Harriet went to touch him but Dracomon held her back.
"Whatever is hurting Tentomon, could hurt you to. Let Izzy figure it out, he does like puzzles." Dracomon told her.
"Hmm…" Izzy mused and examined his digivice in his hands. "Is it short-circuiting?"
"Oo ee mercy, yikes!" Tentomon cried and started smoking.
"Izzy help him!" Harriet yelled, her voice echoing in the battery.
"Woah." Izzy gasped as he stared dumbly at his digimon.
"I'm dancing like I've never danced before." Tentomon gritted out, though he kept dancing back and forth.
"I'm disconnecting the power." Izzy said and balled one of his hands into a fist. "Now I may never figure the mystery out now oh well."
Izzy bent over his laptop and hit the power button, finally ending Tentomon, who had still been crying out in pain, dancing and smoking.
"Oh, I don't like computers." Tentomon sighed as he slouched down.
"What happened to my digivice?" Izzy asked, after having noticed that it was no longer activated.
"Izzy, do you hear yelling?" Harriet asked softly from by the noe reopened door panel.
"No, but you're closer to the door than I am. Come on, let's go find the others!" Izzy replied and grabbed her hand to drag her out of the room.
Finding Matt, and the rest of their original group was easy, since Matt had kept true to his promise and marked the walls like Harriet had asked him to.
"Hey, everybody, you'll never guess what I just discovered!" Izzy yelled and waved his empty hand at them as they regrouped with them, still dragging Harriet along through interlinked hands.
"So what's up?" Matt asks looking at their interlinked hands. Izzy blushed and let it go of Harriet's hand. Harriet didn't look at him and instead bounced over to T.K. to chat.
"Uh… Well the computer program operating this factory is what producing the generating power to keep it going. Even more incredible in Digiworld basic data and simple information are a living, viable substance! It's alive!" Izzy shouted with his hands outstretched in front of him as Tai, and his group came running up from behind him.
"Hey, you guys, listen up!" Tai shouted and waved his hand at them.
"I don't like the tone of his voice." commented Matt.
"We have got to get out of here now!" Tai yelled as they continued approaching.
"What do you mean, Tai?" Matt called back. Harriet slipped next to Izzy and grabbed his hand again. Before Tai could explain though, a giant cyborg thing came bursting out of the ground, cutting the two groups off from each other.
"This is not good that's Andromon. He's Ultimate digimon, but I have no clue why he'd be attacking us, unless those three really made him mad." Dracomon told her.
"Or it's another Black Gear, like Meramon had." Harriet responded looking at her Digimon but not letting go of Izzy.
"Capture intruders! Sensors detect hostility! Bring intruders into firing range!" Andromon declared, stabilizing his stance, and faced Harriet's part of the group
"Ah Mr. Whatever-man, are you talking to us?" Mimi asked.
"Bring missiles to position… and fire." Andromen stated and lunched his missiles at the children, who all scattered, except for T.K.
"Matt help!" T.K. yelled as the missiles flew towards him.
"T.K.!" Matt yelled desperately wanting to help him but was Frozen in space.
"Look out! Gabumon digivolve to… Garurumon!" Gabumon yelled and changed into his Champion form.
"Oh, no!" T.K. cries and covers his head but Garurumon gets there in time to knock them away from the little boy. One of them explodes, but the other turns back to the other half of the kids, and starts firing bullets at them, making them scream and back away.
"Agumon digivolve to… Greymon!" Agumon yells and in a flash of light, Agumon turns into a bigger dinosaur. Greymon quickly destroys the second missile by knocking it away with his tail.
"Who challenges Andromon?" Andromon demands and knocks the two champions over the edge of the roof when they charge him. "Bungling weaklings."
Andromen then jumps over the side as well, and lands on the rooftop below.
"Get him Greymon!" Tai shouts down.
"Recycle that hunk of tin." Matt encourages his partner. The two champions have Andromon trapped between them and two walls.
"You puny ones dare to challenge me?" Andromon asks, facing off to Garurumon, who growls in reply.
"Lightning Blade!" Andromon yells and begins to warm up his attack. When it's fully charged he launches it towards Garurumon. "And Fire!"
The blue blade hits Garurumon above his eye, making him reel back and growls. While Andromon's back is turned, Greymon charges up his fireball and launches it at him. But Andromon turns and cuts the attack in half, rendering it useless. Garurumon uses this time to charge forward and attack Andromon as well. But Andromen just kicks his way through that attack to.
"He's more powerful than either of our digimon." Matt declares.
"Maybe cause he's all machine? It's almost like he's digivolved far beyond the other digimon." Sora tags on.
"Is it possible that we could lose?" Tai asks nervously. The kids had never lost before, not even when the digimon could only digivolve up one level.
Greymon charges towards Andromon with his mouth up but Andromon just braces his arms against his mouth to keep himself from being bit. Garurumon prepares to charge from behind, but Andromon picks Greymon up and swings him into his friend.
"He's beaten them both now!" Tai gasps. Harriet and stares down forlornly at the impromptu battlefield.
"Dracomon, can't you digivolve to help them?" Harriet asked her friend.
"I'm afraid not Harri. I'm still tired from when you snatched away. One of the others will have to come through or Greymon and Garurumon will need to rethink their strategy." Dracomon replied, staring down at his friends and bitterly wishing he could help.
"Try re-entering that program that activated your digivice." Tentomon commanded.
"What for?" Izzy asked. Harriet over at Tentomon from Izzy's side, still clinging to his hand.
"I believe that's the key to my digivolving." Tentomon responded.
"Are you sure, Tentomon? It hurt you so bad last time." Harriet asked him, her forehead wrinkled with worry.
"Yes, or this will be truly hopeless. They can't do this on their own." Tentomon replied, as Izzy worked on reinputting the code.
"Yes, it's gotta work. If I can just recall the exact sequence. We cracked the program, yeah!" Izzy muttered as he typed on his laptop once again. The code shifted and again changed into a weird graphic, that Harriet though rather looked like an island.
"Tentomon digivolve to…" Tentomon called as he was enveloped in a white light. "Kabuterimon!"
"Yeah!" Everybody shouts together, feeling hope rush back to them. They all looked back down to see that Greymon and Garurumon are still being beaten. Kabuterimon descends down towards the hostile digimon, grunting a war cry as he goes. Kabuterimon almost reaches Andromon, but the cyborg digimon notices him, and ducks to avoid him, leaving the newly transformed digimon to scrape against the ground. But it doesn't keep Kabuterimon down, and soon he's diving back towards Andromon. Kabuterimon is blocked in much the same way as Greymon, but he actually forced his enemy back.
"Bring missiles to position and fire!" Andromon yells, and launches two missiles at Kabuterimon, who is forced to fly straight up to avoid the rockets.
"Boy, doesn't that Andromon ever run out of gas?" Joe asks nervously.
"Huh." Izzy asks and looks down at his computer in concern, "That's it! Hey, oh! Cut his power! Demobilise his right leg and we'll interrupt his energy source!"
Kabuterimon doesn't reply, just takes the rockets to the chest, before zooming past Izzy and Harriet's heads a tad unstable, making the older boy laugh nervously and check his laptop.
"Electro Shocker!" Kabuterimon yells, after flying down and charging a big purple ball of electricity. The attack hits Andromon solidly in his right leg, forcing the cyborg to step back and call out in pain, as well as dislodging a black gear.
"He stripped a gear." Matt comments in awe.
"That musta hurt." Sora deadpanned in response.
"That's wicked." Tai tacks on, after the black gear flies into the air and explodes into black dust. Andromon groans and falls onto his hands and knees, and a glowing blue light to leave his eyes, turning back to a pleasant brown. After determining that Andromon is no longer dangerous the kids come down to talk to him.
"That black gear reprogrammed my systems some how I'm normally a nonviolent digimon." Andromon explains to them.
"You could have fooled us." Tai replies.
"No kidding." Sora takes on, before whispering to Joe. "I told you he's a digimon and not an android."
"I never meant to hurt anyone." Andromon states.
"It's alright Andromon. You didn't hurt us. I'm sorry that black gear made you go against your morals though." Harriet replies.
"Yeah, don't give it another thought. Hey, we all make mistakes." Matt adds on.
"I can't answer your answer your questions about how this place came to being or what it's for but I can be of some help the best way to escape from here is to follow the underground waterway the labyrinth begins just beyond this point." Andromon says after they get off the roof and back on the ground floor of the Factory, and gestures towards a tunnel.
"Thanks for your help Andromon. Tai states.
"I hope you find your way home and no matter what try to remember the big guy that turned out to be not so bad." Andromon says.
"There's a things you can count on we'll never forget you Andromon." Tai promises.
"Bye, Andromon. Thanks for your help. Try not to catch anymore black gears, we won't be around to get them out, alright?" Harriet asks and hugs cyborg like digimon. The group all climb into to the pipe and follow it until it reaches the sewer. All the kids and digimon get down well enough but Mimi gets nervous about getting down and takes forever.
"I know I can do this really I can ok ready set go." Mimi says and finally jumps down next to everybody else on the pathway.
"Ok, that only took 4 minutes. Let's get out of here." Tai says and the group begins walking away from the Factory and their newest friend.
"Am I the only one that finds strolling leisurely through the sewers a slightest bit disgusting?" Joe asks as they go.
"Joe, Mimi took forever to get down here. She thinks it's gross too. Trust me." Harriet replies.
"Hey, Harriet. Next time we settle down for the night, could I braid your hair?" Mimi asks.
"I guess." Harriet replies.
"Oh, I bet you just look the cutest with braids." Mimi squeals.
"Thanks, Mimi?" Harriet replies, though she isn't sure it's a compliment.
"You're welcome. Hey, could I call you Harri, like Dracomon?" Mimi asks.
"Sure, Mimi!" Harriet replies and beams up at the older girl.
"Just give it a few whacks that'll do it." Tai yells from behind them, advising Izzy on his computer problems again.
"Let us try." Agumon shouts, and both he and his human move forward to hit the laptop.
"Er uh oh." Izzy mutters as they come towards him, and quickly stride forward and out of their way, making to two hit each other.
"Sorry, guys, but a computer is not a toy." Izzy tells them as lumps started swelling up where they hit each other.
"Now that you boys have holes in your heads, maybe your brain will get enough oxygen." Sora tells them, making everybody laugh as they head out to their next adventure.
A.N.2: I know I switched tenses part way through here but I don't really care, and besides it works. Thanks for reading. I promise that the next one what take half a year to write (lol) but feel free to come yell at me about updates anytime, it'll get me in gear faster! Okay, I'm going to bed because I'm not non-stop so goodnight and tootles! :)
P.S.: Props to everybody who finds the rather obvious Hamilton references in the A.N.s. You're amazing.
