Sorry to leave everyone on a cliffhanger, but I needed a good place to end that last story, and where I had it just seemed to fit right. I certainly hope this makes up for it. The ending will resolve a few things and could very possibly finish off my series. I'm still not entirely certain.
Digimon and related characters copyright someone else, except for Angstmon, and Gothicmon. I make no claims of ownership except on the aforementioned characters, and am making no money on this.
What do you think of all this lovely WaFFy stuff? Tell me at DeMachina@cs.com Flamers: Don't bother. MSTers: Please don't. Regular R&R: Always a pleasure.
Rika and Renamon: Termination?
Chapter 3: Trial by Firewall
By: Gabriel
"Now tell me, Miss Nonaka, what do you think the root of this unnatural passion is?" The room was made to appear nice. Wood paneled, tastefully decorated with imitation Victorian furniture, plenty of natural light from the two large windows in it. The entire thing looked like a colorization of a photograph of Sigmund Freud's office. In fact, the man asking the question looked a little like Sigmund Freud, he was dressed for the part, and he had the beard and glasses down. However, the one lying on the couch near him was nothing like you'd expect to see on a couch in Victorian era Austria. It was Rika Nonaka, stripped of her usual blue jeans and broken heart t-shirt. She was wearing instead a very plain institutional gray jumpsuit, with soft gray shoes that were more cloth than anything else. Her hair had been taken down from it's usual spiked look and was now laying long and tangled, against the couch, in mockery of the long and perfect hair her mother had always wished on her. With her clothing and her hairstyle torn away from her, she hardly looked like herself. But something in the way she set her face, and the look in her icy eyes still spoke of the old Rika Nonaka, the Digimon Queen.
"First of all, I'd hardly call it unnatural. It's what I know, and I know it well. It's my life, not something for you to meddle in. Secondly, I really really doubt that you're supposed to ask something like that. Are you even licensed to be a therapist or are you a quack they picked up being kicked out of a University?" Rika smiled a little in satisfaction. She was so powerless that any act of rebellion gave her pleasure. It had only been a few days, but the order was so structured even her arrival didn't disrupt it. The rigidity was far too much for someone so used to freedom, so she started to reject it all at the very moment she learned of her fate.
The therapist sighed softly and shook his head at Rika, taking down a few more notes. "Miss Nonaka, I really feel that you are not making the best use of this time. Your mother spent lots of good money, is still spending..." He began.
"Let her spend it! Let her spend it all! Let her give you every last penny until she's broke and homeless. She had no right to have me kidnapped in the middle of dinner and dragged off to this... prison!" Rika hit the couch with her fists and stood straight up in it, fury tinting her face.
"That's not a very healthy attitude. Your mother was just concerned about you and this troublesome experimentation with homosexuality you were engaging in." He gave no validation of her feelings, no nod to emotion. It was all very clinical.
Rika would not have it. "It wasn't an experiment, it was my life. It was what I felt inside, like a warmth. I was a better person for it..." Rika softened a little, her mind drifting far away and what seemed like long ago, back to a time when Renamon had melted her icy heart, and shown her what happiness was. Living in that world had been hard at times, but it had also held such richness that it seemed a shame to return to reality. "I still am... Thanks to..."
The therapist leaned forward in his chair, about as excited as he would get over a single patient. "Yes? Thanks to whom? Who was the one who recruited you to this?"
The cold slap of the therapist's words were what brought Rika back into reality. "I wasn't recruited into anything. I followed my heart there. Hasn't it been an hour yet?"
"It certainly has. Well, I must say we made a bit of progress this time. Maybe tomorrow you'll feel like admitting whom it was that converted you to this perversion."
"Yea, sure. As soon as Hell freezes over." Rika gave a dismissive wave in the face of the therapist before walking out the door, where a guard escorted her back into her plain stone room. Nothing in there but a bed and a change of clothes. "Renamon will get me out of this soon, I just know it. I wish they'd let me keep my Digivice. I could tell how close she is. If she's still there. Damn that guy, whoever he is. He couldn't possibly have any way to destroy Renamon. She's just too strong. I hope..."
Renamon opened her eyes slowly, pained by that simple little action. How long had it been? She was drifting in and out of consciousness so often it was hard to tell when a day began and ended. Surely it hadn't been that long. There was no way this guy would leave her alive for too long. "Speak of the devil..." Renamon thought as Yamaki walked up to the glass tube she was being held in.
"Awake now, are we? You certainly do enjoy taking naps." Yamaki grinned at Renamon, a smug and superior look indeed.
"Why am I being kept here? I thought you killed all Digimon." Renamon had hardly the strength to sneer at Yamaki, but she gave him a very dark look.
"It's my job to learn more about you pests, that way I can destroy you more easily. Right now I've got tests being run on you. You're strong, and yet you let yourself be led. It's illogical. I could take whatever it is that makes you a follower and use that to infect the rest of the Digimon, creating submissive pets; or I could just kill you slowly, running so many tests you finally just get deleted, and then I'll figure out what killed you and do it to the rest of the Digimon. In either case, all you creatures are doomed." Yamaki smiled and turned himself away from the glass tube. "Oh yes... I'm also keeping you around so you can suffer as long as possible. It's bad enough that you creatures are emerging into our world, but you go too far when you start getting involved with humans, taking them away from others. You will pay for your intimacy with your slow suffering. Enjoy..." With that Yamaki walked away, back into the main area of Hypnos.
Renamon lowered her head to rest it against her chestruff, body stiff and sore from confinement. "He's a monster..." She thought. "Because I love Rika he's going to torture me, and then delete me. I cannot allow that. I have to rescue Rika from that place her mother sent her."
"You'll never escape. You're too weak..." A quiet voice, emanating from everywhere and nowhere, whispered past Renamon's perception, barely registering.
"Who's there?"
"Surely you remember me... I made your body my own once upon a dark time..."
"It's impossible. I destroyed you. I remember crushing your depressed body and watching you dissolve into nothingness. I've purged my life of you."
"Not so. I remained. The infection was farther-reaching than you thought. Some bits of my data managed to survive within your body, weak and disorganized for so long. It is ironic that your waning strength seems to be bringing me to the front. As you lose hope and happiness I grow, and become strong. But it is useless..."
"Stop that. It was bad enough being your prisoner and hearing your endless diatribes about how dark, depressing and bleak the world is. You are an aberration that does not belong in my body. I am happy..."
"You WERE happy! But you aren't anymore, are you? No, now you're losing your hope, stuck in this tube and forced to endure barbaric tortures to give a madman the means to kill all Digimon. Everything is failing and falling apart. And there's nothing you can do about it. Well, there is one thing you could do."
"Don't be stupid. There is nothing I can do yet. I just have to wait for Yamaki to make a mistake. Then I can escape and crush him."
"Not so, not so. You see, I may grow strong, but I am powerless to do anything. I am the prisoner now, and though I move I cannot affect a thing. I will die with you, unless we can escape. I can become a part of you again, but you will have the control. Then we both will live. I propose a simple symbiosis."
"Do you think I'm an idiot? I'm not going to make a deal with the Devil. If you think I look like Faust then you need your eyes checked."
"Fine then. Let Yamaki kill you. Then you'll never see Rika again." Angstmon's voice silenced itself, somewhere within but totally undetectable.
"Rika... I can't let Angstmon have my body again, but I can't let Rika be turned into a zombie for her mother. There's a third path, I know it. If I could only figure out what it is."
"All patients please report to the main hall at once. All patients please report to the main hall at once." The announcement blared over the loudspeaker over and over again. All throughout the facility doors swung open and released their captives into the waiting hands of guards, who quick-marched them all into the large main hall. Like most of the facility it was quite utilitarian, big and gray with smooth walls, tiny barred windows, and no chairs. All the patients of the facility were lined up, row upon row of gray-clad children, from ten to seventeen, each one looking, in their own way, scared. Except for Rika, who had the misfortune of being stuck front-row center. From the floor in front of them a stone stage slowly rose, bare and plain. Onto that stage stepped the director of the facility, a scowling, impatient looking man with sharp, angular features and a suit that looked like it had been pressed to death.
He wore a small microphone on his lapel and stared straight out over the assembled group. "As I look out over all of you, I am stricken with the same thought that I always am. You disgust me! You creatures make me sick to my stomach! You don't deserve to be called human beings. You're some sort of diseased aberration that has crawled out of the slime and attempted to infect the world." Most everyone in the audience cringed with fear. Those who had been there longest and were yet unreleased had a blank, hollow look, as though they'd heard it all before, or maybe they just weren't there anymore.
Rika did not react. She blocked him out with everything she could manage, from old strategies used in Digimon Card Game championships to the things she wanted to do with Renamon when she finally got out. A bath would be first, a nice, long bath. Soaking for hours in the warm, soothing water might wash away the memories of the place, especially with Renamon softly caressing her skin with a small towel. Rika began to close her eyes, so caught up in the idea that she was drifting from her nightmarish reality.
"You!" Her inattentiveness had not gone unnoticed. The director was pointing directly at her and scowling more than usual. "How dare you ignore me! You piece of dirt! What could you be thinking of that's more important than I am?" All eyes turned to Rika as she extracted herself from her imagining to stare defiantly at the facility director.
"I'm thinking of what you can't take away from me." Rika stood her ground, defying the man with her posture. "What I am is not yours for the stealing, and all your words are nothing but hot air."
The director grew nearly purple with rage, clenching his fists at the brashness displayed before him. "Security! Take this girl back to her room! Just for that, no dinner, and no breakfast in the morning. We'll see how a little starvation affects your attitude. What is your name, insect?"
Rika remained ramrod straight, even as guards came up on either side of her. "Rika Nonaka, the Digimon Queen."
"Take her away!" The director waved his hand and then returned his attention to the general assembly, continuing his angry and accusatory speech. Rika was unceremoniously led back to her room and tossed in, the door securely locked behind her. Rika flopped down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
"At least I don't have to listen to that idiot..." But she was wrong, because a speaker in her room started blaring the hate-filled speech of the facility director. Rika never noticed, though, for she was already off in her own world, and was fully free to do so.
"Still around, Renamon? I'm impressed. Then again, I saw you hold fast to life when I had infected you and tried to destroy every little piece of you. Looks like we both get another day of life. But it's getting rather hard to hold on, isn't it?" Angstmon had masterful command of every means of demoralizing and darkening attitudes. And she never shut up unless she felt the silence would further her plans. The perfect Machiavellian thinker who never went away, living in Renamon's head.
"I'll hold on as long as I can. Yamaki is drawing it out on purpose, and enjoying every minute of it. But I won't let him win. I can get out of this. Rika is counting on me..." Renamon attempted to move her sore limbs, muscles screaming in agony with every shift. She'd been inactive too long, tested too often. Even with a perfect opportunity she'd have very little chance of escaping and actually making it.
"Just give it up and accept my offer. I'm still strong and fresh. We could bust out of here, and you'd still have control."
"What's in in for you, dark one?"
"Vitality, mobility. A life. Just let me exist as part of you and you will have the power to escape. And you can change forms to me, and have access to my viral powers."
"Why would I need your vile powers?"
"Because sometimes things are too tough to muscle through. But sucking away energy never fails. What do you say?"
Renamon thought about it, feeling the strengthening spectre of Angstmon within her, awaiting a decision.
"This, you miserable maggots, is aversion therapy." The woman at the head of the room was slender to the point of unhealthiness, with a pinched face and cold eyes. She looked like a female guard at a concentration camp who would kick over buckets of water before anyone could drink. "What that means is that you will be trained to avoid certain improper things, like the animals you are."
"Just get on with it, Pavlov." Rika said in a bored tone, barely able to keep it up anymore.
The woman scowled and nodded to her assistants, who went around distributing a booklet to everyone. After that they did that they went back around to each person, holding two bottles. Each person had one assistant standing with them, the people quiet and attentive, looking like an experiment in behaviorism themselves. "Now, everyone please open your booklets to page one."
Everyone did as they were bidden, except for Rika. The assistant standing beside her had to open her book for her. On that page there was a drawing of a human female couple kissing. With a nod from the woman the assistants opened one bottle and waved it under the nose of the one they were responsible. It was a pungent solution, that made many of the people gag. Rika just took the situation apart in her head. Visceral aversion to certain stimuli. Break it up more... "They're only humans..." Rika thought. "I don't want a human partner. I have Renamon." With a smile that she tried to hide, Rika inhaled the pungent scent deeply, not caring if she gained an aversion to humans.
"Good, good. Now, open your books to page two. And no one try to get out of this. I assure you that you will be here for a long while."
The next picture showed what was supposed to be the ideal of normalcy, a human male/female couple embracing. The other bottle was brought in for this one. That one contained a very sweet-smelling perfume. Rika took a sniff and scowled. It smelled like her mother. Then she smiled again. She hated her mother's overly girly things, and especially the bottles of noxious perfume. She could see herself feeling nothing positive towards that scent. So she leaned forward, fixed her eyes on the picture and inhaled deeply of the sickly-sweet scent...
Yamaki entered the room he'd been keeping Renamon in with a bounce in his step. The tests he'd been running had all come up inconclusive, however he had succeeded in weakening her and making her life agony. Now it was time to delete her. "That'll teach her to become involved with a human..." However, when he arrived at the tube he found that Renamon had changed a little. She was still hanging down, head down and body limp, but now her face was pure pasty white, with dark circles beneath her eyes. "Hey! What's going on here? How did you do that?"
The figure in the tube slowly lifted up her head, a creepy smile on her death-like face. "It's all a matter of getting back in touch with a distant part..."
"This is not at all amusing you miserable Renamon!"
The smile twisted upwards into a psychotic grin. "Renamon's not here right now. Please leave all screams of agony with Angstmon!" Angstmon brought her arms down to her sides, snapping the chains that held them up. Then she started to punch at the tube itself, not having enough room to get a good swing.
"So you've got a new little trick. It won't help you at all. You can't get enough of a swing to crack that tube. So kiss your data goodbye!" Yamaki moved over to a console and started to tap a few keys.
"Not so fast!" Angstmon curled herself up a little bit and started concentrating. "Viral Digivolution! Angstmon Viral Digivolve to... Gothicmon!" The tube shattered with the power of the Viral Digivolution, sending shards all over the room like shrapnel. Gothicmon looked a little bit like Kyubimon, being a large fox with nine flaming tails and flaming fur above her paws. However, the resemblance was only in that respect. The fire that burned on her was pure black, as was most of her body. Her underbelly was a blood red color. A grinning skull with red eyes replaced the Yin-Yang on her forehead. Instead of the red and white striped ropes that hung around the neck of Kyubimon, Gothicmon had steel chains and black leather wrapped around each other into a very strange kind of rope. Instead of paper streamers around her neck, Gothicmon sported spider webs. Lastly, when she opened her mouth to snarl, she revealed a pair of long fangs.
"What in the..?" Yamaki started hitting buttons faster, starting the machine the tube had once enclosed.
"I think not. Soul chains!" The leather and steel braids shot out at the consoles, puncturing and ripping them up, and then beating them into scrap. Yamaki leaped away from the destruction, growling at Gothicmon.
"Damn you! Just wait until security gets here!" Yamaki started running out of the room, shouting for help.
"Not so fast. Atrophy!" Gothicmon fired a ray at Yamaki from the skull on her forehead, covering him with a black mist. When the mist cleared Yamaki fell to the ground, unable to move his extremities.
"What is this? Let me up!"
Gothicmon padded up beside Yamaki's prone form, shaking her head. "The muscles of your arms and legs have been moderately atrophied. You'll need some physical therapy and a little medication but you'll live. I decided to give you a break. For now." Gothicmon brought a foreleg back and gave Yamaki a kick in the side. It wasn't very strong, but it did make him roll over a few times and run into a wall. Gothicmon reverted to Angstmon, who shifted her body back into Renamon's. Renamon gave Yamaki a contemptuous look before she vanished from the room.
"Pay attention everyone. In this exercise you will learn to accept the attentions of the opposite sex. Just relax and everything will be fine." The guy at the head of this class looked more normal than anyone else. A very fatherly figure with expressive eyes and a ready smile. A viper just waiting to strike. Rika thought he belonged in front of an apartment building with a heavy coat, waiting to flash unsuspecting strangers. The group of patients in the room consisted of only females, most looking scared or angry. Rika had her arms crossed over her chest and was glaring at the males in the room, people who worked for the facility. "Now, all of you just stand normally and wait for someone to come up to you."
"Pervert. He must be loving this..." Rika thought as an older boy walked confidently over to her.
"Don't worry about it. I'll teach you to love this. You just haven't been touched by a real man." The boy moved around behind her, so aggravatingly smug. His hands slowly came up around her body, lightly placing themselves on her chest.
Rika learned a few things from Renamon beyond how to love. "Hands off, loser-boy!" Rika dropped to a squat and kicked out at the boy's knee, hopping back to her feet so that she could leap up and land an elbow smash onto the boy's chest. Then she just started to pummel his face with sharp blows, her face a mask of pure hate. "Never NEVER touch me like that you stupid boy!" Rika pounded away on the boy, fists striking every part of his face and head, before security finally took her away. Even after she was pulled off she continued to rage. "Let me go! I'll teach him a lesson he'll never forget!" They boy was motionless and bloody, most likely with a concussion and a broken nose.
She was dragged before the facility director, her anger still hot within her. "So, you decided to get an attitude, hmm? Haven't learned your lesson yet?"
"I'm not here to learn anything. I'm only here because my mother is a hateful person."
"We shall see what you learn and do not learn. Take her to solitary..."
"Mikino how can you be so calm about what you've done?" Grandma hounded her daughter, never letting up. She couldn't. She just might get lucky and change Mikino's mind.
"I keep telling you, I did it for Rika's own good. Just wait until she comes back, she'll be a normal girl. No more Digimon, no more jeans. She'll wear dresses and have long hair. She'll become a model, just like me."
"She's not you! She is your daughter! You're treating her like a toy. And Renamon, the best thing that ever happened to her, you sent her away to some sadistic lab where she'll be killed."
"Not quite killed, but close." Renamon phased herself into the room, causing Grandma to smile and Mikino to look sick.
"Renamon! You escaped! Wonderful. It's been so long I thought..."
"Yamaki was torturing me and running tests over and over again, causing me pain simply because of my involvement with Rika."
Grandma glared at Mikino. "This is all your doing!"
"Please, you must tell me where Rika is. I have to get to her before she is changed too much."
"Mikino this has gone far enough. Tell Renamon where to find Rika this minute."
Mikino slumped down into a chair, looking deflated and defeated. "I just wanted..."
"It's always about you! You're so egotistical it's hard to believe you're my daughter. Now tell her."
"Ok, I'll tell you..."
Rika was taken to a building behind all the others. She was led down the single corridor within, past identical doors to the final doors. One guard unlocked the one on the right and the other shoved Rika inside after it was open. The door slammed shut with a loud bang, leaving Rika in darkness, except for a tiny shaft of light from a high, small window. It was barely enough to see her hands by. Rika slumped down against the wall of the room. She'd been condemned to a week in solitary on half rations of food.
"Soul chain!" A commotion from outside brought Rika's attention to full alert. Screams and crashes told her something was going on outside, and it was big. "Soul chain!" A pair of chains crashed through the wall, wrapped with leather strips. The wall fell apart, revealing Gothicmon to her. Of course, not knowing what she was Rika could only scream. Gothicmon reverted to Angstmon and then quickly back to Renamon.
"Heartbreaker. It's me..."
"Renamon?"
"The one and only."
Rika ran forward to embrace Renamon, squeezing the fox Digimon tight. "I never thought I'd see you again..."
"And I never thought I'd see you again. While I was at Hypnos the only thing I could think of was you."
"But what was that thing crashing around?"
"While I was held captive... Angstmon resurfaced. Her data had been in me the entire time, disorganized and weak. But as I waned she grew strong. Without a body, though, she was nothing. We ended up making... a deal. She would become a part of me again, but I would be in control. With her strength we escaped Hypnos and then I asked your mother were you were. That form that you saw me in was Gothicmon. Scary, but powerful."
"Amazing... And you're totally in control?"
"Completely and utterly in ch... Ah!" Renamon doubled over, grabbing at her belly and trembling. Her face came up again, but it wasn't Renamon. It was a straining Angstmon.
"So far that is... But soon you won't be!" Angstmon remained for a moment before fading back into Renamon.
"It was a deal with the Devil..." Renamon whispered. "And I should have remembered that the Devil always wins..."
"... And that's the whole story." Later on that same day Rika was back at her home, watching over Renamon as she rested and fought the demonic grasp of Angstmon. She knew that she'd need a lot of help, and even though it galled her more than anything else to ask for someone's help, she couldn't let Renamon go without a fight. So she called over the other three tamers, Takato, Henry and Jeri. They came right over and brought their Digimon with them.
"So what you're saying is that the viral infection not only remained but also is making a takeover bid again?" Henry caught onto things very quickly.
"That's right. This time Renamon is in charge, but Angstmon isn't contained. She just infecting every part of her that she can."
"If that's the case then it seems there is no solution." Leomon wasn't big on ideas, though in this instance his words rang sadly true.
"There must be some solution. I know if Gillmon were in the same situation I'd do something for him."
"It seems hopeless. Every minute that goes by makes Angstmon a little stronger."
"Well, there's gotta be something. Renamon wouldn't just curl up and die." Terriermon, though lacking in tact, did know what he was talking about.
"Maybe you could just pull them both apart. I mean, Renamon is one Digimon, and Angstmon is another, right?" Jeri hugged herself against Leomon's arm, for comfort, and other things.
"That might have worked before, maybe. Angstmon was just a virus with a form based on what she infected. The only reason she looks like Renamon is that that's who she infected. Right now she's a symbiotic virus, providing Renamon with strength and recovery ability, while Renamon gives her vitality and mobility. It'd be a little more than hard to break the two apart now. You'd have to filter Angstmon's data out of Renamon."
"Great, let's go down to the store and buy a couple dozen coffee filters." Takato suggested, hopping to his feet.
"He didn't mean it like that, goggle-head. We'd need a computer program that could do it for us. But what has that kind of ability?"
"A firewall..." Henry whispered, looking off into the distance.
Everyone looked at him strangely. "A what?"
"A firewall, a computer program that stops unwanted entry into your system by blocking out signals you haven't authorized. Since Renamon's data is probably very different from Angstmon's data then running through a firewall set to only allow her data through might be able to purge Renamon of Angstmon, and leave Angstmon as a useless lump of lifeless ones and zeros."
"One problem, how do we find a place that has the ability to bring up a firewall like that, and how will we program it with Renamon's data?" Takato asked, catching on rather swiftly this time.
"I can solve one problem. Renamon gave me a lock of her tail fur when we first started getting serious, way before Angstmon came into the picture. That could be scanned and used to provide Renamon's data."
"But there's still the matter of constructing and executing the firewall, to say nothing of digitizing Renamon, and then bringing her back once the process is done."
"I ha-have the answer to all that... uhhh..." Renamon slowly slid open the door from Rika's room and fell out, cringing and shivering as she fought to keep Angstmon down.
"Renamon! You should stay in bed, you need to rest and keep Angstmon at bay."
"I can't d-do that while you're out here t-trying to save me. I kn-know a place you could do all that. Hypnos."
"Hypnos? You mean that place you were taken to?" Rika held Renamon tightly and wondered just what she was planning.
"Yes. I saw a lot while I was escaping. They have massive computer systems, and lots of equipment for analyzing Digimon. I'm certain that could help."
"That place is like a Fortress. Just getting inside would be like an invasion. And then setting it all up. It seems very risky." Leomon added, holding Jeri just a little bit tighter.
"I really don't think we have any choice. It's that or..." Henry trailed off, watching Renamon writhe while Rika held her softly.
"What's the big deal anyway? So Angstmon's depressing. That's not so bad. I mean, it's not like she's gruesome or something." Takato got a stone lobbed just past his head, forcing him to take cover being Gillmon.
"Angstmon is worse than gruesome! Her depression is total and pervasive! She has no happy thoughts and only takes joy in spreading her darkness. The happier someone is the harder she tries to destroy that. If she can break a heart or darken a day she is satisfied. She wants to blanket the world with depression." Rika stood, huffing and determined, glaring at the others with a hard, cold gaze.
"Please... we must hu-hurr-ry. She is... AHH!" Renamon tensed up and curled up on the ground, shivering as though being blown upon by an icy wind. Her face rapidly shifted from her own frightened visage, to the maniacal grin of Angstmon and then back again, several times."
"I'm coming to get you, Rika! You're all I need to destroy in order to get this body back!" Angstmon spoke the last time her face appeared, baring every glittering tooth in her mouth.
"We have no time to lose. We have to get her into Hypnos. We'll think of something from there."
"Leomon, pick her up and carry her. She doesn't look able to walk." Jeri disentangled herself from Leomon's arm and settled for snuggling up to him once he had slung Renamon over his shoulder.
"Alright guys..." Takato said with a flourish, while flipping down his goggles. "Let's go do this!"
"Beast sword!"
"Pyro sphere!"
"Terrier tornado!"
When the four tamers arrived at Hypnos, they did not receive a warm welcome. Yamaki was still recovering from Gothicmon's blast of Atrophy, but he had managed to put the entire place on high alert. When the guards saw the four approaching they opened fire. With rubber bullets, of course. No need for a murder rap. Unfortunately, Leomon ploughed right through and busted through the doors, all while still carrying Renamon. The others ran through in his wake and found themselves surrounded by automated security. That led to wholesale destruction, leaving the four tamers in the center, holding onto Renamon.
"Where to now?" Takato looked around fearfully as more security robots rolled into the lobby.
"We have to get into that elevator! From there Renamon said we could reach the labs on the thirty-seventh floor!" Rika pointed to an elevator slightly to the right of where they were.
"Leomon! Clear us a path to that elevator!" Jeri waved to get Leomon's attention, and then pointed out exactly where she wanted him to clear a space.
"This might help a little." Takato swiped a card through his Digivice. "Digi-modify! Power activate!"
"Pyro sphere!" Gillmon blew an extra-large blast at some arriving security bots, blasting them into the ones behind them. Leomon took care of the ones in the way while the tamers carried Renamon into the elevator. The other three Digimon fell back into the elevator while Rika hit the button for the thirty-seventh floor.
"Ok, now the entire building knows were here. What now?" Terriermon looked down from atop Henry's head, holding on tight with his ears.
"We can barricade ourselves in a lab. Renamon told me all the labs can be sealed in case something goes wrong inside, or the entire place is put on lockdown. Yamaki has a nasty habit of spilling information when he gloats."
"Sounds like a plan to me." Takato stood by the door, watching the numbers move in case someone stopped the elevator.
"Leomon, you'll help keep the door shut, won't you?" Jeri didn't use a command for her partner. Rather she just looked at him cutely and smiled while holding onto one of his large hands.
Leomon blushed horribly over most of his face. "Err... Of course I will, Jeri. You can always count on me."
"I-isn't it cute when couples flirt, Heartbreaker?" Renamon was smiling, though the look was strained. "It reminds me of when we were still hiding our feelings..."
"Don't try to talk. Just relax. We'll be there soon."
Leomon, for his part, just blushed deeper and tried to look as though it wasn't true. Jeri, on the other hand just smiled brighter and held on tighter.
Finally the elevator stopped at floor thirty-seven and opened its doors. The Tamers expected a huge welcome, but found that the entire place seemed empty.
"They must have sent all security down to deal with us, and all the scientists to a safe location. That'll make our jobs easier." Henry said while making a break for the nearest lab.
"Wait! We need to make sure wherever we choose has the right equipment, or we'll never help Renamon."
"Right... This one looks about right. It looks like a lot of big scanning platforms and some huge consoles. If this isn't it then I don't know what else we can do." Everyone ran inside, Leomon pressing the button to bring down the doors. Then he started sealing them with every piece of furniture he could find.
"I don't know why I thought I could do this. This is just a little bit more complex than a home computer you know." Henry was quickly eyeing all the buttons and wires and whatnot in the room, trying to use logic to figure out what did what. "Ok, I think that Renamon should get into that tube, looks like everything is centered around it. From there... well, you'll just have to give me a bit on that..."
Rika helped Renamon onto the base of the containment unit and remained close to her when Henry lowered the glass, making Renamon remember the confinement of not so long ago.
"Ok, now I think that it's this button..." Henry pressed a large blue button. Renamon started to scream in agony and pound on the glass. Henry pressed the button again and looked horribly embarrassed. "Oh my... That was the wrong one."
"You can't save her you bumbling, inept little chi... ARGH!" Angstmon surfaced amid Renamon's suffering, but was quickly zapped by Henry. She went back within and left Renamon on the surface. "Rika, come over here and press this button if Angstmon tries to surface again. I've gotta look at the rest of these buttons." Rika went over, a critical eye resting on Renamon, while Henry mused and made noises of thought over the consoles. "It looks like an all-purpose machine that can do anything from sending Digimon back to the Digital world to torturing them. And thankfully for us it's labeled over here, probably for some new technicians." Henry messed around with the controls until he managed to get an image on a screen. "I think that I can do this all form here... Let's see, run firewall security program. Ok, the baseline firewall has been executed. Rika, give me that fur Renamon gave you. It looks like there's a small data analyzer over here." Rika handed Henry the fur and then went back to the button she had been placed at. Not usually so obedient, special circumstances called for special actions.
Henry laid the fur on the small glass 'eye' set into the console and started typing things rapidly and watching the screen. "Calibrating firewall... Confirming firewall calibration... Done!" Henry started searching around for the button to activate the large data transference machine, eyes glossing over rows and rows of buttons. "Renamon, be careful in there. In the purity of the data stream Angstmon will probably grow stronger than ever." Henry tapped a few buttons and was rewarded with a positive beep. The machine began to power itself up, and Renamon's for became hazier and more indistinct. Rika ran over to her and placed a hand against the glass. Renamon placed her hand against the inside of the glass and smiled at Rika before she faded away entirely.
"Sir? I've got a very strange reading here. It looks like someone inside the facility has just sent something into the data stream. The transmission appears to have come from lab C on floor thirty-seven. I'm also reading a specially calibrated firewall near where the thing was transmitted."
Yamaki stood off to the side, supported by two subordinates. An IV bottle dripped slowly into a tube feeding into his arm. "Send out the Yuggoth. It's time those children learned that we are ultimately in control."
Renamon stood up slowly when she found herself in the data stream. Not too far away from her was the firewall, looking like a real wall of flame blazing brightly. Through that fire lay her future, a future without the darkness of Angstmon. "Time to take out the darkness..." She whispered and started to run for the wall.
"No! I won't be destroyed! I have so much darkness to spread!" Angstmon snapped into control and stopped so fast she tripped and rolled closer to the wall. When she managed to get up and look away, she saw the Yuggoth program spinning in the distance, but getting closer. "As my last official act in charge, I will steal you away from Rika forever." she smiled a maniac smile and set herself up for a charge.
"You're insane! You'll be deleted too!" Renamon forced her way back into control and started to backpedal towards the firewall. Angstmon tried to resurface again, but her struggles only managed to change half of Renamon's face, leaving control split between them.
"I don't care! It will be my ultimate act of depression! Imagine, Rika will watch you die from a distance! If I must go, then I'll take all the light that I can with me!"
Renamon strained to move towards the firewall, grabbing the ground with one hand and dragging forward, using the leg she was in control of to help her along. "You're utterly mad. I will never let you steal my Heartbreaker's happiness. I will fight as long as I am able."
"It's too late! I've won!"
"It's never too late..." Renamon whispered, concentrating her mind on Rika. Not on maintaining control, but on why she fought so hard. Angstmon managed to regain total control, but she had hardly the time to smile before Renamon softly took charge. No snaps, no struggles. It was her body, and concentrating on what made it strong gave her command of it. "You want to die, fine. Be suicidal. But don't take me with you." Renamon dashed right at the firewall and took a great leap at it, closing her eyes as she started to feel the heat of the flames.
"NOOO!" Angstmon wrestled control away from Renamon a split second before slamming into the wall. Her data was violently separated from Renamon's, torn away by the specific calibration of the firewall. Even though she had started to twist herself around Renamon's data, there was no mistaking where Renamon ended and Angstmon began. She remained trapped in the firewall, just a head, shoulders, arms and most of a chest, all that she managed to form within Renamon.
Renamon landed deftly once through the firewall and dashed very quickly away. She would have to Bio-emerge somewhere close to Rika's home, but that wouldn't be any problem. She looked back at Angstmon trapped by the firewall, watched the wall vanish, probably Henry's doing. The helplessly incomplete Angstmon flopped to the ground and screamed as the Yuggoth program deleted her without mercy.
"Sir, I have confirmed deletion of something. When the target hit the firewall it split into two. The stronger signal has escaped and is ready to Bio-emerge, but the Yuggoth has destroyed the second signal."
Yamaki scowled and shook his head. "Some victory. I get the feeling that I just did exactly what those blasted children wanted me to."
After the destruction of Angstmon everything went just perfectly. Rika retrieved the tuft of Renamon's fur and Henry erased all the data of what they had just done. With Gillmon and Leomon leading the way the tamers and Terriermon made their way down using the stairwell, slow and tiresome, but least guarded. Once outside of Hypnos they all made a break for Rika's home, constantly looking back, expecting to see throngs of security after them.
The fears were unfounded, and nothing came after them the entire trip to the house. Rika thanked everyone for the help, an unusual thing to do for her, but it was a very unusual situation.
"Rika!" Grandma ran over to Rika and gave her a hug. She had been out when Rika and Renamon had returned, and was still out when plans to infiltrate Hypnos were being made. "I can't believe it! You're back. I knew Renamon would save you. Where is she?"
"It's a long story, but she's somewhere out there in the data stream. I think she should tell you, as soon as she gets back."
Grandma and Rika set about making a little something so that Renamon wouldn't have to Bio-emerge and not get anything. As they were sharing a pot of tea a thick fog surrounded the house. Neither one was very surprised. When Renamon appeared in the room they both smiled at her, Rika holding out a cup and Grandma holding up the teapot.
"Perfect timing, Renamon. You're just in time for tea."
"Have a seat and tell grandma all about what happened."
Renamon smiled brightly, sitting down at the small table and accepting the cup and tea. "Well, it all started the night I was taken away..."
~Owari~
