Mr Patterson took one more look at the Immaterium Containment Field. A machine with only one purpose; to seal dimensions off from one another. More specifically sealing the Immaterium off from all other dimensions. Now and then it had failed due to the inconceivably large power supply it required. Sometimes supernovas just couldn't be found in time, and yet another dimension would fall under attack from the Chaos Gods and their daemons who inhabited the Immaterium. Even rarer were the times when the field failed due to hardware failures, every single component inside it had a duplicate, and the entire system was self-repairing. The rarest reason for a ICF failure was what was happening now, user error.
Even that didn't truly cover the magnitude of his stupidity. He wasn't even supposed to be touching it, just the coffee machine that was, for some completely unknown reason, close enough to the ICF that some of their cables crossed over each other. To compound this design flaw, all cables in the entire complex were the same matt black, a situation which was soon to be remedied by those repair crews who had nothing to repair.
Small things, like the old metaphor of locking the door after the missile was stolen, would have to wait for now. Right now every single person who worked in the Department of Immaterial Containment, better known to the complex as the DIC, as well as what must be at least half the repair crews in the entire place, were on alert. Modifying a machine that was powered by multiple supernovas was, at the very least, risky.
Taking one last look at the relatively small part of the ICF in the room below Mr Patterson sighed. The best case scenario was that the field was completely shut down for thirty seconds and that the Chaos Powers wouldn't notice. Given that the field had been inactive barely twenty hours beforehand the odds of that scenario weren't too good. The worst case scenario was that the complex would be attacked, overrun, and destroyed by the forces of Chaos. Thankfully this was even less likely, the odds of finding them out of all the virtually infinite number of dimensions were as low as they seemed. Even if they did, most of the DIC agents carried a variety of weapons that were very lethal to daemons.
Slowly his slightly shaking hand unconsciously slipped into a hidden pocket in his uniform, his equally quivering fingers tightened around a reassuring solid sphere, automatically avoiding both the priming pin and keypad on it. A few seconds later his fingers, now more steady, withdrew from his pocket, letting go of the highly illegal weapon in there that would get him the harshest possible punishment if it was ever found out. At least I have you if those scum ever break into here….
Now, it would seem, another dimension was under attack because of his stupidity and carelessness. It would not be the first time that an agent had made such a mistake he had consoled himself, although a persistent and annoying little voice had constantly reminded him that none had ever made that kind of mistake through such stupidity before. How many souls were in that dimension, as minor as it was, he wondered. Later he would have to check up on the rough figures for that and too many other uncomfortable questions for the report which he needed to file soon.
He sat down at his chair with another heavy sigh, his eyes wandering over the room below him through the transparent tri-phased diamond window. Standing at various points were twenty members of the five man kill teams, their genetically reprocessed bodies hefting weapons that he wouldn't be able to lift unaided. Sitting behind various consoles in the room were people like programmers and scientists involved with the ICF. Waiting just inside the sealed doorways, almost out of view from his seated position behind the desk, were teams of repair crews, their tools resting on the ground that they crouched on. Finally, milling around all of those were the resident maintenance and whatever techies that weren't sitting at consoles, all of them furiously rushing around, gathering readings from different consoles, passing on messages to other people, or attending to the ICF itself.
Then above all of those, safe behind the nigh-on indestructible window was himself; Commander Patterson of the DIC. The one who effectively held all of their lives in his hands. The one who had caused this whole current disaster to take place because he had wanted his morning cup of coffee. He reached out with one hand and flicked a switch, activating the microphones around the so called office he was in.
"This is Commander Patterson. All units prepare for the deactivation and reactivation of the ICF. I repeat, prepare for the deactivation and reactivation of the ICF in five… four… three… two… one…."
Quickly his other hand reached out and flipped open a small plastic safety case around a red button, his thumb pressing down on the button that was inside the slight recess in his console in time with his countdown. A few seconds passed with nothing happening. Then it started.
The seemingly omnipresent background hum of the ICF faded away, its power now being diverted into a series of gigantic capacitor like devices. The silence, so new to so many suddenly stood out, all of them used to automatically blocking out the hum that they had heard for years or decades at a time. Another half a second passed and the eerie deadness burst into life with a warning klaxon and the lighting turning red, the automated internal security system picking up the power loss right on cue.
"Mr Sharpe, feed in the new programming instructions."
He looked down at the console that he new that Mr Sharpe, their head programmer, was sitting behind. The man looked slightly fat and was balding on top of his head, a strange sight in here where the genetic reprocessing could fix virtually any physical condition, of which weight gaining and hair loss where definitely included. The man stopped typing instructions in after a few seconds and turned to face the window.
"The new program modifications are being fed in now sir. My workstation thinks it will take about one and a half to two minutes."
Mr Patterson looked across at the machine, his surprise hidden perfectly, hardly unexpected given the length of time he had been working in the DIC. So long…? I was sure that the program would take only a quarter or a third of that time. This is too long…. Something is almost certain to notice. Shutting the power to the field for thirty seconds would have been bad enough for us, but shutting the power down for three or even four times that length of time… let us hope and pray….
Time crawled to a near halt. Anxiety and fear ate at every single one of them as the second hands on their watches millimetred around their faces in slow motion, as the clock on the wall ground to a stop, as its second hand started to move backwards.
Mr Patterson leaned forward in his seat, a clock moving backwards moments after they had deactivated the one thing keeping the forces of Chaos that wanted them dead so very much could not be a coincidence. "All kill teams get ready! Now!"
A variety of clicks and hums were his only reply, the speakers inside the room below him pumping the sounds through the speakers in his office. His hand reached inside his hidden pocket, fingers locking around the forbidden weapon he had concealed there. His soul itching to use it against the foul spawn of the Immaterium. His mind telling him he couldn't punch through the window with anything but the one shot weapon he was now holding.
A crackling sound focused all eyes on a point five or six metres in front of Mr Patterson's office. Blue and black lines of energy, blue and black lines of Chaos energy pulsed outward. Each cackling pulse of sound, light, and energy enlarging the rift. The lines multiplying exponentially with each pulse as they started to form a complete sphere, ten to fifteen metres off of the ground. The kill team members swivelled onto it, weapons raised up and aimed at it while the rest of the occupants of the room fled to the far wall.
"Fire!"
A full two kill teams opened up the weaponry on the rift. Five people to each team. Two almost comically oversized weapons to each person. Hyper charged psionic resonators whined as a small electrical capacitor discharged into each one, forcing them to loose off a single shot per jolt. Anti-matter bullets sparkled in the air as their protective casings rapidly degraded before exploding with incredible violence as they reached the now stalling sphere that was their target.
The other two kill teams reached the positions, directly in between the ICF and the rift. At an unspoken signal each member of these teams raised their own weapons, levelling them at the rift as well. Another unspoken signal passed between them and they started firing. Psychic, antimatter, and more conventional fire mixed together as they all shredded and exploded their way towards the rift. It's keen wailing note of pain echoing and screaming throughout the room.
Quickly, under the immense firepower, the rift shrunk and closed in on itself, imploding with one final ripping sound before it was silenced, only to be replaced with the screams of a technician holding both hands over his head and sprinting at one of the kill teams. A quick stream of thoughts passed through the kill teams and a single member of the third team turned to face the corrupted being, the slight hum of the electricity charging up in his gun drowned out totally by the screaming madman.
Three independent beams of electricity arced out of the weapon, crackling harmlessly around in the air half a metre or so in front of the quad barrels. A louder hum finally sounded out, equal in volume to the maniacal screams of death and revenge. A green something, whatever it was and however it worked known only to the weapons department, burst out of the fourth barrel, in the centre of the other three. The three strands of electricity latched onto the green beam, wrapping themselves around it in a triple helix and hurtling out along with the beam itself, smashing into the oncoming attacker's midriff in less than the blink of an eye.
A quick gasp escaped the man's lips as his clothing burst into flames covered in a faint green hue, ignited into an immolating conflagration of flames by the sheer power of the weapon. Skin bubbled up and down his body, making faint popping sounds as little globules of skin and fat exploded away from him to burn up through the flames and leave a trail of green smoke leading to the ground. The gasp turned into a tortured sound a millisecond after it started as his eyes began to swell, dark red veins showing in them as they rose to the surface. Dark red sploshes of blood showering the floor as the veins inside his eyes burst one after another, followed rapidly by the eyes themselves, leaving just a bundle of nerve fibre hanging slightly out the sockets.
His left foot came forward the quarter step it had left to reach the ground; green smoke spiralling up dizzily from his feet as they began to melt, began to fuse with the floor. Muscles and tendons were exposed less than half a second after the beam impacted with him as the flesh boiled itself away, his own fat providing the fuel for the green inferno around him. Those very same muscles and tendons snapped almost instantly under the pressure as the flash fire robbed them of all their needed moisture, before they too were consumed by the flames.
Only the skeleton remained, scorched and charred as black as midnight. A mere six tenths of a second after the impact the fire had disappeared, burning itself out as rapidly as it had started itself. A slight creak went unheard as the skeleton, its foot bones damaged beyond stability, fell over. Bone collided with metal floor. Dust exploded upwards from the impact as the skeleton disintegrated under the final blow of the floor upon its now far too brittle self.
Silence fell over the room as the dust started to settle. Only the kill team were communicating, and that was in their totally silent telepathic messages that only other kill team members in that room could pick up.
Mr Patterson looked down at the dust cloud that used to be one of the technicians and flicked the intercom back on again, quickly coming up with what he hoped would be some more or less inspirational words which would help them get over the death of their colleague. "The power of Chaos corrupts and twists the weak. That man was weak. Do not repeat his mistake if you do not want to end up like him."
He flicked the intercom off and groaned. He was rarely good at inspirational speaking or raising morale. Usually he could leave that to others, but every now and then he had no choice but to attempt it. Attempt almost always being the key word when he was involved.
The machine screeched, quiet at first but quickly escalating into an almost deafening sound that easily would have drowned out the wailing klaxon had it still have been sounding. It would seem that the program modifications had been completed and that power was automatically being re-routed into the ICF. Those nearest the machine clamped their hands over their ears, almost in imitation of the late technician, as they quickly fled back to their consoles or pre-assigned positions. Only repair crews who quickly put a form of ear plugs in their ears that blocked out or reduced dangerous sounds while still allowing normal and quiet sounds through moved to the machine as they were supposed to.
The protests of the machine increased to the annoyance of most in the room, almost all of who still covered their ears with their hands with only the exceptions of those lucky few who had the ear plugs and those unlucky few who needed to use their hands to type instructions into their consoles. Warning lights glared on Mr Patterson's console, each demanding his attention as the power surge rushed through the ICF. Quickly prioritising the warnings his hands leapt to the keyboard at the front of his desk, the lessons he learnt during his days of when he was a system's maintainer coming back to him instantly thanks to the reprocessing he'd received shortly after being recruited. There was too much for him to do on his own, one hand left the keyboard and flicked the intercom on so he could give out instructions.
"Someone cut the power inflow by fifteen percent… we need to power up slower than the automatic rate now."
The screeching lessened, although still remaining loud in his ears it was steadily dropping. It would just be a matter of seconds now before he could have them bring the ICF up to full power again, assuming he could keep up with any fluctuations and anomalies that might appear.
"Increase power back to normal inflow… now."
A few seconds passed while his instruction was carried out and several of the warning lights of his console went from red to blue, from a high alert to a low alert. He typed in a few more commands to set up for the re-establishment of the field itself. His finger hovered over the final button for barely a second before he pushed it down. The tiny electrical signal activating the ICF fully. The final red light, one that had been on from the instant he had cut the power to the machine, blinked off completely. It was over. The ICF beamed out from the complex, hurtling towards and enveloping the Immaterium and all the other dimensions it was supposed to at what Mr Patterson still thought of as an impossible speed. In mere seconds the field would be fully established again and the universe safe against Chaos once more.
A red light flashed on the panel and he looked down at it in horror. The big glaring red light stared at him with its baleful bulb, telling him one of the worst possible pieces of news, Chaos had seeped into yet another dimension. Hands quickly flew across the keyboard and part of the scanning array built into the complex began to re-align itself, aiming for the dimension that had just been invaded to perform a more thorough scan.
Almost instantly a green light went on above his head and above the ICF in the room below him. Mr Patterson slumped into a seat. The ICF was back up and running at full power, but it had been too slow. He'd condemned yet another dimension to an invasion by Chaos. All around him the speakers blared out the cheers that went up in the room below, the Immaterium had been contained yet again. The DIC, and all its employees were happy, it was time to celebrate. At least that seemed to be the view of most of them, all Mr Patterson saw was death and destruction. The death of a co-worker and the destruction of at least one more dimension.
Everyone stayed silent. No one knew how to respond to TK. They simply watched as a tear trickled from the cornet of his eye, down his already tear slick cheek, down his jaw, and eventually drip off of his chin. Eventually it was Joe who broke the silence, attempting to console the youngest member of their team. "It wasn't your fault TK. We all had to run from that… thing. It would have k…" Joe broke off, his words needed to be very well thought out, "been stupid for us to all stay there."
TK looked up at him, another tear was rolling down his left cheek now. He looked as though he was going to say something, his lip quivering hard and moisture welling up in his eyes more. He lowered his head again before launching himself at Joe. Crashing his body into Joe, crying all the while and thinking of nothing but Mimi's final, heart-rending scream. A scream that was playing over and over in his mind constantly without pause for his sanity.
Joe moved backwards and to the side slowly and gently lowered him down to the ground. They kept staring at the sobbing and almost broken form of TK, all of them wanting to speak. All of them too afraid to speak. Exhaustion once more caught up with TK and he slowly cried himself into a fitful sleep, tears and sobs still escaping him even in that normally peaceful state.
They all lay back down on their impromptu bed of fallen leaves, trying to get to sleep once more despite the difficulty of doing so in the midst of guilt and grief. Sora and Izzy just stared straight ahead, their eyes looking unblinkingly into the night stars, both of their minds deep in thought, or grief. Tai and Joe were lying, eyes closed, their bodies turning sporadically as they tried to make themselves comfortable while their minds were far too active to sleep easily Matt just sat sobbing long into the night, emulating what his now sleeping brother had been doing.
I have to kill that thing. Matt thought, still sobbing into his hands. It murdered Mimi. It's evil. We have to destroy it. Yes, we can do it if we fight together. The digimon can digivolve to the ultimate level. We can destroy this thing. We just have to work together. Matt cheered up at that thought in a sudden and extreme mood swing, the sobs turning into laughs for a few moments until he finally fell silently into a nightmarish slumber.
Fire.
Everything around him was on fire. Yet, strangely, it didn't burn him. It didn't even feel hot. He looked around and saw what might well be hell on earth, or even Hell itself. As far as his eyes could see the ground was made almost entirely of rough rocks intermingled with the occasional tumbling boulder that brought the sounds of thunder with them as they fell. Those places not covered in the rock were holes, usually vast holes, all of them spewing enormous gouts of fire into the sky, maybe thousands of feet into the sky. Somewhere in the distance he saw what looked at first glance to be a muddy and slow moving river. On second glance he realised it was composed entirely of rocks rolling on a bed of flames that would burst up out of the gaps in-between rolling rocks.
Matt could think of only one word; Hell. Maybe that monster had killed him in his sleep and he was being given the ultimate punishment for some cruel deed he had performed at some point in his short life. A great curtain of fire descended from the heavens and plunged through the ground and on into the depths causing Matt to gasp in surprise. A strange metallic taste filled his mouth and confused him for a while before his mind finally hit on what the taste was. The sky, it was made of blood!
It's a dream. Yeah that's it. It has to be a dream.
Then came the scream. Mimi's scream. Again and again. Sounding just as it did when they had all fled from the clearing. Matt ran through the thick liquid as fast as he could. Blood congealed and oozed around him, sticking to him and slowing his movements as it worked into his every joint, seeping beneath his clothes and sticking them to his skin with its slickness. Pouring into his boots, making them squelch with every slowed down step of his sprint.
Inch by agonising inch the ground stumbled away beneath his feet as he tried to sprint in the thickening watery blood that was the sky of this nightmare. A geyser of molten flame burst up to his side, the heat wave from it rippling his vision despite his skin not feeling any of the heat. Pillars of fire after pillars of fire erupted up around him, the very world itself seeming to take offence at his presence or, perhaps, his direction. The ground shook, a great low rumble that threatened to tumble him into the fiery depths of the ground. He staggered to a stop as the land made one final assault, one final attempt to stop him. Shielding his eyes from the blinding nova light he stared ahead, the mushroom shaped plume of molten lava rocketed into the sky as he turned his back to it, this show of voraciousness finally making him feel the heat of the hellworld.
Hours or seconds passed as the great volcano created itself, all the while spewing its almost nuclear blast of fire into the stratosphere. Time or reality had little meaning here Matt decided as he took yet another step back. Slowly the volcano burned itself out, the great gouts of fire erupting from it coughed and spluttered to a stop. The ground itself fell silent as if in awe of the gigantic mountain that had sprung up in however little or much time had passed.
Matt faced back towards where the geyser had been, his head slowly moving upwards as his jaw opened in shock. He shook his head and took a step forward, followed by another lumbering step as he pushed himself through the sickly sticky blood with squelching sounds coming from his feet. A faint popping sounded in his ears and the thickness eased off, its gripping tendrils of red standing by idly, their final assault having failed to quell his determination.
Beguiling the slow speed he was sure he was trudging along at a small and beautiful section appeared on the horizon and sped towards him. A little section of Heaven in Hell was the best way he could describe it given what he was in. Instead of rocks there was soft looking green grass interspersed not with gouts of flames like the terrain he was standing on but with a variety of multicoloured flowers instead. The sun shone down into the beautiful blue sky, an invisible bubble of purity protecting a single inhabitant
Standing inside the rough sphere and completely immobile, as if frozen completely in time, was Mimi. He slowed down, there was no way that he could go inside and ruin her paradise, not stained from head to toe by blood as he was. He stopped mere metres from the edge of the bubble. A section of beauty untainted in a world of blood. A shadow fell across the idyllic view, but there were no clouds in sight. Matt looked around in a panic and saw it… the creature.
Quickly it flew down towards him, its dark black leathery wings beating languidly to slow its descent enough to stop itself crashing into the ground. Matt could do nothing but watch the behemoth almost float towards the rocks beneath their feet, frozen by panic. He noticed Mimi, unperturbed by the hulking figure of evil that was descending upon them, although still frozen completely immobile in her other worldly bubble of tranquillity. He calmed down as he looked at her, not truly noticing that she was frozen solid and regained control of his limbs.
It's no worse than Devimon. We defeated him. It's no worse than Devimon. We defeated him. Matt kept chanting the mantra over and over inside his head to keep his fear repressed. Between that and the calm look on Mimi's face it worked, slowly the fear started to drain away, despite the monstrosity that was about to land near to him.
The creature landed softly on the ground. Matt got his first good look at it. Standing at least twelve foot tall it towered over him, even at the distance it landed. It was covered from neck to foot in shining black armour daubed in various designs and scenes of slaughter in blood. A few faces leered out of the armour, their expressions twisted into grimaces of tortured pain for scant seconds before being absorbed back into it and being replaced by different faces displaying different expressions of pain.
No. Not faces… skulls. Skulls that somehow conveyed a myriad of different deaths, each one essentially the same but subtly different from the last. Around the neck of the creature it bore an ornate brass collar bedecked in gold and adorned with symbols that stung the eye when looked at. Finally he raised his eyes to look at the very face of the creature itself. A dull red in colour and sporting massive fangs dripping with blood, the half dog and half human face turned towards him as he stared at it. Matt almost managed to miss the pure black eyes burning like coal in their sockets until they dissected his soul in a single glance.
"Oh, but I am worse than Devimon. Far, far worse." It spoke, a deafening roar that threatened to knock Matt to the ground with its sheer volume even though the beast looked as though it wasn't trying to shout. His fear peaked up again, even worse than when the creature first appeared, but this time Matt somehow held his ground. Sweat was visible on him, and the creature could smell it as well, and probably taste it from the way it licked its lips hungrily.
It gestured slowly with its giant whip to the frozen Mimi inside the protected bubble. "So beautiful you see her as. Yet this is not how it is." It raised its axe towards the sky and bolts of red lightning erupted from it along with the accompanying rolling thunder, temporarily overshadowing the glow the fire of the place produced.
Matt stared in anguish as the soft grass and lovely flowers turned to rocks underneath the now confused looking and moving Mimi, followed slowly by the air congealing into blobs and taking on a reddish hue, turning to blood. Finally fire starting spewing up from the ground washing around Mimi, although not burning her. Seconds later Mimi collapsed to the rocks lining the ground in agony, unable to breath and now beginning to smoulder.
Matt covered his ears; the screams of pain were too much for him to bear easily. He tried to look away but found himself unable to. He had to stare. Stare at the most horrid sight he had seen in his life. Mimi's twitching form slowly stopped moving, the screams no longer coming from her body, but from the blood flowing around them both. Her skin bubbled and burst all over her wherever he could see, quickly turning her into a deformed mix of bubbling skin and glued on clothes that distorted her form almost beyond all recognition. One last spurt of merciful flame erupted up around her, forcing Matt backwards with one arm covering his face as even the wailing blood fell into deathly silence.