"Ouch…" grumbled Takato.
"You said it…" Calumon mumbled as he spun around in a daze.
Takato's fall from the train had gone perfectly, or rather nearly perfectly. He had caught himself on the top branch, very much to his relief, and had even made it half way down the tree, but apparently the branch he had chosen to step on to was just too weak to support his weight. It buckled like a toothpick supporting an elephant. Takato and Calumon fell the rest of the way, striking nearly every branch on the way down before finally getting face-planted in the dirt.
Now, Takato was dusting himself off, picking twigs out of his hair, and trying to stop his nose from bleeding. As soon as he was sure he was all right, his attention instantly shifted back to Guilmon. With all the grace he could manage, Takato stumbled toward the building where his wounded partner lay.
"Guilmon! GUILMON!" Takato yelled as he tripped and fell to the ground right next to the curled-up form of Guilmon. "Answer me, boy…"
Guilmon had a deep wound in his right leg from NightmareOmnimon's blade, and he had sustained a number of other scrapes and bruises from the fall. His tongue lolled out and his eyes were closed.
"Ohhh…" Calumon said sadly. "Guilmon's hurt real bad…"
"No! He's just fine!" yelled Takato. "Come on! Wake up, boy! Wake up!"
"Pathetic…" NightmareOmnimon snarled. "You're even weaker than Azulongmon's foolish ilk. I should simply dispose of you and be on my way."
"You… you MONSTER!" Takato yelled. "Look at what you did to Guilmon! Look at what you did to Jeri! I'll tear you apart for this!"
"Idiot," said NightmareOmnimon. "That puny human girl is safely in the hands of the D-Reaper. Do yourself a favor kid; keep to your own affairs."
"Come on, Guilmon!" Takato shouted, completely ignoring NightmareOmnimon. "Wake up! We have work to do!"
Guilmon's eyes slowly began to open and he pulled his tongue back into his mouth and started snarling.
"That's it! Let's teach this guy a lesson!"
Guilmon rolled over onto his belly and began to push himself back up into a standing position. His pupils had shrunk and his lips were pulled back in a snarl. Takato held his digivice out in front of him, gripping it very tightly in his fingers.
"BIOMERGE ACTIVATE!" screamed Takato.
The digivice began to shake violently and the screen started to glow. Takato and Guilmon braced themselves for the sudden rush of power that they had come to expect.
"So what exactly do you know about this virus?" asked Yamaki. "What are its capabilities."
The DigiDestined, along with their digimon, Kazu, Kenta, Guardromon, Henry, Suzie, Terriermon, Lopmon, Yamaki, and the six programmers had all gathered in the lounge area. Naturally, a few of the DigiDestined were reluctant to allow anyone else to join them in the couches, but they finally agreed to make some more room. Still, there were more than a few people left standing.
"It all goes back to the very start of the artificial life project…" Shibumi said nostalgically. "The project progressed at a far greater rate than we could have imagined. Our success was outstanding, but that made us even more wary. We created the D-Reaper program in order to make sure things didn't get out of hand. Experimenting with artificial life is hardly something we wanted to leave up to chance. Even with the D-Reaper though, we still couldn't be sure of the safety of the project."
"What did you do?" asked Henry.
"We were worried," said Mr. Wong. "If we lost control of the artificial life-forms, there's no telling what kind of damage they could cause to the network. We couldn't be sure how long the D-Reaper would be effective, since they showed an amazing ability to grow and adapt in spite of it. We weren't confident that the D-Reaper's primitive program would be able to deal with our creations."
"It was then that we came up with the plan…" said Babel. "I never liked the idea myself. Everything about it, right down to the name, just told me that program was a bad idea."
"The Genocide Virus," said Izzy.
"It was meant to do exactly what its name suggests," said Shibumi. "Once it was activated and released, it would wipe out any and all digital information in a network, starting with the most complicated programs: the digimon. Basically, it's the most sophisticated abort code in the world."
"Hold on just a minute here," said Tai. "Are you telling us that you guys created the digimon?"
"Well, originally yes," said Daisy. "But our part lasted only a few months. We just came up with the most basic programs, such as a growth and survival instinct, and slapped them together. We eventually began adding individual personalities and abilities, but that was just a short time before the project was shelved. Ever since then, the digimon have been advancing on their own."
"Wait, wait, wait…" said Matt. "Wouldn't that mean that digimon and the whole Digital World aren't any more than twenty years old?"
"Well, kind of," said Curly. "You must understand that the Digital World did not start with digimon. We believe that it has existed since the first digital computer, ENIAC, was brought online. When we started work on the creation of digimon, the Digital World had already taken on a distinctive form."
"You must also understand the nature of the Digital World," said Dolphin. "Until just a few years ago, time in the Digital World moved at a far greater rate than that in the real world. What was twenty years for us was probably thousands of years for them."
"Of course!" said Sora. "When we beat Apocalymon, time in the real and Digital worlds synchronized. Before that, we could spend months in the Digital World and only be gone for an hour or so in our world."
"It's very likely that the destruction of Apocalymon strengthened the connections between the worlds," said Shibumi. "That's what caused the synchronization."
"Back to the matter at hand," said Mr. Wong.
"Of course," said Shibumi. "As I was saying the Genocide Virus was an abort code. We only planned to use it if we completely lost control of the digimon and they began to tear the network apart. We started with a basic self-replicating virus and added in some of the special features that had made the digimon so adaptable, like an instinct for growth and survival and an individual personality. We also added extremely detailed knowledge on digimon and what they are capable of. The virus was then equipped with its weapon: a special program that breaks down any other program into a useless data stream and then deletes the remains."
"Once the program was shut down, we just abandoned it all," said Dolphin. "Digimon and virus alike. They were left on their own."
"But then why didn't the virus go after the digimon?" asked Henry.
"It couldn't," said Curly. "You see, the virus in its natural state is completely harmless. Without a certain patch, it can't access its only weapon. After the project was shut down, we thought we'd never hear another word about it."
"And then twenty years go by and it ends up on our doorstep," said Izzy.
"Honestly, we have no idea of how it could have gotten onto the Internet," said Mr. Wong. "Most of us didn't even know that the digimon had continued to grow and develop until just recently. Shibumi is the only one who might know."
"I wish I could help," said Shibumi. "Unfortunately, it wasn't until years after the project was shut down that I could get a computer that had the capability of accessing the network. It took me even longer to find out where our creations had gone. I never thought for a second that they could be just under my nose. Anyway, I couldn't even begin to piece together what all had occurred in my absence. Everything had changed, so I tried to make a new start of things, and I began learning what I could."
"So what's your story?" asked Yamaki. "How did you meet up with this virus?"
"As we said, it just appeared on the Internet one day," said Willis. "It took over a digiegg that I had been trying to make, and it turned the digimon inside into its own personal servant."
"Used… me…" growled Diaboromon.
"It was eventually beaten, and its plan was foiled," said Willis. "But somehow, it managed to escape to our world, where it was able to take control of one of my digimon. For years it possessed him, until I finally got some help from the other DigiDestined and we put an end to it. Of course, that wasn't really the end. We beat him twice more and here he is yet again."
"You know, it's strange…" said TK. "Every time we faced the virus, he's changed his tactics, and he's been tougher every time. When we first fought him on the Internet, he created a huge number of copies of himself. When we fought him the second time there was only one of him, but no matter what damage we did, he would recover in a few seconds. After that, when he had control of Diaboromon again, it sent millions of Kuramon after us, and then it used them to digivolve beyond the Mega level. Last time we fought it, it just used that overwhelming strength and regenerative ability to very nearly kill us all. The only tactic it used every time was being able to digivolve at an extremely fast pace."
"I have a theory," said Babel. "The two times you fought against Diaboromon, it was on the Internet, right?"
"Yeah," said Matt.
"Well that must mean the virus is only capable of making copies of itself while online," said Babel. "Otherwise I'm sure it would have used the same tactic in the second fight."
"That's good to know," said Rosemon. "But what we really need is a way of doing some real damage to that thing. It always regenerates after our attacks. Is there anything we can do about that?"
"Well…" said Curly. "If I'm right, then it's the ability of the virus to produce copies of itself that allows for that."
"How do you mean?" asked Wargreymon.
"I'm sure you're all aware of certain computer viruses that attack your computer by filling up your hard drive with an infinite number of copies of themselves," said Curly. "That's the same kind of virus that served as the basic design for the Genocide Virus. The ability to reproduce itself quickly and efficiently must be directly linked to its regenerative abilities."
"Yes, that does make a lot of sense," said Izzy. "If we could just find a way to suppress that ability, then we should be able to take down NightmareOmnimon before the end of the night!"
"I have a thought," said Dolphin.
"Oh?" asked Yamaki.
"It's about how the digimon it possesses digivolve so rapidly," said Dolphin. "I think that all the information on digimon that we programmed into the virus could be the reason why it can do such a thing. I wouldn't be surprised if the virus knows more about digimon than most digimon do. It probably know everything there is to know about digivolving, and how to induce it at any time it chooses."
"Of course!" said Mr. Wong. "It all fits together."
"You've certainly outdone yourselves with this thing," said Yamaki. "But as lethal as this thing sounds, it's still looking for something."
"What do you mean?" asked Kenta.
"I've been thinking about why the virus came here," said Yamaki. "After hearing this, I have no choice but to conclude that it's here for you programmers."
"What?" asked Daisy.
"How do you mean?" asked Shibumi.
"It's incomplete," said Yamaki. "Despite all of its power, it still can't access its most powerful weapon. It knows you have the code to make it whole, and it will come for you."
"But we don't HAVE the code anymore!" said Shibumi.
"We were concerned about accidentally unleashing the virus," said Mr. Wong. "In the wrong hands, that thing could devastate every network on the planet. We made only one copy of the code and put it where no one would look."
"Where?!" asked Yamaki.
"Inside the D-Reaper…" said Mr. Wong.
Takato and Guilmon waited for a few moments, but they then realized that nothing was happening. The digivice was at full power and ready to go and Takato and Guilmon were both more than willing, but nothing happened. No bright flash, no fusion of their minds and bodies, no turning into an incredibly powerful Mega digimon, nothing. Nothing at all…
"What happened?!" asked Takato. "Why isn't it working?!"
"I don't know what's wrong!" said Guilmon frantically.
"Well, that was rather anti-climactic," said NightmareOmnimon.
"Darn it!" Takato yelled. "If Guilmon and I could only biomerge, we'd mop the floor with you!"
"Biomerge, you say?" asked NightmareOmnimon.
"Yeah! That's right!" said Takato. "When the two of us join together we make for one SERIOSULY tough Mega digimon!"
"A combination of human and digimon in a single body?" asked NightmareOmnimon. "What a fascinating proposition. It is indeed unfortunate that I can't stay and study the phenomenon in more detail."
"We'd love to give you a demonstration…" Guilmon snapped.
"Sorry, children," said NightmareOmnimon. "You are of no concern to me, but the longer I am distracted with you, the longer I must wait to add in the final code to bring all of these worlds crashing down around me."
"I'll chase you even beyond the ends of the Earth!" Takato shouted. "We aren't done yet!"
"Oh yes you are…" said NightmareOmnimon, suddenly jerking his right arm.
With impressive speed, NightmareOmnimon swung his Infernal Sword out, clipping the corner of the building and tearing away a half-ton of concrete, glass, and metal. Takato, Guilmon, and Calumon all looked up at the debris as it came falling toward them. Guilmon instinctively darted forward and threw himself on top of Takato and Calumon mere moments before the rubble began to pour over the three of them, burying them beneath a heap of twisted metal, broken glass, and concrete slabs.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[Hey, everybody! Looking for something a little more… interactive? Do you like digimon? Join me at pub96.ezboard.com/btamersrealmv2 if the answer to both of these questions is yes! It's a text-based digimon RPG, and it's just getting started so we need more players. Keep in mind though, that it's not just a game. It's also a great place to meet and talk with other Digimon fans. Trust me, I've been a member of several of these places and they can be a lot of fun, (and remember, the first few people who join usually end up with positions as moderators). Hope to see you there.]