"Hope is a good thing - maybe the best thing, and no good thing ever dies."
-Stephen King
For EVERYONE, I'm sorry its been SO long.
~
Okay, if I don't update soon, send me a nasty email, that should motivate me. Been busy as hell lately, but with summer here (yay, might I add), I should have at least a little more free time. Serious though. Give me hell if I don't update soon. Anyways. I figured I've let the question of what the hell the big monster is hang long enough, and I hope this will answer a lot of the questions. Please drive cautiously over the plotholes to avoid any accidents. The first few paragraphs are pretty boring, but they foreshadow a lot of what coming in the future chapters.
Sincerely,
The letter N
~
It has been seventeen days since my colleague, Dr. Nonaka, and I, Dr. Valn, began putting our research into the advanced testing phases. The results have been unstable, to say the least. Several months ago, during our first tests, our virus was injected into small rodents–mice, mainly–and resulted in death anywhere from nine to twenty minutes. However, our more desirable results were achieved when tested on animals of higher evolution. When injected into canines, the animal would appear to die, but this is actually the crucial part of the transformation.
The subjects would appear to die, but after approximately two minutes later, would have a rapid increase in body temperature, which would act as a catalyst to incubate the virus and allow the transformation to take place. The body would then be covered in a thick, gelatinous film–a cacoon of some sort–and the metamorphosis occur. All hair follicles would fall from the subject during this phase, and I speculate that this is also when the subject's brain begins to deteriorate, allowing complex instinctual actions, but virtually no sentient or voluntary thought.
The canine subjects, were also unstable, and died after their transformation. Dr. Nonaka and I analyzed the corpses for days before we concluded the exact amount the formula would have to be injected into the subject to result in a carrier that would not die in a matter of hours. One character of the virus we took care of noting was how contagious it is–all of our feline specimens became infected minutes after they were in the presence of one feline carrier. It is not airborne, so it is assumed that the carrier had scratched another potential specimen, but even the second-generation carriers were unstable.
I have finally, at long last, produced a stable subject by injecting the Valn virus into living human tissue, and re-injecting a stabilizing serum into it every six hours. If someone were to become infected with the virus due to physical contact involving the carrier breaking living tissue, the second-generation infectants take much longer than the first, and have approxomately 48 hours before the transformation process becomes irreversable. That individual would also need to receive the serum if the metamorphosis completely occurs, or the subject would die. The metamorphosis produces an amphibious, almost snake-like abomination, but its military purposes are quite promising. I have yet to perfect absolute control over it, but am able to summon it via radio waves and a chip implanted into the man's brain. I can't wait to see the look on Yamaki's stupid face when he sees how far along the research has come.
Dr. Alexander Valn sighed contentedly as he signed his name at the bottom of his research logs. He knew it wasn't necessary, but he knew he deserved to personalize virtually everything he did after producing such wonderful research. He glanced at his watch. It was the middle of the night, but over the weeks he'd simply lost all sense of time. He realized it has been five hours, thirty-six minutes since the serum had last been injected in the what Valn affectionately called the Kannoa subject, a crude anagram of the man injected with the tissue. He sipped at his mug of coffee before going out to summon the subject to give it its next dose, and then sedate it for further testing. He approached the clearing outside, and pulled out the device with two buttons: one to send out a signal to draw the beast to him, the other to send enough shocks through the creature's brain to immobilize it while Valn would inject the stabilizer. He pushed the first, and a low howl could be heard in the distance. Valn smiled softly at his creation's song, as he slowly paced in tight circles waiting for it to arrive. It did, and Valn's eyes widened.
The creature was now larger, its skin was a darker tone, distinguishable from before even in the moonlight, and had several tentacle-like appendages growing from its back. Valn frowned at not being able to instantly know what had happened, and pushed the second button, causing the creature to grunt out in pain as it started towards the ground.
Dr Nonaka screamed as he was injected with the formula, just as he had over two weeks ago, when his own colleague turned their research against him and stolen his humanity.
~
Rika felt her gut wrench as she saw the terror in Takato's eyes, and spun around to see the creature moving in on her, fast. But now, the creature was different–bigger, but the most obvious difference was moving so much faster―
―the bugger has legs, it had a tail before, what the Hell's―
Rika threw herself to the ground as a massive arm flew over her head, barely missing her.
Not arm, tentacle. It's a God-forsaken walking octopus walking around, hunting me down, killing my friends―
―No, he's not dead.
―Maybe you should stay focused, you are about to die, you know.
Rika snapped back to reality as she realized she was paralyzed with fear. The creature was over her, looming down, raised an enormous foot and―
―And to Rika, everything froze, the foot seemed to stay there for at least ten seconds before what happened next actually happened.
―And Rika realized everything did freeze, that its foot was not going to kill her, that the creature wasn't moving.
―And the creature howled, a low groan that echoed throughout the park causing birds to flutter from the trees.
The creature lowered its foot, but not before retracting it from its outstretched position above Rika. Rika saw the opportunity and took it, she quickly got to her feet and ran to Takato, who was staring in disbelief that the creature had not just killed her. Then, what happened next caused both of their jaws to drop.
It turned, and ran, as quickly as it had while chasing her, back into the forest and to God-knows where. They both stared, wanting to believe it had left, but not wanting to take the risk that it was a trick. It was Takato who broke the silence.
"What just happened?"
"Who knows? Maybe it had to get back to its wife and kids" Rika murmured sarcastically.
"...Where's Ryo?" asked Takato, realizing his other friend was not with her.
"Digital World by now. Renamon and Cyberdramon are with him. That thing beat him up pretty badly, but I imagined it would be easier to deal with in the Digital World, away from that thing."
"Good call. We ready?"
"Whenever you are, goggle-head." The boy escorted her inside, where a portal was already open. Rika closed her eyes and stepped in. She'd always hated the shift between worlds, those few seconds where it felt like her body was being ripped in two then sewn back together. When she opened her eyes, she was not in the park, but at the base of a large mountain in a desert.
"..Where is he?" She asked.
"He should be right in that cave up there..." Takato replied while staring into the device his hand. "Away we go."
"Whee..." She whispered hopefully.
The climb up the mountain was brutal, and Rika probably let the other Tamers know by the curses that escaped her lips every five seconds. Kenta very likely giggled after each one, and although under most circumstances Rika would simply love to kick the boy's butt, she knew there were more important issues to address other than Kenta's ass. She was lost in thought as she scaled the mountain. She'd been rock-climbing since she was little, it wasn't as brutal as it could have been here, although she was out of practice. Finally, she arrived at the cliffedge next to the cave where Renamon and Cyberdramon were standing guard. All the other tamers were considerable farther behind her, and would be a few more minutes at least. She walked between the two digimon without giving them much more than a look to acknowledge their existence, and preceded into the cave, lit with nothing more than a few simply-crafted candles.
There, at the back of the cave, sitting propped against the wall and breathing heavily, was Ryo. She ran to him, and knelt beside him. She could see in his face how he struggled to stay awake, his head bobbing but finally steadying itself to look her in the eyes―
―and then her heart sank.
"Who are you?" he asked weakly.
Rika's hands trembled, her breaths shortened, and froze for a moment―
―but just a moment–
―because a moment was all it took before Ryo broke into weak laughter, amused by his prank even in the dismal situation.
Rika, at this point, smiled with relief and didn't know whether she wanted to punch him or kiss him. She chose the latter as she knelt forwards and gently placed her lips on his.
~
So, whatcha think? Not a mean cliffhanger this time, I think that's like the first one. Anyways, review like crazy, I need feedback. Its been a while since I've done this and I don't remember what works. I really should re-read the previous chapters so I remember them. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get around to it.
-N