DAY 2
Susie woke up.
The first thing she thought was, Why exactly am I sleeping on the ground, in a small river?
The next thing was, Oh. Right. This.
Susie stood up, and gently attempted to wake Tal.
The result, as it turned out, was that Tal gave Susie a hard slap, and went back to sleep.
Susie muttered to herself, "So I'm in an unfamiliar alternate universe with an amnesiac Bajoran and some snarky computer programs. Mm-hmm. I feel confident this day could not get any worse."
The universe, as Susie was about to find out, loves this sentence. It will go to great lengths to screw with people who utter it.
Translation: A Digivice fell from the sky and hit Susie in the head.
Susie groaned, rolled over, and noticed that Tal, somehow, also had one.
Susie slapped Tal.
Tal groaned, opened her eyes, attempted to sit up, failed, and muttered "What was that for?"
"Easiest way to get you to wake up," Susie said. "Come on. We should probably get moving."
Izzy, who was apparently gone doing something, rushed back, rapidly kicked/slapped/ran over everyone, and said, "Guys, I think you should see this."
"Phone booths?" Sora inquired.
"Yes. Phone booths," Izzy replied.
"I'm beginning to think the developers were on an LSD trip," Takeru stated.
"Let's see if they were. There's nine phone booths."
Tai went into one of the booths, and dialed the number for his apartment.
"Hello, Mom?"
A cool computerized voice answered. "At the tone, the time will be forty-two kilometres per hour and ninety seconds."
"Either I called the wrong number, or Mom's flipped," Tai noted.
Sora entered booth five, and dialed 07700 900461.
A vaguely Irish voice answered. "You are not The Sisko. Go away, and stop calling us."
The line ended.
"How did I call the Bajoran Wormhole?" Sora muttered.
Izzy entered booth four.
The response was rather odd. Read: the booth played "What Is Love" by Haddaway on a volume that could probably be heard for kilometres. And this was without him even dialing anything.
"Just. Bloody. Brilliant," Izzy muttered.
Matt entered another booth, and dialed 496 730 482 556 00.
"This number only exists in your imagination. Don't call back."
The phone blew up.
Tal entered booth nine, and dialed 74205.
Another cool computerized voice said, "Please go outside and whistle at koi to recharge."
Tal shook the phone.
"Go please whistle recharge koi at to and outside."
Mimi dialed 0000 0000.
"Hello?"
"On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, where no man can lie or fail to answer, a question will be asked, a question that must never, ever be answered: Doctor who?"
The line ended.
Joe dialed 999. The phone just blew up.
Takeru also dialed 999. His phone also blew up.
"I guess it's up to me then," Susie groaned.
She entered the only remaining booth, and dialed 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3.
This time, it actually rang.
After about thirty seconds, a voice said, "IT. This is UlforceVeedramon, how may I help you?"
Susie yelled, "Guys, I think you should come over here."
"So what exactly are these small blue devices we have?" Izzy inquired.
"They're called Digivices. They assist digivolution," UlforceVeedramon explained.
"And what exactly is digivolution?"
Agumon cut in. "It's the process by which we advance in level."
"Exactly."
"How did we get here, and why us?" Sora asked.
"I have no idea why you in particular were chosen. You got here through an area portal. It's a region of real space-time that a master program links to a specific spot in the Digital World. As for the other two, we don't know how you got here, or why. Susie, you say you went from your universe directly into the Digital World?"
"That pretty much sums it up."
"I don't know how."
"Just brilliant."
"We did give you digivices, though. Might as well make something out of your presence."
"Okay, so can I get a partner then?" Tal asked.
"Sort of. Yes, you can have one. No, I can't assign you one," UlforceVeedramon replied. "By the way, can you please all place your Digivices in front of the phone booth?"
They complied. "Done."
"Okay, press the left button, the one closest to the antenna, and hold out your digivices to this phone booth."
They did so, and were surprised to find that the phone booth split in nine, and absorbed into the Digivices.
"This should be a lot easier than lugging a phone booth around every time you want to contact me," UlforceVeedramon said.
DAY 3
Susie woke up, and slapped Tal.
"What did you do that for?" Tal groaned.
"Easiest way to wake you up. Come on."
"Didn't any of you bring some coffee? Or cordrazine, for that matter?"
Susie laughed. "Come on."
"Okay, fine. Just let me do something first."
"Can you please hold your digivices out towards the laptop?"
"What's this about?" Izzy queried.
"Just do it."
They complied.
"Now, hit the button labeled SCAN twice."
Upon complying, they found that doing so led to a system update screen.
"Now press DOWNLOAD."
They did so. Their digivices flashed twice, and appeared to restart.
"That patch file should give you the ability to turn into digimon."
Beat.
"Okay, now what?"
"You should be able to activate the new feature by yelling 'bio charge' followed by the level keyword. The level keywords are 'activate,' 'overload,' 'overdrive,' and 'hyperdrive.'"
The universe, as you should probably know by now, has a horrible sense of timing. Something always happens when you really, really, really aren't prepared.
In this case, said sense of timing manifested as an unearthly screech.
"Okay, what the hell was that?"
TORTOMON
Level: Champion
Attribute: Vaccine
Attacks:
Strong Carapace - Launches a piece of its shell.
Spinning Attack - Exactly what it says on the bin.
Grand Dash - Basically kicks the opponent. At high speed.
"What the hell just happened?"
"It appears our digivices projected an information screen on top of our normal vision," Izzy stated.
"Okay. Let's fight this stupid thing already," Sora suggested.
Tortomon slammed forward.
For no apparent reason, Tai's digivice glowed.
"Agumon digivolve to..."
Agumon started rapidly increasing in size. Muscle ripped and reformed. His previously yellow skin turned orange with blue stripes, and his head hardened into a brown helmet with three horns.
"GREYMON!"
GREYMON
Level: Champion
Attribute: Vaccine
Attacks:
Nova Blast - Breathes fire.
Great Horns Attack - Impales the opponent on its horns.
Grey Tooth - Not sure what this one is.
Great Tooth - Appears to be redundant.
Horn Impulse - Attacks the opponent with its horns.
Tail Crash - Slams its tail into the opponent.
Fire Wall - Spews out an encroaching wall of flames.
Greymon started dashing into Tortomon. This did not work.
He then yelled "NOVA BLAST," and blew a fireball at Tortomon.
The (very persistent) opponent walked out of the fireball unfazed.
Tortomon roared. His shell began to glow. He started throwing bits of it at Greymon.
And then it happened.
Tai roared "BIO CHARGE: ACTIVATE!" at the top of his lungs.
Muscle thickened. His hands turned into claws. His skin turned blue, save for a white patch on the chest.
He noticeably winced as his head turned into a more dragon-like shape.
"VEEDRAMON!"
VEEDRAMON
Level: Champion
Attribute: Vaccine
Attacks:
V-Breath Arrow - Spews a high-temperature heat ray out of its mouth.
V-Breath Arrow MAX - Concentrates its energy into a giant V-Breath Arrow.
Hammer Punch - Powers up its fist and launches a punch at the enemy.
Magnum Punch - Punches an enemy. Yup, looks like a redundancy.
Cutting Shoot - Uses its claws to create multiple flying blades of wind.
"WHO WRITES THESE OVERLAYS?!" Takeru yelled.
Just then, Tai/Veedramon noticed something.
Whenever Tortomon used his Strong Carapace attack, a small section was unprotected for a half second.
So if he could hit it at that exact moment...
Tai/Veedramon jumped.
At the exact moment that Tortomon used Strong Carapace, Tai/Veedramon roared "V-BREATH ARROW MAX!"
A glowing blue arrow shot out of Tai/Veedramon's mouth and hit the unprotected spot.
Tortomon thrashed backwards, and exploded.
Tai glowed, shrank back down to human form, and fell over panting.
Izzy grinned. "That was bloody brilliant!"
"I really need to rest," Tai groaned.