Episode 6: Gondolas; Glitches; Glimmer

Beep beep beep

Kurohi sighed. There was a 95% chance that this txt was from the same person who sent the other nine texts he'd gotten that day. He checked his DP just to make certain, and sure enough, Yumie had sent him another picture of her quote unquote "adorable" Mikemon. He sighed again.

Classes were boring, and he couldn't seem to get in touch with Melor, and there were still no signs of that bug thing. He had even grown tired of porn; a mathematical impossibility. And now look at him: looking at pictures of his friend's Digi-cat for entertainment. He'd give anything to alleviate the monotony for just a min-

"Kurohi." Linkmon was staring down at him with a pitiful look from his computer monitor. "You look really bored."

"Yeeeaaa."

Linkmon switched his tab over to the Digimon Official Forums. "I've found an interesting thread that I thought you might want to take a look at."

Kurohi lifted his head off his desk and started to read. Started and failed. "Link, I don't even know what language this is."

"It's Italian."

"Is that even a real language?"

Linkmon frowned before moving up to the corner of the screen and hit the button that looked like a big capital 'T'. Another tab opened up, this time in Japanese. "You have a translate button. Just because you're bored does not mean you can act like a child."

Kurohi massaged his temples. "Sorry, sorry. I'm just a little out of it. Gimme a sec to switch back to my normal mind set." After a few more seconds of massaging, he flicked his fingers into the air, as if to say 'it is done'.

He started reading.

Hey, I don't know much about Digimon, yadda yadda yadda, I found this Digivice thing, yadda yadda, I can't find what it is, so here's a pic...ture...

Kurohi stopped. "What the hell is that?" The Digimon in question looked like a red dodge ball with a face and covered in green tear drops. It looked like it was slouching, with its arms and legs seemingly folding out of its body. "Dude...just what..."

"Kurohi, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yea. That is the dumbest Illegal I've ever seen."

Linkmon gaped at him like he was a moron. "Are you a moron, Kurohi." He shook his head in disappointment. "Are you forgetting the time we fought against the Tamer with a MagmaNumemon? That was definitely dumber than this."

"Yea, that dude should've chosen a better place to rip his textures from." Kurohi circled his mouse around the circumference of the ball Digimon. "All joking aside, what were you actually thinking?"

"I was thinking that we should go check this out in person. It seems as if he acquired this Digimon by chance. It might be a good idea to find him first, before he gets himself in trouble."

"The good citizen bit, huh? Not like we've got anything else to do. We're gonna need to back trace his IP."

"Already finished. It's quite simple when you have the right tools." He wagged his tail.

"Always gotta be one step ahead. So, where we sailin' off to?"

"Venice, Italy."

A joyful little beep emitted from Ricker's computer, signaling that he just got mail. He peeked out from under his arm, the image of a tiny red figure waving at him reflected in his hazel eye. He jerked up off his bed, which wasn't hard, since his feet were already hanging off the bottom, and walked over to his tiny desk, ruffling his brown hair to try and knock some of the sleep out of him. He sat down, opened the e-mail, and started to read it. Started and failed. "Is this Japanese? How am I supposed to read this? Who even sent it?" He wasn't talking to anyone in particular. In fact, he had already forgotten that there was someone else in the room to listen.

Beep beba beep da deep! The tiny ball Digimon dropped down from the top of the screen and perched himself on the bottom of the e-mail window. He smacked the squiggly symbols twice with his hand to select them all, and then they changed into Italian.

"Uh...cool. Thanks Rollermon."

The little Digimon happily saluted.

Ricker began to read the now-legible e-mail.

Hey, I think I know what's up with that Digimon, yadda yadda yadda, it's easier to talk face-to-face, yadda yadda, here's my IM address...

Before he had even finished reading, a blinking yellow light appeared on his task bar. When he clicked it, it maximized into a young man's face. "ヨ. を使用すると、Digimonの人か?"

Ricker had no idea what he just said. "Che cosa ha detto?"

Kurohi had no idea what he just said. "Umm...Do you speak english?"

"Yes..."

"Okay, let me try this again. 'Yo. Are you the guy with the Digimon?'"

"Is this about that forum post?"

"Yea. You're the guy with the red ball Digimon, right?"

"That's me, but..." He eyed Kurohi suspiciously. "I took that post down because people kept saying really nasty things to me."

"Stuff like 'Cheater', 'Illegal', and 'fluffy bunny'?"

"Why was everyone cal-ling me that!?" His suspicions changed to exasperation in the blink of an eye. "Is that some kind of weird Digimon slang, or something? Is the worst Digimon in existence cal-led FluffyBunnymon?"

Kurohi was having a hard time not laughing at this outburst. "No the worst Digimon in existence is MagmaNumemon."

"Then why was everyone cal-ling me that?" He looked angrily confused. Better than confusedly angry, in Kurohi's opinion.

"Whenever someone tries to post a swear word on the official forums, it gets replaced with the phrase 'fluffy bunny'. I guess you could say it is a form of Digimon slang." Kurohi clapped his hands together to symbolize the end of the tangent. "Would you like to know why everyone was saying those things about you?"

"Only if you think I'm not a fluf-fy bun-ny."

"No. I think you're either extremely lucky or extremely unlucky. Can I see your Digimon?"

The ball Digimon appeared in the window containing the Italian. He waved cheerily and beeped a few times.

"This is him. I don't think he can talk, so I just call him 'Rollermon'." He nodded his head a bit, as if approving something. "I like him. Everybody else hates him. Why?"

"Because he's an Illegal Digimon."

"I have no idea what that means."

"It means that..." How was he going to explain this? "...It means he wasn't created by the company. He was created through some other means."

"But I didn't make him. I just found him. How is that pos-sible?"

"Well, you apparently won the one-in-a-billion lotto of getting a working Glitch Digimon. Those haven't existed since the days of the original Digital Monster keychain toys." He gave the man a small golf clap. "Bravo. Not as cool as making one yourself, like me, but it still comes with bragging rights."

He started wildly waving his hands. "Wait, one moment, what did you say? Like you? You have a fake Digimon?"

"We are not 'fake', we are 'illegal'." Linkmon appeared on the other side of Kurohi's window, showing that he had arrived at the guy's PC. "It is a term that came from the fact that we are not among the legal competitive Digimon allowed in tournaments."

"And people apparently hate us for it." Kurohi threw in the last bit with a fake smile.

"No kid-ding. I've had mine for a day, and the internet already hates me." He tapped the screen of his computer overtop of Rollermon.

"So, what'll you do, knowing all this?"

"I don't know. I don't really even like Digimon to begin with." Kurohi let out a low groan, which seemed to upset the Italian. "What?"

"Naw, it's just...People who aren't into it have a tendency to say a lot of tactless things without realizing it, and I'm just bracing myself." Kurohi rubbed his temples a bit. "I'd just like to know what you plan on doing with the little guy."

He thought about it. It was a few minutes before he responded. "I don't know. I'm really busy with school, and work, and football, and everything, so I don't really have the time. Could you take him?"

Kurohi had a feeling he'd ask that. "I've got my hands full with just one Illegal. I know it's not easy balancing school, work, and a social life with Digimon, but it's not unmanageable."

"Well, couldn't I just del-le-"

"If you finish that sentence I will punch you through the screen!" This was what Kurohi had been dreading. People who didn't know about Digimon didn't get it, and it was the thing that always pushed him over the edge whenever it was brought up. "Deleting a Digimon is not like deleting the save file on a video game." He was speaking through gritted teeth to stop himself from yelling again. "They are intelligent. They have emotions and memories, and deleting them is equivalent to killing a human." Kurohi was desperately trying to calm himself down. "Look, just...Sorry."

"No, it's alright." He wasn't angry or upset at Kurohi's outburst. If anything, he was the one who looked sorry. "I get it. I wouldn't do that to the lit-tle guy. I was just put-ting it out there." He picked up his DP and fiddled with it. "Guess I'm now the proud owner of an Il-legal Digimon, eh?" He shot a small smile across the screen, which was returned by his Japanese conversation partner.

"Welcome to the club. We now have four members." He prepared an internet fist bump. "I'm Kurohi, the resident Goggle-Head."

His fist bump was received and reciprocated. "Ricker. Ace football player at Venice International University, and technological anti-Christ."

"Why did'ja call me?" Pop did not look very happy.

"'Cause Melor's asleep."

Kurohi, Ricker, and Pop were in the middle of a low-traffic internet highway in Portugal, for no other reason then it was half-way between the later twos' houses. All around them, hundreds of different file icons were whizzing past in a myriad of lights and colors, each heading to their downloader's computers.

"So? It's dhe weekend. You think I don't have anything better to do than hang oud widh you and some noob you picked up?"

"Probably not. I mean, you are here."

Her red eyes flashed menacingly. "Don' try to psycho-analyze me! You should be gradeful dhat I'd even grace you widh my presence; especially on such short nodice! Dhere are a hundred differend things I could be doing righd now, but instead I chose to spend my time helping you babysit some wanna-be Tamah!"

"Um..." Ricker, who had silently watched this back-and-forth with the Digimon for a few minutes, finally spoke up. "What-"

"Shud up, noob! Dhe adults are talking!"

"But I'm 19. I'm pretty sure I'm older than both of you."

"I said shud up!" The little 12-year old was fuming. "Do you wan' me to help you or not?"

Apart from the arguing Tamers, another sound that caught Sopranomon's attention. He turned around quickly, and might have seen something in his peripheral vision, but wasn't sure if it was just a trick of the mind or not. "Sir Linkmon, did you hear something?"

Linkmon, who had his eyes closed and was imitating sleep, cracked an eye and peered over in the direction the little musician was looking. "Over the sounds of these three? There could be a full-scale battle behind us, and I wouldn't be any the wiser."

Surmising that it was probably nothing, he returned his attention to the trio of argumentative teens.

"I still don't know why we need three people." Ricker turned to Kurohi for the answer to that.

Kurohi scratched his chin as he tried to imagine up a fitting metaphor. "You know in RPGs when you get a character late game and they start at level 1?"

"I don't really play video games."

Pop was staring at the guy, baffled. "Where did you pick dhis one up?"

"The forums."

She didn't respond to this. She just shook her head in disappointment. "What supah-Tamah over here is trying do say is he's too weak to protect you all by himself, so he called me because-"

"My preferred choice is snoring like a Siberian Tiger."

Surprisingly, Pop's predictable agitated outburst did not follow Kurohi's comment. Instead, she made a pouty face and pushed her chair so it squeakily wheeled off screen. "I'm just as good as he is."

Kurohi knew she was probably just trying to tug on his heart strings, but it was working. "I don't doubt that. I've just known him longer, and trust him more because of that."

"Dhat's the only reason?"

"That's the only reason."

She scooted back into the view of the camera, smiling a little. "Ok. So where to?"

"Straight to inferno!" A large skeletal hand tried to swipe down through the gathered Digimon.

Program Activated – Power Leveler CvP

Linkmon caught it right before it made contact with their party. The owner was a very nasty looking SkullGreymon. Another fist, this one covered in white-blue fur, struck Linkmon square in the chest, sending him hurtling through the streaking downloads and into the wall. The Panjyamon X that had struck him then rose his staff to strike at the remaining two Child Digimon.

Program Activated – Evolution

"Linkmon evolve to Jackmon!"
"Sopranomon evolve to Mezzomon!"

Mezzomon blasted Panjyamon's staff with a shot from his trumpet, knocking him off balance, which Jackmon complimented with an energy blast to the face. It retreated backwards in a bit of a daze, which his undead partner mimicked.

"Be careful SkullGreymon, these Illegals are strong."

"Most Illegals are, but they're just Adultos, we have the upper hand!"

Behind the antagonistic Digimon were another Tamer and a window of similar size that said 'Sound Only'. The visible human, who looked around 14 or 15, was cheering on his Digimon. "Eliminar esses batoteiros, SkullGreymon!"

"Obviamente, meu Tamer!" SkullGreymon slammed down onto the floor, sending up quickly disappearing debris, and aimed him back missile. "Ground Zero!" Mezzomon grabbed Rollermon just as the blast hit between the group, speeding the two adult Digimon in opposite directions. Jackmon recovered quickly, but Mezzomon, who had been trying to shield Rollermon, was moving slowly. Catching this, their boney adversary sprung from his current position, his beady eyes set on the easier prey.

"Kurohi!" Pop was looking frantic. "Do something!"

"Jackmon!" Not needing to ask what Kurohi wanted him to do, Jackmon made a beeline to intercept SkullGreymon, only to be intercepted himself by Panjyamon.

"Where do you think you're going?" He pulled back his arm before Jackmon could slow down. "Hyoujūken!" A phantasmal army of blue lion heads hailed from his extended fist, pelting Jackmon again and again, and freezing over the entire front half of his body.

They could only watch on in horror as SkullGreymon's claws inched closer and closer to Mezzomon and Rollermon.

"It's this one, right?" A familiar flash of bright light filled the highway. A giant emerald ball covered in blue spikes cannonballed out of it straight into the extinct dinosaur's face, making him cartwheel over himself and safely away from Mezzomon. The ball popped open, and the new Digimon skidded to a stop on the ceiling. With its limbs extended, it looked like a more armored, and upright, version of Rollermon.

The two bewildered Tamers turned to Ricker. "What did you do?"

Their synchronicity through him off, somewhat. "The same thing you guys did, right? It just took me a while to find the but-ton that makes him evolve."

Pop gawked at him like he was a circus performer while Kurohi shook his head and refocused himself on the current problem. SkullGreymon was no longer dazed, and had recommenced his charge, snapping his jaws as if preparing to sink his teeth into the creature that was previously Rollermon. The green Digimon dodged easily, and kicked the behemoth in the side of the head. He didn't flinch much, but there were definite cracks forming on its lower jaw bone.

Jackmon was still frozen in place, with everything but his wings and tail covered in a thick layer of ice. Panjyamon was smiling mischievously at his work while bouncing his staff in his hand. "Kurohi...I'm tired of chilling out. Could I get a little help heating things up?"

"One shot of cinnamon whiskey comin' right up." Finger down, slid up, and...

Program Activated – DNA Backtrack

The crystalline blue ice encasing him melted from existence as a giant ball of orange flames conjured itself in front of him. He held his clawed hands out in front of him, and directed the fire at his leonine foe. "Gaia Force!" The blast seemed to bake the air as it sizzled its way forward.

"Impossible!" Too shaken to move, Panjyamon raised his arms to guard his head and braced for the impact. The sphere of molten earth collided with him full on, crashing him into the ground, unconscious.

Upon hearing his partner's explosive defeat, SkullGreymon turned away from the yet to be named Illegal Digimon he was fighting. "Panjyamon!" Taking advantage of his foe's dropped guard, the emerald Digimon hurried in for an attack. He aimed his one punch at the most fractured part of the horned dino's jaw and let loose, shattering it into pieces. SkullGreymon let out a muffled cry, before he and his blue partner were coated in the same familiar light, and re-emerging as a BlackGreymon and Leomon X, respectively.

BlackGreymon swooped down and scooped up his fallen comrade. He gave the three Digimon and their Tamers an angry glare. "Não vamos esquecer isso, coelhinhos felpudos." He retreated, followed closely by the two Tamers.

As soon as they were out of sight, Ricker started dancing in his chair. "Oh yeeeaaa, we won!" He waved his hands in the air like he just didn't care...that there were five people there horribly judging him.

His two senpai exchanged a knowing look. "Should we tell him we're dhe bad guys."

Kurohi shrugged. "We'll spoil his fun some other time. It's his first victory, after all."

"I guess you're right." She tapped her DP a few times. Mezzomon jumped up and started moving his little fingers, testing to see if everything was fixed up after the fight. "I think I've had enough excitemend for today, unfortunadely, so I'm gonna ged Mezzomon back home."

"Alright. Thanks for showing up. I appreciate it. I really do."

"Sure." She gave him a warm smile. "If you ever need anything, just call." She turned her attention to Ricker, who was now dancing in synch with his Digimon. "Hey, nooby!" He stopped mid-dance, looking quite odd with his hands up in the air, holding an invisible roof. "Thanks for the save. You did good." She waved to the two older boys. "See ya." And she and her Digimon zoomed down the highway, and out of site.

The remaining two Tamers sat there in silence for a while, unsure of what to do next.

Kurohi was the one to break the silence. "Well, that took all of five minutes."

"Yea. I did get a feel for my Digimon, thou." He beamed widely at his new friend. "And totally kicked that skeleton thing's butt!"

"Yea. You're partner's pretty strong. Don't forget that it was him fighting, and not you, thou."

Ricker nodded. "Got it. I won't forget." He gave his partner a thumbs-up. "Thanks for all your help, Chargermon."

Chargermon returned his hand sign, happily beat-boxing in response.

"Chargermon? That's a...great name..." Kurohi made a mental note not to ever let Ricker name anything for him.

It ate and ate.

Ate and ate.

Ate and ate.

It kept eating until it felt something inside it. Like something clicked into place. Like something was flowing into it. Like it no longer needed to eat anymore.

Yes. Yes. This was what it wanted. This was what it needed. This was what it had spent tireless hours searching for.

The connection.