'Impmon's Tale.'
==Wong Household, the night before...
Henry Wong hung his jacket up in the closet, and went to his room. It had been an unusual day, to say the least. When he'd confronted Hitomi about her true origins, he'd been expecting to be called crazy. Even a slap in the face wouldn't have been surprising as the truth. Hitomi was from a world that mirrored the Digital World on television. At least, it mirrored it in a few ways. He'd have been suspicious if her homeworld had matched exactly. And some of the things she had said about her home...
"Kari and Izzy...I never would have seen that coming." he muttered to himself. As he started down the hallway to his room, he saw his father standing in the doorway to his room.
Janyu Wong stood there, looking at Henry. Both of his hands were behind his back, so Henry couldn't tell what he was holding, though it looked to be rather large. Janyu's face was unreadable, a series of emotions running across it. "Henry?"
"Yeah dad?"
Janyu moved his arms from behind his back; in his left hand, he had Terriermon by the nape of the neck. "Can we talk?"
Moumantai, Henry said to himself.
==Digital World, 2 years ago
Impmon ran across the upper plain, looking for his quarry. "Where are ya, ya overgrown suitcase? Get out here so I can bada-boom ya one!" Angrily, Impmon scanned the area. He knew his 'brother' was close by.
Suddenly, a hard impact knocked Impmon over. Making it worse was that much hated chuckle that Impmon recognized all too well. Once again, Monodramon had managed to sneak up and launch a playful attack on him. What really annoyed Impmon was that Monodramon was not taking anything seriously. He had repeatedly denied that he wanted to absorb data, to become stronger and digivolve. It didn't help that Impmon could never defeat Monodramon, either in a straight fight or by treachery.
"Gahh, chill out Impy." Monodramon said in that easy-going voice. "You know, you need to relax a bit. It's not all loading data and fighting, you know."
"Ahh, whadda you know? You dragon types get all the breaks" Impmon snarled. "What did ya drag me up here for anyway?"
Monodramon smiled. "I'm goin'." he said. "I've had it with this place, all the fighting. I'm going over to the real world and find me a partner!"
Impmon blinked, dumbfounded. "Are you nuts? Why would you want to hook up with one of those losers on the flip side? They can't even digivolve!"
Monodramon looked at Impmon, serious for a moment. "There is more to life than digivolution. I could care less about strength." The moment passed, and Monodramon was smiling again. "I'm gonna see the world and have a blast. Later!"
==Tokyo, Present day
Rika Nonaka left school, running as fast as she could. She had heard the mental 'call' that Renamon sent, and knew that her partner had found something. Pulling out her digivice, she activated it, and followed the holographic compass.
"Figures she'd be in there." Sighing, Rika entered the park. With school having just ended, the place was starting to fill up with school kids. Dodging around some of them, Rika managed to make it to a wooded over part of the park, and found Renamon there, watching something.
"Well, what's the big emergency?"
"You asked me to keep an eye out for Unown and Calumon." Renamon replied. Pointing, she indicated the two creatures playing around with some preschool children. "They've been there all afternoon, alternating between playing and sleeping. Those kids showed up a few minutes ago, and they've been playing with them, too."
Rika blinked. "They're not fighting? They're acting like...like..."
"Kids. Popular belief to the contrary, digimon are capable of just playing around."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Rika asked, annoyed by Renamon's tone.
"Hey there!" Calumon said, bursting through the underbrush. "Wanna come play with us?"
"Guhh....wha?"
"Oh. Were you playing hide and seek?" Calumon asked. "Well, I found you! Or was it with Guilmon? He's fun, but it's a shame Takato wants him to stay in that small house." As Calumon rambled, Unown wandered over.
"Didn't you have something you wanted to ask him?" Renamon reminded Rika.
Calumon tilted his head. "Is this about Hitomi again? 'Cause Unown says there's a much faster way to tell you everything."
"There is?" Rika asked. Taking this as an affirmative, Unown glowed, rainbow colored aura surrounding it. A matching aura surrounded Rika, who immediately stopped moving.
"Rika!"
==Digital World, 2 years ago
"Keep running!" Monodramon and Impmon ran from the enraged Gorillamon. "YOu had to go insult him, didn't ya!"
"Hey, so he can't take a joke!" Impmon yelled back. "'Zat my fault?"
"YES!" The two kept running down the hill, dodging energy blasts fired by Gorillamon. Ahead, they saw a series of beams coming from the small planet that hovered in the sky.
"If we go in there, we won't know where we'll end up!" Impmon yelled.
"You do what you want, I'm going for it!" With that, Monodramon ran even faster, small wings giving him some lift as he charged down towards one of the beams. "See ya on the flip side, Impy!"
"You ain't leaving me behind!" Taking one last look behind him, Impmon closed his eyes, and jumped into a second transport beam. As he did, he failed to notice Gorillamon's massive body trip, roll down the hill, and follow Impmon into the beam only a few seconds behind him.
==Tokyo, present day.
Takato closed his locker, thanking every god he had ever heard of that the day was finally over. He had promised to take Jeri to Guilmon's hideout today, after being asked innumerable questions about his partner. Plus he got taken to task by one of the teachers for not having his math homework done, forcing him to miss lunch to make it up.
It was just before lunch had ended that Henry had found Takato and broke the news to him. He'd known Hitomi was a bit odd, but...wow.
"Man, Izzy and Kari...who'd have guessed." he muttered. Henry had sworn Takato to secrecy, and to not bug the girl with questions about how the world she came from was different (and the same) as the Digital World he saw on TV. He'd also been told that Henry's dad had found out about Terriermon. Surprisingly, Henry hadn't been grounded or punished.
At that moment, Henry walked up to Takato. "Hey. How've you doing?"
"Oh, fine. Umm...look, Jeri kinda came across me and Guilmon..."
Henry palmed his face. "Terrific. How much did you tell her?"
"Hey! She came across me, it's not like I tried to show him off or anything! And she only knows about Guilmon, I haven't told her anything about Terriermon, Renamon, or...Hitomi." Takato blinked. "Man, if it was coming from anyone else, I don't think I could believe it."
"I know. I'm still having a hard time believing it. But it's the only explanation that fits." Henry leaned against the locker, sighing. "So, what are you going to do now?"
"Well, I promised Jeri I'd take her to see where I've got Guilmon hidden. I never knew she could be so persuasive."
To you, at least, Henry thought. "Well, best of luck. Hopefully no one else will find out about this (yes, now he's just asking for it -ed). At the rate we're going, we might as well just run an ad in the paper. Dad caught Terriermon just before I got home last night."
Takato groaned. "I can see it now. Come to Tokyo, see the digimon. I hope someone at Bandai doesn't find out. I don't think I'm old enough to handle a copyright lawsuit." The two said good-bye, and headed out the doors.
Some yards behind them, Kazu and Kenta followed Takato. "Should we be doing this?" Kenta asked.
"Dude, wake up!" Kazu chastised him. "Those two are up to something, and I'm gonna find out what it is. I just know it's something to do with Digimon."
"You just want to spy on Takato and Jeri." Kenta accused him.
"Hey!"
==Park
Rika stood there, motionless. Renamon shook Rika, trying to wake her up. "What did you do to her?" Renamon snarled, looking at Unown.
The pokemon didn't respond, leaving Calumon to answer. "I think he's telling her about Hitomi. But I've never seen him do anything like this before."
Abruptly, Unown stopped whatever it was doing, and pulled back. Rika stood there motionless for a few seconds, then nearly fell over, Renamon catching her at the last moment. "Where....where am I?"
"Rika? What happened?" Renamon shot a dark look at Unown. "If you've hurt her, I'll make you pay for it."
Renamon's voice helped Rika focus. Her mind cleared a bit, and she saw Renamon over her, worry on her face. Then she saw Calumon and Unown.
"Get me out of here." It was a whisper, barely audible.
"Rika?"
"Get me out of here!"
Renamon was stunned. She's...terrified, Renamon almost said. Picking up her partner, Renamon jumped, heading for the nearest rooftop. Once clear, Renamon set her partner down, trying to calm the girl. "Rika, it's me, Renamon. What did that thing do to you?"
Having calmed down, Rika was able to sort through the images that Unown had dumped into her mind. Her first emotion was anger at herself, for nearly falling apart under the strain. "I'm fine." she snapped. Hurt, Renamon stepped back. "Wait. I'm...sorry."
An apology, too, Renamon thought. This day is full of surprises.
"That...thing...it dumped a whole bunch of information into my mind. It told me everything about itself and about..."
"About what?"
"Hitomi. She's not from here." Rika sighed. "I need to go home. Everything's changed now."
==Tokyo, 2 years ago
"Happy Birthday, Ryo!"
"Dad! Thanks!" Ryo Akiyama, still flush from his victory in the Digimon Card Tournament, opened the gift his father placed in front of him. As he did, his father watched, brushing a lock of his blond hair out of his eyes.
"A new card reader! Thanks!"
"Well, I still don't see what all the fuss over this card game is about, but it's better than some of the other vices out there." Isao Akiyama fingered an old cigarette lighter in his pocket.
"If it were a vice, then something bad would happen, right?" Ryo asked, using that child logic no parent could ever follow.
"Of course, son. Why don't you try it on this?" Ryo was handed a booster pack. His father knew that his son had almost every card that existed, but the gesture was enough. "I think it's from that new release, I can never keep up with this sort of thing."
Eagerly, Ryo opened the package. "Hey, a King Device! Thanks! I-" Ryo was knocked down as a man in an orange jacket ran through, apparently not seeing the boy.
"HEY! Watch it!" Ryo's father yelled, picking his son up. "You all right?"
"Yeah. I didn't break your present."
"I don't care about that." Isao said. "Come on, I'll help you pick up the cards that idiot made you drop." The two checked the sidewalk. "Is this one of them?" The father held up an odd card, blue with a grey strip on the side. There was some sort of holographic logo on the front, a 'D' with a dinosaur coming out of it.
"I don't recognize it. Maybe that guy dropped it?" Taking the card, Ryo tried to swipe the card through his new card reader. However, there was a flash of energy, and the card was pushed out of the reader!
"That's odd." Ryo and his father both said. Inspired, Ryo took out his old card reader. "If something does happen," Ryo explained, "I'd rather it happened to my old reader. You're reader's probably better than this old thing." So saying, he ran the card through the slot; this time, there was no resistance. After a second, there was a faint hum, and his reader began glowing.
"What-" Ryo's father started saying, then stopped. As he watched, the card reader glowed white, then changed into a different shape. It was blue with a black ring around a small square screen, and had a small clip on its top, presumably so one could attach it to a belt loop.
"What is that?"
"I...I think its some kind of digivice!"
==Present day, Hypnos main labs
Yamaki looked at the digimon, still unconcious inside the scanning area. The device was shaped like a gigantic cylinder, with the subject floating inside a liquid substance that Yamaki didn't really understand. One of the technicians said it helped conduct the scanning waves through the subject, but he didn't really care about such things.
"Sir." Yamaki turned, saw Reilly there. "The subject is ready to be scanned. Do you wish to proceed?"
"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"
Reilly repressed a sigh. "As I've said before, that thing in there is displaying signs of life and sentience. If we run the full scan on it, there's a good chance the scanner will destroy it."
"YOu talk like it's alive or something. Look at it." he said, pointing to the Gazimon. "It's just a bundle of data. Worse, it's a dangerous bundle of data; we have to remove these things from the planet."
Reilly stared at Yamaki. "I was there too. I saw what happened."
"You mean you saw two of these things fight, with a group of children caught in the middle? That makes my case all the stronger. Those kids think this is some sort of game, like they're in that blasted TV show."
"No, *Isao*," Reilly replied coldly. "I was there two years ago. We both know what happened."
Yamaki looked back at Reilly, the intensity of his glare apparent even through his sunglasses. "Isao died two years ago. Never mention him again." Yamaki stalked off, lighter in his hand clicking as he flipped the cover open and shut.
Reilly stood there, watching Yamaki leave. Then she headed back to the monitoring room where Talli was. She didn't want to be there when the scanning began. She'd heard one of the more morbid techs refer to the scanner as the 'digi-section chamber', and didn't want to see what a digimon looked like when it was taken apart.
==2 years ago, Tokyo
"Hey, welcome home!" Reilly stood up as Ryo and his father entered the house. "I let myself in. Couldn't properly welcome the birthday boy without a few surprises!" With a flourish, Reilly uncovered a cake with Ryo's name on it, shaped like a small dragon. "I checked with some kids I know. Monodramon is your favorite digimon, right?"
"This is turning into your day, isn't it?" his father asked. "Go get washed up, I'll set the table." After Ryo left, his father related everything that had happened.
"That is odd," Reilly said. "Have you told anyone else yet?"
"What would I tell them? I'm not sure I believe what I saw and-" Ryo's scream cut him off. The two adults ran up to Ryo's room. "What happened? Ryo? Are you OK?"
Ryo stood there, pointing at his bed. On it, a small dragon rested on it, looking like it had been in a fight. "I tried swiping a card though my digivice," Ryo stammered, "and Monodramon just...appeared!"
"OK," Reilly said, "this is getting too weird."
"Do you still have that blue card?" Ryo's father asked, curious.
Ryo looked through the small pile of cards. "It's gone! It must have vanished when I passed it through my card reader!"
Isao walked over to the pile of cards, taking care not to wake up the sleeping dragon. "That is so odd. How could a small piece of-" Isao watched as one of the cards he was holding suddenly changed, the image on the front (BO-76 'Myotismon', if you must know -ed) vanishing, being replaced by a blue field. "Did...I do this?" Unable to stop himself, Isao took the card reader he had bought for Ryo, and tried to swipe the card through the slot. There was no resistance; in fact, the reader changed in Isao's hands, just as Ryo's did. The digivice that formed was black with a blue ring, the reverse of Ryo's.
"Cool!" Ryo looked at his father's digivice. "Maybe if you pass a card through, it'll turn into a partner for you too!"
"Slow down, kid." Reilly said. "What if something dangerous comes through?"
"He's right, I-" Isao was cut off as a flash of light from the digivice blinded everyone in the room. When it cleared, the small dragon was awake, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
"Hey, did I make it?"
==Present day, Nonaka household
Renamon managed to get Rika back to her room without being spotted. Rika, still a bit shaken, sat down on the floor, trying to collect her thoughts.
"What did Unown do to you?"
"It was...weird." Rika replied. "It's like he dumped a whole bunch of information into my head. But I don't.."
"Don't what?"
"Hitomi's not from here. She's not from this world."
"She's a digimon?"
"No. I saw some of her world. She's a digidestined, but it's like it was on TV." Rika trailed off, not sure how to continue.
"I thought you hated that show."
"I..." Rika frowned. "I can't believe it. I spend almost two years trying to be the best, and then she just comes along." Rika looked at Renamon, a mix of emotions crossing her features. "It's just a hobby to her! Her and everyone around her."
"What do you mean?"
"There are monsters there too. In her world. 'Pokemon', that's what they're called, and kids train them, without having to sneak around. And there's digimon there too!" Unable to continue, Rika stopped. How was she supposed to be the best tamer when she had to face an entire world of digidestined?
"Then I'll fight them. And beat them." Renamon said after a moment.
"What?"
"The only way we can become stronger is to face opponents better than ourselves. If Eevee and Hitomi are better than us, then we have to face them and defeat them." Renamon looked at her partner. "Later, we shall fight them. You've taken a bad shock, and should rest now."
Rika nodded. "Renamon?"
"Yes?"
Rika didn't say anything for a minute. Then, "Thanks."
==Tokyo, 2 years ago
One second, Impmon was running down a hill, running from Gorillamon. THen, he had jumped into a transport beam, and everything had changed. He was in some sort of city, with houses all around him.
Gorillamon was still chasing him. OK, maybe not *everything* had changed. As Impmon ran, he could feel a faint tug, a sense that there was another digimon nearby. "I just know this is Monodramon's fault!" Following the pull, Impmon used a fireball to blow open the door of the first house he came across.
Upstairs, Ryo and Isao heard the noise, as did the small dragon. 'What was that?" Ryo asked.
The dragon tensed up. "Great. I thought I was free of all that, now that I made it to the real world."
"Real world?" Isao asked, not understanding.
"OK, real quick, I'm a digimon called Monodramon, the kid here," he said, indicating Ryo, "is my Tamer, and I think something really nasty followed me here. Wait here, I'll deal with it." Monodramon hopped off the bed, and went down the stairs.
"I'm getting scared here." Reilly said, watching the small dragon leave the room.
"Same here."
==Present Day, Hypnos laboratories
Gazimon blinked. His last memory was of a rabbit shooting at him. A digimon, yes. But now, he found himself inside some sort of tank, floating but still able to breathe somehow. "Where...am I?" Looking out one of the windows, he saw a human, adult, dressed in black and wearing sunglasses.
Impassively, Yamaki looked back at the creature. "Begin." was all he said.
Gazimon was suddenly wracked by pain, currents of energy tearing through him, feeling as if he was being pulled apart and put back together. This continued for several minutes, then it stopped, leaving Gazimon only semiconscious, barely aware of his surroundings.
Yamaki looked at one of the technicians monitoring the digimon. "Well?"
"DNA sequences, some form of respiration, there was definitely a response to the probe's power level. Perhaps a lower setting will-"
"No. I want all the information you can get out of this thing. If we have to destroy it in the process, so be it."
The tech hesitated for a second. THose screams he had heard had not come from some mere collection of data. "Understood. 10 seconds until the probe is recharged."
"Good. Keep an eye for any information on its sensory abilities; these things seem able to sense each other here." The tech nodded, then reactivated the probe.
In the monitoring dome, Talli held her hands over her ears as Gazimon's screams echoed through the building. "I can't take much more of this." she said. "What is he doing down there?"
"Looking for answers." Reilly replied, her hands gripping the sides of her keyboard. God Isao, she thought, what happened to you?
Inside the tank, Gazimon knew he was about to die. He could feel the connections inside his body start to fall apart like old cloth, he could almost see his body starting to disintegrate. The worst part was that, without another digimon present, his data would not be absorbed; everything he had known or done would be gone, lost forevermore.
This last thought drove him to desperation. Madly, he tried to digivolve, tried to become Tyrannomon again.
"Sir! There's an energy flux building up in the chamber!"
Yamaki scowled. "He's trying to digivolve. Transfer the data we have now to the main core, and irradiate the chamber!"
"But that will destroy-"
"It's him or us! DO IT!" Panicking, the tech scrambled to obey. Inside the chamber, Gazimon felt a part of himself being pulled apart, then a wash of energy wiped out everything.
"Chamber returning to normal status. The creature is gone."
==
Somewhere in the city, Impmon looked up. He knew where those humans had taken that Gazimon; he had followed them as far as the building, then pulled back in terror as he recognized one of the humans there. Watching from a few blocks back, he felt Gazimon's data being torn apart, very faintly heard the scream from inside the building.
"If that's what humans do to digimon, I'm gonna have to get a whole lot stronger."
==2 years ago.
The situation had deteriorated rapidly. The humans had quietly marched down the stairs when they heard Monodramon yelling. Not attacking; more like arguing. The humans could make out a second voice, oddly accented.
It was the arrival of the giant white ape that changed everything. Monodramon was knocked through a wall, along with another digimon, small, black, and humanoid. Following them, a large white ape with a cannon in place of his right arm stalked after them.
"Monodramon!" Ryo called. Gorillamon looked at the humans, assessing how much of a threat they'd be.
"Stop this!" Panicking, Isao yelled at the large digimon. "Why are you doing this?"
The small black digimon answered. "You dummy! This is what digimon do! BADA BOOM!" A flurry of fireballs hit Gorillamon, but it had little effect. "I'm gonna wipe the floor with ya, you oversized dump truck! Come on, BRING IT!"
Gorillamon roared, and swung his gun arm at Impmon, who dodged the attack, throwing more fireballs. The two battled, neither doing much damage to each other. They were tearing the house up in the process, though.
"Why won't that jerk drop already?" Impmon's frustration was evident.
"C...cause he's a champion." Monodramon pulled himself out of the wreckage. "Need more power..."
"Well, digivolve then!" Ryo said, angry now.
"Not that simple. I need more power to digivolve. YOu have to help me!"
"How?" Ryo looked around, then had an inspiration. He'd swiped Monodramon's card, and he'd appeared. Ryo ran back to his room. A minute later, he came back, with a small pile of cards.
Reilly stared incredulously at Ryo. "What are those for?"
"Just had a plan." Ryo held his digivice up, and got a card out. "King Device, Activate!" Saying that, he swiped a card through the digivice. Monodramon screamed as the power tore through him. Through the flare of light, Ryo could make out Monodramon's shape changing into Strikedramon. Then, with another flash, Strikedramon's form shifted into his next digivolution.
"Cyberdramon," Ryo breathed. "He went past Champion to his ultimate level."
Reilly looked around, hearing the house creak as the fight had already taken its toll. Around her ankles, she saw smoke. Or was it fog? "We'd better get out of here!"
"ERASE CLAW!"
==Present, Hypnos laboratories
"I never stopped looking," Yamaki said to himself. "For two days I tore through the wreckage of our house, looking for any sign of you. There wasn't even a body left because of those...things.
"I died that day. I left everything behind, devoted the rest of my life to finding out about those 'digimon' that took you from me. I even changed my name; Isao Akiyama brought you those cards that destroyed you. Maybe my new life as Hypnos chief Yamaki can make sure that never happens again."
Reilly walked in. "The reports you asked for sir. Plus enhancements of those photos. The lab boys think that something about the digital nature of those Wild Ones makes it difficult for them to be captured on digital equipment."
"And the children in the photos?"
"Not much luck. We got a partial of one, a girl we're trying to extrapolate. We did get an ID one one of the boys there. Here's what we got."
Yamaki looked at the photo of the boy. CHinese descent, he noted, intelligent looking too. Eyes a bit like Ryo's...Yamaki shook himself, denying the memory. Then he noticed the name. "Henry Wong? That's his name?" Reilly nodded. "See if he's any relation to a Janyu Wong."
"Sir?"
Yamaki handed Reilly a book. The cover was plain, grey with a small title on the front. "Thesis on advanced computer intelligence?" I don't see the relevance. This looks like a university thesis."
"It is. Look at the names of the authors."
Reilly opened the book, and glanced at the list of authors. As she suspected, it was a thesis, for what looked like a fairly high level computing course. The names sounded like they came from all over the globe. Japan, America, India, China..."Janyu Wong," she said. "How...?"
==Park
Takato, Jeri, and Guilmon stared at the two intruders. Takato had been explaining to Jeri how Guilmon had been created, about digimon in general, and how important it was that the whole thing be kept a secret. Then, the sound of a branch snapping got their attention. Guilmon had been ready to attack when Kazu and Kenta stumbled out of the bush, both staring in awe at the first live digimon they had ever seen.
Takato looked at Guilmon and Jeri. "Aw nuts," the three chorused.
Next Episode
Three generations of digidestined try to figure out how to find
and retrieve Hitomi. Mysteries are uncovered, and Ms. Asaji learns
a bit more about her new roommate. Next on Digicross Tamers:
'Worlds Apart'