Chapter 6: The Upgrade
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Disclaimer: I don't own digimon.
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An overweight man of European decent with curly black hair and somewhat long sideburns spoke. "Now, the upgrade isn't complete, however, I consider it complete enough to start beta-testing it with several teams of Tamers, including the Tamers in Shinjuku who helped save the world from the D-Reaper. The upgrade contains a number of new features, including a GPS-based mapping system." The man showed the holographic screen of his pure white digivice to the camera, showing a basic road map of where he was.
"Another thing that goes with the map is that there's a key for it. For instance, on the original D-Arc, it simply led you to bioemergences and showed you the location of digimon and tamers, but it didn't differentiate between the two." The man smiled at the camera and motioned for whoever was controlling it to zoom in. "This one shows not only digivices and digimon, but also the location of portals to the digital world." The map showed a white dot, indicating the digivice as well as a blue dot and a green dot. "Blue dots are other digivices. For instance, the one right here is actually my son's." The man held up an all-black digivice. "Green dots are tamed digimon, red dots wild digimon and orange dots bioemergences."
"In addition, due to the latest advances by the various intelligence organizations in mapping the digital world, if you're in the digital world, you'll get a fully detailed map there as well, thought that feature hasn't been tested for obvious reasons. Heh." The man smiled uneasily before making his closing remarks. "Anyway, I hope I didn't bore you too much with this video of mine and I hope you enjoy the upgrades. There are more that are on their way as well, so look forward to them."
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The team was gathered in front of a computer at Hypnos and had just finished viewing that little segment. "Now, any questions?" Shibumi asked the group and Tadashi immediately raised his hand, the middle-aged man calling on him.
"So, this guy's an adult and somehow's a Tamer?" the blond boy asked in a confused tone.
"Yes, he is, however, these que…"
"What's his partner's name? And what's his son's partner?" Tadashi asked. Yamaki smacked his face.
"Like I say, these questions are supposed to be about the upgrade, not the Professor's partner digimon. However, I'll say that he has a Veedramon for a partner while his son is currently not a Tamer despite having a digivice."
"What? How come the kid doesn't have a partner but the dad does? That doesn't make any sense!" Tadashi didn't like that situation one bit.
"Again, this is not important," Yamaki said, cutting in. "Any questions that are actually about the digivice?" This time Taizou raised his hand and Shibumi called on him.
"So, what's the interface for the digivice like?" the bushy-browed teen inquired.
"Well," Shibumi pulled out a digivice that looked identical to Antonio's personal digivice and showed the screen. "It's a basic holographic touchscreen device. The Professor designed it so that you can see all your applications from a menu instead of having to scroll through them. It's a pretty good system."
"So, applications? There are going to be more apps for the digivice?" Ayaka inquired in wonderment.
Shibumi nodded. "Yes, you're eventually going to be able to customize the D-Arc in various ways. Already, Antonio has been working on an application that, in addition to allowing you to see your partner, you'll be able to communicate with him or her long distance. This will allow even children whose parents won't let them fight digimon to aid their partners in battle."
"Sweet!" Tadashi exclaimed.
Ayaka looked at her friend with surprise. She realized he wasn't allowed to actually deal with bioemergence, though that hadn't stopped him from dealing with a couple over the past week without his parents' knowledge. She hoped that that meant that he wouldn't have to break anymore house rules.
"So, out of curiosity, when can we get this upload?" Taizou asked while scratching his chin.
"Right now, actually," Mizuno said. "I'll just need to link each of your digivices to the computer and it will upload the installer to them before running it. The installer will override the operating system that is already inside it." The man smiled before continuing. "Who would like to go first?"
All three raised their hands. Ayaka did so slowly, Taizou quickly and Tadashi just waved it excitedly. Shibumi decided to start with the energetic blond, who handed the scientist his digivice. Then the strawberry-blond man pressed the digivice's lower button and held it. After a couple seconds, the USB port on top opened and the man connected it to the computer using a cord.
"Wait, I didn't know you could do that," Taizou muttered, raising a bushy eyebrow. That made him want to experiment with the digivice once he got it back.
After a few minutes per Tamer, they all had their digivices back, though it would take a while to actually use them since the installer was taking its time to do its dirty work.
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Taizou walked home from Hypnos with Solarmon. "So, what's up now?"
"The digivice is still upgrading," the brown-haired boy commented. "I guess this means we'll have to rely on either Antylamon or Beelzemon if anything comes from the other side tonight."
"What? How come neither of them got the upgrade as well?" the gear inquired.
"I asked Shibumi. He said that his instructions were to give the upgrade to half the team one day and the other half the next so that someone could take care of bioemergences while the ones getting the upgrade are out of commission," Taizou explained. He smiled at the sight of the digivice and wondered what it would be able to do once the upgrade was complete.
His thoughts ended up wandering to his friend Yuji, though, and he wondered whether the long=haired boy would get an upgrade as well once he got out. Then again, he'd be surprised if the boy's parents even let him deal with bioemergences. He was just glad that the hustler was dealt with before anyone got hurt.
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As soon as he got into his room, the boy went through some of his drawers and pulled out a cable like the one that Shibumi used to download the installer for the upgrade on to his digivice. Then he connected it to his computer and checked to see what was on it manually.
What he found surprised him. There was a PDF file labeled "DevScript Reference." The bushy browed boy decided to open it and quietly read what was in it.
"DevScript is the language used to create applications for the upgraded digivice. It's a basic scripting language, based on JavaScript, and it should be easy for any teenaged Tamer to create their own upgrades to the digivice… Cool!" He knew a bit of JavaScript and messed around with a game engine that used the language, so this should be easy. He looked at the basic documentation for the language and raised an eyebrow at one line in the table of contents. "Wait a second. JavaScript doesn't have classes… or inheritance… or enumerations…"
"What are you talking about, Taizou?" Solarmon asked from on top of the brown-haired boy's bed.
"Oh, nothing," the boy replied, chuckling at himself for using random programming jargon that obviously went over the gear's head.
The boy took a deep breath. He thought that the means to create applications for the digivice were supposed to be there, but there they were.
This was going to be fun.
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As soon as Tadashi got home, he headed straight to his room with Coronamon and pulled out the digivice. "So, what are you going to do with that thing?"
"I don't know," he said with excitement. "I just want to check out the new features that this thing now has." He pulled up the holographic screen and looked in horror. "What? This thing's still installing?"
All the sudden, the boy's older brother walked in the room. "What did you run in here so quickly for? You didn't even say hi," the taller guy asked.
"Oh, my digivice just got upgraded," the blond boy responded. "But the stupid thing's still installing the upgrade. Come on, can't you hurry up?" Just as he asked that, the digivice's screen changed from '26% Complete' to '27% Complete'. "Stupid technology!"
The seventeen year old gave his brother a funny look. "Okay… Anyway, dinner'll be ready in a couple minutes. You haven't been fighting enemy digimon have you?"
Tadashi looked at his brother. "No way. I just went and visited my friend Yuji, that's all."
"What about the time we…" Tadashi covered Coronamon's mouth with his hand before he could mention that they actually fought Yuji's partner digimon.
Kurita shook his head while chuckling. He had an idea of what was going on but wasn't going to say anything. "Knowing me, I'd probably break your digivice if I touched it, so don't expect me to fix it for you."
"Like you could," Tadashi said, letting go of Coronamon.
"So, can I come to the table tonight?" the small lion asked.
"No, you can't. It was hard enough getting mom and dad to let you in the house," the blond boy responded. "Sorry."
"So, you think you can get me a partner?" Kurita requested.
"Are you kidding me? You're seventeen. You're almost an adult," Tadashi responded.
"Right, and adults can't be Tamers. I remember reading about a group of college students in Europe who have partners and they're bound to be at least eighteen," the taller teen shot back.
Tadashi gave in. "Fine, I'll find you a partner. I guess."
"Score!" the larger teen cheered.
Just then, the door opened and their father came in. "So, what did you do today, Tadashi?" the man asked, suspicious.
"Oh, hung out with Taizou and Coronamon and went and saw Yuji," the blond boy explained, leaving out the digimon battle in the park and hoping his father wouldn't notice. He smiled uneasily, but hoped that his father didn't catch that he was hiding something.
"Yeah, we went to the park. It was fun!" the lion exclaimed.
"Well, it's good to hear that you kids had a good time," the man responded, knowing something was up. If his son was hiding something, he knew it would come out. "So, anything in particular?"
"We went to Hypnos and got upgrades to our digivices," Tadashi explained. "It's still installing, though. The stupid thing's taking forever." The blond looked at the digivice to see the screen with the phrase '35% Complete' sprawled across it.
The man nodded. "Technology. What would we do without it?" he asked sarcastically, not really liking that his son was involving himself with that government entity. He feared that sooner or later the boy would have to fight enemy digimon.
"Play football!" Kurita exclaimed, pulling out his brown American football out of nowhere.
"Did anyone tell you football's nothing like Eyeshield 21?" Tadashi joked.
"Yes, and I'm totally Hiruma," the huge blond joked.
"Really? I thought you were Kurita," Coronamon shot at him.
"Ha ha," Tadashi said sarcastically before turning to his father. "So, is dinner ready?"
"Yes, it is. Your mom made something from the old country this time. Hopefully it'll be good," the man said before heading toward the door.
"Can I come?" Coronamon asked. "I promise I'll be good!"
Tadashi's father stood there for a moment, contemplating the small lion's request. He didn't know what to think, but he figured they'd try it out. "You can, but you better behave yourself."
"Horray!" he cheered, jumping up on Tadashi's bed. The boy's father didn't know what to think of what his son had dragged home.
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At Ayaka's place, the blonde girl was enjoying the company of friends. She had both Jeri and Miki over at her house. The three were in Ayaka's room, playing a board game.
"So, how's the taming business going?" Miki asked bubbly, holding onto Salamon. The dark-haired girl was very interested in what was going on.
"Oh, pretty good. I helped deal with a couple of bio-emergences over the past several days," the blonde responded, smiling back.
"I didn't really have to fight many digimon in the real world when I was a Tamer," Jeri commented. "Okay, I helped with a couple of the Devas, though one of those was before I actually had a digivice."
"So, who else is on your team? Any of them cute?" Miki decided to inquire, smiling widely and getting on Ayaka's nerves.
"Well, I just have Tadashi and Taizou. That's all," Ayaka responded, blushing slightly.
The dark-haired girl was not impressed. "Wait, you mean the fat kid and bushy brows? How come they got to be Tamers and not Jeremy? Oh, he's so dreamy. Plus, he's half British!"
Jeri turned toward the girl. "That's not very nice!"
"What? You mean you don't like my opinion of the only two other tamers in our age group in Shinjuku?" Miki asked.
"You know, they're both nice guys. Maybe they're a bit rough around the edges, but they're alright," Ayaka commented. "By the way, Yuji's also a Tamer, if you're interested. He just got put in juvie, though, so he's not exactly on our team."
"Yuji? Who does he think he is with that hair? Fabio?" Miki laughed at her own joke while the other two girls glared at her. "Hey, I was kidding. Okay, I'll admit, they're pretty cool guys sometimes."
"So, how's Tadashi doing?" Jeri inquired of Ayaka. "I heard he digivolved his partner."
"Yes, that was just today," the blonde replied. "His partner's new form is called Firamon. He's a flying lion if you believe it."
Jeri smiled at that, though, at the same time she felt a pang of regret over the loss of her own lion. She would have to visit Tadashi and Coronamon one of these days.
Ayaka noticed the sudden sullen expression after a couple of seconds. "I'm sorry if I accidently reminded you of…" She paused.
"No, that's okay," Jeri responded. "He should be remembered."
"That must be tough, though," Miki added. "I mean, you guys were partners for a little bit before going to the Digital World, and then you lost him while you were there."
Jeri nodded. "It was like part of my soul was ripped away." Her partner's death reminded her a bit much of her own mother's. That was part of her following breakdown. She held her legs. It had been months since the death of her partner and subsequent capture by the D-Reaper, and yet she was still recovering.
Yet the girl looked out the window and hoped that the others wouldn't have to live through the same experiences she had. She especially thought of Tadashi and his similar partner.
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Taizou was stuck. So, he decided to contact the idiot who made the digivice's new operating system in the first place. Looking online, he found the man's contact information on his personal website. After misspelling Professor Urrutía's last name without the silent 'u', the search engine he used gave him an alternative suggestion.
It was definitely his website. After navigating the website, most of which was in Spanish, he found the man's ugly mug on the 'About' page, smiling. No mention about the guy's kid, though. The page was updated a year earlier.
He found the man's email address and AIM screen name. Since he had the instant messaging client in question, he decided to try it out.
To his surprise, the man was online. Taizou had no idea what time it was over there, but he decided to try it out.
Hi, my name is Taizou and I'm one of the Japanese Tamers that tried out your new operating system.
He was glad that he still remembered a bit of English due to frequenting various websites and forums in the language. His speaking skills still needed a ton of work, though, particularly his accent. To his surprise, he got a response.
Ah, okay. Don't know any Japanese Tamers by that name, but that's alright. Keep in mind I only have a few minutes to talk. You have any questions?
Taizou typed in a response, checked it over, and sent it.
I discovered the documentation for the scripting language used in the program and my program has an error that I can't find.
The bushy-browed boy looked over at his partner, who was lying on the bed, recharging apparently. He had a long day. Taizou was amazed at everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, from him getting his partner and digivolving to having to deal with Yuji and ending his schemes.
No problem. Just send me the code and I'll look it over. It surprises me that anyone would look at the files in the OS.
Taizou did so, sending the code as a text file. A couple minutes later, he got a response.
It seems you used an extra equal sign in each of your if-statements. Most languages use only two while JavaScript uses three for comparisons for some reason. DevScript has a bit of influence from other languages.
Taizou was astounded. "What? It was that simple?" He looked at the code, and sure enough, the professor was right. He typed in another response.
Thanks for that. Other than that, what do you think of the code?
Waiting for a couple seconds, he got a response.
Looks pretty good. Just gotta work on your technique a little more. It seems you might have a nice little picture-viewing app there. Gotta say, that's not what I was expecting for a new digivice app. Maybe in my next update for the D-Arc, I'll add a camera, though that'll require getting into the code for the physical part of the digivice.
Taizou smiled and cheered for himself. Then he received another response from Professor Urrutía.
Well, it was good talking with you. I gotta go. Need to make my kid breakfast. Making up for lost time.
Before he could send a response, the professor had logged off.
That made Taizou somewhat curious. He looked a little bit more at the man's website, but couldn't find much. He found some pictures, though, including ones of the kid, who was in his age group, surprisingly enough. There weren't any pictures of him before six months earlier, though, which he found strange.
Maybe the guy just got custody.
Then Taizou realized how creepy it would look for him to be looking at the guy's pictures without permission, so he closed the window and shut down the computer.
He thought about what his next little project would be for that. Maybe a bestiary would suffice, so they didn't have to scan digimon for information to access it. Yeah, that would be great.
He would work on that next.
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Tadashi enjoyed dinner with his family and digimon. His brother didn't make another peep about his desire for his own personal partner digimon. Then again, it was probably for the best. The blond boy felt as if he was starting to run the team, and he didn't want his brother getting in the way of that.
What was he thinking? Okay, he liked his older brother, but he didn't want him to dominate everything. It was just that he finally wasn't in his brother's shadow in something.
"So, what are your plans for tomorrow?" Tadashi's father inquired, finishing up his plate.
The blond boy shrugged. "I'm probably going to go to Taizou's house to do something. Not sure what though. We might hang out and play video games."
"Include me in!" Coronamon exclaimed. "Come on, you know you want to." Tadashi was taken aback by his partner's slightly loud presence at the dinner table, but he regained his composure.
"Sure. Taizou probably wouldn't care if you came," the blond responded. He hadn't yet told his parents that two of his friends were now Tamers out of fear that they wouldn't let him hang out with them. Great, now he was keeping secrets from them.
Then again, didn't Takato? Didn't some of the characters on the TV show? The blond thought, trying to justify himself.
"Thanks for the food, mom. May I be excused?" he asked, about to get up.
"Sure," the blonde, European woman responded in her accent, smiling. "Just remember that you have dishes."
"I'll get to them later. Come on, Coronamon, let's play video games!" the boy exclaimed, getting out of his chair, followed by Coronamon.
"Alright, what are we going to play this time?" the lion asked cheerfully.
Tadashi's father looked at the other two family members. "I think he did well tonight," he commented about Coronamon.
"You didn't expect that, I take it?" his mother asked.
"Coronamon knows how to act sometimes, I think," Kurita remarked. "Well, can I be excused to do homework?"
"Sure," the boys' parents replied. They were starting to adapt to life with a digimon in the house, even though they still had their reservations. Soon, it would seem almost normal.
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"So, my parents are going to be out of town next weekend," Miki told her two friends, smiling ruefully. Ayaka knew something was up just from that.
"What is it?" the blonde asked.
"Well, I was thinking of having a party. What do you say? Come on, it would be awesome!" the dark-haired girl told her two friends.
"Wow, it's been so long since I've been to a slumber party," Jeri commented. "You sure that your parents won't mind?"
"They said I could have people over," Miki replied. "No specifications about how many, though."
"Wait, you're not thinking of having an actual party, are you?" Ayaka asked, surprised.
"Oh, yeah. I was going to invite as many people as I possibly could. Come on, it will be so cool!" the dark haired girl exclaimed.
Ayaka and Jeri looked at each other. They both knew that when Miki was set on something, it would be impossible to steer her away from that.
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Somewhere else in the city, in an empty alleyway, something was starting to happen. First, there was lighting coming out of the ground followed by a small edifice popping up seemingly out of nowhere. The small shop's front door opened up and three figures walked out. One was an old man with crimson coke-bottle glasses, a green hat, spiky white hair and a white beard who was supporting himself with a cane. The second was a giant clock with eyes, arms and legs. The final figure was a red-haired girl with a yellow armadillo in her arms.
"So, what now?" the girl asked, checking around the corner. It was in the middle of the night.
"Well, I've got an appointment tomorrow involving a certain future Tamer here. And then there's that warning I'm going to give one of them," the old man said with foreboding, grinning slightly. "In the meantime, Mizuki, you can have some fun."
The red-haired girl smiled at the old man. "Alright, I'll do that. It's not often we get to go to Tokyo. Too bad this isn't my own reality."
The old man grinned back. "Well, see you around. Come back if you need anything." Mizuki went away with her partner, Armadillomon. As she was doing that, the old man took out his digivice, one of a different model called the X-Loader and checked for nearby signals.
"Thus the hunt begins again," the old man remarked, his expression turning serious.
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A/N: Don't worry, these plot points will all be dealt with. Strangely enough, considering this chapter was a bit of a breather chapter.
About the Old Clock-Shop Man: No, he is not Bagramon. That's something I'm going to go all fanon discontinuity on. Also, Tagiru wasn't Taiki's replacement in this continuity's version of Xros Wars Hunters (now that's something I would like to rewrite someday...). And, yes, levels existed in this Continuity's version of Xros Wars. Mwahahah!
And Mizuki is a (really minor one-shot) character from that series. I figured that she can't have Submarinemon in that form all the time, right? So, she's using his rookie form for now.