While the trio of different species of dinosaur digimon were regaining their bearings, you left Lady Devimon with them to let them know the situation, and explain things to them for you.
You instead, had Airdramon quickly and efficiently transport you rapidly between the dark towers. Since they were in view of him, he could easily make portals between them. And as such, it was child's play to break them down into data and leave a pseudo presence where they were docked to make the mongrel emperor muppet think nothing was going wrong.
The sheer amount of data you got for your partners digi-egg was amazing. More than twice the amount three supercomputers had supplied it with, over a period of five years in less than twenty minutes, you were done, and teleported back to the main area of the Dino Region, stepping out of the portal right beside Lady Devimon, who was conversing with one of the Tyrannomon.
You really needed to find a way to reproduce this ability. It wasn't fair to keep Airdramon stuck in his current form just for convenience. You were already planning on making a digivolution item based on Wizardmon soon, it wouldn't be right for you to allow your new first subordinate to fall behind everyone else.
"Huh, it really is a human." The vibrant red champion digimon mused, blinking large eyes down at you.
"Indeed I am." you nodded.
He gestured at Lady Devimon who was practically vibrating in excitement with you beside her, "And you made my friend, who was just a Numemon before, into this crazy strong form?" it asked, and you noted how the rest of the digimon all perked up in interest.
"I did," you replied, "Why, you interested?"
The Tyrannomon scowled, "We may like to fight, but that bastard Digimon Emperor, he made fools of us, made us beat down on other digimon like thugs and enslave others just like he did us," it growled, red hot smoke wafting from its nostrils as its anger flared, "...But we aren't strong enough to do anything about him. That guy's got to be put down before he fucks this world up like the Dark Masters, and I ain't gonna be some thug the way Etemon made me be once upon a time, but I, we lack the strength to do anything about the situation."
You had an idea where it was going with this. "And?" you prompted him to continue.
Tyrannomon sighed, before bowing its massive head lightly to you, "..Can you make us stronger as well?" it asked.
You could. Tyrannomon specifically, from what you had learned, had gained a pseudo evolution of their own in the time you were way from the digital world. Dark Tyrannomon. A variation of Tyrannomon, that took on the appearance of Master Tyrannomon, while still being a champion level digimon.
'It seems dinosaur, dragon and holy digimon may have the best compatibility with the Viral Factor.' you mused internally. "I can," you confirmed, "But you know what I want right, are you fine with that? You've made your opinion of serving quite clear."
Tyrannomon shook its head, "We don't mind if you want to be king, as long as it isn't through force like all the other assholes have done," it replied, "We just want the strength to live in peace. If you can provide that strength, and a place for that, we will gladly join you, isn't that right?" it asked the gathering of dinosaur digimon behind it.
There was a chorus of roars of agreement from the mass of dinosaur digimon, and you smirked, "Well, that I can definitely give you," you answered. You brought up the High Coding keyboard using your digivice phone, "I'll give you the same thing I gave to her that allowed her to become Lady Devimon, how things turn out from that though, all depends on you."
"Then we'll happily join," Tyrannomon took a knee before you, bowing its massive head, and the other dinosaur digimon, many Tyrannomon, Monochromon and Tuskmon followed suit, "Our king."
'Interesting ' you overlooked the results of the amassed dinosaur digimon after being exposed to the Viral Factor. As you thought, dinosaur digimon really took to it well.
The Tyrannomon, had become Dark Tyrannomon, gaining almost half again in height, and their limbs and tails becoming much longer, for increased range and speed. Their skin turned pitch black and they gained stripes reminiscent of a Greymon, except crimson red in colour.
The size increase was quite consistent, because the Monochromon, became Vermillimon. They didn't change quite as much, only changing to a vermillion colour and gaining the increase in size. Perhaps their champion forms were already completely optimized?
And the same could be said for the Tuskmon. They became Black Tuskmon. They generally only changed in colour, and grew half again in size as well, their crimson stripes standing out all the more on their darkened, light black scales.
"I'll be making certain divisions of digimon, each will be led by a head digimon, one of my higher ranked digimon," you said to the assembled and newly enhanced digimon, "You all, will be a part of the Dark Dino Squadron, and you will be led by Lady Devimon." you gestured to the the beautiful, dark digimon at your side.
"Eh, me?" Lady Devimon turned and looked at you in shock.
"That's fine with us!" the lead Tyrannomon whom you had been negotiating, now Dark Tyrannomon roared in agreement, his fellows following his lead a moment later, filling the area with loud powerful roars.
"Yes you, they're your friends right?" you asked, and when she nodded, you continued, "Then taking leadership from you will be easier than from someone they don't know all to well, besides, you have the strength for it now don't you?"
"That makes sense, and all thanks to you," a beautiful, grateful smile graced her lovely pale skinned face, and the bodacious digimon took a knee in front of you, "I will do my best to live up to your expectations my king, anything you need of me, just tell me and I'll do it!"
"Good to hear," you nodded, before beckoning her up, "Now stand up, now that we're done here, I want to get a move on to check out another area, it's already beginning to get dark." you had maybe time to check out another area at this rate, before you wanted to return to base and start working on the digivolution item for Wizardmon.
"Right!" Lady Devimon nodded quickly, bouncing up to her feet in one smooth motion and making to take a step forward. Only...she tripped over her own high heeled feet and with a yelp, crashed into you.
With her own massively increased speed, that now far eclipsed yours, you weren't fast enough to dodge, and found yourself pushed to the grund, a pair of large, bodacious, yet warm and soft breasts smothering you.
"Oh my, I'm so sorry!" she apologized profusely after she jerked off of you and helped you to your feet, quickly bowing over and over to you in quite the exaggerated fashion, so quickly that her huge breasts bounced and jiggled all around.
You discreetly adjusted your school trousers at the crotch and merely rolled your eyes, "It's fine." you waved her off.
You supposed even digivolution into such a powerful and majestically beautiful form, couldn't get rid of the long awkwardness she had become accustomed to as a Numemon for so long.
Your number of subordinates were growing quickly, and they were all large, powerful champion level digimon or above. Besides Lady Devimon, Angemon and Wizardmon, all of your digimon were towering in height. And with such massive bodies, it meant they would consume much larger quantities of food.
You didn't exactly bring enough food with you to keep an army of twenty nine digimon, twenty five that were massive in stature, satiated for long.
So before anything else, you would have to secure a stable food source for your digimon. You scanned the data of the vending machine Lady Devimon had hid in as a Gigantic Numemon, and then consulted with your digimon.
Your new recruits were full of answers for you. Apparently, before the Mongrel Emperor business started up, the dinosaur digimon received supplies of food from a nearby village of digimon, in return for their help guarding the territory from possible invaders.
Even an ultimate or two, would hesitate in picking a fight with over a dozen champion level dinosaur digimon after all. Just because digimon excelled at fighting, did not mean that was their natural path in life. Each species generally had things they excelled at. Mechanical digimon were better at building and handling computers. Plant digimon were better at growing fauna and like. Holy digimon excelled in leading and healing.
Dinosaur and dragon were species that generally didn't have specialisations like that. They were races geared entirely towards combat, as such, they were generally the strongest types of digimon when it came to a fight, barring outlier exceptions.
The village in question, was called, Santa Korea, the home of the Vegiemon. The name drew a snort out of you in amusement. You had no idea where they got the name from, it just amused you that somehow, they'd named their village, after a literal place in the human world.
Perhaps a resonance of some sort?
Either way, with directions from your new subordinates, you hopped on Airdramon's back, called the digimon into your digivice and took to the air..
Just as you were about to fly straight out of the area though, as you passed above the forest in the direction to Santa Korea, your digivice began beeping weirdly.
"What's up with this thing?" you wondered, looking it over. Oddly, the screen had been dominated by what looked like a compass?
And there were two red dots on the compass, they pulsed on the screen, releasing red circles that spread out, looking almost like a radio wave.
'What's this then?' you hummed in interest. "Airdramon, take me that way!" you ordered a change of directions, in the direction the red dots were on the odd compass.
Really odd compass actually. You'd went through the programs in your digivice diligently, and learned everything there was about it. You do not remembering it having such a function. Oh, it had a compass app function naturally installed, but this was not it.
"Okay boss." Airdramon agreed, and did as you bid. Moments later, the large serpentine dragon digimon landed in a clearing just before a small cave opening.
"You wait here, I shouldn't be long." you told Airdramon, jumping off of his back.
"Err, you sure boss?" Airdramon worried, "Going alone doesn't seem smart when a mysterious signal appears to lead you places."
You waved your digivice at him, "I'm not alone, I've got everyone right here with me, Wizardmon and Lady Devimon can pop out instantly if anything goes wrong." you assure him.
"...Well, okay." Airdramon agreed, if a bit hesitantly, and you made your way inside the small cave entrance.
The cave itself was very small, so it didn't take you long to reach your destination. And it was just a narrow end, that flattened out into a small slab, almost like an altar.
And sitting on it, were two oddly shaped objects. Both mostly oval in shape, one an off-goldish brown, with small wing like adornments coming from it, the other silver, with odd clawed feet shaped adornments.
'Isn't that the crests of light and hope?' you noted. At least, the symbols for them were on the odd objects. You knew what each of the crests were quite vividly, Wizardmon and Airdramon had filled you in on all they knew of them, including what the eight crests looked like and what they were called.
If you weren't mistaken, these had the symbols for the crests that belonged to the two youngest of the eight digidestined, TK and Kari.
Interesting The crests from what you had gathered, were conceptual based power sources of the digital world. Like the concept of time. Maybe not on the same level as something like that, but of the same origin.
What could you do you wondered, with access to such a thing? Obviously, the crests power would not react to you, as you were not the digidestined they were created for. But, that did not mean you couldn't simply draw power from them through other means.
Making your way over, you reached out and grasped the digi-egg of light, and pulled.
Nothing. It didn't even budge. You heaved with all your strength a moment later, trying again, and the stone it was on cracked slightly due to your beyond human strength, but again, it did not budge.
"So I can't even pick it up, huh?" you mused.
"Of course you can't," a soft, female voice answered from behind you, "They are not yours to take."
Your eyes widened. you hadn't even noticed anything anywhere near you! You whirled around, Leomon's sword appearing from your digivice with but a thought and you fell into a ready stance.
...Only, there wasn't anybody there. No, the only thing there, was an odd shimmering collection of rainbow coloured lights.
The voice, it must have come the lights. No wonder yo hadn't noticed anything amiss, some queer lights behind you wouldn't register on your physical awareness.
You relaxed, but did not dismiss your blade, "Oh?" you hummed in question, prompting the light to speak up.
"Hope and Light are not yours, you have never put your faith in such concepts," the light shimmered and continued, soft, warm voice ghosting across your ears, "You, are incompatible with the power, not worthy."
Your eyes narrowed lightly, "Oh, and who decided that?" you challenged, stepping forward to the flickering rainbow lights, "Let me tell you, I did not place faith in light and hope, I brought it to this world, dragged it from the darkness and ushered in, it was I that brought peace and order to this chaotic world. I do not need to place my faith in hope and light, it is me, who they should be placing their faith in!"
The light seemed to sigh, "You have not changed at all, have you?" if the light was disturbed at all by your response, it didn't show it.
You tilted your chin up and looked down upon the light, "The king is not the one who has to place faith in others, it is others, that place faith in the king, if the king does not have that, then they are no true king," you challenged, "I decide what has worth in this world."
"..And that is why the powers of the crests are locked from you," it retorted, "How can you be courageous, when you have practically surpassed fear? You may care for your subordinates, even cherish them above the world itself, but they are not your friends. How can you hope, when you refuse to rely on what if's and pragmatically chase every route to victory? How can you embody light, when you would sink to the deepest darkness without concern should the need truly arise?"
"I see," you nodded, understanding filling you, "So the power of these concepts, are for my lessers to stand up from the mud they crawl through and follow my path?"
"..As expected of you, the meaning is twisted to suit your own grandiose perception," the light huffed, almost petulantly in your own opinion, "This is why, without your partners, the risk was too great to recall you to the digital world. Yet somehow, even with us blocking the digivice selection process from you, you have gained one, and found your way back to the digital world. We used the power of destiny itself to make sure you would never gain a digivice and find your way here, yet even that failed in the end."
So there were more concepts in play? Destiny, was this a crest power as well? Well, no matter. You snorted, "And that right there, was your mistake," you smirked, "Destiny is that which decides the path of fate. But, what good is a proxy, to the real thing? I am the one who decides."
What good would destiny do, against something that was already set in stone so thoroughly not even time travel itself could avert it. Your rule, was a concept in of itself and far beyond something as pitiful as destiny guiding your way. No strings would would control your fate.
You had already broken fate over your knee long ago.
The light was silent, before it seemed to flicker and make a nodding motion, "I see, we could only barely use the dregs of the power, it was too strong for us to control, I did not think it was possible for such a vast power, to bow," it mused thoughtfully, "It makes sense though, it all started with you after all."
"Yes it did," you agreed imperiously, "This world is mine, I am one true king of the digital world. And everything here is mine should I so decide, even you." you narrowed your eyes at the light, and dared it to disagree.
The light seemed to shiver and shudder in on itself, "..I had forgotten, just how intimidating a presence you could exude," it mused in its soft girlish voice after a moment, "but I suppose, in a way, you are not wrong."
"Of course I'm not wrong in any way," you agreed, "The king speaks only the truth, and my word is law."
The light sighed again and you watched as a tendril of light sneaked through the air and touched one of the odd crest emblazoned objects. It glowed with bright light, that shot up into the air and formed into an orb of energy. It shot through the air towards you, and you eyed it in interest as it sought out your digivice and flew inside it.
And before your eyes, your digivice, in the shape of a phone shimmered, and the white casing, turned a bright gold before your eyes. You raised an eyebrow at the shimmering rainbow light girl.
"..It would not do for you to attack the barriers between the world itself if the darkness seals the gate from you," it said cryptically, "Think of it, as a gift of thanks, for all you done in the past for this world and myself personally...father."
Your eyes widened the last word, but before you could say anything, the girlish voiced light, disappeared without a trace. Even scanning the area it was previous with your digivice showed nothing out of place.
"Now what did she mean by that, I wonder?" you hummed in thought. Father? to your knowledge, you had not impregnated anyone, especially not in the digital world, had you?
In the first place, could you even impregnate a digital life form?
You rolled your eyes and huffed in annoyance, "This is why I don't place faith in mere concepts like hope and light," you grumbled, "All it does is get you given cryptic nonsense when you want proper answers."
You put it out of mind for now. You'd track down the light girl one day, once you had taken care of the immediate concerns and that mongrel infesting your world.
For now, you turned towards the two objects with the crests atop them. 'If they refuse to budge before their king, they are worthless,' you decided, 'But that does not mean, superior subjects cannot replace them.'
Light and Hope that had to be followed, weren't worth anything in your opinion, utterly worthless. Light and Hope were gifts you gave, and would be again if you had anything to say about it.
You may not have been able to take these things with the crest power. But really, what good was the fact that they were stuck there really, when you could just analyze the data that made them up.
And quite the easy thing to do, it was indeed. Honestly, the coding that made them up, was really familiar. Different, but honestly, very, very similar to many of your own projects.
The foundation and general outline of them, were practically identical to the framework and coding of your digivolution items. Which told you, these were used specifically to digivolve into specific digimon. You didn't recognise the data make up, so they were two new digimon that had come into existence since the first time you were in the digital world, but with your database, it wasn't hard to cross reference and dig deep into the data itself and find out the species.
'Pegasusmon and Nefertimon, huh?' you mused in interest. Not powerhouse in any way, but they had quite a few varied abilities, and looked to be great transportation digimon.
Even more interested about these digivolution items, is that, they had quite a lot of coding in them, that reminded you of the Viral Factor.
'That girl, she called me father, and she knew of what I'm like as a person.' you remembered. The Viral Factor was common knowledge to your people. After all, you gave it to certain citizens as a reward when they impressed you, or accomplished something of worth for Floatia.
So, odds were, these were based on your own works. You almost smirked at the thought. Imagine claiming you weren't worthy of what was basically your own creations?
Well, you supposed if she really was your daughter as she claimed, she had to have inherited that hubris from you in a way. It did not mean you wouldn't throw her over your knee though as punishment, for acting so haughty when she basically just reworked your original achievement.
It was almost childs play, to follow the source of the power because of how similar it was. And what you found, surprised you.
'..It's just there.' you mused in interest. It was, like it was within the digital world, yet in an entirely different space at the same time. Something that existed, yet did not at the same time. If it weren't for the parts you recognised of the Viral Factor, you would never have been able to trace it.
It was almost like Schrodinger's cat in a way. How interesting.
But, you found out. And you knew how to access it now, where to find it. These concepts might not be willing to give you access to their power, but who said you couldn't just dram a straw in them and suck out what you needed, take what was yours regardless?
Overlooking the data you were compiling from the source themselves of light and Hope, you hummed in thought. They were powerful, for sure, but, what you could really do with them, was limited.
It would be childs play to recreate the digivolution items before you using them. But really, that was so small time. the next option, was to use them as an enhancement battery. You could enhance the abilities of say, of processing speeds and such using them as amplification, or even outright feed the stream of powerful data from them right into your partner's digi-egg.
But, the power of Light and Hope seemed to be geared towards specific digimon. And you didn't want to limit your partners like that. For instance, what if, using them, forced your partners into holy digimon lines like they did for that Gatomon and Angemon. Would they say, even be compatible with the Viral Factor?
A crazy idea swam through your mind and a smirk spread across your face. It was foolish, but foolishness tended to be the beginning of innovation.
'If I can't find much good uses for them alone, what if I fuse them together?' you wondered.
You weren't sure what you would get from it. But, you copied the basic shape and data configuration of the hope and Light digivolution items. The only thing you did not copy, was the specific species data. You created a receptacle capable of holding both of the powers, or at least, the framework that would become one.
And then, it was child's play again, to funnel both conceptual data powers into the framework and begin its foundation.
You directed the frame into the storage area of your digivice. From the looks of things, the finished project, would take quite a while.
So with that accomplished, you left the cave behind, not even glancing over your shoulder as you left at the digivolution items of Light and Hope.
You got back on Airdramon's back, and had him take you right to Santa Korea, home of the Vegimon.
It wasn't a long trip at all with Airdramon's flight speed, and the dark tower was quite a bit out of the sloping hill of a village, and there weren't many guarding the area around it.
There was one Red Vegimon, an interesting variation species of Vegimon you hadn't seen before. A natural pseudo evolution of the species, like Dark Tyrannomon was to Tyrannomon.
But, even with being quite a bit stronger than the standard Vegimon, it was beaten down quickly by Airdramon, and the ring around its body destroyed. It was quick to apologise profusely for its actions while controlled, and recruiting it was easy as pie. From there, you simply did as you had to the towers before, transferring the data that made it up into your partner's digi-egg, and the territory was freed from the rule of the Digimon Emperor.
Red Vegimon wasn't long in persuading its fellows to come along with it, becoming your subordinate and enjoying the safety of your protection.
Surprisingly, there were five extra digimon amongst the bunch eager to join up with you for your protection. Another species you had never seen before. Gazimon, bipedal rabbit like digimon, rookie-level digimon, that you were quite fascinated by, due to the apparent potential they had for many, many different champion forms.
You happily allowed them to join you as well. You'd like to take a look at their species data, they might be a good rookie form to take your partners in when they hatched, just for the potential branching paths.
Really, the only problem was that you didn't have any digimon subordinates currently that were good with infrastructure. Every subordinate you had was talented in their own way, but there were not any that were well learned in the art of leading business and growing community needed groups and organizations.
'I miss Jijimon.' you sighed wistfully as you flew back towards your base on Airdramon's back not long later, after taking the Vegimon and Gazimon into your digivice.
Jijimon was amazing at finding the right digimon for the right job, and he made your job as king infinitely easier.
Well, at least the Vegimon didn't really need much direction at all to just start growing food. And the Gazimon could work as runners when things got up and going.
You looked down from your place on Airdramon's back, flying over a forest. And just then, a glint of gold in the moonlight caught your eye.
You directed Airdramon down to land beside it, and hopped off of his back. 'Well now, what's this?' you peered at the item in interest.
it was a large golden ring. Engraved with runes of the High Coding language.
Gabumon, from his position hiding within the trees of a towering tree wiped sweat from underneath his fur, "Oof, good thing that guy didn't spot me," the wolf furred digimon collapsed on his backside, "What a crazy guy."
The human teenager who had just liberated the entire Vegimon village, and then recruited them and somehow stored them inside that odd device, flew off on the back of an Airdramon above.
"I need to hurry and tell Matt and the others." Gabumon nodded to himself. He hadn't had the chance to speak to Matt despite the fact he was in the digital world today. He was off, with the others, helping Agumon and Tai, while Gabumon had been planning on how to break out his Gazimon buddies from the Vegimon's prison and save all the VEgimon while he was at it.
This was a village he frequented quite often, so when he saw one of the Control Spires up and constructed, and all the familiar friendly Vegimon he new enslaved, he knew he had to save them somehow from that nasty Digimon Emperor.
'But who was that guy?' Gabumon wondered, he clearly wasn't the Digimon Emperor, he looked entirely different, and there was no way the Digimon Emperor would liberate his own slaves from himself.
"I see," Commander Sampson of Dats threaded his fingers together atop his command desk, taking in the information, "Good work Nene, giving us at least a week to respond gives us time to think this over."
The massive, muscular commander looked down at his shoulders, where a small, white mammal digimon was curled around him like a scarf, "What do you make of this, Kudamon?" he asked it, "These claims to have been the first human to enter the digital world and be crowned king."
"Frankly, they're very far fetched, but at the same time, they fit," Kudamon replied, voice a deep, calm baritone, despite the digimon's tiny size, "The story of Floatia has been regaled for thousands of years, and it was known, that before the digidestined, there was a previous group of humans that entered the digital world, or in this case, just the one."
"Yeah, but saving the digital world and becoming king?" Yoshino spoke up from where she stood at the side of his desk, "He would have been what, eight, that's just too."
"I don't know...He had this presence about him, like there was a pressure pressing down on me, it was a bit intimidating to be honest," Nene mused herself, before shrugging, "Besides, did you forget who we're talking about? This guy started a company superpower and advanced the world's technology by decades when he was ten, he's even a doctor at this point, if it's him, I can see it."
"I can at least tell you though, that Floatia was a real place," Kudamon input, "My lord was not very forthcoming with information, but we learned at least, that Yggdrasil had strong ties to Floatia, and we, as an order, were formed in order to hunt down the ones remaining who facilitated the destruction of the city."
"What about his demands?" Yoshino asked, "I mean, we're trying to break away from the government simply because of their demands on what we do, isn't this trading just one for another?"
Nene shrugged, "I don't really see the problem to be honest," she replied, "His demands while quite high, don't really affect us overall too much, and we have no authority in the digital world anyway."
Kudamon grimaced, "Maybe not you all, but I am unsure how to feel about his claim to rulership," the rookie digimon said, "On one hand, it seems he has good motives, and isn't an evil person, but on the other hand, rule of the digital world is the right of Yggdrasil."
"That's where the biggest problem lies," Samson nodded in agreement, "There is no true single ruling authority in this world, the idea that he is such or will become such, means there is one person ruling an entire world to be on edge about, it means the entire digital world will march at his words should it come to pass, and that is a force this world has no chance against, we are panicking after all just because the governments plans to weaponize the small number of digivice holders and digimon partners in comparison."
"There's the slight chance he'll let me accompany him to the Digital World in two days," Nene said. She tapped her chin in a wondering fashion, "My odds of getting anything out of him are low. I went all honey trap and he barely batted at an eye, most guys stumble over themselves just to speak to me these days."
Yoshino grimaced, "I still don't know how you can do that without batting an eye."
Nene shrugged, "While I'm not a fan of it personally, the fact of the matter is, I'm hot, and he's a teenager," she replied, "Thousands of lives could depend on getting his backing, I wasn't going to let a little discomfort get in the way of that."
"Oh yeah?" Yoshino challenged, "Even if he made it a point for you to spend your time in his bed with him?"
Nene raised an eyebrow at the older woman, "Sex you mean?" she asked, and when Yoshino nodded the idol just shrugged her shoulders, "My virginity is a small price to pay, if that was what it took."
Commander Sampson nodded lightly to himself. He made the right decision in backing Nene when recruiting her for DATS. She was the type of girl that practically embodied the word 'go-getter', if she wanted to achieve something, she put her all into doing so, and worked harder than most could fathom. There was a reason she was one of the top agents of DATs, on top of being an Idol, top of her year in school work and the student council president for the high school course at her school.
She wasn't unfeeling, but she was logical, and had the great resolve needed to make hard decisions, and she was a kind girl, and as such, much more willing to put herself through bad situations, than others
"I'll leave it in your capable hands then Nene," Commander Sampson nodded, standing up,"I'll bring this information and the deal we were given to the other high ranking officers."
He internally grimaced. While most of them would be easy to deal with on this matter, the biggest problem...was Kurata. The head scientist of DATs.
..Ever since that 'Digimon World' game was released, the man had been obsessed with taking digimon that managed to cross over, alive, into his custody and experimenting on them.
He'd already created a monster out of a Tyrannomon they had captured. Metal Tyrannomon. It was, perhaps the strongest digimon DATs had on command...besides his own. It worked as Kurata's 'partner' despite the fact, the man did not even have a digivice.
He would stonewall any agreement with Artus' Kokuo in reference to his rule over the digital world. It would mean, the digimon would be Artus' subjects, as such, it would be like illegally torturing and experimenting on another countries subjects. Grounds for war.
Kurata would not want to give up his obsession and research materials in any form.
Night had fallen, street lights illuminated the darkness, and while most youngsters and students had returned to the warm safety of their homes, the eight digidestined found themselves congregating at the local Odaiba park. Once upon a time, the place where they met up to make plans to defeat Myotismon and find the eighth digidestined and chosen of the crest of light.
"Sooo," Tai began, sitting atop the bars of the jungle gym and looking over his gathered team, "Armour digivolution huh?"
They'd been mostly silent since they left the digital world behind for the day, after dealing with a horde of Monochromon under the control of the Digimon Emperor, and Davis being able to lift the Digi-egg of Courage.
"It's a fascinating concept, and we've never seen any type of digivolution like it before," Izzy practically vibrated in excitement from where he sat on one of the nearby benches, "I'd really like to take the time to analyze the new kids digivices and the digi-egg itself."
"It's not all that strong from what we saw," Joe input, "But it somehow gets around whatever is blocking our digimon from digivolving."
There was grimaces all around as the elephant in the room was brought up. Flamedramon, as helpful as he had been, was more or less just a champion level digimon. Great, but in the end, Veemon was not as strong as any of their digimon, so it wasn't quite as helpful as it could have been.
They'd had to deal with ten Monochromon chasing them down. Their digimon had all grown to the point where they could roughly fight on the level of champion level digimon, and one on one, their digimon had been able to handle a Monochromon each, two in Agumon's case. It would have even been near a cake walk if Gatomon hadn't lost much of her strength with the loss of her tail ring.
Veemon was strong, but he was a young, inexperienced digimon, as such, when he armour digivolved, he wasn't that much stronger than Agumon. If say, it was Tai who could pick up the egg and armour digivolve Agumon to Flamedramon, he would have been capable of defeating all ten Monochromon.
"We have to find out what's stopping our digimon from digivolving," Mimi clenched her fists, standing up, "We can't let this brat keep hurting all the innocent digimon and ruin all we did to save the digital world. We should find out what's stopping us digivolving, get around it, then we should add just take him down before he knows what's even happening."
"Any ideas on that front Izzy?" Sora asked.
"Sadly no," Izzy shook his head, "I'll need to spend some time investigating the digital world itself before I can figure that out."
"We need to find out who that Digimon Emperor is as well, if we catch him over here we can deal with things easier," TK hummed, "Do you think it might be Artus? From what I heard when we got back, he ditched class after lunch and didn't turn back up."
"I hope not," Kari bit her lip, "If it is, it'll be even harder to take him on here than over there without the digimon."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Tai crossed his arms, "Yeah, it's suspicious that Diaboromon said his name, and that he made the game and cards, but we can't really afford to go around making enemies without proof, especially not one as powerful as Artus."
There was a sigh, and everyone turned to see Matt slumping back against the slide he was sitting on, his phone dangling in his hand, "Seems the Emperor isn't our only problem," he groaned, tilting his head up to look around at the assembled teens, "I just got a message from Gabumon. He said he just saw another human in the digital world, riding around on an Airdramon, apparently, he liberated a village from the Digimon Emperor."
"So why's that a problem?" Mimi asked, "That sounds like a good thing."
Matt shook his head, "It'd be great, if Gabumon didn't also say that the guy apparently recruited all the Vegimon and Gazimon he saved, and then somehow sucked them all up into some strange device and then fly off," the blonde haired rockstar replied, "Could be the guy is just taking them someplace safe, but putting them in some device and carrying them about? I don't even get how that's possible, never mind the fact this guy might just be recruiting an army of his own."
"Well actually," Izzy spoke up, "I've been working on a project, a kind of digital space that digimon can enter and stay in. It's only been an idle thing, but now with how dangerous it is for our Digimon to stay in the digital world, it might be best that I focus on it and finish it so we can bring them back here safely."
"Yeah, get right on that Izzy," Tai nodded and ordered, "if the Digimon Emperor can enslave our digimon to, we'll have no way of fighting back, with that, we can bring them here without worrying about them being seen."
"Right, I'll get back to work as soon as I get home!" Izzy agreed.
"What about Artus? We at least can talk to him." TK asked.
Tai sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to rub away the beginnings of a headache. 'TK really doesn't like that shopkeeper Devimon thing.' he groaned inwardly. It would be suspicious if any of the older kids just went to him and started trying to talk to him. That, or come off as suck ups trying to get in with the rich, famous genius teen. So that left, TK, Davis and Kari. A thought came to mind, and he almost reconcile from it, but he swallowed his distaste, "Kari, you try and strike up some conversation with him, see what you can dig up from if possible."
"Why Kari?" Sora asked, raising an eyebrow at the boy, knowing how protective he was of his little sister.
"Kari's the least suspicious and least threatening person," he replied. When Sora's second eyebrow joined the first, he sighed in defeat, "...He's also a teenage boy, and as a teenage boy I am a foremost expert on the species."
Mimi giggled, "In other words, hope he lets his guard down around a cute girl?"
Tai sighed again, "...Yes..."
Kari had her arms crossed as her older brother looked over to her and met her eyes, "You up for it?" he asked.
"It's fine," Kari smiled gently, "Davis may throw a bit of a fit if I do though." the boy's hero worship of Tai and crush on his little sister that was born from that hero worship, was well known.
"I'll keep Davis and Veemon busy," Tai said, "Me and Agumon will put them through the ringer, get them in fighting shape."
The digidestined of courage looked to the resident computer expert, "Izzy, will you be able to hack our school records and make it so have some free periods tomorrow?" he asked, "Specifically, me and Davis early in the day to give Kari some time to talk to Artus, but then for everyone after lunch, that way, we can take Yolei and Cody into the Digital World as a group, and see about finding their partners." if Davis had Veemon with his new digivice, odds were, there were other digi-eggs and digimon partners for the other two.
"It shouldn't be a problem," Izzy nodded, "I'll have it all prepared by morning."
"Thanks," Tai nodded gratefully before looking around at his team, "Right, that's it for now guys, we should head home and get some rest, tomorrow will be busy."
Anyway, shameless Pa-atreon plug. I've got one, go by the same username on there, easy to find and all that jazz. Support me if you want, it'd be swell, but don't feel pressured lads and ladies, I'll be uploading my stuff outside it regardless and not keeping it all behind a paywall or anything like that.