Psychemon's POV
It was surprising how fast Psychemon could run when he put his mind to it. His legs were short, he was smaller then the echoes of his memory told him he was, his tail was throwing off his jumps, and there were a few shards of glass in his hide... But he was running fast enough to evade the literal flying Nazi on his tail. "GET BACK HERE YOU FURRY FREAK!" He ignored the Nazi teen chasing him, focusing more on getting out of Nazi territory. Witty banter was not something he had experience in, the echoes confirmed that, and he had no time to engage in it or fight.
Not that fighting would be something he was against, cause he wasn't, he just wanted some information first. The only thing he knew was he was pre Leviathan, so that was good...
But that was all he knew.
Well, he knew Rune was a bitch, but that wasn't a surprise, she was a Nazi, that was a criteria after all. (Unless this is an AU where she's a good person deep down... And now I feel an existential crisis building.)
Thankfully for Psychemon, the whizz of something shooting towards him made him stopped that train of thought and helped him focus as he leapt towards the nearest car, avoiding the chunk of stone shot at him. Though, it may have frightened the shit out of the people near said car, who hadn't run off when they saw a two, nearly three foot tall purple lizard dog running away from a flying Nazi girl on a piece of concrete. (It says something that I can unironically think that sentence and be 100% serious.) Psychemon, and when had he started defaulting to that when he thought of himself like that? Was 100% done with the world already, and it hadn't even been an hour since he was born.
That had to be a record or something.
That aside, Psychemon jumped off of the car and back onto the sidewalk, pushing his legs to get him away from the flying Nazi girl. He would've fought her if he had spent more time practicing his new form, having two different methods of long range retaliation was all well and good...
If he knew how to use them efficiently that was. He was fully able to kill the girl with a simple Psyche Shot on her platform, maybe a Colorful Spark to disorientate her and make her slam into a building, but those would put him on a shit list he wasn't able to handle at the moment...
If he wasn't on it already. He'd appeared in Max Anders' office and sort of outed Kaiser to his face. If the Nazis weren't out for his immaterial blood then he'd eat his pelt.
That thought aside, his breath would require him to stay still and aim since he wasn't practiced enough to use it on the move, something he didn't want to do in the event Rune smacked him with a car, while his projectile had a mental trigger to detonate if it didn't hit something. He knew how to use them both, hell, he HAD used one of them, but without more experience of doing so he'd probably fuck it up by missing or accidentally killing the girl, landing him in far too much shit for his current limits.
So running it was.
Yet, as he ran, he idly wondered how he'd gotten here.
A few minutes earlier
Psychemon shot out of the portal like an actor out of an Indiana Jones movie, tumbling through the air for a moment... A moment which made him widen his eyes right before his body slammed into a wall. "Glbbruk." He was aware that was nonsense, he just didn't care.
Slamming into a wall, particularly a steel one, face first, hurt... Shocker. His snout was in pain, hands coming up to cover it, his tail was uncomfortably pinched by his back and the floor, and the explosion of sound coming from all around him was giving him a small headache.
It slipped his mind that his senses would be enhanced, so going from somewhere with little to no ambient sound, to a residential area with a bunch of background was bound to be a little disorientating. Giving himself a concussion, he knew he didn't have one, he was just being dramatic since this was the first time he'd been in physical pain since he woke up, wasn't helping him. "Ughhh." The pain he was in was understandable.
Then the sound of someone cocking a gun rang like thunder in his ears, making him open his eyes and lock onto the source.
Said source being a big blonde guy with blue eyes, an expensive looking suit, and a gun that looked like the younger cousin of a deagle. (Hmm, that doesn't seem good.) The situation seemed worse considering the sheer amount of rage on the blonde man's face. (And that looks even worse.)
This instance of life or death, he was still a soft and fleshy Rookie and would absolutely get hurt by a bullet, caused his Rookie instincts to kick into overdrive. The unimportant stimulus was blocked out, his body thrummed in anticipation to roll/move/attack, while his eyes and ears took in every/anything important...
That was the only reason he noticed the desk, which was behind the guy pointing a gun at him, had a plaque on it.
A plaque with a name on it.
A name he knew.
'Max Anders - CEO of Medhall.'
The connection formed in an instant... And he would forever deny that what he said next had ever happened. "I did Nazi this coming." It took a moment for him to register the fact that yes, he basically admitted to knowing Max Anders was a Nazi... And considering the guy was leading a gang of Nazis, which somehow hadn't been bombed out of existence by someone who didn't give a damn about the rules or just wanted revenge, meant he wasn't slow on the uptake.
Psychemon saw the reactions as they came, The Nazi's eye twitched, jaw tense, hand gripping the gun harder... And the feeling of something vibrating behind him.
His eyes widened, body rolling before he could consciously tell it too. That was the only reason he avoided the spear that suddenly shot out from the wall, aimed right for center mass.
There was no time to think, fight or flight taking over as Psychemon felt an insignificant amount of data, MBS really, shift and gather in his mouth. There was a flicker of purple before he opened his maw and aimed at the man behind the Nazi empire. "Psyche Shot!" Purple fire erupted from his maw, not enough to be considered a proper flamethrower, but enough to be deadly if it hit.
"Shit!" The blonde man hastily jumped to the side to avoid the stream of fire, falling into what looked like a combat roll to Psychemon.
Unfortunately for the Nazi, there was a target that couldn't avoid it.
A target made of flammable material.
Kaiser's desk was set alight as more then a few sparks landed on it, a small burst of smoke coming from it as the laptop he'd probably shot out from exploded.
That was the moment that Psychemon knew that he had to get the hell out of there. So while Kaiser coughed and spluttered and SHOT THE FUCKING GUN, Psychemon was putting his paws to the floor, a burst of speed shooting him forwards as he ran to the only exit he saw...
The glass windows. (Oh Yggdrasil this is gonna suck.) And with that thought had he lowered his head, closed his eyes, and SLAMMED through the glass window.
He could survive a drop...
...
...
...
Psychemon was not actually sure he could survive a drop from that high.
Idly flicking an eye towards the purple claws on his pelt, Psychemon could make out the few flakes of stone leftover from jabbing them into the side of a building to stave off splattering on the ground. He'd managed it, but it was still something he questioned the physics of.
Then Psychemon saw his way out and threw the thoughts of physics away faster then one could say 'Digimon.'
Slamming his feet against the ground, Psychemon shot towards the dumbass recording him running away from a flying Nazi, eyes and senses locked onto the phone in his hands. He could feel the active network, and despite knowing how risky it would be, he had to get out of Empire territory before he got ganked by the living blender and his troupe of psychos, or the Nazi stereotypes. He may have had enough data to reach Champion, and he'd already locked in Gururumon so he wouldn't get distracted by the other options, the Black line was only tempting because he liked them, but he hadn't fulfilled the requirements for it, and he highly doubted little Rookie Psychemon could take someone like Hookwolf...
Without copious amounts of fire atleast, but he still didn't trust it.
So, even if there was a chance of discovery, he had to take the chance and open a port to the net so he could get the fuck out of here.
The guy, some tatted up teenager that probably had an IQ in the lower double digit range, wasn't expecting the lizard wolf thing that Psychemon was to suddenly charge him, so he naturally panicked. Said panic involved hurling his phone at the Rookie, which was more then enough for Psychemon to make use of. "Going in!" Pulling on his instincts as a Digimon, Psychemon forced a port to open, the sight looking like a tunnel from the first Cyber Sleuth game, but just in real life.
Psychemon ignored the various 'what the fucks' his actions earned, because random wormholes opening from a phone was not something people saw everyday, no matter what bullshit Earth Bet threw at them, and jumped into the port like his life depended on it...
Cause it did.
Thankfully he managed to enter the port, the tunnel winking closed after he passed, marking his safety from the Nazis.
Letting out a steam like breath, Psychemon floated in the Cell Network, letting himself calm down after his experience. Rune herself wasn't an issue, a solid hit from either of his ranged attacks would've been enough to put the kid, and what did that tell him about himself that he instinctively thought of her as a kid? Out. It was just the fact he'd not even been alive for a half hour or so and was already on the Nazi's collective shit list.
He wanted to think about that, he really did, but the sudden feeling of a nearby server distracted him from his thoughts. Latching onto the first thing to distract him, because even though he wanted to think about it, he'd still rather not, Psychemon propelled himself towards it.
Moving in cyberspace was weird, once again reminding him of the Cyber Sleuth games when it came to Networks, but he did like the fact that he was sort of flying. (Can I..?) With a quick mental flip, Psychemon found out that yes, he could in fact do flips and other tricks while going towards the nearby server. (Niiice.) Psychemon would never admit to anyone that he turned parts of his mind off so he could just enjoy slow rolling towards the server...
He would eventually confess under duress to Dragon that he did it alot when the woman managed to catch him doing so once in the future.
After a minute or two of rolling, and thinking 'rolling rolling rolling' in his mind, Psychemon reached the server. Being the easily distracted and curious Digimon that he was, Psychemon eagerly jumped head first into the server. (Not like rushing into things with no information or plan can ever backfire on me or anything.)
He ignored the encounter with the Nazis a few minutes earlier, and would continue to do so if anyone mentioned it.
That was that and this was this...
He'd think about it later, probably before he slept. He got the feeling that was mostly when he ever really thought about things.
All of that aside, the eager Rookie entered the server... And sighed as he took in how boring it looked. He was currently standing in an area that reminded him of one of the 'Forum' areas in Cyber Sleuth, a white circle like platform with a bunch of white cloud like data packets floating around the area. After being born in the Val...
...
...
...
Psychemon dropped to his belly, a loud groan coming from him as he did. "Son of a bitch." With the benefit of hindsight, which was always 20/20, he could understand that it was obvious that he'd appeared in an E88 server. Granted, there weren't any swastikas or anything similar, but the fuck he'd fucking spawned in a server that reminded him of the Valhalla Server should've given him an idea of where he was.
Another groan left his maw at that, the purple Rookie lightly shaking his head as it did. (No, that's stupid. I was literally just born, I can't pin that on myself.) And that was also right. He wasn't omniscient, a little stupid for going out into world without really taking time to train himself, sure, but he couldn't just guess where he'd been born.
Psychemon took some time to process everything, as well as watch as the data he passively absorbed was used to heal his cuts and scrapes, before eventually huffing and getting up. Now that he not only knew where he was, but had some time to think about what he could/should do, he would be in a good spot to work on his objectives.
With his little foray into the real world, short as it may have been, he was able to figure out some stuff. Wherever he was in the timeline was pre Leviathan, most likely pre Bakuda if the glimpse of the city he'd gotten was anything to go by. He wasn't entirely sure if that was right, but without confirmation about when he was he'd just assume he was somewhere pre canon and hope for the best.
Of course that was the moment a new data packet emerged near him, close enough for him to see that it was a video of him running from Rune and jumping towards the phone... It also had a timestamp... A timestamp for April 3rd: 2011.
That not only confirmed that he was pre canon, but also gave him a week to figure out what he wanted to do.
A week...
A week to figure out how to handle Worm...
A week to get strong enough to survive the sheer amount of bullshit that was Brockton Bay...
Psychemon slammed his head against the floor, another loud groan erupting from his maw. (I'm fucked.) The scramble to reach Champion was going to be insane. He'd had more then enough data to step through the door for that stage, but it was the fact he'd need to eat a metric fuckton of food, as well as beat up some 'enemies, that was getting to him.
The 'enemies' requirement was easy, there were enough druggies for him to just go out and jump for some easy wins.
It was just the issue of food that was his problem. He'd need to figure out how long it'd take for him to devour 50,000 calories worth of food, as well as how to get it all without getting sussed out. His human form was a child, so he couldn't just go to some all you can eat and pig out without someone questioning where the literal child was putting away all the food he was eating...
Unless he didn't do it the legal way... That thought made Psychemon pause, gears spinning as he thought about it. (I'm plugged into the net. I don't need to restrict myself to Brockton Bay, I have time to work outside it before canon comes calling...) Raising his head, Psychemon turned to look over Ryan's Cloud Server. He could feel a few connections to a few other servers, most likely family members, but also a major one, most likely the main servers of the Cloud itself. If he ported into the Main Cloud Server and ported around other phones/places hooked up to the Cloud then he should theoretically be able to hop around the world...
As long as he wasn't caught by Dragon... Which was the Catch of this whole situation. If he made the Main Cloud Server his home/base, which would be easy, he would be able to fulfill his requirements by raiding buffets all over the continent/world... But if Dragon caught onto him then he'd... Psychemon paused, a thought coming to mind as everything stopped. (Do I actually need to be scared of Dragon right now?) While he knew the A.I was watched by the crazy Dragon Slayers, controlled by Cauldron, and had a bunch of restrictions on her...
They shouldn't use her to kill him unless he presented himself as a threat. And as he was right now, he was far from a threat to any of them... And if he kept his origins to himself, pretended to be a Cape... "I can work with that." It was all coming together in his mind.
He'd need to decide what he could and couldn't share, figure out when to introduce himself to The Guild, how to introduce himself to them, then convince them to let him work out of Brockton Bay...
...
...
...
That sounded alot harder now that he was thinking about it.
...
...
...
Eh, he'd figure it out.
Meanwhile, back in Brockton
Piggot had grown numb to many things over the years, she had too in order to not lose her mind over the sheer amount of bullshit she had to deal with ever since she assigned to the ENE office in Brockton Bay. The city's situation was probably the worst out of literally anywhere not quarantined, destroyed by an Endbringer, or visited by the 9...
It was a sad thing that she was both completely serious and factually correct if the statistics she'd been seeing and sending up the chain meant anything.
Brockton Bay was one bad day away from turning into a war zone, and no matter what she did or who she asked she just couldn't get the support she needed to make sure they would be able to weather that inevitable storm.
A storm that may kick off soon if anyone even looked wrongly at the E88 right now. "Armsmaster, do we have any new information about the incident?" The 'incident' being what looked to be a Case 53 jumping out of Max Anders' office like a bat out of hell and avoiding/escaping from Rune without any issues. The whole thing had gotten the E88 up in arms, their Capes and unpowered gang members turning out like a kicked anthill...
Which was startling because the response seemed disproportionate to the Case 53's appearance...
Until the speculation about Medhall being a front for the E88 came out... Which, in hindsight, made a frustrating amount of sense. The damn thing was named Medhall, a goddamn letter and space away from being Mead hall! (At the least Medhall is connected to the E88, while the worst case scenario id Max Anders being one of their Capes.)
Piggot mentally scowled at the thought, but didn't take it any further as Armsmaster began speaking. "Unfortunately not, Director." And of course it was bad news. "Searching for any residual fur, scales, chipped claws, or blood has failed. Checking the footage from multiple angles, Thinker support, as well as our aforementioned failure to find any samples from the Case 53 has led us to believe that this Case 53 has some form of Breaker state responsible for the lack of residual traces from their escape." So many words for what amounted to 'possible Power bullshit.' It was a answer, but since it was just a hypothesis it could still not be the answer.
Letting out a breath, Piggot decided to move on and ask the more important question. "How likely is it that the E88 will try to lash out?" The gang had already been agitated, and it didn't take a genius to infer just what they might do if they caught the Case 53. Hell, they'd probably do worse the longer they managed to evade them. Then there was the possibility that they got off with the whole thing, which would force the E88 to make a show of force...
Which could possibly lead to a gang war.
Armsmaster pursed his lips, a frown making its way onto his face. "Without further observation that outcome is uncertain." Piggot just stared at the man, getting him to frown just a tad bit more. "However, using what we know of The Empire, that conclusion seems the most likely response from them." And there it was.
Piggot audibly sighed at this, already feeling a headache building. The Empire wouldn't take this sleight lightly, and would probably make a show of force soon.
And in a city with someone capable of going toe to toe with Leviathan, a show of force would probably lead to the city being condemned... (I'm getting too old for this shit.)
Omake - I'm a Digimon - Psychemon's POV
Porting out of a camera was easy... "Oof." It was the 'landing on his feet after being deposited from the air' thing that he needed a little work on. Granted, he still managed it, sorta, so he didn't have much to work on...
He was lying, but no one needed to know that.
Psychemon shook away the thoughts, focusing on where he was. The site he'd jumped into had said this was an all you can eat buffet, one similar to the one in Persona 5, and it sort of matched in reality. Oh sure there weren't any chocolate fountains or a fuckton of beans, but there was enough meat here for him to feed a whole pride of lions. (Though, I'll have to wait a bit. It'll open soon, and I can't risk the New York Protectorate jumping on my ass this early.)
There was no doubt in Psychemon's mind that he'd eventually fight Legend, no matter the fact he was basically gay Superman, the man was still a member of Cauldron, and they'd probably hunt him down for some reason or another in the future...
Which, now that he was thinking about it, made him frown. His Digivolution line had potential, the end goal was proof of that, but until he got it he would mainly be a street level threat at least, and a city level threat at the very best. He wouldn't be able to handle someone like Legend, and definitely not Alexandria... Which seemed kinda disappointing. He was a Digimon for crying out loud! There were a fuckton of city level threats at minimum in the Champion bracket, and despite how much he wanted to get to Belphamon, he had to acknowledge that limiting and treating himself like a Pokemon would be really fucking stupid.
Digimon had options, and that included himself.
Now that he wasn't going through the motions of being born in a death world, running into Nazis, and fucking around in the internet, that fact finally and truly cemented itself in his mind. He was a Digimon now, and had all that entailed...
Mentally looking over his Digivolution tree, Psychemon counted 34 potential Champion forms, excluding Gururumon, and scratched his chin. There were oh so many choices, so many scenarios to plan around, and so much potential.
Humming to himself Psychemon turned around and ported back into the camera's server. He had alot to think about, and he had more then a few hours to kill before the buffet opened and closed, so he was free to think.
He was a Digimon, and that came with so many possibilities.