I stepped back into the Matter Dimension to find the entire room a hive of activity.
"No, look here-"
"This data-"
"The D-Reaper is mutating-"
"What just happened?" Rika asked.
"Azulongmon is sending data about the D-Reaper." Gorou smiled. "A lot of it, in fact."
"Good." I walked up to them. "Will you be able to use it?"
"We should." He took a sip of his coffee. "I'm just waiting for it to compile."
He set the coffee down, and typed on his keyboard for a few moments.
"All of this data... Azulongmon sure is impressive." He noted. "So Calumon was the Catalyst program?"
"I'm not even surprised that you know about it." I shook my head. "And yes."
"What's the... Catalyst program?" Henry asked.
"Basically, the Catalyst program is the program that allows Digimon to mutate, change, and evolve. In other words, it's the source of Digivolution."
"Calumon..?" Rika rounded. "You said that Calumon was connected to the nature of Digivolution!"
"I did." I nodded. "I just didn't mention how much so. Mostly because Calumon himself didn't actually know it until semi-recently."
I held the little puff ball up. "Azulongmon had the DigiGnomes transform the Catalyst into Calumon, and then sent Calumon to this dimension. He did so to hide the Catalyst from the D-Reaper. The secrecy was important, Rika." I looked at her. "I'm sorry for not telling you all the whole truth, but..." I shrugged. "I stand by my decision."
She stared at me for a few moments, before slumping.
"No more secrets." She said.
"So long as it has something to do with you, no more secrets." I promised.
She looked at me for a second, before Takato nudged her. "Fine. That's the best I'm going to get out of you, isn't it?"
"Yes." I nodded. "There are things that you are better off not knowing, Rika. Things you do not want to know."
Her expression twisted in confusion. "And how would you know what I wanted to know or not?"
"Because these are things that are so utterly terrifying, so completely horrifying, that nobody in their right mind wants to know about it."
shudder
Suddenly and violently, the ground shook, drawing startled exclamations from everybody around.
A few seconds later, the shaking faded.
"What was that?" Takato asked.
"Sir!" Riley's voice came from Yamaki's headset. "Our main processor just went offline!"
"What?!" Yamaki demanded.
"The D-Reaper." Gorou realised.
Already?
"Riley, reset the system, I want everything back online ASAP!"
"We might want to prepare for a quick evacuation if we have to." Gorou frowned. "If the D-Reaper emerges in this world, then this building will be one of the first places it will appear."
"I've already had a number of locations set up with equipment for us if the Metropolitan Building becomes unavailable." Yamaki stated. "If we have to move, we can go at any time."
"Smart." Gorou nodded. "Aha~ Finished."
He leaned forward, examining the data flowing across his stream.
"This is not going to be easy." He bit his tongue. "But... we should be able to work something out."
"For the uninformed?"
"Ah... yes." He stared at the screen. "The D-Reaper is adapting and mutating quickly, which makes it hard to create an effective... cure, I suppose."
"Adaptive enemies are always the most annoying."
He glanced at me. "Speaking from experience?"
"Somewhat."
"Right." He looked back at the screen. "But anyway, that mutation is also something that we can use to our advantage."
"By forcing it to adapt a weakness that you can exploit?"
He smiled. "Yes. If we can work out how it adapts and mutates, then we can throw stimuli at it, and then induce a specific weakness. Then, we have our weapon." He frowned. "I hope, anyway. If the D-Reaper is like... every other entity in the Digital World, then it will have a core, which will serve as both its processing center, and point of failure."
"So, if we can break that, we can destroy the D-Reaper?" Henry asked.
"Maybe. See, most Digimon have one core, which is usually hidden deep inside the body. The Sovereigns have twelve cores, each. The DigiGnomes also have one core, but the DigiGnomes are capable of duplicating their cores with ease. Now, I assume that the D-Reaper is like them, and it has a core somewhere. Problem is, I don't know if the D-Reaper is capable of duplicating its cores, or if it has multiple cores, both of which are distinct possibilities."
"Assuming that it can, what does that mean for us?" Yamaki asked.
"Well, first off; we have to assume that it will be able to run multiple instances of itself, which may or may not be connected with each other. Assuming that they are connected, then any adaptions gained by any instance of the D-Reaper can be shared to any other instance. Assuming that they are not, then the opposite is true, and we will have to work out cures for each individual instance."
He took a sip of his coffee. "The latter is too much work for us to do viably. The former will see the D-Reaper mutating unexpectedly as it reacts to stimuli that we didn't give it. Both are bad, but the first case scenario is the only one that we can actually win at." He put the coffee down, and then started typing. "So in order to make sure that we can hit each and every single instance of the D-Reaper at once, I'm going to write a program that will connect each and every single instance together."
"As point of note, if every core has its own processing capacity, then connecting them together will likely lead to it growing in processing capacity every single time it duplicates itself."
"And that's the other problem." He frowned. "If it can duplicate itself, then it can start an exponential growth in both instances and processing capacity. We have to destroy it as quickly as possible, or it will destroy us."
He leaned back "And all this relies on its behaviour. Our plans can change drastically and at any moment depending on what the D-Reaper does. If its mutations lead to it gaining any degree of intelligence, then we're... basically screwed."
"No pressure."