Episode 13: Wish

"It's so boring out here…" a small, orange dinosaur groans. "He should be done soon… Hmmmmmmmm…" Folding his arms and closing his green eyes, he begins to ponder. "I wonder if there's anything to do." Wandering around, he sees some students talking beside a tree.

"I hate track days!" one of them complains.

"You-you just got-gotta run the straights and walk the…" One of the other students collapses. A red, winged creature appears above them, just out of their sight.

"See, this is what I mean! It just tires everyone who's nowhere near in shape. I just wish we didn't have to do track!" The creature smiles.

"Baby Flame!" The dinosaur spews a fireball from his mouth at the red creature. Alarmed, the students jump out of the way. The red creature disappeared.

"What was that?!"

"You saw that, too?!" The students approach the tree the dinosaur is hiding behind. The dinosaur climbs the tree to hide.

Coming around the tree, they spot nothing. "That was…bizarre."

"Here's my part of the assignment!" Aster pulls out a few sheets of paper from his binder, presenting it to two other students. They sit together at a make-shift table made from four different desks with chairs attached to them.

"Sweet! Now we're just waiting on Cody…" They turn to the empty desk.

"He's late again," the other student sighs.

"We're going to fail this assignment because of him…" Aster bemoans.

Suddenly, the classroom door opens and a student comes walking through. "Sorry I'm late!" He gives the teacher the pass he was carrying and joins Aster and the rest of them.

"Nice of you to join us," one of them greets sarcastically.

"I got held up," Cody explains.

"Anyways," Aster cuts in. "What about the assignment?"

"Assignment?" Cody blanks out. "Oh! That! Ummmm…" The others glare at him. "You see, I was going to get it done last night. But then family came over and I had to spend time with them and, by the time they left, it was too late to work on it."

Aster rolls his eyes. "What a surprise."

"Well, fortunately," one of the other students starts, "I actually did his part!"

"Thank you! I appreciate you doing that! I'm so sorry!"

"Don't worry about it."

"No!" Aster exclaims. "That was Cody's responsibility! You shouldn't be picking up the slack for him!"

"Hey, look, I said I'm sorry, Sara!"

"That's not my name!" Aster snaps.

"Right." Cody slides his hands into his blue jeans.

"Ooookay…" the responsible student starts. "Let's just cool down and just continue the assignment."

"And that's the third time he's done that, too!" Aster rants to Lance, V-mon, and Patamon.

"Why can't he be respectful?" Lance ponders.

"You evolved into Aster from Sara!" V-mon starts. "It's like calling me V-mon when I evolve to XV-mon!"

"Or Patamon when I evolve to Angemon!"

"I don't get it," Aster exhales.

"It was right over here!" a voice explains. Around the corner they see an orange, dinosaur-like Digimon and Cody. "I tried hitting it with Baby Flame, but it disappeared!"

"Cody?!" Aster comes around the corner.

"Sara!" Aster shoots a piercing stare at him.

"It's Aster," he reaffirms to Cody.

"Sorry, it's difficult."

"Cody, who are they?" the Digimon inquires.

"Sar-I mean, Aster is one of my classmates."

"I'm Lance! This is my partner, V-mon!"

"Pleased to meet you!"

"And I'm Patamon!"

"My name is Agumon."

=Digital Analyzer=

Name: Agumon

Level: Child

Attribute: Vaccine

Technique: Baby Flame

"Wait! I've seen you before!" Lance recalls. "You were in one of the photos one of my other classmates showed me when she told me about Digimon!"

"Really?" Agumon tilts his head. "I thought I was hiding well."

"Anyways, what's going on here?" Lance asks them.

"There was a Digimon here earlier!" Agumon explains. "It was eavesdropping on a conversation some kids were having."

"It's probably nothing to worry about," Cody brushes off.

"Wait!" Aster implores. "They could be in danger! We should go find them!"

"Agumon already took care of it. The danger's already gone. Come on, Agumon." Cody starts walking away.

Agumon hesitates. "But…Aster is right…Hmmmmmmm…" After a moment, he catches up to Cody.

"He's like that in class, too," Aster points out.

Wormmon hops up on Connor's shoulder, who is typing away at his computer. "Have you found anything yet?"

"Kind of," Connor stops typing as his web browser loads. "I've been looking into that sigil that surrounded Daniel. It said something about a system called Asmodeus and code Lust. In mythology, Asmodeus is the king of demons alongside his queen, Lilith. Lilith is the incarnation of lust."

"Code Lust!" Wormmon exclaims.

"Exactly. And the sigil," Connor turns to the loaded page, scrolling through seven different sigils, stopping on the one they saw around Daniel. "I knew it. That's the seal of Phul, the Olympian Spirit. The seals evoke a name of a different Olympian Spirit to perform rituals and ceremonies. Similar to demonic rituals in occultism. And each of these Spirits have a different celestial body, Phul's being the moon."

Wormmon tilts his head. "But how is everything related?"

"I'm actually not sure. What I am sure of is there's six other Olympian Seals: Aratron, Bethor, Phaleg, Och, Hagith, and Ophiel. Lust is one of the seven deadly sins, the others being Wrath, Pride, Sloth, Envy, Greed, and Gluttony."

"Do you think there's six other people like Daniel?"

"Probably. And we should find them before something happens to them like Daniel. But after we deal with Edward."

Wormmon nods. "Right!"

A red Digimon, dressed in black leather, sits on a throne. "What have you found?"

Another red Digimon floats towards him. "A girl that doesn't want to do track."

"Interesting." The Digimon emits black fog from its hand. "I shall give her what she wants." He smirks.

"There wasn't track today?" Lance asks.

"No!" the girl excites. "I was really surprised since we do track every couple of days. But coach decided against it today for some reason."

"How strange."

The bell rings. "Alright everyone," Mr. Crest starts, "settle down. Open your book to page 128, we'll be reading Beowulf as a class."

As the class takes out their books, the student Lance was speaking to begins breathing heavily. "What the…?"

"Maddison, is everything okay?" Mr. Crest reaches for the phone.

"I'm having…a lot of trouble…breathing…"

Mr. Crest picks up the phone and dials a few numbers. "I have a student that's having trouble breathing, can you have someone take her to the nurse's office?"

'Is this…the same student Agumon was talking about?' Lance ponders in his head.

"You might want to talk to whoever else Agumon saw," Mr. Crest suggests.

"Right," Lance nods.

"When EMT came in, they couldn't find anything wrong with Maddison. This could be the work of a Digimon."

"I'll scout the area to see if there's any strange Digimon around!" Espimon volunteers, exiting through the window.

"I'll find Cody and Aster." Lance looks at V-mon and Patamon. "Let's go!"

"What about us?" Renamon asks.

Lance turns to Renamon. "Let the others know about the situation and to keep a lookout."

Agumon points to a group of students. "There! Those are the ones that I saw yesterday!"

"Thank you, Agumon!" Lance approaches the group.

"She probably had an asthma attack," Cody dismisses.

"Hey!" Lance calls out. The group of students turn to him. "Has Maddison been acting strange lately?"

"Not really," one of them replies. "The last time we saw her was yesterday after we went to this wish maker."

"Wish maker? Can you tell me where this wish maker is?"

Lance and the gang walk towards an abandoned mansion. "Shouldn't we have brought the others with us?" Aster suggests.

"There wasn't enough to go get them," Lance confirms.

"Why did I have to come along for this?" Cody whines.

"Quiet!" V-mon snaps. "There could be Digimon nearby!"

The front door opens and a red Digimon dressed in black leather waltzes out. "My my, so many of you are here." The Digimon smirks.

Aster pulls out his Digivice. "Phelesmon?"

=Digital Analyzer=

Name: Phelesmon

Level: Perfect

Attribute: Virus

Technique: Black Statue

"Have you all come to make a wish, too?" Phelesmon smiles.

"We're here to find out what happened to one of our classmates!" Aster affirms.

"Oh come, now, you must have some kind of wish. Hmmmm…" Phelesmon approaches Aster.

"Not to you, I don't!"

"Ah, but you have a wish! I can see into your heart." Phelesmon leans down to Aster. "You wish your body was different. Born into an ill-suiting body, your brain not matching. Isn't that right, dear boy?"

Aster begins to shake. Phelesmon knew exactly what he wanted. "You…you can do that?"

Phelesmon jumps up. "Of course I can! All it'll cost is your soul!"

"My…soul?"

Phelesmon extends his hand. "Do we have a deal?"

"Air Shot!" Patamon shoots at Phelesmon's hand, swatting it away. "Aster would never make a deal with you!"

Aster gasps. "Patamon!" He turns to Phelesmon. "As much as I would like my body to be different, I'm not for sale!"

"Patamon evolve! …Angemon!"

A hoard of smaller, red Digimon come flooding out of the house. Lance pulls out his Digivice. "Boogimon, Adult level!" Lance turns to V-mon. "V-mon, we're up!"

"V-mon evolve! …XV-mon!" XV-mon lead a portion of the Boogimons on a chase. The others go straight for Cody and Agumon.

"Why me?!" Cody sprints away.

"Cody, wait!" Agumon cries out. "Agumon evolve!" Agumon's body grows to the size of V-Dramon's, his head growing a hard, brown shell with three horns. "Greymon!" Greymon chases the Boogimons going after Cody. "Mega Flame!" Greymon spews a massive fireball at the Boogimons, hitting a few while the others scatter.

"T-thank you, Greymon," Cody pants.

XV-mon flies higher, followed by several Boogimons. Turning around, XV-mon's chest begins to glow. "X-Laser!" XV-mon fires at the swarm of Boogimons, deleting most of them.

"Nice one, XV-mon!"

Phelesmon charges at Angemon with his pitchfork. Angemon deflects the attack with his staff, attempting to strike Phelesmon. The two cross their weapons. "Why are you gathering human souls?!"

"Power! The more souls I have, the more powerful I become!" Phelesmon jumps backwards and points hsi pitchfork at Angemon. "Black Statue!" A black beam fires from the tips of his pitchfork. Angemon flies out of the way, making the beam hit a swarm of Boogimon, turning them into stone statues.

"Be careful, Angemon!" Aster calls out.

Greymon joins Angemon. "Heaven's Knuckle!"

"Mega Flame!" Angemon and Greymon fire at Phelesmon. Flying upwards, Phelemon avoids the attacks.

XV-mon flies in from behind. "X-Laser!" XV-mon releases his attack and hits Phelesmon.

"Grrrrah!" Phelesmon shouts in agony, hitting the ground. XV-mon, Greymon, and Angemon surround him.

"Now, everyone!" Lance calls.

"Mega Flame!"

"X-Laser!"

"Heaven's Knuckle!" They launch their attacks at Phelesmon, hitting him directly.

As Phelemon's data disappears, several rays of light shoot out in different directions.

XV-mon dodges one of the rays . "What was that?!"

"That must've been people's souls returning to them," Lance speculates.

"Can we get out of here now?" Cody groans.

"Maddie has been released from the hospital," Mr. Crest tells Lance.

"I guess her soul was released when we defeated Phelesmon," V-mon works out. He turns to Lance. "What is a soul, anyways?"

"Souls don't technically exist," Mr. Crest points out. "What Phelesmon was collecting the data that makes the human mind, so to speak. The brain stores information throughout its neuronetwork and retrieves it when needed. It's also constantly sending and receiving signals via chemicals. Not 'data' you think of with a computer, but still a type of data still."

"I didn't think about it that way," Lance expresses. "The brain stores biochemical data, but still data."

"Phelesmon must've had a way to convert that data into digital data," Mr. Crest suggests. "And what everyone refers to as the soul is because of the activity in the brain."

"So human data made Phelesmon stronger?" V-mon ponders.

"Exactly! Think about it this way: You become stronger because of the connection you and Lance have. The data you receive through Lance enables your evolution."

Lance looks to V-mon. "We're stronger together."

"How did we get involved with that?!" Cody complains to Agumon.

"They needed our help."

"They could've handled it."

"The more, the better, Cody!"

Cody sighs. "I don't want to deal with these things." He places his Digivice on his desk and lays down on his bed. For a moment, a blue-ish sigil appears on the screen.