//------------------------------// // 162. The Digital Monster. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -???, Oleander- I slammed back first through a tree, not the thin reedy kind either, and I managed to knock it to the side as it toppled down on top of me. I couldn’t believe Fred, Butt or I were losing a fight this badly, but I guess it had to happen eventually. “Yona is thinking this is going very badly.” Yona, along with her friends Silver Stream, Sandbar and Gallus were just sitting off to the side watching us be beaten within an inch of our lives. “You could help you know…” I grumbled as I stood up on wobbly legs and summoned ‘The End of Pain’ to my side. “Nah, you look like you totally have this.” Gallus said in a chill tone. “Really Gallus, because it looks like Oleander, Fred and Ms. Stalliona are losing horribly to that thing.” Sending a glare Sandbar’s way, I turned back to my opponent. It was a being so powerful as to be completely vexing because of the pure impossibility of what Fred implied it was. For before us was a butterfly fluttering around on a grassy knoll, it had to be the most powerful and evil butterfly I had ever seen. Not only was it beating us, it was doing it so easily that I remembered what fear felt like for the first time in a long while. Slowly the butterfly transformed into a strange small round creature wearing orange armor and it produced a dangerous looking orange sword. It’s pure white eyes and dark body underneath the armor wasn’t what made this thing so intimidating, in fact it’d looked comically like a butterfly evolved into an armored knight. At least it had finally decided to stop toying around with us and finally revealed its true form. It pulled its sword back and was preparing to charge us with a flap of its wings. “Stay behind me!” I held the key blade aloft. “Oh don’t worry about that, we will!” Gallus stated as he and the others were well over the next hill and well away from the one I was standing on with a tree that nearly toppled onto me. I could swear the tree has a grimacing face… maybe that was my imagination. The orange armored creature glowed brightly and it shot towards me and I was about to meet it when we all heard something. “EEEEYAAA-AY!” A pink sphere with a green cap and a sword came spinning down on top of the butterfly sphere monster thing with ridiculous force. The pink creature held his sword aloft and turned to me as the butterfly creature created a deep furrow in the ground. “Poyo? Hi-iiiii!” He waved at me happily and within the next instance his sword deflected the butterfly creatures own coming at his back without even looking, with a quick spin and a flash of something he was behind the butterfly creature. With a pop the pink creature lost his sword and it apparently bounced away in the shape of a brightly glowing five point star as he approached me curiously. He was completely ignoring the frozen butterfly monster as he came up to me smiling. Looking behind him, I saw the butterfly creature split into half and then the two halves were subsequently sucked into a tiny black hole. Said black hole turned into a small but very bright star and then it went out a second later. The pink creature was more fascinated by me than whatever the hell it just did to the butterfly that kicked our flanks. Why were the creatures of this world so small and adorable looking, yet ludicrously powerful? The pink creature inflated and then floated onto my back and sat down on me while smiling, he then glanced at Fred with a slight look of suspicion. “Ollie… that's kirby… he has killed gods… do not upset him in any way, shape or form.” Quite right Fred, understood, no upsetting the demonstrably dangerous pink creature that just helped us. “Just let him ride you for a bit, maybe ignore his presence altogether and he hopefully won’t slaughter us.” “Excuse me, but Fred is my fiancé, I assure you he will not cause problems.” The pink creature on my back smiled and nodded, at least I think he understood me clearly despite the childlike countenance. “Have you seen a lamb, a dragon, a bug pony and a goat by any chance?” The pink creature tilted his face in curiosity. “Oh my goodness, he is so adorable!” Silver Stream stated as she flew up to us. I wouldn’t call something that can create black holes that erupt into tiny five second stars with a single swing of a sword adorable. Horrifying is more like it, given he was scaring Fred, Butt and even Overlord Song Ender into submission. -Earth, the next day, Cape Suzette, Kahn Industries Elevator, Pom- “Still say we should have brought my board and helmet if you’re this worried about something big happening Pom.” Dolly was of great comfort to me, then again, having any dog at my side always was and I would hardly ever admit it out loud. “The only one more nervous than you are is Dormarch.” “Can you blame me, this is the place I was made after all.” Dormarch said while looking vaguely better than he had previously, I think he was going to have some acceptance about whatever Shere Kahn was bound to tell us in this meeting. “I’ve been feeling fairly uneasy about being here. I know my first memory was of seeing you, but I can’t help but feel as if I’ve been here before.” “Maybe they did some test runs before giving you to Pom and they cleaned slate, but something got stuck in your memory?” Dolly suggested, but I personally doubted that was the truth. “Dolly… I think Dormarch might have something in common with Dodo as much as he doesn’t.” Of the oddities I’ve seen, nothing was odder than watching Dolly and Dodo stare at each other every now and then. Dodo had been around Dolly’s family and now she was experiencing him too since Shanty arrived, they were oddly amiable towards one another. “Like what?” Dolly asked as the elevator continued upwards, this was one long ride, but the building was very tall. “Let’s just say I have my suspicions and we’ll leave it at that…” I mumbled. Dodo was understandably a living entity, he had a spark of life and a living body that Shanty could connect with. “Good or bad suspicions about me?” Asked Dormarch quietly from the device held in my right hoof, he was curled up on a small bed on the screen and not looking at me. “That… remains to be seen Dor.” Of the things I knew, Dormarch didn’t have a body to start with. Something about the design of the device I held had clued me into the possible secret behind Dormarch, given I was told he was bound to the device. The question was, was there ever a time when he wasn’t bound to it? “You’re too nice to be a bad person, but there are definitely suspicions as to what would make you so special when we’ve already seen several signs of various other living machine entities in this world.” Boyd, Ms. Shuttle, The Lucky Cat Café staff and Baymax came to mind. Thankfully none of them were the kill everything type that the evil cores in the last world were. I’ve seen the horrors of what was happening on the planet of Mobius, I’ve also seen that machines can have the spark of true life on their own like Nicole Beta. Nicole Beta was a partial copy of the real Nicole that was still helping people on Mobius, a fraction of a soul becoming one fully on its own merits with several disturbing implications behind it. I seriously hoped Dormarch was ready to hear something similar to that and that it wouldn’t psychologically devastate him too badly. The ding of elevator reaching the top floor sounded out and we looked to the doors as they opened into the office where the greying tiger we saw in Zootopia sitting behind his desk working at a computer. I started making my way forward and looked around the office in curiosity, this guy certainly loved his plants. “I’m pleasantly surprised you made it, I assure you that none of the mercenaries that were after you will be able to come here without my knowing and most of them are still licking their wounds after trying to accost you in Duckberg Ms. Lambchop.” He wasn’t even looking at me as he said this. After a bit he turned away from his computer and addressed us personally. “I take it you require an explanation as to what is going on, you are fairly intelligent being and I’m sure you have some ideas already. I’m will be telling you whether your assumptions are right or not.” “Yes, that would be helpful in my continued survival Mr. Kahn. I took a bullet to the chest and got Arrhythmia problems for my troubles.” Really didn’t like all the trouble I went through getting here, but I wanted to know as much as I could about Dormarch. “At least Dormarch here is keeping me up to date medically.” “Speaking of health issues, take some medication Pom.” Domarch quietly reminded me, I took out the pill bottle and quickly swallowed one of the pills down without water. “I’ve needed to repeat my diagnosis of your physiology several times to make sure I’m not getting anything about your health wrong. Dolly physiology is more understandable and stable than the mess that yours currently is.” “I have seen many predators and prey in my life, but many would confuse you for the latter whereas I know you to be the former… if far too polite to show the truth or for the fear of becoming something you do not wish to be.” Rumbled Shere as he chuckled under his breath. “You fear a lot, but you are not weak or stupid Ms. Lambchop. Tell me, what do you think you know? Only then will I answer your questions.” “I’m not exactly great with technology sir, Tartarus, it’s still a bit knew to me that I even have Dormarch as a companion. Given to me as a poisoned gift by you.” Equus just wasn’t as technologically advanced as some of the things I’ve seen. I looked at the tiger sharply, he neither confirmed nor denied my accusation. All he did was simply motion at me to get on with things. “I’ve had some time to think about this, between the various attempts on my life mind you. The most notable thing about all this is that I had a run in with an assassin that goes by the name Tobias Rieper.” His eyes widened and he looked me over with slightly more concern. He knew the man by reputation apparently and he quickly schooled his features as he kept his paws propped up before him, clearly in thought at the news I just delivered to him. “Yet, you do not seem to have been accidentally fed into a wood chipper, somehow drowned in a septic tank or were fatally shot by a T-shirt cannon.” Okay, so Mr. Kahn knew that name fairly well enough to know how he killed some people. The tiger hit something on his desk. “That is… fairly concerning. Ms. Bacherie, please have someone triple security and send the group waiting in the lobby to watch over my son. Please, do go on Ms. Lambchop.” “Drowned in a septic tank, really… that’s a thing that can happen?” Ever since I taught her about toilets, Dolly looked a bit horrified that the guy that held a gun to my head could have done so much worse. “I’m only going to make assumptions here, but the PET is actually something you developed… Dormarch however... isn’t.” I stated coolly. “I’d say that the AI you are making for the PET’s are not nearly as capable as Dormarch can be, dare I say they would be derivatives… pale imitations even… of whatever Dormarch truly is.” “Very perceptive Ms. Lambchop, you have proven yourself smarter than most would be.” Here Mr. Kahn gave me a slightly grin as his wild eyes stared at me with appreciation. “Like how you are possibly magical in origin, it is simply something that needs to be ‘kept under wraps’ as I’m sure you’ll understand. Unfortunately spies have spilled that 'Dormarch' was something special, the misinformation comes in when people say my company... created him.” I didn’t even respond to that. Not many people knew of magic, but I’m fairly certain Kahn knew enough to know I was unusual or had suspicions. He was frighteningly intelligent person, the rumors of his coldness don’t do his frigidness justice. “Ah, that confirms it then.” I stated with a nod. “Confirms what?” Dolly asked looked perplexed between me and the tiger. “How can you understand this guy? He’s still giving me chills like Cruella De Ville did when I saw her for the first time." Ignoring Dolly, I held up Dormarch’s screen. “Dormarch, Kahn Industries didn’t make you… but they did make the prison you are contained in.” I stated boldly while staring Kahn in the eyes. “W-w-what?!” Dormarch seemed surprised at hearing this. “But that, I don’t even… this PET device is a prison? It’s so comfy though!” Dormarch was going to have a lot of issues coming to terms with these revelations, as was Dolly and I. “I am not as cruel as people would have me be.” Mr. Kahn stated as he tapped his claws against his desk. “I do however have a reputation that, as I’m sure Ms. Lambchop will agree, has some sordid truths to it.” “How dangerous?” If I hadn’t met Nicole Beta, I wouldn’t have an idea as to how dangerous someone like Dormarch could actually get. “You’d be surprised, but I’ve seen something similar to this before.” Nicole Beta took control of several space ships from a madman while being a fraction as powerful as the original Nicole, Dormarch could likely do something similar if he wasn’t so heavily handicapped in some similar way. I’d even say Dormarch would be more along the lines of the original Nicole and not her copy. “Our world would have ended had my company not acted in a swift manner to contain… the problem.” Shere Kahn looked at the device I held in my right hoof. I held Dormarch protectively to me chest while looking at him. “You, thankfully enough, have established a firm connection with the entity concealed in that device.” “What did Dormarch do exactly before he was contained?” It had to be asked, there was no way I was going to avoid the question. “Things I wished I could have stopped sooner.” The strong image Shere Kahn presented faded away revealing the weary old tiger beneath it as he looked at his desk with a frown. “Do you want to know the story?” “… Yes… regardless of what I’m about to learn.” I tried to keep an open mind on this situation. “As you already know, magic is not of an unknown quantity to me. The first source of it I came across was a red crystal that created an excessive amount of raw energy and was used during the only successful full sky pirate incursion into Cape Suzette that made it through the Cape Suzettes infamous cliff guns that are basically museum pieces these days. I had yet to be married at the time, but I was during the… incident.” He rumbled softly. “The crystal was used in a deadly weapon by the original Don Karnage, he was stopped by the world’s most famous pilot known one Baloo Von Bruinwald with the help of his friends. However that is not the story you want to hear about, you want to hear about how we came to contain 'Dormarch' in that device you hold. It was a grim reminder to be very careful with things beyond our knowledge or understanding, you are one of those things Ms. Lambchop and I am glad you are far more benign than what he used to be.” “What did I use to be?” Dormarch asked with a frown on his face, I turned him to Shere Kahn to show him Dormarch’s expression. -A few years ago, as narrated by Shere Kahn- As one can imagine, life always finds a way to surprise and it always surprised me how even the lowliest of people can be the greatest of heroes or even can change the course of history. You have proven that yourself with your very actions. In this case, this was one of the times where we failed to stop a tragedy and even if we knew now what we knew then… I don’t know if we could have even stopped it from happening anyway. Our world has been visited by numerous dimensional stability issues by people experimenting with the boundaries of the infinite and anything beyond. Environmentally our planet is fairly unstable, with those who would use magic or science to breaking through the boundaries in reality to seek fortune from other realities and leaving rips or tears for other things to possibly come through. I was not one of the ones who was focusing on opportunities beyond, I was focusing pragmatically on what I can solely achieve in this world. I even took up Scrooge McDucks space enterprise after he lost most of his money trying to find his lost niece Della Duck, we are almost to the point of mining space rocks and the industry is lucrative in its own right. However one particular boundary break happened within my company and we were not prepared for it in the slightest. Our computer systems are close off from the outside world, insulated from being hacked and protected from most incursions from anyone inside, at least we thought it was. An incursion of a different sort was one nobody could have ever expected to occur. As you have seen with your association to Gizmo Duck in the news, technology is getting to a point where anyone with a genius intellect, a mechanical suit of armor and a will to help can be a hero. In this case there were no heroes. Our computers had an intrusion, it somehow came from inside the systems and I do no care for traitors to my company who could have possibly released it. Even with our vetting processes, I still find issues with some people who work for me from time to time. To explain it to you, our computer systems suddenly gained a computer virus, a sickness for machines if you will that seemingly came from nowhere. Unfortunately the intrusion was the fault of no one from my company and it in fact came from another world. What became quickly apparent to us was that the virus had a physical appearance and could be seen on the screens of the computers it was currently inhabiting. It was consuming a lot of critical data from our computers systems that my company needed to operate and I had some of the best security money can buy, so I quickly had people working on a way to destroy the problem before it can ruin what I had built with blood, sweat and even now... my very tears. While this was not entirely a mistake on my part to do so, it still came at a cost I wish I never had to pay. The wolf like beast had brilliant white and orange fur, a horn on its head in the form of a drill and several other drills at the tip of its tail and sticking out of its hind legs. It was a beast that looked to be a mixture of technology and flesh… it however was not however made flesh but pure data come to life. In our attempts to halt its destruction of my companies systems and deal with it personally… the entity physically broke into our reality and fled the building. By that I mean it erupted out of s computers taking on a physical form and then fled… where it eventually ended up getting into the computers in a nearby hospital. Numerous people died due to the corruption of the hospitals computers systems when it invaded them, one such crucial system the electronic entity attacked was one for life support for those who were in critical condition or in surgery. One of the most important people to perish was my wife… Raksha Seeonee. Furious that the monster had caused me such pain, me and my experts had managed to seal it into a single computer and barely managed to prevent it from gaining strength to emerge into our world once more. We managed to destroy the strange entity… only… the beast didn’t stay dead. We found out that the entity, when killed, has a strange coding that allows it to revive anew as an indestructible piece of coding that took the form of an egg. While the egg was indestructible, we could still faintly alter its coding. We could not recreate the indestructible coding that made up the egg, but we learned much about how it functioned and built a system to prevent any more intrusions into our world. We distributed a self-propogating anti-virus software freely to as many devices as we could at a high personal cost to me. It was the best we could do to feasibly prevent an invasion of anymore of these creatures. We have hopefully prevented further calamity, but rumors of an unstoppable computer virus still made it to the ears of those who sought the power of what such a thing that could do. While I so direly wished to destroy the egg, I decided on a different plan for the creature inside. If I could not destroy the creature so powerful as to cheat full destruction through reincarnation, then I would put it to use. As such every mercenary that hunts you down has wanted your... 'friend'... for he still has the capability to destroy this world if he so sought to do so. This can happen only if he can eventually circumvent his prison in some way and regains the power he once had, we have made sure to weaken his form considerably and I was surprised to see a dog appear on the screen wasn’t the same as the beast that we destroyed. We can prevent any existence of these creatures from possibly crossing into in our world, but should such creatures propagate from Dormarch. It would quickly come to require that we destroy all forms of technology and anything built from such to prevent our total destruction. Even I am not lofty enough to think I or my company can stop the march of progress as I am one of the main proponents in this world that has pushed such things forward. If its new incarnation would never remember what it has done, then I will at least have tried to make it so that it would never harm anyone else. Thus I created the cage you now hold Ms. Lambchop, to protect the world from this… digital monster… and him from the world. -Present, Pom- “I’m… I’m sorry… I am so… so very sorry…” Dormarch was still trying to apologize for something he likely couldn’t even remember doing. “It’s okay Dormarch… your still my friend.” I stated softly. “You are the hero I wished was around for that incident, but you were not on this world yet Ms. Lambchop.” Leaning back Shere Kahn looked to the ceiling and I noticed a few tear drops on the desk, I made no comment on it.