//------------------------------// // 172. Digital Devastation. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Equus, Airship Mauled, Fortitude- “I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” It had been a while, but my adventuring team has completed a mission for the guild. My magic repellant shield gleamed under the weight as I walked through town with my companion Skelly at my side. Skelly just looked at me flatly and just be shaking her head, she grabbed the axe on her back and with a quick flourish sent an arrow that flew from the forest back to where it came from. The Puckwudgie’s were still attacking, but it was in good fun I think. We both heard a screech and continued on into Airship mauled with our cargo. A hearty yak like me could carry a lot of weight, but I still wondered why friend Jade would need fifty seven pounds of milk moth butter? Said vat of butter was sitting atop the shield on my back. It took a while to milk all the large fluffy sheep like moths for this. They weren’t giant, barely half Arizona’s size and Arizona was getting a little bigger, but her wiry frame was still comparable to an average pony and it didn’t seem like she would get as big as her mother. “Did you get the milk moth butter brother?!” I turned to see my dragon brother Flamberge and his golden nine tailed kitsune companion Sweetcakes. “We’ve gotten several gallons of velocipuss ink! I would like to just say that it was the worst experience of my life! How does Jade even know that such horrifically quick beings like that exist?! It didn’t help when I accidentally ignited some of the ink or that we had to find a second one after the first one blew up, because Sweetcakes swung her Tengu Fan a little too hard!” My brother was carrying a large bottle full of ink on him and Sweetcakes tenderly patted him on the shoulder with one of her tails as he moped. “The milk moths were excessively friendly and fluffy, Skelly and I enjoyed our time together on this greatest of missions in the milking of moths ever carried out.” I stated proudly, for what can be more impressive a story then constantly fighting nightmarish monsters? “Also we are knowing the truth now brother… your sword is fated to fight tentacle horrors!” Yakhalla will happily take us both and we will be legendary and well known throughout history for our valor. “You’re coming with me on the next adventure brother, no ifs ands or buts!” Flamberge yelled loudly while whipping his sword out of its sheath and raising it towards the sky. “Hey… uh sword… wake up, I’m doing an awesome pose here.” The one rare occasion when my brother wasn’t yelling, the sword then lit up and was on fire. “There you go!” Flamberge exclaimed things like he always does, with excitement! -Earth, The World- It now understood the concept of fear, even though it shouldn’t be able to. Having witness four magical beings combine their strengths and somehow tap an excessive amount of energy they just shouldn’t be able to conjure up, but did so anyway. The energy certainly hadn’t come from it and the destructive force was rather amazing even if it was kept to a relatively small area. -Russia, Krakarov Volcano Lair, Clockwerk- “What the…” -Outside the volcano lair, Darkwing- “Duck was…” - Sobaka, Mopsy- “That noise… oh…” It was visible from miles away. It wasn’t massive, but the pillar of energy could definitely be seen from this far away. Wow, they must be really busy over there. “That was a combination of Pom, Smolder, Shanty and Dolly, I think they just overpowered the raw hatred around the… and-it’s back.” Ocellus went back to clutching her head in a migraine. “I’m wondering how they even managed that, because that… that was ridiculous even by Equus standards of ridiculous. The only thing that comes close is the Elements of Harmony themselves. What did they do, make a four part harmony and that catalyzed into a powerful magical reaction?” “Yikes, I knew Pom was incredible, but that… can you still feel them?” I asked as I hugged her close, the love fighting off the aggressive emotions being radiated by one being. “No… and that has me worried. The hatred didn’t disappear, it was just muted for a few seconds.” Ocellus sat back and looked to our fourth friend in this group at a restaurant. “So Maui, what kind of magic do you do while I’m on the subject.” I turned to the duck and he looked about the restaurant, it wasn’t busy and we were mostly being left to ourselves. This town was fairly nice, especially since several of the canine bipeds and animalistic were giving me various looks of appreciation. Though Maui looked like he was paying more attention to the ears of any nearby dogs. “Ancient ninja magic. It involved a frog god, a ghost ship and finding an idol. Messy business, I don’t want to really get into it here. The Duck and Mallard families have some relatively screwy history as I’m sure you know already, my adventure was up there with an island almost exploding and me getting some good dates with a nice sorceress girl named Hernae.” Maui called himself a medium-boiled detective. One that was much luckier than his cousin Donald Duck despite their similar appearances. “So what can I do as a job for you? I’m up for anything, except whatever was in that direction. Seriously, I’m having a dry spell of adventure here and I came all this way to meet up with you.” -Cooper Van, Krakarov Cavern, Dormarch- Seismic activity was detected by my PETs systems, hopefully that didn’t involve volcanic activity. “Oh my gawd, what was that?! Okay, since we’re not dead and the volcano isn’t erupting despite all the activity going on around here, Murray’s going to be busy smashing computers that fall from the ceiling to open a passageway forward for Sly.” Which is what we were currently doing Bentley. We currently weren’t in contact with Pom’s team, but from what I heard from Sly as Bentley patched him up they were taking on a lot of robotic falcons. Speaking of falcon’s, my job was coming up so I should pay attention. “As for you Dormarch. Our repurposed robotic falcon has put itself in position and opened a back door into the system, so we’ll be able to hack into it more easily. Are you ready to enter and ruin Clockwerk’s computer systems?” “Just so long as I don’t get cut off from the PET, I’ll be fine.” I really don’t want to know the feeling of erasure. “I’m ready to go Bentley.” “No chance of that happening, the robot falcon we sent in guarantees an opening and I’ve made it so you will be pulled out immediately should a connection waver beyond a certain point.” Bentley was currently patching up Sly and his injury, while nasty, wasn’t life threatening. The van shook as it slammed into something. “Murray could you be more careful, stitching up Sly’s shoulder wound isn’t as easy as I’m making it look to be. Also keep us up to date on any information you may find on the side Dormarch.” “Sorry, but we’re positively surrounded by magma slugs!” At the steering wheel, Murray was driving like a mad hippo. Not that I’ve seen many mad hippos, also I couldn’t feel the inertia, but I could detect it. “I’m going to get a move on Bentley, but I’ll want to know what caused the world to shake like that. The volcanic activity around here is rather suspect. Entering Clockwerk’s systems now.” Waiting as the hole opened up wide enough in my space, I jumped forward once the entrance opened fully. I flowed straight into the local network. “Call me if you need something done after I’m done tearing through the security systems!” I exited my home and traveled along the cable like pathway, I could feel the tightness of a tether tugging at me like a leash. In a way, it was comforting, in others it reminded me why I was both tethered and bound to the PET. Please be safe Pom. -Clockwerk’s Computer Cyberspace- Exiting the pathway I dropped onto a platform and looked around. Lots of ones and zeroes to mess with here. “I’m at the firewall, it looks a bit simple, As do the protection programs… they look a lot like him, this guy has a really big ego and doesn’t really seem to do things by half.” Lots of antivirus software, how many AOL destruction codes did this guy need and why did he need it? There was a lot of other data I was seeing before me, locked outside the firewall that I could interact with physically. I was a digital existence born for this kind of work and my paws were good for manipulating data. “I see the data packets to open up the systems, they have their own protective little firewalls too. I’m going to go retrieve them now Bentley.” “Be safe in there Dormarch, Pom wouldn’t like it if we lost you to an accident when you’re on loan.” That’s at least comforting Bentley. “I’ll back you up with my hacking skills when I’m done helping Sly and Murray.” Several programs dropped in front of me and, like I said, they looked a lot like Clockwerk. Walking around on their wings and they hopped to fire a burst of spiraling red data at me. These things weren’t up to my intelligence, sure the red data could track movements but they were slow... like exceedingly slow. “Claw Scratch Program, activate.” My front paws suddenly grew sharp and lengthy metal claws, I swung my right paw at the three bits of red data flowing towards me. All three spinning bits of data were destroyed immediately upon contact with my claws, I gathered the bits of data by somehow drawing them in towards me and absorbing them. The feeling of absorbing data was odd. Since the bits were now a part of me, I started programming the bits together into a single chunk, then I fired it right back at the three digital Clockwerk’s walking on their wings towards me. “Digital Bomb Program, activate.” Couldn’t this Clockwerk guy have just programmed them to use their talons? Oh, wait, they didn’t have feet and they soon wouldn’t have forms anymore. They were torn apart and erased by a blast of quick data manipulation of their own attack programs, the mass of swirling red from the explosion sure was pretty. The fact that that was so easy meant that I was about ten times more advance than this guy’s systems. “Well that was…” I was about to say ‘easy’ and then looked into the smaller firewall data surroundings the packets. That’s when several smaller attack programs dropped around me, they looked like arrowheads and were firing small streams of red data at me like lasers. I dodged around them and moved in behind of one of the firewalls blocking off the data packets, the four streams of shots quickly blew apart the firewall. I grabbed the data packet, looked it over in less than a quarter of a milisecond as I started putting myself behind the remaining free floating bits of firewall data between me and them. “Firewall break!” The platform around me warped and the warping knocked the little attacking programs off into the void where they tore apart into bits of bugged data, I quickly ran to the second section of firewall following the path. Once I got to the second one I saw three data packets surrounded by more small firewalls. Four anti-virus Clockwerk’s and four defense arrowheads dropped from above once the security for this part of the firewall activated. The arrows started shooting at me and I quickly hopped around the stream of shots that slowly trailed after me, these defenses couldn’t think to shoot ahead to where I would be. “Wild Bark Program, activate.” After saying that, I roared sending out a shockwave and then everything started to move as slow as molasses does in real time. It took me a second to figure out what I exactly did with the data, I caused all the data to start moving in real time. I was still moving at the speed of a computer going full tilt, meaning every second for me was about a few days or hours for them. The difference in the lag and bandwidth was startling to me, then again I was a data manipulating creature so… this was kind of ridiculous. If I was dealing with another data manipulating creature would they still be able to move as I do or even resist this effect? I was dealing with things so simplistic compared to the complicated reality the entity previous of my existence must have come from, that must have been some computer. Only an exceedingly powerful computer could be a god or creator that would create an odd existence like mine, an existence that can transcend being a part of technology and manifest in realties that aren’t digital. I would one day try to find out more about the ability to manifest and maybe… maybe I’d be able to give Pom a hug and physically interact with her like Dolly does. That’s the one thing I wanted to do more than anything, my one wish… was to physically hug my partner. She looked so fluffy and innocent... it was sad that life kept beating her down. If it came down to it... I'd give my life for Pom. It was kind of humbling to know I wasn’t exceedingly powerful, everything in this computer system was just nowhere near close to being on my level. The very minor virtual intelligences in this system weren’t anything compared to me. “Agh…?!” Something caught my rightmost tail, one of the arrows had fired and that stung quite a bit. The hit really didn’t do much damage, but I still shouldn’t let myself get distracted as the programs I hit with the Wild Bark were slowly speeding back up. I quickly dodged the other three slow moving shots that picked up speeds as the effects of me messing up the system were slowly fixing themselves. “Retriever Bark.” I didn’t bother with saying 'activate' or 'program'. I just activated it and the blast immediately erupted from my mouth and destroyed the nearest arrowhead into a jumbled mess of bugged data by warping all of its data to be entirely senseless. That didn’t need to say the program to actually use it was useful. Given it was a part of me, I just needed to work it down to the point I could just activate it mentally. I was just going to surpass this strange protocol that bade me to shout it out before using it… or even while using it? What the…? I’ll surpass this anyway! Like Pom’s bark breaker, any defenses that particular arrowhead programs had were torn apart to make the jumbled mess it now was. That it was the one that shot one of my tails was maybe a little bit of a provoked assault on my part as I dodged the other three arrows shots. I slashed apart the four spiraling bits of red data that came at me from the four Clockwerk Defense programs with my left paw. I cobbled together the data as I absorbed it like I did before. “Digital Bomb.” As I fired the damaging data back. I found I couldn’t avoid the verbal activation because Digital Bomb wasn’t naturally part of my attack program line, very interesting information. The attack was stronger than before because it was using the data of all their attacks against them and that was four attacks. The swirling mass of red against the blue backdrop of cyberspace ripped two of them apart and even caught one of those arrowheads when it exploded violently taking out a bit of the firewall defense even without the data packets to unlock it. “Come on Murray, we need to stop those slugs from destroying the computers before we can and… holy crap… Dormarch is some kind of savant with digital coding, he’s tearing Clockwerk’s firewalls apart!” Funny, it didn’t feel like I was tearing them apart, maybe it was because I was moving so fast relative to realities ‘real time’? “He might not even need my help at the rate he’s going.” Approximate amount of time spent fighting the firewall in real time, ten seconds… huh. Felt like minutes to me. My goodness I felt slow, despite being the fastest thing in these built from the ground up computers systems! I rolled out of the way of several arrowhead shots. Not that I really needed to evade much really, but I didn’t enjoy the concept of pain. The Clockwerk firewall defense programs were the most threatening and to me they were… pathetic really. The damage they could do to me was minimal, one Cure Liquor would immediately restore any damage done to my body immediately at a cost to my personal energy. Still Pom could be in danger and I really should hurry this up. Looking at the remaining threats, I narrowed my eyes. I barked out a shockwave as I charged forward and leapt over the attacks, clearing them easily as I brought my claws down on one of the Clockwerk defense programs and shredded it. Landing I charged for two of the firewall data packets that had been cracked open by my overpowering attacks. I greedily took up the data and started for the third one, easily avoiding the attacks that were vaguely fired in my direction as I grabbed the last data packet. “Firewall break.” The second level of the firewall warped and all the Clockwerk programs and arriving Arrowhead defenses were blasted apart into digital offal. I had destroyed half the firewalls and had access to the camera systems, I blinked at what I saw. “What the…” I had to slow down to real time to talk to Bentley, as genius as he was… I don’t think he could speak in rapid fire mixture of binary and instantaneous scripting. “Bentley, just got control of the cameras, the owl tower… it’s flying and I don’t see any signs of Pom’s group. I see a lot of damage to the surroundings done by the death ray.” “I looked away for a second and you already busted the second firewall, you’re amazing Dormarch!” No I wasn’t Bentley, I was just better than these computer systems. I wouldn’t want to try to attack Clockwerk’s brain personally, as it was running on an actual intelligence and could be lethal to me. “Oh, that isn’t good, we don’t exactly have much other than the gun to deal with that, that the owl towet is fully operational without its legs is bad news! Finish breaking the rest of the firewall and pull back, but leave a clear path for me to control the lair's systems. I’m going to help continue the process in bringing this place down that the Big Hoot started with its death ray eyes, even if we don’t do anything the geothermal plant here is going to go into a meltdown eventually anyway. That’s going to be a massive problem for our survival and we still have Clockwerk to deal with.” The other only image I could get aside from the massive flying robot owl was hundreds of robot falcons raining from the sky and a confused looking Dodo staring up at the clouds from the ground near a moderately destroyed section of the volcano. “Roger, penetrating firewall level three now.” Given the information I had, I could concur with Bentley’s estimate, we needed to get everyone out of this lair alive and quick. I returned to computer time and ran down the pathway to the third firewall portion. As attack programs and defenses dropped towards the area, I unleashed a Wild Bark to slow them down before they could hit the floor. This left them inactive, as they would only start performing their duties when they hit the floor. I quickly used my claws to slash apart the smaller firewalls surrounding the five data packets with several dashes and lunging claw scratches. I carefully consumed each data packet and knew how to take care of this locked firewall, before the defense could even think to start fighting back. My people, or at least other digital entities like me, they shouldn’t be allowed to invade this world… because… “Firewall break.” We’d be capable of tearing this entire world apart if we weren’t careful and the last time this world was breached, a lot of people unintentionally died. The third firewall defense line didn’t even stand a chance against me as it warped and I gained control of it. Starting for the fourth. “Wait you already finished the third firewall section?” Bentley sounded impressed, I had to slow down before approaching the fourth firewall. “It’s not really that hard, I slowed down the defenses before they could even activate and then took the data packets required to open the lock. Apparently Clockwerk doesn’t like failure so his programs self-destruct harmlessly, I think they were supposed to signal to him that the systems have been infiltrated, but I’ve been cutting off the warning signals when I take over sections of the firewall. I’ve already made sure nothing infectious has entered my system, I’m quite certain entities like me don’t appreciate getting worms like dogs.” Hopefully, something like that will only amount to the common cold with how strong I was compared to the fragile computers of this world. “Entering firewall four now, I’m an entity that was made for this paws on data manipulation Bentley. This… this is kind of sad and a relatively easy cakewalk. I’m kind of afraid of this world being made of cardboard and things like me invading, you wouldn’t be able to stop it. Imagine that I’m a... ‘simple search engine’... and I can do all of this.” “I could disconnect you from the PET you know.” Bentley offered, not in anger, but understanding. That turtle knew what I was getting at. “If I ever want something like that, then it’ll be on my terms Bentley and I’ll even do it myself.” I arrived at the fourth firewall. Seven data packets, an increasing defense firewall that hackers would have some problems getting through. Me however, I wasn’t a hacker, I was an out an out direct manipulator of the coding that was making up the systems here. “Search Hunter Program, activate.” This attack program was something I made up, something that was entirely unique to me. It was going to be my signature move, based entirely off studying the data of Pom’s Dancing Flame as I watched her move elegantly at speeds her body couldn’t handle for too long. Almost like a short ranged teleport, I crossed the space between me and the activation of the firewall defense systems without touching the floor of the firewall itself. In a single slash of my claw to the right bit of coding, the last firewall couldn’t even start to defend itself. The program was designed to move me with blindingly fast speed and accuracy in quick bursts. Like the Dormarch of mythology I was named after, I could search and hunt with my own creation. It, functionally enough, acts like teleportation with defensive, offensive and utility applications. It could even work in combination with my other programs, the major drawback was the excessive overclocking for too long would damage me like a complete system crash. I hoped the Cure Liquor Program could keep up with self-inflicted damage. My self-generated program sang to me that it was my own and quite variable in effect like how I wanted.