//------------------------------// // 279. Server City Ransom Pt. 4. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Digital World, Server City, Jijimon’s Home, Pom- Getting back here wasn’t too hard, but the streets were kind of teaming with Digimon looking to make some quick Digi-credits off of beating the ever loving snot out of someone. Maybe I could simply point out that I don’t own Digi-credits and cannot possibly use a Backspace System? Apparently the system only works for Rookie Digimon and stronger. “Pom, why didn’t you grill that shop keeper for information?” Dolly only decided to bring that up just now as we were settling into Jijimon’s. She was avoiding the baby Digimon and was keeping Lit from being eaten or used as a plaything. “He didn’t know anything beyond selling the products he gets in his shop Dolly, there wasn’t exactly a storeroom or any other place to get that Backspace System from. I think Digimon teleport their goods in once they are made.” That last bit was a bit of a supposition on my part. “If it’s all the same to you I’m still getting the shakes from dealing with Bulkmon… temporarily. Thank goodness for this little guy, if you can actually keep him around then more power to you Dolly. Though it’ll be odd enough for you to have a pet tick.” “You’d be correct in stating that the shopkeeper wouldn’t know where the goods came from aside from receiving the shipment through a one way Digi-email with an attachment and no return address, It’s how Digimon ship small stuff that are not Digimon safely through digital space. Asking that Gekomon for any information about where they get their goods shipped in from is unlikely to reveal any information on where to find Etemon… though we should probably find some clues to that anyway.” Canard turned to look at Sami who was happily tinkering away with the Backspace System that looked like a strange blob of distorted space vaguely shaped like a cube. “Do you have anything yet?” “Working on it… if only I had more space and was in a quieter place than here.” Sami of course was referencing the baby Digimon being a bit loud in their playfulness nearby. Babamon was making sure they didn’t leave the safety of Jijimon’s home while he was out securing this street and making sure all the Dalmamon were safe. “Couldn’t she just go into her Digivice like Dormarch did with the one we own?” That… was an excellent suggestion Dolly. I mean Dormarch could go into and manifest out of the device, we could feasibly use it for storage and take the weight off my shoulder having to carry a slightly cumbersome bag around. “Dolly just said, couldn’t you just use the space inside the Digivice?” It took a few moments, but eventually Sami looked up at me wide eyed, then at Dolly and then at the both of us with slight wall eyes. Sami smacked her forehead with her claws centering her confused looking eyes, which probably stung given she wasn’t wearing her helmet at the moment. Thinking of it, I rarely saw the orange lizard without her armored cloaking gear on. Given how her life had been as nearly bad a roller coaster as mine currently was, what with having to mercy kill one of her friends… I think Sami had obvious reasons to keep wearing her gear near constantly, even if it offers minimal or no protection, it’s still something. “Oh duh, I could make a Digi-Home space! Maybe throw in a field with digital food provided I can get some Digi-meat and Veg seeds… yeah I can definitely do that! One small problem though...” Sami took out the Digivice that was apparently connected to her and started working on it instead. “That being?” Canard stated with his arms crossed. “Someone will have to protect the device while I’m inside of it looking over the coding of the Backspace System with an ultra-fine toothed comb.” Setting the Digivice down, a flash and a small swirling vortex appeared above the device, Sami threw us a salute tossed all her stuff in and then hopped right into it afterwards. Looking into the device I could see a similar living setup to what Dormarch had, only this looked like a military foxhole on a small island. Sami seemed to appreciate the military foxhole for a bit before she got to work. “It’s going to take a while to set up a personal space here, but a Digivice is one of the most powerful devices in the Digital Realms. So it will be a good place to train for combat, storage and even private meetings. Although storage needs to be improved before I can invite anymore Digimon in aside from myself, might be able to fit you biologicals in here because you don’t actually take up as much dataspace as much we Digimon do. Give me some time to work on things from in here and carry the device around with you. If you actually need me for anything active, just talk to me. I’ll try to respond at my soonest convenience, but otherwise I’ll be busy in here working on my bunker for quite a while… do me a favor and drop by the nearby plantation and ask the Palmon or Tanemon for a few seeds if they can spare them. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a Vegimon working the food fields either. Now if you’ll excuse me…” With that Sami started to work on something on the incredibly sparse island. I really had no idea what she was doing, but it was having an effect as the space around her started shifting in small pieces and something started to grow out of the islands ground. “Can you do something like that?” Dazzle asked of the slightly larger red lizard Frizzle, Frizzle simply nodded and hopped into the Digivice Dazzle was carrying around on the belt that has recently become a fashion choice for her. “Okay.... that’s… actually rather convenient, I kind of wish we Pokémon were just as portable.” -Origin Space, Arceus- “No.” I stated firmly to Mew who was looking at me expectantly, even as she stole my corn on the cob from a boiling pot without so much as flinching from the heat. I’m always cooking food, it is a wondrously inventive pastime that invites delicious smells and all my children can enjoy my labors freely. Even with all the powers of being the one true god of all Pokémon… I still couldn’t create good food without practice and doing it in a ridiculously mundane way. “That world is specifically a ‘no pocket dimension ball world’ Mew, you know what would happen with the dimensional shifting areas there if a pocket ball ended up in the general vicinity. You’d be giving the Rescue Teams far too much work and the results would be disastrous, we’re already in the midst of silently preparing for what could be an encroaching enormous three way war.” “I’m not going to start anything that problematic.” Mew stated affronted, as if I couldn’t see her intentions to be lively and curious clearly. She started nibbling at the corn. “So what are you doing next since you’re on a bit of a corn kick?” Mew looked upset for a second and then teleported some Miltank butter and a cube of salt in to spice it up. “Potato Corn Chowder.” Now where would I get those potatoes from exactly? Maybe I can try using the digital meat plants in a recipe to see what they taste like, the meat apples also had me curious. -Digital Realm, Jijimon’s Home, Pom- Dazzle motioned to Lit continuing to take up real estate on Dolly’s back, looking at the screen on Dazzle’s hip I could see Frizzle start with a small island and what looked to be a completely empty bakery. Dormarch didn’t start with a small island, but I could see the similarities between the pocket spaces that these Digivice’s held. I briefly considered entering Dormarch’s pocket space in our empty Digivice. “Canard…” I said looking at him check his recently refurbished Digi-bat that was now a Digi-stick ‘hockey variant’, apparently he had to make sure it was still sturdy and officially a hockey stick now. “I’m still wary of most lizards, but…” Canard admitted, but he still moved over to pick up Sami’s Digivice and I saw pink hearts of affection forming on the screen of it. Methinks Sami was easy to please, then again Canard was likely a huge step up from her hilariously awful life that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. “I guess I’ll carry it around, since she’s doing us some big favors. So what do we do while we’re waiting on Sami to get back to us about that?” “I for one do not want to run into Abobo again too soon… especially not without Lit here to help stop him.” We were doing very little to Bulkmon before Lit latched on to him. We are quite lucky that Lit eats lightning based energy and was able to eat enough as to depower Abobo to the point he could be hurt, otherwise we were basically doing nothing before that point. “We can try to get in touch with the Skateboard Scamps of the Skate Park, we can wait for Hea-Gatomon to show up with information or we could wait for Sami to discover something. Aside from that that streets are basically crawling with aggressive or violent Digimon and we don’t know when Uver is getting back with those reinforcements.” “Can I ask you something?” Canard was staring at me intently. “What are you capable of exactly?” “Well...” I sat down and had a discussion with Canard while Dolly wandered off with Lit and Dazzle to play. As long as they didn’t go too far, this street was a safe zone and nothing bad could happen here… for now at least. I didn’t know how long that would actually last. -Two hours later, midday- “So there are othere worlds out there where everyone is devoted to a sport in a religious fervor?” My talk with Canard had gotten me to know him better. Canard was courageous, strong and quite intelligent. Despite not having supernatural abilities like I do, he wasn’t a push over. His ability to do what is known as coding from being stuck in the digital realms for so long also wasn’t something one could overlook as a useful ability to have around these realms. He was a good person and had been a strong leader in being able to sacrifice himself for the good of the many, the digital realms couldn’t change him… aside from making him despise lizards even more and that was an issue for Sami to deal with later. He had morals and boundaries he wouldn’t exactly overstep without good reason, the Saurians were definitely a fairly good reason considering their propensity for creating dangerous, enslaving, robot armies if left unchecked. Even if the Saurians only had schematics to create drones, those drones were all combat capable and Ocellus had to deal with them upfront and personal. She told me how many there had been, there were enough that they could have eventually taken over Dolly’s home planet if they secured enough resources to build a factory on the planet to make even more. That’s not counting the fact that the few free Saurians were trying to open a gateway to free the rest of their dangerous empire that the Puckians had barely sealed away thousands of years ago. “Yep, it’s interesting how sports can bring us together… or tear us apart in bad sportsmanship. Its good exercise and you can make friendships for life playing the game. I haven’t played a game in so long, but if what you say is right I’ve been gone at least a year or two at best where my friends ended up.” Yeah and they thought Canard was dead, he unfortunately survived the electromagnetic worms stomach to be spat out directly into the digital realms. He’s been lost far longer than my group has been and he’s been doing it... mostly alone. At least up until Sami Soldier started looking out for him after she saw him for the first time. “What you told me about yourself… it’s amazing you’re still alive. You’ve been put through several grinders and yet your spirit hasn’t given up, hard to tell whether I’ve had things worse or not hearing your story.” “You still have your spirit and you’ve been doing this thing in the Digital Realms for far longer, you have more reasons than I to complain Canard. My spirit really wants to give in at this point…” I said with my eyes tearing up and he gently rubbed my back. “It’s unfortunate for me that I have too many people relying on me to keep pushing forward. I can’t stop myself, even if I direly wanted to.” “Nobody said being strong was easy.” Canard muttered while looking away and keeping his hand on my back in comfort. Was it for my comfort or his? Both would be acceptable to me. “I never wanted to be as strong or absurd as my closest friends in the first place… circumstances have seen fit to force my hooves.” That and having to deal with so many mentally exhausting situations didn’t help. “I just want to go home to curl up with my entire family, even if the weight would collapse the bed, and not have to fight anymore. I sadly know that’s not going to happen anytime soon.” -Canard- A magical sheep adjacent entity that could have been a sheep farmer, she was a magical being from the planet Equus and a guard of a fabled city of Huoshan the city built on the side of a mountain that used to be a dragons body. Pom’s home world sounds nice and quiet, for the most part if you’re willing to ignore all the talk of mythical monsters, odd mystical canid creatures, quirky gods of chaos and other stuff like highly annoying thieving cats bothering you on the job as a guard for attention. What I was curious about was what Pom said about all beings born of Equus being able to harmonize with anyone else or the world itself, usually through the form of music and or the rhythm of their world. She would rather not be constantly fighting for her life and I know the feeling having been doing so for mine with how dangerous Digimon could get. These recent events of being transported into the digital realms and getting trapped here, while her friends and those she was the caretaker for were still back in the reality this realm is connected to, was wearing on Pom’s mind. At least we were aware of the time disparity issue and therefore at most time in reality was passing by at barely a minute compared to the hours or days spent in here. Nice to know that my friends weren’t all dead from old age from spending so much time in the digital realms. Pom truly expected bad things to happen to us. Not that she was wrong, as I was expecting them too. It wouldn’t hurt her a little to have a more positive attitude like what she says Dolly has, plus it’s nice to have someone to talk to and interact with that wasn’t another Digimon. I’ve heard other people like me got stuck like this and finding a way out wasn’t as easy as accidentally finding a way in. Dalmamon were also interesting to learn about, that they came from Pom and Dolly interacting with the first that was designated as a Search Engine by Yggdrasil.sys. Yggdrasil.sys was likely at the core of all the interconnected digital realms and trying to keep them running effectively, must be a nightmare with more computing power than a Saurian super computer. An effective search engine would certainly be really useful right about now and plenty powerful in the computer based digital realms when you needed to find something like Etemon. Since the Dalmamon couldn’t effectively fight or defend themselves from danger with all the missing gaps in their combat abilities and being made from indirect data, they weren’t able to do what they were designated as specializing in nor could they use the signature move that the original Dalmamon came up with. The Dalmamon were understandably frustrated with it all, but they seemed to be generally happy and healthy otherwise. Dalmamon were at least consistently cute, friendly and cuddly looking even with the goofy large claws that seem to be a common feature among many Digimon, not many Digimon are like that often enough for my liking. I really dislike Snimon, almost as much as I disliked lizards. “Heads up people, I’ve got some information for you that might be a good lead if you haven’t gotten one already!” Hea-Gatomon appeared looking quite pleased with herself. It’s hard to imagine that she was a Champion level Digimon like Bulkmon with how small she was. -Five minutes later, Pom- I gathered up Dolly, Lit and Dazzle. I had found Dolly buried under baby Digimon, Dazzle was sleeping on the ceiling while clinging to it trying to stay out of everyone’s way and Lit was trying to, peacefully enough, shove the baby Digimon off of Dolly’s back and away from his favorite perch without hurting them. They had problems with fighting Lit for some reason, so the little guy was physically stronger than a large amount of baby blob monsters and he was smaller than them. Maybe it had to do with having actual mass versus a solidified shell of information? Something to think about later. Frizzle and Sami were going to be out for the time being as they were setting up their Digi-Homes in the Digivices. ‘Digi’ was quickly becoming a prefix I was starting to get highly annoyed with, but I can understand why it was used so much here. ‘Digital’ was a word that expressed the fact that we’re dealing with a world built entirely out of information, anything built from said information was going to have ‘Digi’ as part of its prefix. Just like the digital monsters that had descriptors for their appearances as a prefix to ‘mon’ on the ‘monsters’ that lived here. “Okay, so wandering the streets, I’ve found out information of several gangs of interest running around the Server City that could be our allies in finding Etemon or at least keep the friendlier less violent Digimon safe from the thugs he has unleashed all over the streets of the city.” Hea-Gatomon looked a bit scuffed up, but she apparently handled herself fairly well out there by herself. I certainly wouldn’t want to mess with those scalpel shaped claws of hers. “The Skate Scamps already consider themselves our allies thanks to Frizzle and their newest member Strabimon so the general area of the Skate Park is definitively under Weregarurumon’s protection.” “Good on Strabimon for making some friends and not being a lonely brooder who shows up to help late because he has easily misunderstood intentions or something.” I said cheerfully, before motioning with my right hoof. “Go on.” “Goblimon are all definitively under a Digimon known as Ogremon, nothing new there as Ogremon tend to be lead Goblimon in causing trouble. Their gang is the Basher Bullies working under Etemon and I can assure you that they are never going to change allegiance, if we had a Leomon in play they’d only get worse too. The Numemon have their own gang in the sewers of the city, the Pink Troopers under their leader Sukamon… as disgusting as their gang sounds, they are actually true neutral as you can get in this city and I’d rather we not have to deal with them unless their members bother us personally. The Monitamon are part of an information gathering gang that works under an Octomon named Ultros as the Data Divers. They tentatively work with Etemon in information sharing, but the alliance is shaky because of Ultros being rumored as being a grubby tentacle horror that has a love of money and… eugh… ladies. He apparently has a monopoly on all the information moving about the city in general. Also there are rumors of something being very off about Ultros as he doesn’t sound like a normal Octomon. As for the Kamemon, they work directly under Etemon as the ‘Kings Kames’ gang.” Please tell me, Hea-Gatomon, that you didn’t just imply we might eventually be dealing with what sounds like a perverted tentacle horror. “Those are the gangs that are going to attack just about anyone. As for the true lead I have to finding Etemon, you’ll need to face the gang leader currently holding the night life district who is neutral or even, tentatively enough, friendly. The leader in that area is Tempomon who is holding the district with his army of rookies called Muchomon as the Musical Maestros gang, unlike Octomon he has more in depth information that is not general knowledge of the goings on or movements in the city. He might even have a better idea of where Etemon is of those who are not a part of his machinations… or more importantly, exactly where he isn’t.” If we knew where Etemon wasn’t in the city, then we’d at least narrow down areas to look in at least. “Wait… who’s in charge of the Falcomon?” Canard had actually picked up on something I hadn’t. The gliding Falcomon, which had been mostly shot down by Sami, did attacks us when we were heading into the shopping district. “I think it might be an Aquilamon, but I’m unsure as I didn’t find much information on them. They seem to be working with Etemon at the least, so be wary of Falcomon gliding in from above you.” Didn’t even know what some of those Digimon you mentioned even looked like Hea-Gatomon, but I’m sure we’d find out soon enough anyway. “As for another problem, the problem you ran into with Hiandromon on the highway south of the city… well he’s down his chaser mech. He’s currently in the city and he’s fighting all the gangs by himself regardless of whether they are peaceful or not and he’s not holding back on any of his attacks. So be wary of running into him as he still wants to rip Canard and you newest intruders to this realm apart. Whether you are Digi-destined or not, I don’t think that guy actually cares beyond his sense of needing to put things in order and thinks you’re quite a major disruption to that. Hiandromon might even find a way to get to Etemon before you… that would be a problem with getting that key to open the anchor point to get you out of this realm and back to the reality it’s connected to. We do not want Hiandromon to get a hold of it, I have a good idea as to what he’d actually do with it and it make things much harder for you in escaping this realm safely.” “Right, no pressure to hurry up, just several gangs and random neutrals fighting over this oddly designed city with very little good actually going on.” I groaned audibly. “Let’s add on a person who will prevent us from leaving and might be out to kill us on top of all that, simply for existing as possible chaos magnets.” “It’ll be fine Pom. If any of them has a bone to pick with us, then I’ll have a bone to pick with them!” The ever exuberant Dolly had taken to wielding the Stone Bone Club quite well since she found out it had magical properties beyond being a fantastic distraction for dogs. “Also any chances we could possibly get someone into looking into anything related to Dormarch’s remains?” As Dazzle and some others had mentioned prior, these clubs were usually utilized by Cubone and Marowak Pokémon for their odd ability to act like a boomerang and had unnatural mystical aerodynamics. This proved to be a boon to Dolly who had issues with fighting at range given how hard she can throw the thing with her momentum controlling power, that it always came back to the user if not intercepted was useful and it also gave her a good close up fighting ability too. So Dolly didn’t have to rely entirely on her board as a weapon and could be used more as a shield or for mobility while wielding the bone. “I… Dolly…” Groaning and rubbing at my closed eyes, I sighed when I considered the idea of actually finding whatever possibly remained of Dormarch. It would be pretty hard to do without something to search all the digital realms at once to find it. “Give me our Digivice, please...” Dolly reached under her pink scarf, pulled it out and held it up to me and I took it from her paw that seemed reluctant to let go of it. “Yggdrasil Sis… can you try to locate any remains of our… Dalmamon… given the information of what an electromagnetic worm might have done to it extrapolated from Canard’s existence?” It wouldn’t hurt to ask the fairly busy force behind the digital worlds for a little help. “I can certainly try and have been doing so, it is unfortunate that so far nothing has been found even if Dalmamon’s data ended back up in ‘a’ digital realm. I have been trying to find traces of the rare digital crest that was a major feature of your partner’s unique oddities. I will be sending you a Calumon to assist in opening a much safer exit to the digital realms once you have acquired and secured the anchor point key.” Yggdrasil wasn’t sugar coating things and even just told us we'd have help getting out if the Chaosdramon X becomes a problem, also she sounded a little bit more emotional than before or that was my imagination as she sounded fairly hollow every time I had heard her voice before. “Again, Yggdrasil.sys apologizes for the inconvenience in lacking the capabilities of recovering ones beloved Digimon partner. All Anubismon have been informed and are on the lookout for the unusual data of deceased Digimon. They have not found anything like it yet and it is still unlikely that they will, please continue to assist the other Digi-destined in solving the possibly bad situation in Server City to the best of your abilities. So far the situation seems to not be causing overall system failures, I will inform you if the world approaches such a state and needs rebooting or saving.” I don’t know what an Anubismon was, but it sounded like the Digimon version of Anubis, the King of Jackals and the God of Judgement and Death. Of course it was a Canid Digimon I might meet eventually… I can’t escape meeting more at this rate can I? Dolly frowned, but kept hugging the stone bone to her chest while sitting on her board. She was going to be stubborn about this… and… so was I admittedly. Given that Canard survived the transference with his body intact only losing his clothes in the process of arriving in the digital realms while keeping his puck pistol. The clothes he was wearing now were made of information and I was trying not to think of what that might have felt like to him given how much he’s lost. “We’ll come back to this Dolly, since you won’t give up… I might start trying to believe it’s possible too if you can keep this up long enough for the both of us.” I said while placing my left hoof gently on her head, she whimpered and leaned into the touch as I caressed her gently. I promptly put the Digivice back in place on the three bands she always wore, underneath her Pecha Scarf, and nodded to her. She nodded back with a slight smile and wagging tail. I looked to Hea-Gatomon and thought about what I was going to do from here. “Where’s the Night Life district, how are we going to get into contact with this Tempomon and how dangerous is it going to be?” I was going to support the idea that Dormarch could come back… even if only in our hearts or in spirit. Digimon did have ghost like qualities sometimes given Mr. Beezy showed up as a bedsheet ghost. “The night life district is on the east side of the city’s central data river and to the north. You’ll need to cross a bridge to get there. If you start seeing red bird Digimon, then you’ve likely found Tempomon’s territory. The Muchomon actually keep Tempomon’s territory under strict control even if they spend most of their time dancing, partying and singing. They are not push overs in a fight no matter how jolly they seemingly act, anyone who tries to disrupt or capture that territory is going to be dealing with a lot of dangerous capoeira experts that know how to fight with a rhythm.” Hea-Gatomon rubbed at her cap with the red plus symbol on it. “If you see a purple version of flightless Digimon bird around there, then it’s likely to be a Penguinmon. Similar species with some minor differences to a Muchomon, but no less fun when it comes to being jolly. Tempomon’s base is the Dance Club he owns in that area. The city is kind of growing worse with fights breaking out all over the place and the normal less combat capable Digimon are quickly being displaced or flooding to places of safety where the fighting isn’t as bad. Still the danger should be minimal as the Muchomon are stopping fights from starting within their territory, which is if they catch it happening in front of them. So watch out wandering the back streets and alleyways.” “That was a lot of good sounding information, so when exactly do we set out?” Dazzle asked with her tail flickering with flames every now and then from her agitated state. “I’m sure Frizzle and Sami can get ready for a fight if we needed them, but most of the Digimon we’ve come across so far seems to not be too dangerous to get by… aside from that Abobo guy. That guy scares me, even if we do have Lit.” “Right now would probably be a good idea before it gets dark, the Goblimon are going to be aggressive and come out in force everywhere when night falls. Fighting your way out at night is going to be easier than going in at night.” Hea-Gatomon got me thinking about the logistics of the gangs and the territories, so far Jijimon seemed to be the one territory nobody wanted to contest, while the rest of the city was in turmoil. Jijimon’s territory consisted of the wheel, the karaoke bar and the parks if the Skate Scamps hold their territory on their own and were throwing in with Jijimon as the safe part of the city. Basically the fun and friendly stuff, with no seedy underbelly, territory. There’s also the tenuous territory Uver wanted as he built up the hideout we were using in the south side slums. “Nobody is going to want the sewers territory under the city, but it would be a good way to get around the city… I’d rather we not deal with the Pink Troopers and ignore them to the best of our abilities. The Numemon and the Sukamon leading them aren’t going to stay idle as a faction though, but you can at least trust that they won’t join Etemon at least.” “Why not?” Canard asked a second later. I wonder if I would get used to the novelty of being friends with generally eight foot tall, bipedal, hockey as a religion, alien ducks. “Sukamon and Numemon are upset with Etemon because he’s doing something to stop trash data refuse from trickling down to them and they are the recycling masters. That stuff is basically their bread and butter, messing with it is messing with them and they do care somewhat about the state of the city above them despite their living conditions functionally being the insides of a toilet. They are considered the city’s garbage monsters for a reason and if there isn’t garbage for them to sort through, then of course they are going to be upset with the guy that stopped it from flowing to them as their resources are basically, in a literal sense at that, all ‘dung’ already with a few truly golden bits of treasure in the mix. They may not like Etemon, but that doesn’t mean they won’t use the suspect Backspace System programs that seem to be picking up in popularity.” Hea-Gatomon looked a little green in the face. “The depths they will go to for the existence of trash and scouring it personally… it causes chills down my spine if we need to go to the local junkyard for any reasons, as that would be about the only above ground holding they’d be interested in having or would even care for.” “Okay, since we still got daylight to burn, we’ll head out towards the night life district while Sami is busy looking over every inch of data on the Backspace System we have. As long as we don’t run into another high tier Champion like Bulkmon or worse, then we should be good to at least meet with this Tempomon for some information if he’s willing to give it up.” While Canard was okay with that, I still had some issues with all of this running around. “If not, we can ask him what they want for it… if it’s within reason that is. We don’t really have much in the way of resources aside from what I might have in Digi-credits or whoever is willing to lend us aid, aside from the shop being neutral in selling us stuff like weapons or gear. So far that’s the Skate Scamps, Jijimon, Uver’s group and Pom’s Lost Ones are what we have at the moment. We might even need to make a few Digi-credits by beating up the gang Digimon running wild around the city, they are bound to attack us just for existing anyway so we might as well make the best of it.” “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m afraid of… getting into a lot of fights.” Not the way I’d like to do things, but it might be necessary with Digimon sorting themselves into gangs and attacking people, regardless of whether or not they have an affiliation with a gang to begin with or even access to a Backspace System if they are actually benign. “Hey, we’re not going to start them, but we’ll certainly finish them.” Canard leaned the blade of his hockey stick over his right shoulder with a stern look. “Sorry about that, but it currently seems to be the way of things Pom.” Hea-Gatomon nodded to me with a frown. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a few more things to look into and I hope that Tempomon has the information we need and that Uver gets back to us with our more mobile teammates quickly. I’m a healer, not a spy or a fighter... not that I can’t fight, but still getting around without getting into one is getting harder by the second out there and I’m almost out of safe places to get information from if not for the refugee Digimon trying to avoid the fighting in the streets.” So, Basher Bullies, Pink Troopers, Kings Kames, Musical Maestros, Data Divers and possibly more gangs we probably haven’t heard of if the Falcomon thing panned out… can’t things just be simple? At least three of those gangs were somewhat working together, though I suspect it was just as complicated in how they were working together or were just loosely allied for some common causes. Etemon could be working towards some unknown goal in the background from what some Digimon have said of his character being relatively untrustworthy. That the gangs might not actually be in on said possible goal has crossed my mind and they could just be a byproduct of what Etemon wanted or the gangs could just be a smokescreen to something much larger with the idea that someone much smarter created the Backspace Systems being sold locally. It was either that or it actually was just simply earning money, fame and acknowledgment that Etemon wanted and he wasn't actually as complicated as we all might think he is. The only thing that would make us think of him as complicated is having the key to us getting back to the Violight Kingdom. Why, exactly, did Etemon take that key? That was the question that needed to be answered and we’re liable to find out the truth of things anyway just trying to find Etemon to get it from him.