//------------------------------// // 295. Server City Ransom Pt. 20. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Ransei, Geoff- “Woolooloo, I have some apples, woolooloo I’ll eat them too… woolooloo sharing with friends, woolooloo roasting them on some fiery stick ends~!” I smiled as I gathered some friends for some snacks. “Geoff.” A voice stated from out of nowhere, it didn’t come from the surrounding Wooloo. “Huh, a sexy voice?!” I looked around for someone, possibly interested in Wooloo snuggles. “No, that would be incest and you Wooloo are actually very good about never committing that taboo at least. I’m an eldritch entity who hides behind simplistic looking equinoid form with an unusual girdle as some would say. I’m basically your grandfather given I made the existence of all Pokémon, yes there are implications to that so please stop thinking along those lines. Do I really need to inform you that I’m Arceus?” The voice that seemed to most certainly be Arceus said… after answering all my questions as soon as they popped into my head. “Oh my goodness, I’m having a true religious experience… thought it would be with more glowing lights from Orbeetles high above and Pidoves on harmonicas or Kazoos.” I said brightly as I pulled an apple from the fire blew out the flames and waited for it to cool. “So-… what do you need?” “Usually someone would say Swanna’s on harps and the bug type reference for the lighting is usually Vikavolt or Volcarona. Look, yes, I’m talking to you for a good reason.” Was it because… “You’re a cleric, that’s a small part of it. I just need you to tell King Evan to prepare for a fight with the kingdom of Ignis. The violence there is about to spill over into Greenleaf so send an envoy through Fontaine to quickly form up a defense alliance before all of Greenleaf burns down. Also send someone diplomatic to Violight quickly, trust me on this.” “I like to think differently… still think Orbeetles would be better for the lighting, though what would you say to the idea of trumpeting Trumbeaks or Toucannons?” I asked. “Also is Pom okay? I did get news she was scouting out Violight and she should be there right now.” “She’ll be fine… ish…” That wasn’t exactly a confident answer to the question Arceus, it sounded like you were trying to dodge the fact that something was going on with Pom. “The Toucannons got too loud… I mean er… I’d rather have an Oricorio do the musical accompaniment and they dance beautifully while playing instruments… why am I even stuck on this subject of your religious experience?! Any inane more questions?” Sounds like what you were actually trying to do was dodge even further there by mentioning the fact that you’ve used Toucannons before for one of these whole holy experience things. It probably didn’t go quite right or correctly given the grimacing sounds you just made, I’m going to ignore the dodge and continue to the conversation for the moment. “Well you started it by communicating with me… I have to know, why can’t we Wooloo use rollout?” It was a good question and it was one for the century, but it wasn’t most wanted to know question. It was a question for my people who were waiting around me with baited breathes. “If you used rollout and impacted a Pokemon with your thick wool, what would happen?” A question from the lord of Pokemon himself, it must be a trial of some kind. “Uh… hit them with a wall of fluff and go over them harmlessly if it was thick enough or my wool would probably catch on their bodies if they were big enough and I would just roll up them and possibly get stuck? Then there’s the possibility that our wool would catch on something on the ground, thus slowing us down or stopping us with painful wool burn.” There was a sigh of relief, did I pass the test? “Basically making having the move in the first place useless for us in its entirety? Also there’s the whole lack of hardness. given we can’t solidify our wool even with cotton guard making it even softer and more fluffy for defensive reasons. Wooloo are soft, lovable and very much perverted, not the right kind of hard to be had there for Rollout to be effective.” “It make so much sense now… yet we still love to roll around. Rolling is fun, exercise and a sport all in one!” A Wooloo smiled happily at hearing a question we wanted to know the answer to for so long, before pulling an apple from the fire and blowing on it. “Yes, that, Wooloo can’t have Rollout for those exact reasons…” That answered so much and… it was actually kind of obvious now that Arceus pointed it out. That’s our god alright! “Anything more while you have what passes for hearing receptacles for me?” “What are my chances with Pom?” I asked immediately. “Zero.” There was no hesitation in Arceus’s voice. “Aw… what are my chances with Pom now?” I asked again a second later, something might have changed in that time frame right? “Zero.” He said in a now groaning voice. “…. So-…” I was about to ask when he cut me off. “Negative one.” Wow, I didn’t think it could get much lower than zero, I’m actually impressed with myself! “Darn…. how about…?” I was about to ask again. “To anyone that might be watching this interaction from beyond the veil, I’m ‘almost’ sorry for the existence of Wooloo, especially the ‘extremely persistent perverts of the plains’ from Aurora.” Well that wasn’t very nice of Arceus. “The keyword there was ‘almost’ Geoff, your people have their place… unfortunately. Also negative two.” “What if I were to swap bodies with a willing female Wooloo and continue to hit on Pom as nicely as possible?” I tried a different tact. “… if you ceased your persistence you may continue to be good friends with her yet. Do you wish me to smite you from existence? I would actually do that for you, if I currently didn’t need you for something to prevent something senseless from happening.” I’m willing to accept that and keep trying Arceus. I’ll take you up on that smiting me thing later, it sounded nice. Also Pom needs all the love like everyone on this planet down to the last molecule and atom does! “At least the love of all things is not a very hard concept for you Wooloo…” “I know, right?” I said with a smile as I bit into my roasted apple…. could use some cinnamon. A pair of cinnamon sticks and a cheese grater appeared above my apple and started to grater cinnamon onto my apple. “…. when! Thanks for the cinnamon lord and father above all Pokémon!” The grater and cinnamon sticks soon disappeared. “Do you remember what I have tasked you with or do you need me to do some excruciatingly painful eldritch spot welding on your brain, and I do intend to make it as impossibly painful as possible yet still survivable, so you won’t forget?” Arceus was offering me an incredible amount of agonizing pain for perfect memory of what he wanted me to do… he should know better than that! “Yes, I walked into that knowing Wooloo enjoy pain as much as joy in general. Your people are so, SO, so very simple to please.” “Hit me with your best shot, fire away~!” I sang a Round attack to the sky and a Celebi fell to the ground dead with its skull crushed inwards. “Uh… oops… did I just accidentally ‘grrk’ a legendary? Sorry, oh mighty Arceus, I did not mean to kill them! Forgive this lowly desecrated cleric and bring punishment as much as you want… please?!” “Give me a minute to fix the timeline, where you don’t somehow accidentally kill Celebi with a weak Round attack. That’s the fifth time this week Celebi, learn to dodge! I know your soul can hear me berating you, when I bring you back to life you better respect your body and stop being so frail as well! Do I need to send you to Dialga for training and exercise on how to not die? You don’t see Palkia’s backup being this bad! Geoff, I hope you know that this information will be utterly excruciating to staple to your mind, but I think I’m beyond the point of caring about being gentle at the moment.” Thanks Arceus, I’ll be sure to enjoy every second of you making sure I can’t forget my duties as a cleric! “At least Wooloo are morale boosters Arceus, at least they get that right…” -A few minutes later- “That… was the most intense amount of agony I’ve ever been in all of my life…” I said as I rolled to stand up on my wobbly and most certainly not broken legs connected to an equally agonizing amount of pain that wracked my body. It was nice of the father of all Pokémon to treat me to such wonders. “I don’t think even dying or having my soul ripped apart bit by bit while still keeping me alive would be able to compare to what just happened there and it almost feels like nothing ever will! … Can we do that again?” “So jealous… that looked like it could have killed you!” A Wooloo said with a bright cheerful attitude as they ate a roasted apple on a stick. “I wish I could have been in that much pain and not die! Or maybe be in that much pain and half die, it would probably make me respect life even more than I already do!” “I would certainly respect life more if it was Arceus almost killing me by gluing information to my brain!” Another Wooloo stated happy for me to have had such a pleasant experience like that. “Hey… do think that handsome Muk is still around?” “I’m still considering actively stapling ‘no’, definitively enough, ‘means NO’ directly onto your brain as a mental post it note. Possibly to the point it affects your descendants for hundreds of generations, if you were to somehow miraculously succeed at having any.” Arceus stated with a slightly booming voice that rattled my skull. “Even if it wouldn’t exactly achieve much or even take at all.” “Yep, because there are some things that even beloved eldritch gods like you can’t contend with, which is why you need clerics like me!” This is the happiest I’ve ever been I think, a new record. I’m going to be even happier after I get another apple. “Like a Wooloo’s ability to be lovable and cuddly!” Arceus sighed loudly in a long drawn out whining manner. He should be happy, I got his instructions loud and clear and it was physically improbable of me to forget them. -Digital Realm, Fury Clan High School rooftop, Etemon- I walked to the edge of the roof and looked over it, rubbing my right finger across my chin in thought. “Hmm…” I saw a lot of fighting going on, I nodded. Okay, that was something that was happening here. I crossed my arms and tapped a foot as I watched Raptor Sparrowmon get smacked around and a lot of Falcomon were being beaten quite rapidly. The Avalanche Avians were getting their butts handed to them… so where were my Kamemon to pick up all the digi-credits flying about? Were they slacking off or just too busy with the intruders? I moved to look at the back and looked down to see a hole in the third floor of building and the Lunchroom and several other things had collapsed inwards. Been meaning to remodel that anyway, an entire food court would be cooler than a simple lunch room. “Mh-hmmm…” I nodded to myself as some things started to make sense to me. … “I have exactly no idea what’s going on here.” It was soon all clear as day to me now. What was the reason we were under attack for? … … The only reason we could be under attack this badly was… Maybe… … Maybe it was that someone… was out to get my autograph! I guess my pop up ads and all that advertising were super turbo successful! -Fourth floor, Pom- We checked the classrooms, none of them occupied, though the weirdness of Digimon architecture continued with one of the rooms opening to an art class that was in a void of stars and noted the gravity seemed odd when I stuck a leg into the room. “Nope, we’re not dealing with the art classroom.” I said as I closed the door. “To much esoteric and reality bending stuff in there.” “At least the math room isn’t too bad, but I have to ask why it’s full of fish and there was something about two plus two equaling Jaded La Perm?” A chill just went down my spine Dolly, did you just say Jaded and ‘math’ in the same sentence? “Nope, that’s not important to worry about that either!” I received a few odd stares for my sudden flinch and negative reaction to hearing that name. I sure hoped Sami and Canard made it to Hea-Gatomon okay. “Also I think it’s a visual pun about a school of fish.” “Yeah, but they were all still alive and even had legs… it was kind of weird considering all the other classrooms I’ve seen aren’t in use… most of the Dalmatian family were home schooled, so I wouldn’t know if that was normal or not by any stretch of the imagination.” Dolly just get off the subject, anything that has math and Jaded in the same sentence is to be ignored with extreme prejudice. We were definitely not enough to handle Etemon, if we could barely handle that champion Hi-Vision Monitamon. Well Etemon was an Ultimate, so the best we could at least try was to start with diplomatically trying to get the anchor key from him so we could get out of the digital realms. A streak of light headed for the sky as I looked through a nearby room that looked normal, except it was bigger on the inside. “Let’s just find the principal’s office, Etemon could still be there.” The description we were given was bipedal orange monkey suit wearing Digimon that was exceedingly hard to miss. “Are you ready Frizzle? We might need your firepower and this time I’m going to pump you full of dragon energy.” Take Dragon Type dimensional energy used for Dragon Pulse and see what Frizzle could become with it. “I can do it… don’t know about control though.” That high squeaky voice did not match Frizzle’s appearance in the slightest, it was just that distracting to hear her talk. I wondered how everyone else was doing. -Hi-Vis Monitamon- Some energy from that mass of dragon shaped pain that had struck me was redirected skyward by my Jutte, the release of the energy pushed my form into sliding down the wall and into the ground. A biological almost seriously hurt me and I had become too inattentive, that hurt a lot and I’m sure the Black Widow was going to take hours to repair itself from that Terra Force level damage. How does a biological even manage to contain a plasma drill with wind as a power multiplier that doubled as magnetic containment, especially without dying?! I’m going to blame digital world physics and move on with my life… to serve Lord Ultros to the best of my abilities! First I had to go wait with the Black Widow until it repaired itself. Just had to reorient myself and wait for the feeling to come back to my legs so I can return to my vehicle. That attack probably overloaded the cyplasium digizoid, so it is not going to fully repair all its functionally. Which means having to write off the spinneret grenades as the repair system wasn’t meant to fix that kind of damage, just the armor. -Fury Clan High School, back entrance hall, ????- We were the ever brilliant Omedamon, a Digimon formed from the bodies of two Digibots, left half dedicated to Metabee and right half dedicated to Rokusho and our central head was a mashup of both of us! “Scissors Sword!” We flashed past Ogremon and with a slash of our pincer blade on our right arm we separated the dark Ogremon shaped mass leaving Ogremon standing there wide eyed and paralyzed. “Meda- Force- Cannon!” We announce as we took aim for the ‘Dark Net’ aura mass we just separated from Ogremon with our left arm and bracing it with our right hand as power built up in the cannon. We, as the Digimon Omedamon, fired a powerful beam… one that the Metabee side of us might have put a little too much of his eager energy into. It at least ensured deletion of the dark aura. The Rokusho side of us sighed quite audibly, considering we needed any remaining energy to deal with Etemon. The Metabee side of us pointed out that all the dark net energy was gone. Yes, but so was most of our combat ability as a Digimon. We were bound to revert back to Digi-bots by the time we’ve finished with Ogremon. “I can still… take you…” Ogremon said drunkenly, he obviously had too high an estimate of his current abilities without his dark net production ability to create a protective shell that would stand up to at least some ultimate level attacks. Too bad for him, we’re Mega! Again, Metabee, we’re not going to have energy for fighting Etemon. We’ll be at like a quarter strength by the time we reach him and we’ll be separated into two Digi-bots by then too. I like those odds Rokusho! Of course you do… Jet cape activate. Let’s show Ogremon how much trouble he’s in, then go help out our friends while we still have some power to fly! We’ll probably end up taking the stairs. Stop being a downer Rokusho! -Fury Clan High School, front entrance street, Uver- “Thanks for the backup, I got back on my feet as Labramon helped me up and fired off a Retriever Bark to hold back Raptor Sparrowmon slightly.” I stood at the ready as Raptor Sparrowmon swooped down for us and Hea-Gatormon and angled for us. A giant beam ripped out of the building and hit Raptor Sparrowmon into the building to our right. “Um… hit them while they’re down?” “All for it!” A commandramon stated while throwing a solid block of explosives onto Raptor Sparrowmon’s form and the four other quickly followed that action with their own DCD Bombs. -Fury Clan High School, first floor hallway, Canard- “What… was that?” It had almost hit me, but that didn’t matter I had to get Sami to Hea-Gatomon as she was hurting quite bad. I looked out the hole and saw Hea-Gatomon, I didn’t need to go to towards the entrance where I saw Abobo was still fighting two of the Skate Scamps. I ran out the hole and towards Hea-Gatomon. “Emergency healthcare needed for my partner, Commandramon down!” I shouted out to them and that got me some attention from a few Falcomon as an explosion went off blowing a large metal bird furthering into a building off to my left. “Yep, just like old times…” The nurse themed cat stated as she threw a syringe with unnering accuracy and a Falcomon went down with it in his chest behind me to disappear into a vortex. “Labramon, we need you to cover us, Commandramon down!” -Front Entrance hall, Weregarurumon- “ughh…” One last blow to the face, a devastating right hook from yours truly, and finally the high-tier champion Bulkmon went down groaning in pain. “Abobo go naptime now…” That Abobo guy was tough, but not digital werewolf brothers tough! “Let’s move Lobomon!” I shouted at my companion and started forward towards the part of the hallway that had a large hole blown in it. “Right behind you!” Lobomon answered looking a bit exhausted. “Not going to lie I thought this would somehow be the Digi-destined causing the issues or they would be at the center of all this conflict.” “That’s only happened in like… two digital realms… well about as far as I know anyway.” This digital realm was being fairly unique in the respect that there wasn’t any great evil or the seven deadly demon Digimon sins… yet. Also virus and vaccine were getting along a lot better than usual here, aside from the usual overly stiff arsed order and fun police the Hiandromon. “Not every digital realm problem is related to the Digi-destined or even needs them to actually solve it, but they do tend to help a lot and the Yggdrasil System hardly chooses wrong when it actually needs Digi-destined to do something. Otherwise the Yggdrasil could send a Digimon someone’s way when it thinks they could just use a friend. Not all Digi-destined need to act as heroes, because I’ve certainly got enough grit and muscle to see this through myself!” “Heh, I don’t think I feel so bad about being copied pasted data now.” Lobomon was finally getting into the spirit of being a Skate Scamp brother. “That’s the spirit rickety!” He’ll get on my level some day and I can’t wait to see what he’ll do with it as my assistant at the skate park. “What do you say to forming our own super dodgeball team later if we survive this mess Kooky Ni-kun werewolf?” Lobomon asked cheerfully with a smirk as we rushed for the stairs. “Can you please shorten that to something else?” I asked because it would take too long to say all that all the time. “Sure thing Kunio-Kun!” I was a countryman for this digital realm, so the double entendre fits. “Sounds like an alright nickname to me Riki!” Lobomon has been my friend since I kicked there ass to see if they were good enough to be a Skate Park Scamp. The only real requirement was just to have spirit and not take losing a fight so harshly and survive with a smile. Plenty of good people in this realm to protect from the gangs of bullies in this city alone. Once we made it up to the first floor we saw a few Kamemon meandering around. “Well that duck guy just ran through here, shouldn’t we like… go after him?” One Kamemon said. “We’re only supposed to stop intruders from entering, not leaving. It’s too late to stop the people that already got by us, also did you even read the whole contract before signing up for the King’s Kame gang?” Another Kamemon stated and I slapped my right fist into my left hand and cracked my knuckles and all the currently standing battered Kamemon in the hallway slowly paled and turned to me. “Try me.” I had a feral smirk on my face. -Fury Clan High School Rooftop, Etemon- I was sitting with my legs crossed trying to figure out what to do from here, I mean obviously I had to do something right? Just sitting here makes me feel like a coward, that or I was waiting for someone to start a long winded boss fight and I was definitely good boss material given all the Kamemon in King’s Kame got dental, none of the other gangs had that or any paid healthcare for that matter! Whoever fights me would have to be awesome if they were looking for a brawl, but if they all really just wanted to get an autograph then I’d just oblige them for free! I mean this many people came to see me and fight through hordes of other Digimon, then I must be the most popular Digimon on the western side of this digital realm! -Principal’s office, Pom- I sniffed, Digimon did have a smell, it was always odd smell with some expectancy of relevance to what they were and even Dolly sniffed around a bit. Digital entities would tend to smell metallic, like ozone given their nature of being made of energy or something that matched the world that created them. It made me wonder if information always smelled so… clinical or mechanical. Someone was here not too long ago and they went… this way up to the roof? “So anything you need to get out of the way before we head to the roof? Etemon is likely waiting for us up there and I want to try talking to him first before starting a fight and to be honest I seriously don’t want to be the one starting a fight. He was here not too long ago.” I looked over them all one at a time, Lit, Dolly, Dazzle and Frizzle. “He’s supposedly an ultimate level Digimon, meaning his capabilities are well above the champions we’ve had to deal with so far and I have no confidence in winning a fight even if he was the lowest of the low tier of Ultimate level Digimon given we’ve met Abobo the Bulkmon who could feasibly pass as an Ultimate and gave me bruises through my wool like Ogremon recently did.” “I have something to say… Yggdrasil Sys, scan for anchor key in local area.” We looked to Frizzle and Dazzle’s Digi-vice lit up. “Wait, the Digi-vices can do that?” That could have saved us a lot of running around if there wasn’t a reason for it. “Why didn’t anyone tell us earlier?” “Digi-vices have several uses outside of Digimon interaction, yours in particular has an unusual multidimensional communication function written by Dalmamon designation Dormarch some time prior to deletion. It is considerably impressively written in the fact that even if there is no digital realm foothold, any world that has been vaguely touched by the digital realms is capable of being connected to with this device. This includes the prior world where Dolly comes from even if it has been labeled as a no go zone by Yggdrasil.sys and any world you are currently in would be considered touch because the Digi-vice itself is considered a touch of the digital realms in and of itself.” That would have been nice to know sooner Yggdrasil System, Dolly could have been talking to her family while I’ve been in communication with mine. We at least we know now, I’m not exactly up on high end technology like this and should probably explore everything it can do. I only knew the basics of what it was capable of. “Digi-vices can also locate other Digi-vices in the same realm via radar system. Digi-vices can act as short range scanners for specified objects, materials or beings. It can act as small storage spaces for physical objects or a major storage spaces for digital objects. It can hold Digimon in imprisonment or as a carrying mobile home space for partner. It can be used to fuse biological to Digimon temporarily for increased power if able based on bonds of friendship and love to create a powerful combat shell using data on both individuals. It can be used to turn a biological into a Digimon temporarily for combat if relevant data is applicable. It can cleanse data of Digimon under unnatural effects caused by other Digimon, it protects partner Digimon from those aforementioned effects and can also debug glitches in digital realms while sucking up any spare unnecessary data for recycling purposes. It allows the wielder to give Digimon incredible power in a variety of ways like digi-modification cards. It lastly given statistics of any particular Digimon’s given current capabilities through an easy to read hexagon of statistics and a minor bit of knowledge about the Digimon’s form of existence. It is made for easy use of the users by vocal or physical operations. Those who are knowledgeable in computer systems and or data manipulation can add and use more functions not normally found on a baseline form of a digital device.” “Really? Huh, this thing does a lot more than I thought.” Dazzle said pulling the device off the belt it had been sitting on and looking at it more closely. “The reason why you were not told earlier, is because the scanning range for anything of a specified nature is short beyond being able to track signs that something has been there before within a limited span of time or if something has left an identifiable trail in recent history.” Yggdrasil.sys continued, because I had asked and Frizzle brought it up. “The devices within the current digital realm do not have the temporary biological to Digimon transformation data installed in them. Said special data is quite rare and impossible to copy and paste and is usually for highly specific transformations. For such transformation to occur the biology of the user and the Digimon overlay have to match in some degree to create the digital shell necessary for such form to occur, such as Pom would need quadrupedal Digimon transformational data to gain a Digimon form. While Digimon transformation is powerful and the user is in complete control of the form, it is weaker than Bio-Digi fusion ability using a Digimon and a Biological in synchronization with one another. Digimon can fuse with other Digimon in certain circumstances and do not require a Digi-vice to do so, but it is recommended as having one in the process always stabilizes the end results. I however do not have any such data to give you for a Digimon transformation, I am sorry for this inconvenience if you wished to do a Bio-Digimon transformation. It would require you to search for the data and apply it to your Digivice before it can be used. Data usually occurs naturally when digital realms source coding is threatened drastically, other occurrences may involve things like debugging world glitches to create such data through piecemeal recycled data.” “All of that might have been nice to know earlier, I wonder what it would feel like to be a Digimon…” Dolly mumbled, as she tapped my mind and found me thinking the same thing and she nodded in agreement. She then wilted and raised her right paw to the device hanging at her neck under the pink scarf. “He was thinking about me ahead of time…” “So when you say you can scan, did you find anything?” I asked and the Digi-vice in Dazzle’s grip responded immediately to my query by lighting up. “Location of the Anchor key is above your position and nearby. For Digimon scanning, Digi-vice requires a direct line of sight to the Digimon you want to scan in question.” A small arrow appeared on Dazzle’s Digi-vice and showed the object to be less than a hundred meters away. Honestly I didn’t expect the key to be so nearby. “Well that pretty much sells it for me, Etemon is nearby or at least the anchor key is.” The others nodded and Lit waved a leg at me and had a determined look in his four little blue eyes. “Are we ready?” “This has been a real trip, to think a few hours hasn’t even passed in reality since we came here.” Dazzle was trying to wrap her mind around how the time disparity between the worlds was quite awkward. “Correct, digital realm will slowly acclimate and synchronize to the local connected realms timeframe, the time disparity will decrease over time until it becomes one to one with local realm.” Yggdrasil.sys said as we entered left the Principal’s Office and started our way up to the roof access. “This has a variety of effects on the Digital realm, such as not needing anchors as much to keep the realm in place as a sub dimension to the reality it connects to.” Okay a lot of information was dumped on us, but we should get back to focusing on what was in front of us. An easy talk and a small chance to get the key without trouble… or a to the death fight that, as we all know, we’re not going to have a chance in Tartarus of winning. No pressure at all. I opened the door with a hoof and the daylight blinded me as I stepped out onto the roof. “Uh, do I just say the word Scan?” The device lit up and showed two images, Frizzle and the orange monkey sitting on the opposite side of the roof that suddenly looked our way as we came out the door. “The second one?” “Etemon, Function: Highly Annoying Advertisment Program, Virus-Vaccine mix Type, self-proclaimed King of Digimon. Known for trying to make catchy jingles that act as ear worms, sometimes screeching to the point that you don’t want to hear him singing.” The orange suit wearing monkey guy was right there and he got up. Five digits hands and feet, his body had strange stitch marks all over and there was the strange toy hanging at his hip. Also the ‘Virus-vaccine mix type’ thing earned the most attention from me out of all of that information. “This Etemon is capable of reverting Digimon to rookie status unless they are on his level or higher, however this effect does not work on Digital Hazards.” Dazzle looked at Frizzle, said bread loving dinosaur smirked a little at that news. “Well now, who are you? Looks like a Digi-destined and a bunch of random biologicals, did you come looking for little old me specifically? Heh, if you want an autograph you’ve sure earned it by finding me and getting this far.” He pulled out a microphone, twirled it and belted out a single long loud note from his mouth. He grinned at us. “If you’re looking for a bruising, I can do that for you to!” “Can we talk first before we start mangling each other?” I received a grin as Etemon threw out a cheerful thumbs up before pointing at himself with that thumb. “Sure thing missy, I’ll do an interview anytime… unless this isn’t an interview, even then I’m open to listening to what you have to say.” Thankfully Etemon sounded more grey area than black and white, I could work with that. “You’re not going to want to make a monkey out of me though, I do that to others well enough already and I’m king at it, you dig?” “My read on this guy. Is that he’s full of himself, self-important, but he’s not unbearably stupid and is trying to hide how smart he actually is behind a flamboyant façade that’s… I want to say partially real? Somethings up there, I know it.” One of the things Dolly has been trying to learn is how to read others intentions or just in general, she said it would be nice to know a police dog skill and it was easy to teach that being the head of the Huoshan Canine Division. “He’s at least somewhat clever and I know for certain he is very much ready to kick our ass at a moment’s notice without seeming tense about it. So how’s my read on him Pom?” I sent a silent message to Dolly that she was reading him fairly well, missing a few details though. One such detail is that he’s gauging our strengths at the moment and those sunglasses are hiding his eyes scrutinizing each of us in turn while seemingly focusing on me personally. If there was one thing I knew for certain, I would not underestimate him based solely on his mildly goofy appearance. The guy was hiding his true musculature under the suit that’s functionally a part of his body. He was more mob boss than a king, but he wasn’t fully evil from what I can tell and liked to play full gray area. “Ah… so you can recognize how dangerous I truly am.” He lowered his sunglasses a bit and glanced at me before raising them back up. He talked because he saw the byplay with me and Dolly and recognized something more was going on there even if he couldn’t understand what. “Okay, there are several reasons why we are here, first I want to confirm that the Backspace Systems were made by Greymon Expert and that all you’re doing is advertising them in the most volatilely insane manner possible.” The grin we received as he held out his arms wide was curious. “Yep, made some money, helped his sales by the bucket loads and I’m living large with a central location in the city and running several gangs to keep this city quite lively heh heh heh.” He seemed to take all the pain and suffering he was causing with a mild amount of humor, mostly because Digimon were harder to kill with the Backspace System so… “Volcamon and Tempomon really could have played ball and then we could have really had this city jumping, there’s also you rebel rousers that I assume were fighting the gangs over the last few weeks trying to keep some semblance of order around her. I actually appreciate your efforts as it makes this city exciting the most exciting one in this digital realm! I’m sure you’ve seen my Kamemon picking up Digi-credits, so yes, I’m also stealing from the other gangs if they fail to be a big enough problem on the side. Plan to turn this school into something cool, land development and all that. Need quite a chunk of change to start a talent agency and my talent will be recognized above all others of course, but that doesn’t mean other Digimon can’t be appreciated for theirs.” “Playing leader guy, all benefits no downsides while acting as a middle man in the most literal sense possible given the location of Fury Clan High School. Making a lot of profits off of the sales of the Backspace System that works completely as you advertised without any true downsides aside from the loss of Digi-credits which means you’re making bank off of the gangs without them noticing for your own goals, which are somewhat selfish in nature. Am I right?” I received two pointed index fingers from Etemon as he made a clicking noise with his tongue, which I’m going to take I’m correct in my current assumptions about him. So that means... “Okay, my ideas about your true character are out of the way, I now have to ask about it. What exactly did taking the Anchor Key do to save the city or more specifically this whole world? It's what led to the reason why the Backspace System was made in the first place, but I don't have the full picture.” “What?!” Dolly asked, she hadn’t been expecting that. Lit squeaked loudly in a similar sounding exclamation from Dolly’s back. “What?!” Even Dazzle was flummoxed and caught off guard by what I just said. Frizzle just stared at me in curiosity, but didn’t make a similar exclamation and turned back to staring at Etemon while flexing her claws slightly. “Ah you noticed, heh heh heh. Can’t exactly start a fun little empire where no one gets seriously hurt if this fresh and hopping digital realm gets entirely destroyed now can I? A king has to protect his people from the worst dangers after all, even if nobody exactly knows about it yet. I mean aside from me of course.” Etemon showing a true smile without showing teeth as he stood tall while crossing his arms. He flexed slightly and his muscles bulged with pure power that sent air shifting around him that could be felt from across the roof where we were. “Sure I might be causing a lot of problems around this city, but taking the Anchor Key was actually a good deed on my part and I’m quite willing to stick to that. Unlike a stick up the backside Hi-Andromon, your quite a charming one and cute too! So got time for a story? It’s why I took the key when it has no use or importance to me at all, it’s what you’re after and I’m obligated to not give it away to you without a fight or a full explanation as to why I can’t just simply give it up without one.” “Tell us your story Etemon and we’ll see about getting to the ‘die trying’ part of us getting that key from you afterwards.” I wasn’t about to make a mistake here and jump the gun. I sat down and patted my side while giving Dolly a pointed look. Our group soon sat down together and waited for Etemon to start talking. "Please note that I seriously don't want to die." Etemon was actually doing something good, but he was also not entirely a good guy. He wanted to do good things on top of being his bombastic self, but he liked messing with people too much. He wanted the digital realm to continue being okay, but he also wanted some chaos. The glaringly obvious thing is that people know him as a pure virus type and have said as much, but the Digi-vice told a different story when it identified him as both 'Virus' and 'Vaccine' mix… two polar opposites of general Digimon personality. Yet, out of all that... he was stable, alarmingly so to a degree that sanity was implied beyond a reasonable doubt and that means something has terrified him greatly to an impossible degree that the Backspace System was a necessary precaution made from that fear. Etemon knew that practically giving them away for free would be suspect, because of the stereotype surrounding 'Etemon' being scummy in general. So he instead advertised and sold it at a slightly, specifically tailored, exorbitant price instead for a profitable gain to make it seem more up and up since he was clearly getting something out of the deal and if it was somewhat expensive coming from him, then it must work in the minds of the Digimon who looked it over and found nothing foul with it. Etemon was also having all the gangs attacking other Digimon to actively spread the Backspace System around faster by showing how it works for them if they got beaten in a fight. Since it does work exactly as Etemon advertises it does, it started selling fast. What would surprise everyone was that Etemon was actually trying to be a hero and save a lot of lives in an exceedingly clever roundabout manner while maintaining his street cred as a 'so-called scummy' Etemon, by preparing a lot of people for something that may happen sooner or later regardless of what anyone does. Which leads back to Anchor Key and the fact that Etemon had three gangs in a configuration of focusing on land, sea and air combat. Ogremon was notably building up supplies at his warehouse factory, Ultros was keeping tabs on basically everything in possible anticipation of something happening and the Avalanche Avians were watching the skies and could act as first responders by getting anywhere in the city. Something on the level of, 'more terrifying than the implications of Chaosdramon X waiting for our return trip between here and Violight', was going on here. If there were anymore shivers down my spine, then it would be completely frozen over at the thought that Etemon saw something like an invasion coming and was secretly and actively trying to prepare all the Digimon around here for it... I seriously hoped that I was wrong about that hunch. “Ahem…” Etemon cleared his throat and given the look on his face once he clearly had our attentions, I could tell the story he was going to tell us would be something quite ominous or foreboding. Etemon said it himself that we'd be fighting if we wanted to take the Anchor Key from him even after the explanation. I at least wanted to hear him out before doing starting a fight.