No hacker or code cracker has ever crossed through the Firewall to explore the Depths, as most people in the real world have named it, thanks to the Gateway.
The Gateway itself is protected by a strong security layer that filters out real-world traffic to prevent data corruption. So long as this Digital World security system remains in place neither human nor Digimon will have an easy time getting in; not even the Digimon in the Wall Slum have an easier time of it.
But on the network, there’s no such thing as an impenetrable firewall.
Every so often, holes open in the Firewall. These holes and the disturbances they create, dubbed “vortexes” by those in the real world, resemble tornadoes and hurricanes.
The vortexes have been known to get close to the Wall Slum, and on rare occasions directly threaten the lives of the Digimon that live there.
novel_deco
Pulsemon zipped along, a bolt of lightning hopping from one place to the next, closing in on a set of coordinates.
“It was somewhere around here,”
Pulsemon said, once again taking its physical form in an area just beyond the Rusted Coast.
The place was a dumping ground; junk data flowed from the Wall Slum and piled up in this forgotten corner.
Nevertheless, this was still part of the Firewall—and the “wall” part of that was a rather loose term.
It wasn’t actually a solid wall, but more of a soft barrier. There was nothing like it anywhere on Earth. If there were a planet out in space made of, say, liquid metal, that would be the easiest comparison.
“I’m not picking up any readings like the one we’re looking for.”
Pulsemon said as Leon, mindlinked, flipped over to see what Pulsemon was seeing.
“Let’s head down there,”
Leon said. Pulsemon lowered itself onto the junk data.
The ground was full of errors, shifting and glitching and buzzing beneath the Digimon’s feet.
“It’s just a floating island of garbage data from the Wall Slum, huh,”
Leon said, observing the surroundings.
There wasn’t so much as a scavenger Digimon in sight.
It was strange, though. It looked a lot smaller from above but now that they were walking on it, it felt impossibly large as it undulated out before them.
There were no buildings, trees, or flowers on it. Just a bunch of meaningless flotsam all piled up in one spot.
They might as well have walked into a piece of modern art.
Leon looked out to the horizon.
The Firewall was clearly spherical.
It was Earth—no, moon-like.
Possibly even smaller than that.
From the look of things, at least. And beyond the Firewall, just on the other side of this squishy barrier, lay the Depths.
How big were they? How far did they go? What all was inside? A planet larger than Earth itself? Another solar system? Another galaxy? A cluster of galaxies?
Maybe a comparatively vast and endless well of energy. All humanity had ever seen was the outer husk.
“You sure this isn’t a bad tip, Leon? I don’t think the leader of the SoC would show up here,”
Pulsemon said warily.
“The moment it landed directly in my account, I knew it was good. It came from an informed source, Pulsemon.”
Whether it came from a hacker or code cracker, who could say.
“Yeah, well I didn’t mean whether it was true or false, I meant if it was given in good faith or bad.”
And it was exceedingly possible it was the latter.
“If it was a false rumor, at least we’ll know. That’s useful intel.”
“If it’s just fake that’s fine, but what if it’s a trap? The SoC’s still plenty ticked that you crashed their party on the X nation’s server,”
Pulsemon said, increasingly desperate to get Leon to see its side of things.
“If it’s a trap, then we’ve hit the jackpot.”
All Leon had to do was turn the tables on the SoC and its legion of code crackers.
“This place just looks dangerous, is all...”
Pulsemon said uneasily, standing atop the flow of visual noise and garbage data.
“Stay sharp, Pulsemon!”
“Uh oh,”
Pulsemon yelped as the visual noise suddenly reached out and grabbed its leg.
“Howling Fire!”
“Gah!”
A fireball grazed Pulsemon as it tore through the air.
Pulsemon backflipped out of the visual noise’s grasp.
A single, smoldering line had been drawn down the island of garbage data, tracing the fireball’s path.
“That was unexpected!”
Pulsemon chirped, settling into its battle stance.
“Hey, Pulsemon,”
Loogamon said, stepping into view.
“Hey, elite hacker,”
a mindlinked Eiji followed.
novel_deco
The piles of garbage data on this floating island provided the perfect spot from which to launch Loogamon’s surprise attack.
The island’s out-of-the-way location in the waters just off the Wall Slum made it even more attractive.
“I was the anonymous tipster who said Tartarus would show up.”
“Eiji!”
Leon shouted.
Both of them assumed their hololized forms.
“It was a pretty obvious tactic, but I knew it’d get you to show since you’re so self-righteously obsessed with taking down the SoC and the code cracking team.”
“Is it fair to think of you as Tartarus’s mouthpiece then? Are you here to represent the SoC?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“So you’re one of the SoC’s leaders.”
“Nope, just a rookie.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Minor Impulse!”
A bolt shot out of Pulsemon’s spike of hair and gouged a hole in the garbage data just in front of Loogamon.
Bits of visual noise scattered to the wind in the wake of the blast.
“That was close! You’re really gonna put up a fight, aren’t you Loogamon?”
“Says the one who tried to hit me with a sneak attack!”
“You little static shock!”
“Filthy mutt!”
The two Digimon were instantly heated, engaged in a tense standoff.
Each had attacked the other while mindlinked, meaning any ensuing fight would literally be life-threatening for Eiji and Leon.
“Let’s cut the useless questions, then. I’m not even gonna ask why,” Leon growled.
“Leon, I was happy to see you again. It felt like it was meant to happen. But this is different. You’ve crossed the line! And you should know what’s gonna happen, after what you’ve done to the code crackers.”
If the hackers were going to act like vigilantes, they had to know there would be consequences.
“Did you put a bounty on our heads, or what?”
“Yeah. You’re an SoC target.”
“I’ll bite. What are the conditions?”
“Never interfere with another SoC operation, and we’re good. What happened with Machinedramon on the X nation’s server is water under the bridge.”
Marvin and the other SoC leaders entrusted Eiji with setting the terms of Leon’s punishment.
They probably wouldn’t be thrilled with his terms, but they wanted him to do it, so this was what they were getting.
All Tartarus wanted was a word of apology from Leon.
“That’s not gonna happen,” Leon said flatly.
“I figured. You hackers have a short fuse, and you don’t know when to give up and wash your hands of it, do you?”
“Heh. You wanna avoid my short fuse? There’s only one way to do it.”
“Go on. But I don’t want to hear any complaints outta you later on.”
“Give up code cracking. If money’s the issue... I might be able to help with that.”
Financial assistance.
What a Leon way of thinking.
It irritated Eiji so much that Leon might as well have declared war instead.
“Did you hear about my plight? Did it tug at your heartstrings and loosen your purse strings? Hm?”
“I’m not a robot, Eiji. I can afford to help.”
“I chose this life. I decided this was how I wanted to win the game of life. And now you come to me, and you want me to betray my ideals...for money?!”
Eiji could hear his pulse in his temples.
He didn’t know it was possible to get this worked up in the Digital World.
“Betray your ideals? I don’t understand. Isn’t the money why you got into code cracking in the first place?”
A grim expression fell across Leon’s face. He couldn’t for the life of him understand what Eiji was driving at with this outburst.
“You don’t get it. I might be new, but I’m already a pro. Run along back to school and quit messing with my job.”
“Ah, Professor Ryusenji’s job? You want to see it through, huh?”
“I don’t have to answer to you! I’m a code cracker.”
“And I’m a hacker. I get it.”
Peoples’ thoughts and beliefs divide them up, even when they’d otherwise be on the same side.
Leon wouldn’t give up hunting down code crackers. Not so long as he knew in his heart that it was the right thing to do.
It wasn’t like hackers and code crackers really needed a reason to fight, anyway.
Justice and Freedom.
At the end of the day they were a matter of preference.
Big, heady concepts you couldn’t quickly discuss and be done with it.
Not in this setting, anyway.
Leon turned his eyes away from Eiji, who soon followed Leon’s gaze.
“I’ve seen a ton of code crackers pass through the professor’s office. He uses them up and tosses them out like so much trash,”
Leon said with a smug hacker’s grin.
“What did you say?!”
No sooner had the words left Eiji’s mouth than he noticed Pulsemon was no longer standing next to Leon.
“Electric Rush!”
In an instant, Pulsemon was right on top of them, ready to tackle Loogamon.
At the last possible moment Loogamon leapt into the air as Pulsemon passed beneath.
Both landed back on the wobbly floating island, squared off toward one another.
“Stay away from the professor! All you disposable code crackers need to stop using him!”
Leon shouted.
Finally, the truth.
That was the heart of the matter, wasn’t it? Eiji was just using the professor to escape his crummy life in the real world and flee into the Digital World. It was a quick way to turn his life around. To win at the so-called game of life, as he put it.
But what was wrong with that?
Everyone starts out as a kid with nothing to their name. But some kids, like Leon, are born with silver spoons in their mouths. They start way out in front of everyone else. Fate, luck, The Powers That Be—call it whatever you want, but these kids are the chosen ones.
The kind people like Professor Ryusenji give important jobs when they’re just kids in elementary school.
“So THAT’S how you really feel!” Eiji bellowed. “All this hacker and code cracker stuff, your sense of ‘justice.’ This is what it’s been about, huh Leon?!”
“Associating with code crackers will ruin his reputation!”
“You just don’t want anyone coming near your precious professor, do you? Mr. Elite Hacker.
They continued trading verbal barbs for some time.
Eiji had no idea he could feel such antipathy toward another person. But they weren’t in school anymore.
No one was going to intervene and tell them to be nice or issue some meaningless platitude to smooth things over.
Anyone promising easy solutions is a grifter. Moving through life means having disagreements.
Fights.
Getting knocked around a bit. It’s inevitable.
But losing, especially on the network, was not an option for code crackers.
“You really want to test me? You want to lose your Digimon that badly? Well alright then! Pulsemon, digivolve! Right past Champion, all the way to Ultimate,”
Leon said, and switched off his hololization.
In a flash the Digimon brawler Eiji saw on the X nation’s server was back, massive beads encircling its neck.
“Thrust! Kick! Defend! HAH!”
Boutmon was amping itself up, its fists wreathed in lightning. A long, muscular leg sliced through the air before smashing back down on the ground, causing the entire floating island to tremble.
Boutmon took a deep breath.
The karate kata practice was complete. The fight was about to begin.
“Keep it together! Boutmon’s as powerful as we expected,”
Loogamon said, sizing up their opponent.
“Marvin was lucky to escape last time. But today we’re gonna beat ‘em!”
Eiji barked.
“Wouldn’t be in a dangerous place like this if I weren’t ready for a fight!”
This was, after all, where vortexes came from.
Eiji and Loogamon figured it would make the perfect place for a showdown.
“Loogamon, digivolve!”
novel_deco
Loogamon assumed their Loogarmon form as Eiji cut his hololization.
His line of sight merged with Loogarmon’s.
The fiery wolf and electric pugilist stared one another down on the floating island of garbage data that was their battlefield.
“Still stuck at Champion, I see. But don’t think for a minute I’ll let my guard down, Eiji,”
Leon said to himself.
Neither he nor Boutmon could afford to get complacent.
“Let’s go, Loogarmon. Just like we planned.”
“Ready,” Loogarmon growled, glaring at Boutmon. “Hey! Static shock! I don’t want to hear any crying!”
All the fur on Loogarmon’s body stood on end and began gathering energy.
“Howling Burner!”
Fire whipped across the surface of the garbage data, rising up to form a wall of pure, unextinguishable flame.
“What exactly is the plan, here?”
Leon muttered to himself.
The massive wall of flames had effectively hidden Loogarmon from Boutmon’s vision.
But why?
What was the goal? This wasn’t like their scuffle on the X nation’s server, however.
They would have to trade blows; prod one another for weaknesses. This fight had to end with a victor.
“Lightning Heel!”
Boutmon raised their leg above their head and brought it sweeping down to the ground, straight through the wall of fire.
The flames weren’t extinguished, but they parted for the briefest of moments.
There, just beyond the flames was Loogarmon.
“Welcome!” Loogarmon bellowed.
Leon and Boutmon let out a confused grunt.
Had Loogarmon just been...waiting there?
“Flame Blow!”
Loogarmon leapt at Boutmon from point-blank range, countering with a flaming charge attack.
They’d left themselves wide open.
There was no time left to block; they were about to get a bellyful of flaming Loogarmon. Boutmon shuffled back, feet kicking up clouds of garbage data, and held their ground.
“Hang in there, Boutmon! I know the fire’s irritating, but it only deals so much damage coming from a Champion... WHAT?!”
“Fire Breath!”
Out of nowhere, jets of fire closed in on Boutmon from three different directions, leaving only enough time to strengthen their guard as the flames enveloped them.
“What the—?! This fire isn’t from Loogarmon!”
Leon howled in confusion, eyes darting around in search of its source.
He suddenly noticed multiple little heads poking out from the shadows of the garbage data pile.
“Tryannomon? Where were they hiding?!”
Leon counted three of them.
They were indeed Digimon with a DigiCore just like Pulsemon’s, but they didn’t sound like any Rookie Tryannomon Leon had ever heard.
They sounded...calmer. Trained.
The Mindlinker could also synchronize with any Digimon Linkers being worn, or connected Digimon Docks to share information, allowing people to bring additional Digimon into the Digital World. Though they wouldn’t be mindlinked, they could still be controlled with tools. Any additional Digimon could also be stored for use as bots.
“You didn’t pick up on them, Boutmon?”
“We’re standing on a hunk of garbage. Too much noise, not enough signal.”
The entire island appeared to be flooding the Digimon’s sensors with junk data they then had to sort through.
“Do you think Eiji and Loogarmon know?”
“I think they do. This was a trap, Leon,”
Boutmon hissed.
It dawned on Leon that they knew, and had chosen this place deliberately.
Leon gritted his teeth.
“What’s the play? Looks like the code cracker’s actually got something of a plan.”
Leon surveyed the situation. The Tyrannomon wouldn’t be able to do anything fancy if they were just running routines from a tool. But they could hide and attack from the shadows. They didn’t have to help Eiji win, they just had to be annoying. And they weren’t on the clock like Loogarmon and Boutmon, because they weren’t mindlinked.
“I’ll beat you, Leon! Even if I have to use every trick in the book to do it!”
Eiji shouted from Loogarmon’s DigiCore.
“What do code crackers consider ‘winning,’ exactly? Everything you do flies in the face of the law. You dress up your egotism and call it freedom.”
“Code crackers this, code crackers that! Quit lumping us all together!” Eiji yelled.
Leon kept quiet.
“I—me and Loogarmon, we’re gonna win! Over, and over, and over again! We’re gonna succeed! Without the pity from you and your upper-crust friends! We’ll show you all, right here in the Digital World!”
Commands flew by on the virtual monitor at the speed of Eiji’s thoughts.
The Tyrannomon retreated back into the piles of garbage data. It would be game over if Boutmon got too close to them. They were only three of them, and all tool-controlled Rookies at that.
“Hah!”
With a single quick shout, Boutmon once again focused its energy and shook off the few remaining flames.
They then reset their stance—a single hand stretched out like a blade in Loogarmon’s direction—and lifted one leg.
With a sudden tilt of their shoulders, Boutmon smashed one foot into the ground.
They were using a Bajiquan technique to bring all their weight down on first one leg, then the other.
With each stomp the garbage data beneath them sank further down, and shockwaves rippled across the island.
Boutmon was charging up.
“Eiji!”
“Come at me!”
Loogarmon had a Howling Burner ready, aimed directly at Boutmon.
“Buden Blast!”
Boutmon released all the energy it had stored up from the palms of its hands.
Loogarmon unleashed a Howling Burner.
“What?!”
“What the—?!”
BOOOM!
Fire and lightning came crashing together between the two of them, resulting in a violent explosion.
The resulting shockwave came back at them.
Loogarmon leapt into the air to avoid the worst of it, twisting in the air.
They caught something out of the corner of their eye.
“Strike!”
Boutmon hadn’t dodged at all. Instead they’d charged straight through the shockwave and closed the distance in an instant.
They unleashed a flurry of punches and kicks that Loogarmon had no hope of blocking.
“Storm of Blows! I’m gonna put an end to—GAH!”
Once again the Tyrannomon reared their heads and covered Boutmon in fire, giving Eiji and Loogarmon just enough time to put some distance between themselves and Boutmon.
“Damnit! Stupid Tyrannomon!”
Leon shouted, his language uncharacteristically coarse.
“Calm down, Leon. That was a good move! You nearly had me.”
Boutmon pointed at Loogarmon, whose fur once again stood on end as they stared down their opponent.
Loogarmon appeared to be smiling,
but they were breathing heavily.
“It’s working. We’ll wear them down at this rate.”
“That’s the plan, Boutmon. But we can’t just win,”
Leon said with no small amount of menace.
“We have to beat them into the ground. We don’t want this to be a ‘good fight,’ we want it to be an overwhelming victory. We’ll never get Eiji to give up code cracking if we don’t. We’ll show him just how meaningless—how powerless—code crackers are! Mind and body, consciousness and Digimon!”
“In that event, I can’t guarantee Loogarmon’s safety.”
“Just its DigiCore intact. That’s all you have to do,”
Leon seethed.
Overpower and overwhelm.
That was the strategy.
Which meant those three little Tyrannomon were in the way.
“You’re no good against a crowd, Boutmon. We’re outmatched for the moment. But we can tip the odds in our favor...”
“Understood. I’ll give it everything I’ve got.”
“Boutmon, digivolve!”
novel_deco
A flash of lightning lit up the island.
Kazuchimon, Mega, Deity, Vaccine
The force of the blast sent more junk data from the island flying in every direction.
This was it.
The fierce thunder god, Kazuchimon, had arrived, announcing themselves with a mighty roar.
raging thunder god
“Dangit, why’s the Mega digivolution have to look so damn cool?!”
“I’d like to digivolve too, y’know!”
But even if Loogarmon did digivolve, they’d have to keep their distance.
The pressure had just increased tenfold.
“The Tyrannomon are wetting themselves as they put their tails between their legs. We shouldn’t push them. Get back, all of you!”
“Come on home, Tyranno-buddies!”
Eiji chirped, gathering them back into their dock.
“What’re you plotting now, Eiji? Don’t worry, soon you’ll never have to think again.”
Kazuchimon took a step forward, their jagged lightning blade still pointed at the ground.
Eiji gulped hard.
“You code crackers will never defeat the hackers for one simple reason: You lack convictions. Kazuchimon, now!”
“Shido Ittetsu!”
Thunderheads covered the sky.
Kazuchimon lifted their hand, executing a piece of code and in an instant it was as if time and space had been split open.
“What on earth...?!”
Eiji could scarcely believe his own eyes.
“It’s a digital barrier! They’re trying to trap us in their own private link!”
Loogarmon yelled.
They tried to escape but it was too late.
The electromagnetic barrier had already touched down, cutting them off from the rest of the Digital World.
Kazuchimon flicked their blade with the utmost precision, and the next instant set about cleanly and clinically slicing apart the garbage data that stood between them and Loogarmon.
Loogarmon scrounged around, scooped up a clump of something with their tail, aimed, and let it fly with a precise flick of their own.
The clump struck the inner wall of the barrier with a ZAP, followed by a violent POP as it exploded into perfectly charred chunks from the force of its electrocution.
“It’s an electrified fence,”
Loogarmon said softly.
“More like a bug zapper! Touch it and we’ll both be burnt to a crisp!”
Eiji recalled the contraptions, which convenience stores used to hang under their eaves.
Eiji was suddenly overcome with a wave of sympathy for all the bugs.
Being trapped in an electrified ring for a fight to the death will do that. At any rate, the trapper was now the trapped.
“We can’t break this barrier. Mega Digimon have too many techniques at their disposal... Hey! Static shock!”
Loogarmon called out.
Kazuchimon didn’t even acknowledge the comment, much less respond.
At the far end of the digivolution tree, Digimon become incredibly advanced creatures.
In time they come to act like gods and demons, and become estranged from their own brethren.
Kazuchimon is one such Digimon.
“What, too good to talk to me now?” Loogarmon continued, trying to goad Kazuchimon. “You think you’re a god now or something? I’ve got a lot to say to you, pal. Look down here! Next time I see you it’s gonna be a real big fight, I mean I’m really gonna beat you down!”
“Who’s the bigger one here?”
Leon asked, responding to Loogarmon’s repeated calls.
“Shut up, meat sack! The Digimon are talking. Let’s have it out, find out which one of us is stronger once and for all. Still ignoring me? Fine, have it your way,”
Loogarmon babbled on, taking the bit as far as it could possibly go.
“We’ve got this, Loogarmon!”
Eiji said, pumping them both up.
“Sure do. We can talk once we’ve wrapped this up!”
There was still no escape, let alone a place to escape to.
“Maybe don’t say it quite so confidently. Wouldn’t wanna jinx it.”
Leon and Kazuchimon continued their steady march, the latter exhaling sharply as they slashed the air with their blades, which winked in and out of existence as their speed exceeded what the naked eye could perceive.
“You’re gonna be real upset when you lose. But don’t worry, it’ll be quick,”
Leon said softly.
“Nito Seirai!”
Eiji barely managed to hold back a shriek of pain.
It truly felt as though he’d been sliced in two, from the top of the shoulders and through the torso.
“And that was just the air blast from the slash...”
Loogarmon lamented.
So long as Eiji was linked to Loogarmon’s DigiCore he wouldn’t actually be hurt, but would share in Loogarmon’s pain each time they took a blow.
In the event the core was damaged or destroyed, of course, Eiji’s consciousness would be trapped, and he’d be DMIA.
This floating pile of garbage data would become his grave.
“I made a mistake.”
“What?”
Eiji couldn’t immediately figure out what Leon meant.
“I shouldn’t give you money, or sympathy. No, that’s not what you wanted, was it? What you really wanted was failure.”
“What’re you talking about, Leon?!”
“You want to win so badly but you’re unsure of yourself, so you talk a bit game. But if you can’t win... If you lose to me and just listen to what I have to say, all your worries will disappear. Say you’ll give up code cracking!”
“No! I—”
“I’ll break you of the sickness that keeps you in the clutches of those degenerates. Yes, that’s the best I can do for you.”
No.
No, that wasn’t Leon. That was Kazuchimon talking.
He was embodying a godlike being of the Digital World, and now it was speaking through him.
Eiji knew Kazuchimon would make good on their words, regardless of what Eiji wanted.
All he could do was struggle helplessly against his fate.
He so desperately wanted to win. Losing was not an option.
“I want to change my life here in the Digital World! I want to change my pitiful, anxious, wretched, miserable loser life!”
Eiji screamed.
Scenes flashed before his eyes.
The times he tried to make Professor Ryusenji proud.
The times he got utterly absorbed in his code cracking work.
Working with Loogamon to digivolve them... The only time he truly forgot his worries in the real world was when he and Loogamon were training to get stronger. The more powerful he got, the more success he had as a code cracker.
(Leon, without you... No, I’m even better BECAUSE of you! In spite of you!)
Leon was in Eiji’s way.
He’d just shown up again after all these years, and now he was trying to steal everything away.
Eiji could win.
Eiji could win.
Eiji had to win.
Digivolution.
Eiji and Loogarmon needed way, way, way more power.
Otherwise all the lofty words and pretty promises they’d made would go up in smoke.
“Loogarmon, digivolve!”
“Eiji, no...”
“Come on! Digivolve to your Ultimate form!”
Kazuchimon exhaled sharply once more as they raised their twin blades high above their head.
“I’m gonna finish you off with Kazuchimon’s ultimate technique!”
Another sharp exhalation. Eiji knew what was coming. The massive attack Kazuchimon used to slaughter Machinedramon on the X nation’s server.
“Shinden Shouraiko!”
Electricity crackled around the tips of Kazuchimon’s crossed blades as the attack began to charge.
Time and space seemed to condense.
It wouldn’t take long, but the Shido Ittetsu would make sure it landed. There was no escape.
“You want me to walk all over you on my way to the top? Fine! Because I’M. GONNA. WIN!”
Eiji shouted at the top of his lungs from within the DigiCore.
“Loogarmon! Digivolve!”
