The door opened and Impmon came running in. "What happened?" he asked. "I heard your scream..."
He took a step back when he saw Kei's face. Hatred and sorrow was turning her face into a horrible mask of misery. "Why?" she shouted through clenched teeth while tears were streaming down her face. "Why does he do that? Why my parents? They never did anything..."
"Hey, hey, settle down, kid, you're giving me the creeps here. What's going on? Who did anything to your parents?"
"H-him!" Kei stuttered and gestured at the computer screen. "He always targets me... he takes a perverse delight in tormenting me. And now... my parents are the ones that have to suffer..."
"Who the heck are you talking about, kid?" Impmon frowned.
"HIM!" Kei screamed, gesturing at the screen again. "He's behind all of this... he's destroying everything..." She curled up into a ball. "And everyone..."
Impmon was starting to get a clue. "You mean... that BioCalumon guy you told us about?" He frowned. "What did the creep do now? When I'm gonna put my hands on him, he's toast!"
"You can't do anything..." Kei mumbled. "I can't do anything... it's just so hopeless..."
"Hey! Don't give me that!" Impmon snapped. "You said you were the Game Master, right? Well, then sit down and take care of that problem! Sitting here and wailing in self-pity isn't going to help! Take some action, girl!"
Kei looked up at him. She didn't know Impmon as well as Takato and the others did, but what she heard from Takato made her think that this didn't seem to be something he would have said.
Impmon noticed her stare and flinched. "I did... a couple of awful things back then..." he murmured. "And it was all because I wanted to do everything by myself... I was always griping and complaining about how weak I was. And instead of taking some action by myself, I let myself being corrupted by those... those Deva! But now... I have realized that I can be strong when I think of my friends. My Tamers, and the other guys as well. And I might not have a good job while protecting Ai... but you heard her Mom, right? They are counting on me to do the job. And I won't let her or anyone else down! And you... you don't want to let your friends down either, do you?"
Kei uncurled from the fetal position she had taken and thought about Impmon's words. "But what if I can't do anything about it?" she whimpered. "What if he's gonna hurt them even more?"
"You just have to try, kid! Saying you can't do anything is easy as long as you haven't tried. At least when you tried you can tell yourself that you did your best. And I know you can find a way, kid! You managed to save those other kids as well. So sit down and find something to help your parents, all right?"
"A... all right..." Kei said. She swallowed her tears and gave him a weak smile. "I guess... I got carried away a little, huh?"
"Just a bit," Impmon smirked. "But I understand it's hard. You're lucky, kid! I never had any parents..." He sighed. "Oh well, time to get back to work. You have some friends to help, while I'm gonna try and see if I can find some traces of the bad guys around the house. And remember: You can do it, kid!"
He gave her the thumbs up, and Kei had to chuckle. She wiped away her tears and Impmon went outside. Just as he left, Mako came into the room.
"Did you... did you cry?" he asked.
"Just a little bit," Kei said. "But I'm better now, thanks to Impmon."
Mako smiled. "He's great, isn't he? I was gonna cry as well, since Ai is gone and all... but he told me that everything is gonna be all right, and that we would find a way to help everyone. So I wanna do my best and help too. I'm not as strong as Impmon, but I could help you."
Kei smiled back at him. "Okay, kiddo, sit down next to me! This is your Dad's computer, after all."
Mako fluttered up on a chair next to her and stared at the screen. Then he was disappointed. "Aw, it's broken... Should I get Dad and ask him to fix it?"
"It isn't broken," Kei explained. "You just can't see the program because you are not the Game Maker. But I'm still happy that you're here. So, now... are you good with video games?"
"Oh yeah!" Mako nodded enthusiastically. "I like to play Final Fantasy!"
"Great!" Kei said. "Now, if your heroes were in a situation where they were outnumbered by the enemy... and they couldn't escape either. What should they do?"
"Well, they have to beat them all up!" Mako said and pished his small fist into the air.
Kei chuckled. "Obviously. But it isn't going to be easy, you know? What if those enemies prove to be too much for our heroes?"
"But they won't!" Mako protested. "They can all help each other... and they can always buy enough items before the battle."
"Yes, but what if there wasn't a shop right before the battle?" Kei asked.
Mako thought about it. "Well, they could always make use of their enemies' weaknesses..."
Kei frowned. "Weaknesses?"
"Sure!" Mako nodded. "In those games, most enemies have a weakness that can help the heroes to beat them. Some are weak to fire, others to ice. Don't they have some magic spell to find out what would work good against those enemies?"
Kei thought about it. Well, they had their D-Powers... but did Digimon have weaknesses? Did the D-Powers show them those weaknesses?
Well, if they didn't, it was time to change that.
"You really had quite the idea there, Mako!" she told the TinyDevimon. "Great job!"
Mako smiled at the praise and watched how she used the mouse and keyboard to enter several things into the computer.
Kei opened the Item Creator of the program and took a look at the file of the D-Powers. From what she saw, they could detect other Digimons with this, and identify them, including their level, attribute, type and attacks. But it said nothing about detecting a weakness.
'Let's change that!' Kei thought and made the appropriate changes. 'Now almost every Digimon will have some sort of weakness the others just have to exploit. Okay, for now, only Rika and Renamon can fight, but at least they have it a bit easier. And they can use fire-type attacks, which is always good against insects. Now all I have to do is to find a cure for the others...'
"If only I knew why he did that..." she murmured.
"Who did what?" Mako asked curiously. For a while, she had forgotten that he was sitting there.
"Oh, well... I mean, there's this bad guy in the game, you see? And he did something... but I don't know why he did it."
"Hmmmm..." Mako really started to ponder now, as good as a young boy like him could. "I don't think you could just ask him, huh?"
Kei shook her head. "I'm afraid he wouldn't tell me," she smirked.
"Well, okay... but can't you just spy on him? Oh, wait, I have another idea! You need to have something to read his mind."
Keis sighed. "Something, I really wish I'd have such a thing..."
Mako nodded. "Yeah, me too. Especially when Mom doesn't want to tell me where she hid the cookies..."
Kei put her elbow on the table. "What we need... would be something on which we always could read the bad guy's next step..."
She looked back at the screen when a new window opened.
'1000 MAKER POINTS GAINED!' she read.
'Those things again?' she thought. 'I wonder what else I could buy with them...'
But when she looked at the corresponding menu, she was baffled: There, in front of her eyes was a special option, called 'Villain Scry'. According to the description, she could click on one of the main villains and see what his current thoughts were... but only once a day.
"And if I buy this thing with my Maker Points, it only works for one of our villains..." she murmured. "Well, it's better than nothing, I suppose... I guess I'll just buy one for Millenniummon, he's the most urgent problem. Still, I wonder if this could be a coincidence. I don't remember that option to be purchasable when I looked at the menu last time... could it have appeared because I need it? Well, whatever, I should be thankful, I guess. Sometimes, this nasty old program can be really useful..."
A small box with the words 'It was my pleasure.' appeared on screen.
Kei stared at the image. "What?" she whispered.
"What's wrong?" Mako asked curiously. To him, everything on screen was still static, of course.
"Um... it's nothing," Kei said. "Listen, Mako, can you ask your Mom if I could have something to drink? I'm rather thirsty. And maybe a small snack, too?"
"I'll ask her," Mako said and hopped off his chair, fluttering out of the room. "Moooooom!" he shouted.
Kei stood up and closed the door behind him, then she went back to the computer. She glared at the screen furiously. "All right, enough with the games! I know you can hear me, so spit it out: What do you want, BioCalumon?"
Another text box appeared. 'I am not BioCalumon. I am the Gremlin in the game.'
"Very funny!" Kei snorted. "Bio himself told me that half of his body, or soul, or whatever, is trapped in there. So if he is the real Gremlin, what does that make you?"
'His other half,' the text box replied. 'But as long as he doesn't manage to reach me, I am a separate entity.'
"Okay, but even if I should believe you, why should I trust you?"
'Why shouldn't you?' This time, a little smiley face appeared behind the sentence. 'After all, I have provided you with Maker Points all the time. And that was not everything I did.'
"Oh, really?" Kei asked. "What else did you do? Lure your other self here so you can be whole again?"
'No,' said the response. 'But I made sure that your parents still remember you as their child, for example.'
Kei was taken aback. "Y-you're lying!" she then protested. "That happened because BioCalumon could never go against the rules of the game."
'And who do you think came up with these rules?' the next image box read. 'You have to trust me, Kei, I never wanted to harm you. I'm trying to keep you safe from everything my demented twin is throwing at you.'
Kei leaned back in her chair with a sigh. "I don't know what to believe anymore..."
'Maybe you will trust me more after I showed you everything I did after you and your cousin started to use this game,' the unknown entity replied. 'But first, couldn't you turn on the 'assistant' option? Communicating with you with these boxes is really tiring, I'd like to meet you face to face.'
Very hesitantly, Kei searched through the options, and true enough, she found a small point called the 'RPG Maker Assistant'. Right now, it was deactivated.
'C'mon, do it!' the next text boy pleaded. 'Nothing is going to happen to you. I'm not like my brother, I swear it!'
'God, please forgive me if what I'm doing now is a mistake...' Kei mentally winced while clicking on the image.
Almost instantly, a small window in the lower right corner appeared, with the smiling image of a small Digimon. It almost looked like Calumon, but it was a light pink instead of white. It also wore a cute little tiara around its triangle sign.
"Finally..." it sighed in a pleasant, female voice. "Do you know how tiring it is to keep up with these text boxes? I nearly fell asleep... Well, anyways, it's nice to finally see you eye to eye." She giggled. "Well, in a manner of speaking. Too bad I'm still trapped in here. It's a pleasure having worked with you, Kei. My name is HolyCalumon!"
Kei wondered if a facefault was appropriate right now...
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(Posted Sat, 05 Jan 2008 14:01)
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