"Kobomon? What is she?" Eiko asked.
Kei shrugged. "Beats me. I didn't program her in. True, I came up with the Force Gems they have to collect to enter Lucemon's room, but... not that yellow little imp. Holy, did you...?"
The pink, digital Calumon double shook her head. "No, sorry, that wasn't my idea. But maybe creating her is one of those decisions that are automatically made by the game. It still IS a computer game, after all, and it was programmed to do stuff on its own. I can affect it as long as I'm minding the rules... as could Bio, back when he was still around. But do you think he or I decided all the colors of the floor tiles in the dungeons? That a chest is an object that contains an item? That the NPCs act like normal humans instead of just walking around on a set path? All those small details have been determined by the game's internal programming. Bio and I make up an essential part of the programming... but not hundred percent of it."
"I never thought about it that way," Kei murmured. "So maybe Kobomon really was made by the internal programming, to serve as an information source for Suzie and her team, so they know what to do with the Force Gems."
"Suzie and her team?" Eiko snickered. "Wasn't Romi the team leader?"
"Eh, whatever. I say we deal with Kobomon later. Maybe she's a human or Digimon that was transformed into this new creature, maybe it's just part of the programming itself."
"You mean a fragment of data that turned into a solid body?" Holy wondered. "Hmmm... I don't know if that is possible, but it does sound plausible. She is not really a human or Digimon in that case. She's just like a robot, programmed to do what the game tells her to do."
Just then, Eiko felt how little Mizuki was tugging at her dress. "Mommy..." she said tiredly. "Wormmon and I can't sleep... can you tell us a bedtime story?"
Eiko smiled down at her. She just couldn't help but set her heart on the little girl that was her mother. "In a minute, sweetie," she said. "Mommy and Aunt Kei are talking about important stuff. I'll be with you in a minute. Which book do you want me to read to you?"
With a sleepy sigh, Mizuki hugged her daughter-turned-mother's legs and murmured: "Goldilocks and the three Monzaemons! That's my favorite story..."
"Okay, sweetheart, I'll come in a minute."
"Thanks, Mommy!" Mizuki yawned. "Love you..." She rubbed her eyes and shuffled back into Tanemon's room, which had become the bedroom for the three little children this night.
Eiko sighed as she looked after her. "I dunno, Kei..." she muttered. "I know she's really my Mom, but... every time I see her like this, I feel as if she's really my little baby. I mean, she's a handful, sure, but she's such a darling..."
Kei knew what Eiko was saying. She was telling herself that she still was thinking like a schoolboy or -girl, but was it true? Whenever she held little Tanemon in her arms, she felt so protective of the little bundle of joy. Did the game actually give her a mother's instinct? Was she, little by little, turning into an actual mother? Or was it just the spell of Ai's lackeys? What if, at some point, she didn't even want to turn back to normal?
What was normal?
"Kei," Holy said. "I think we better focus back on the layout of the tower... that is, the layout that we can still affect."
"Right," the Lillymon nodded, looking back at the screen. "Well, at least we managed to remove that one boss encounter and replace it with a chest that contains the same amount of Force Gems."
"A pity we can't do the same with the other bosses," Holy said.
"Yeah, I guess they are too important for the storyline... oh well, what do you say we put a regeneration pool into this small chamber before the boss?"
"Good idea, Kei!"
"Oh, now what?" Senshimon groaned. "Another dead end?"
"I don't think so," Henry said as he looked around the rather empty-looking room. There were no windows, and almost no furniture... except for one long mirror that covered the whole wall opposite of the door they had used to enter the room. "We collected 80 Force Gems to open the door... it wouldn't make any sense for this room to be empty."
"Yeah," Gargomon nodded. "Video game logic says that there has to be some hidden secret within this room."
"Too bad we don't have anything that shows us if there's a secret in a room..." Yui said. "Like, a bell that rings up whenever we come past something invisible."
"Well, what do we have here?" Alice asked as she stepped in front of the mirror. She studied it carefully.
"Are we... supposed to smash that mirror or something?" Romi asked. "Is there a hidden passage behind it?"
"Oh no, don't do that! That'd cause seven years of bad luck," Suzie said.
"This is another puzzle," Henry realized. "Brute force won't help us here. We have to find out how to solve this puzzle..."
"Oh, how swell..." Romi sighed. "Where did that Kobomon go, anyways? Says we have to find an elevator key and leaves without giving us any other hint. Isn't she here to help us?"
"We need to solve this riddle by ourselves," Henry said. He scratched his huge ears. "Say... doesn't anything you see in the mirror strike any of you as odd?"
"Yes, it does," his sister nodded. The floor tiles in the mirror are red instead of blue."
"What kind of mirror is that?" Romi wondered. "Even in the Digital World, I've never seen a mirror like that."
"But not all of them," Alice pointed out. "Look, there's one tile that's also blue in the mirror."
"Which one is it?"
"It's that one!" Turuiemon said, pointing at one of the tiles Gargomon was standing next to.
But Yui shook her head. "No, it's that one!" And she pointed at another one, this one was directly in front of her.
Alice looked into the mirror again. "Well, whaddya say... there are two blue tiles in the mirror image."
"I'm sure one of them will help us go further," Henry said.
"Yeah, but which one?"
"Aaaah, that doesn't matter," Yui shouted, getting impatient of having to wait. "I say we just try it out."
"Yui, wait," Henry shouted. "Stepping on the wrong tile could easily trigger..."
But it was too late. Yui had stepped on the tile in front of her.
"Trap," Henry muttered. "Oh boy..."
"Teheheh," Yui giggled sheepishly. "Um, oops?"
For a moment, nothing happened, and everyone believed that Yui had actually stepped on the right tile. But then, they all heard a rumbling sound... and the scraping sound of stone on stone.
"The ceiling's coming down!" Suzie yelped as she looked up. She was right... by stepping on the tile, Yui had unwillingly triggered a trap that caused the whole ceiling to slowly lower itself.
"Quick, let's get out of here!" Gargomon shouted as he ran to the door. But it didn't move. "We're locked in!" he gasped.
"Quick, step on the other tile!" Alice shouted. Gargomon did it. It clicked, and then a small portion of the northern wall moved back, creating a small alcove. Within the alcove, there was a chest.
"I got it!" Turuiemon shouted as she dashed to the chest. Inside, she found a key. "That's it?"
"Maybe we can escape with that," Suzie assumed. She took the key from her Digimon partner and tried to unlock the door with it.
"Forget it," Gargomon grumbled. "That door doesn't even have a keyhole."
"Great," Turuiemon groaned. "What good is this key when we can't get out of this room alive to use it?"
"There has to be some way to deactivate the trap," Romi said. She glared at Yui. "If only a certain someone hadn't activated it in the first place..."
"Sorryyyyyy..." the Meramon whined.
"Screw this!" Alice muttered. "I don't plan on dying here! GAO RUSH!" And she ran at the mirror, hitting the glass with a flurry of punches."
"Alice, that won't work!" Henry shouted. "Didn't I already tell you that brute force won't... help?"
His eyes widened when suddenly, part of the mirror broke apart, revealing another alcove with a big lever on the wall. Alice quickly pulled it... and the ceiling stopped moving.
The door opened.
Everyone sighed in relief.
Suzie took the key. "The elevator key?"
Romi took it from her and looked at it closely. Engraved in the key was, in small letters 'Elevator Key'.
"Yup, it's the elevator key," she nodded.
"Ma'am? They managed to survive the mirror room."
"Oh, did they?" Manami smiled at the other Succubimon who had just brought her this message. "So that means they will be here shortly. I think there is no reason to be worried. To reach Lady Lucemon's chambers, they will have to get past me first."
She leaned against a pillar with a sneaky grin on her face. "I'll be waiting for them. Dealing with them should be no problem... don't you agree, Miko?"
Out of the shadows behind her, a deep growl was coming.
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(Posted Tue, 19 May 2009 22:11)
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