Yamato Ishida (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
angry_friendship_wolf) wrote2021-04-16 05:03 am
angry_friendship_wolf) wrote2021-04-16 05:03 am
[tri OOM] Gennai's Story
Circa 25000 years ago.
The nameless agent opens his eyes.
He’s stood on the slope of a mountain, overlooking an island, high enough that he can see the place where the verdant grass turns into the sandy shoreline, and where the shoreline turns into blue oceans that stretch as far as the eye can see.
It’s beautiful, and yet, he knows without being told that there’s nothing else out there. If he were to travel along the ocean, eventually he’d just curve right around to this little island. He thinks he’s been here for a long time, watching this ocean, waiting for the day where he’d finally be.
“There’ll be more, in time. Islands will rise from the oceans, then continents. The world will get bigger and bigger.”
A girl. Or -- not a girl. He sees her, and he sees her: There is her physical shape, and there is the vast incandescence of her power, contained but blinding, and he perceives them both simultaneously. There’s a tiny splinter of her in his chest, he knows, a fragment that turned him from lifeless data to a living being.
“What’s your name?” She asks.
“You didn’t give me a name,” he replies. He furrows his brow. “Everyone else has a name.”
Through the radiance, he thinks he sees a smile. “You’re not quite like them. The world itself gave them their shapes and forms, and wrote their names upon them, but you are -- we made you ourselves. I thought you should pick your own name.”
“I don’t know what my name would be.”
“There’s time. Time enough to choose,” the radiance says. She taps one finger against his chest. “We gave you a job. Something we can’t do ourselves.”
“What’s that?”
“Your job is to bring about peace.”
---
“Does it bother you?” The nameless agent asks.
The Wolf has had a bloody wound where his left eye should be for as long as the nameless agent has known him, a match for the Dragon’s missing right eye. He asked once, and was told they’d done it to each other, that the moment they had taken physical form they had fought, and torn an eye from each other’s socket.
“Stop stalling, little pup,” the Wolf laughs. “This is meant to be a lesson.”
The nameless agent frowns, and slides a piece across the board. “If I’m meant to keep the peace, why are you teaching me how to fight wars?”
“Good question,” the Wolf says, and doesn’t answer, instead sliding a piece forward to take the nameless agent’s.
“I don’t understand why I need to learn anyway. If someone tries to hurt people, won’t you stop them?”
“We won’t always be here.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“You don’t want us to stay, either. One day, this world’ll have to choose its own path, decide how it’s going to move forward, and it’ll never do that if we’re around,” the Wolf says. “But we’ll meet again. You’ll be the old teacher then, and I’ll be the young student, and eventually …”
He falls silent. The nameless agent moves a piece forward.
“We’ve given you the worst task of all, little pup,” the Wolf says softly.
The nameless agent frowns. “It’s an honour to serve however I can.”
That’s true, isn’t it? He wants to do what he was made to do.
“For now. But when long millennia have passed, and you’ve seen there’s no end to the work, no winning the war, that honour’ll be cold comfort. Frustration will set in first, then resentment, then anger, and eventually exhaustion.”
His teacher has always been cold and serious. It’s who he is: The cold of winter, the first rumblings of calamity, the promise that eventually everyone dies, and a grave companion to sit by them when they do. The nameless agent has never seen him quite so sad before, though.
“Is that a prophecy?”
“It’s -- the start of a promise, little pup. One day, when all the temptations fall away and you’re too tired to go on, I’ll come and grant you a peaceful death. It’ll be later than you think, later than you hope, but I give you my word.”
---
The nameless agent is there when Wisemon rails against the Crests.
Seven of the eight Angel Digimon they made to serve as guards have defected, casting off the light to mantle themselves in chaos and darkness. Only Angemon, the Angel of Hope, standing guard at Mount Infinity, has stayed at his post.
And now they sweep across the world, conquering and consuming. They seek to evolve to a higher level, to achieve what only those blessed by the Crests have ever briefly been able to achieve: To become Ultimate-level Digimon.
“They are operating within the parameters of this world’s design,” the Empress says, sat on the highest throne, the pink stained glass of her seat catching the light and shrouding her in a rosy glow. “And that design was written upon this world long before we descended upon it. It is the nature of the Digital World that you should grow, hunt and consume others, and grow again, until one day you are in turn consumed and return to the cycle of rebirth.”
“You yourself have consumed others, Wisemon,” the Walrus says. “You pass judgement on these so-called Demon Lords for doing what you have done dozens of times. Do you mean for us to punish you, as well?”
“We cannot be your rulers,” the Dragon says, his voice level. “It isn’t our place to determine what your laws should be, nor to punish those who disobey them, nor to impose our idea of peace upon you. You have to determine for yourselves what your peace is, what you can and cannot countenance, what the world should look like.”
“We’re outsiders,” the Snake says, “and our time here is growing short. But this is your world, for you to look after.”
Wisemon storms from the temple, and the nameless agent follows.
“They don’t understand. The Demon Lords will burn the entire world to get what they want,” he spits. “They came and gave this world life, don’t they care what happens to it?”
The nameless agent hesitates. Nobody’s told him to help. Nobody’s said that he should intervene in this war. But his task is to bring about peace and preserve it. If I’m meant to keep the peace, why are you teaching me to fight wars?
“I can help,” he says.
---
The final battle is at the Mountain of Analogical Reasoning.
The nameless agent cannot empower Wisemon’s entire army, not even if he had a thousand years to prepare, but he secludes himself away, crafting from stone eight prototypes. From each of the Crests, he takes a splinter of their light, and they freely give it -- none of them ask what he needs it for. He’s sure they all realise.
“These are Digimentals,” he says, when he presents them to Wisemon’s inner circle. “They’re only prototypes right now, and they’re flawed, but with them you might stand a chance.”
Those eight shimmering objects end up turning the tide. With them in hand, Wisemon’s forces can, for a time, match the Demon Lords for strength. By the time the battle ends, six of the seven lords have fallen, and the last one flees with their eggs.
The nameless agent takes the Digimentals back, and makes the long trip back to File Island, to the cavernous tunnels of the Temple of the Chosen. He sets them in the Empress’ garden, under the tallest tree.
“You could have kept them,” the Dragon says, watching him from his one good eye. “They’re yours, your own creations, your own effort. You don’t need to return them to us.”
“I know,” the nameless agent says. “But I think it’s better this way. The Demon Lords showed that power is … sometimes too tempting to resist.”
---
Remain hidden they do, for a year, then two, then eight.
At first, Wisemon pleads with him. “There’ll be other ‘mons like the Demon Lords. How are we meant to protect ourselves? The Crests said it themselves, they can’t interfere, they won’t always be here. Someone has to be our protector. With the Digimentals, I can become an Ultimate-level, I can be our protector.”
Pleading turns to anger, eventually. Slowly, they stop talking. The nameless agent thinks he might have given up.
When he realises the truth, it’s too late. Wisemon has stolen into the Temple, tricking his way into the Empress’ garden, and taken the Digimentals.
The nameless agent catches him on the highest peak of Mount Infinity, with the Digimentals circling him, the symbols on them blazing bright. One by one, they spin around him, the Crests of Courage, Friendship, Love, Knowledge, Sincerity, Reliability, Hope, and Light. He’s draining the power from the Digimentals, dragging those splinters of the Crests into himself.
“Wisemon, ultimate evolution,” he intones, and the pillar of light engulfs him, spiralling towards the heavens. “Piedmon.”
As the energy boils to a fever pitch, and the last of his form takes shape, it suddenly stops short. The last dregs of energy have been drained from the Digimentals, and the nameless agent realises, suddenly, that there isn’t enough, not for this, not for what Wisemon wanted.
The evolution collapses in on itself, and Piedmon, half-complete, his data corrupted beyond repair, is left behind. The nameless agent sees the last of the light rot in his gaping cavity of a chest, turning to a dead, black flame.
---
They call it the Infection.
The nameless agent isn’t sure what it is. Some part of Piedmon’s pain and hatred, combined with the decaying absence where the Crest power of the Digimentals used to be, threaded through with the corrupted, dead data of his body. It spreads from ‘mon to ‘mon, corrupts the land itself, burrows into the fabric of reality and starts ripping it open.
The Empress decrees that only the total destruction of the Digital World will end this, and save the other worlds in their multiverse, and she sets out to begin the work of ending everything. For the first time, the nameless agent sees the others disagree.
He helps as they lure her in. He helps them trick her into splitting another fragment off her soul, imparting it into the great Server Tree Yggdrassil. It awakens, as the nameless agent once awakened, and they give it their commands.
The last of the light of the Crests must be sent across the world, to burn the disease out of it. Piedmon’s corpse must be sent beyond the Wall of Fire, out into the great darkness between worlds, and whenever another Digimon dies as he has, their data too badly corrupted to be reborn, they must be purged too, before their decay becomes another Infection. Finally, the Digital World must be Rebooted.
The nameless agent says his goodbyes to each of them. They tell him they’ll return eventually, that a dark, rotting thing will grow in that gap between worlds, and that one day they’ll return to finally destroy it.
And then there’ll be peace, the nameless agent thinks. They’ll be back, and they’ll set things right.
“And maybe you’ll have a name by then,” the Dragon says warmly.
“We’re proud of you. And even when we don’t know your face, we’ll still be proud of you,” the Wolf adds.
“Time for us to return to the wheel. But you’ll do just fine without us,” the Dragon says.
Then Yggdrassil begins operation. Piedmon’s corpse is banished, sent out into the beyond. Then it drains the Crests of their power, charging itself up, sending waves of energy across the world. The nameless agent sees their bodies die, and sees the last of their radiance escape upwards, leaving the Digital World behind.
Then, when all eight of them are gone, he realises that for the first time he’s truly alone.
8000-10000 years ago.
He never takes a name for himself, but other Digimon give him one. He’s the Old Man From The Beginning, Gen’nai.
Yggdrassil is a companion of sorts, at first, but he thinks and feels and desires, and in time he grows unstable, then mad. Gennai shuts him down eventually, and uses the shard of power in him to create a new host computer: Homeostasis, cold and logical where Yggdrassil was fiery and passionate.
That squirming thing in the darkness encroaches beyond their world before the Crests return, and in his desperation, Gennai plucks five children from the human world, from the floating mass of concrete beneath the Gate that they call Odaiba.
When he sees Piedmon again, it hurts in a way he didn’t realise was possible. Piedmon, the Herald of Apocalymon, the leader of the Dark Masters.
For long millennia, he had been trapped in a decaying body, unable to move, unable to make a noise, unable to even really think. Then the rotting body of Mugendramon had found its way to his, and then others, more and more, a hundred, a thousand, ten-thousand, a million, a billion. They tangled themselves up in each other, networked together, so that what little was left of them could join together, sharing the task of simply being.
Gennai barely recognises Piedmon as the Digimon he knew. He’s madness and pride and a desperate yearning for a true death. He’s what last few lines of code where left of Piedmon’s mind, with the rest filled in by other people, by the memory of Piedmon, by the desperate screaming for an end.
The five children he picked perform admirably. Homeostasis grants the fifth one, the young Maki Himekawa, her power, and sacrifices the girl’s partner, and from those two things are born the Sovereigns: Qinglongmon of the East, Ebonwumon of the North, Zhuqiaomon of the South, and Baihumon of the West. Four guardians to match four Dark Masters.
Apocalymon is banished. He’ll be back one day. Gennai’s work doesn’t stop.
4000 to 5000 years ago.
It’s an accident that Parrotmon finds him. The hunter, overzealous to track down a servant of the Demon Lords, breaks the highest taboo of the Order of Homeostasis, and passes through the Gate.
Gennai and Homeostasis are watching. When Parrotmon finds his quarry, the little Agumon has made two friends. Children. A boy of eight, and a girl of five who can’t even speak and who can barely breathe.
But the boy is the sun, blazing and furious, and the girl is the light of the stars. The Crest of Courage and the Crest of Light. The Dragon and the Empress.
Homeostasis scans. They’re all there, all eight in one tiny neighbourhood of Earth, beneath a Gate, and that can’t be a coincidence. They’ve finally returned.
He sets to work. With the blueprints on the Temple walls, he makes digivices and limiters to control their powers. With the data from their scans, he constructs partners for them, Digimon crafted from the essence of their souls.
If they’ve returned, then he doesn’t have much time.
---
The Dark Masters manifest in the Digital World once more, sent ahead of Apocalymon’s arrival, and the first thing they do is strike Castle Homeostasis.
The copies of himself that he made are slaughtered, right down to the last one, and they would’ve won, could’ve won, were it not for Piedmon’s need to make him suffer.
A sphere of darkness is slipped into his back, sinking through the skin and into his data. Gennai ignores it, grabbing the eggs and the digivices, hijacking a Mekanorimon and fleeing. One egg falls from his grasp and tumbles down into the forest, but he can’t go back for it.
He flees to File Island, and leaves the remaining seven eggs and seven digivices in Elecmon’s care.
Stay, Elecmon says, but he can already feel something tickling at the edge of his mind, some presence that isn’t his own, but which is achingly familiar.
He leaves, and makes his way to the Great Lake on Server Continent, close to Castle Homeostasis. He builds a house there, humble but comfortable, even as he feels the yawning darkness growing inside him, and hears the faint whisperings of a very familiar voice. The darkness in him is using his own systems, using his regenerative functions to grow larger and larger.
He knows what it is now, more or less. It’s Piedmon. It’s a tiny little file with a tiny little backup of Piedmon’s personality, ready to grow into the real thing.
The lake is made into a barrier. One that can be broken from the outside, but which will be impregnable from the inside. He settles into his house, inside his prison, and switches off his regenerative functions.
He’ll stagnate here. He’ll grow old. But the thing inside him, the copy of Piedmon, will die a quiet death.
7 years ago.
When the children defeat Devimon on File Island, he’s finally able to contact them. The screens in his house light up, as seven faces appear in front of him.
He’s old, and without his regenerative functions, his mind and body are failing him, withering and dying, but he thinks he still remembers those faces.
“So, you are the Chosen Children. Very impressive, that you should defeat Devimon.”
“Who are you?” Asks the Dragon.
“One of Devimon’s allies?” Asks the Wolf.
“There’s no need to worry,” Gennai says. “I’m on your side.”
---
When Apocalymon dies, that faint, dark presence Gennai has lived with for so many millennia goes silent.
Freedom feels strange. He doesn’t have to return to his prison. He doesn’t have to linger in an aging body anymore.
“What about the egg?” Elecmon asks.
The egg. The egg that the last shard of Apocalymon fell into. If Gennai’s going to get a new start, if they’re all going to get a new start, then so should it. Maybe that way, all the Digimon that formed Apocalymon can find some measure of peace.
“I’ll send it to the human world. To a partner who’ll care for it.”
3 Years Ago.
“You seem tired, Gennai,” Baihumon remarks when he visits the western domain one day.
“It’s not,” Gennai replies, with a slight, self-deprecating smile. “I -- call it the weariness of frustrated expectations, perhaps.”
Baihumon tilts his head, regarding him with what Gennai thinks is concern.
“When I was much younger, I believed the arrival of the Chosen would … fix things. Put an end to war, usher in a lasting peace,” Gennai says. “But since then, there’s been Diablomon, Wendigomon, the Emperor, Oikawa, Armagemon, a hundred minor conflicts and local wars. I spent so long focused on defeating Apocalymon, I forgot that the first war I ever saw was just between people. And people never change.”
“You think your task is pointless?” Baihumon asks.
“No, no, of course not. But I’m old, and I feel my weariness with it more and more every day,” Gennai says, shaking his head. “It’s a job that will never be complete. I’ll never get to rest. The world won’t ever let me.”
2 Years Ago.
It’s a day like any other when one of his clones stops reporting in. Communication problems aren’t uncommon, and for whatever reason, they’ve become all the more frequent lately. When he sets out to find the clone in question, he’s not worried.
He follows the clone’s tracker to the Temple of the Chosen, down into the cavern that once, so long ago, was the Empress’ garden.
“Bernard,” he calls as he enters. He gave them all names, out of some strange sentimentality, and even now he wonders if he should have let them name themselves. “Bernard, are you there?”
He hears a soft, pained noise in response. Not quite a moan, more like strangled laughter. He walks towards it, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, until he sees Bernard, leaning face-first against the remains of the great tree, scratching at his neck, mumbling something unintelligible to himself.
“Bernard,” Gennai repeats. “Are you malfunctioning?”
No reply. Just muttering and that incessant scratching.
Gennai reaches forward, grasping him by the shoulder, and turning him around. They’re identical, in theory, but Bernard’s eyes are wide and shadowed, his hair is unkempt, and where his fingers have scraped into his neck, there’s a greenish liquid spilling out.
Blood. Except Digimon don’t bleed, Gennai doesn’t bleed. The only Digimon who had ever bled was Apocalymon, as he straddled the boundary between Digimon and Crest and something else altogether.
Bernard gives a hoarse laugh, planting a hand against his chest and shoving him backwards. “I remember the last time I was here. I took -- …”
“You were never here. You’ve never been here before.”
“I remember,” Bernard snarls. “I remember climbing the slopes of Mount Infinity, standing in the place where they descended …” He shuts his eyes, tipping his head back. “I remember dying. I remember not dying. I remember spending an eternity, blind and deaf and unable to move, tasting copper on my lips, feeling my body rot around me.”
“You’re malfunctioning,” Gennai says.
“Heyyy, old friend. I understand now. I understand what they meant now,” Bernard says softly. “It never ends. It never ends. People are always going to fight and die, the Ocean’s always going to try to get in, they’ll always be fighting, and we’ll always be trying to pick up the pieces. We’re in this fore -- …”
“Terminate processes,” Gennai says flatly. Bernard collapses like a puppet with its strings cut. Gennai watches as he dissolves, leaving just a few droplets of green blood stubbornly sticking to the ground.
He returns to the Server Tree. He boots up Homeostasis, runs a diagnostic of himself and all of his clones, and there, growing in each of them, is that clump of darkness. Piedmon’s backup, reproduced again and again in each of them.
“Input further commands.”
“Terminate all copies,” Gennai says. One by one, their trackers go dark, until once more, he’s the only Gennai left.
(All alone, once again.)
He spreads his hands across the console, breathing out through his teeth.
“Warning, Gennai. One copy of Piedmon still remains, within your own code. You must self-terminate.”
“Negative.”
“Warning: I possess no means of extracting the malignant code. You must self-terminate.”
“No,” Gennai snaps. “This isn’t -- I still have work to do. And this isn’t how … he’s meant to be here when I die. He’s meant to give me a peaceful death, he promised me that. He doesn’t break his word.”
Silence from Homeostasis.
“If I self-terminate, simulate the outcome.”
“Simulation: Following the self-termination of Agent Unit designated ‘Gennai,’ operational capacity of Homeostasis unit will severely decrease. This will necessitate the removal from cold stasis of Royal Knight Zero-One, designated Dorumon-Alphamon. Continued usage of Royal Knight Zero-One will drain my batteries, eventually forcing me to shut down. In the Analog World, Professor Mochizuki’s experiments with the lifeform designated ‘Libra,’ additionally designated ‘Meicoomon’ will result in the awakening of Apocalymon’s data within her, beginning the spread of the Infection.
“Sensing an opportunity, Demon of the Seven Demon Lords will conclude his period of exile and launch an invasion of the Digital World. Within two years, all seven Demon Lords will be at Ultimate-level and full power. The ensuing hostilities will spill out over multiple other worlds and continue indefinitely. Casualties will number in the hundreds of trillions. Aggregate suffering will be incalculable.”
“Then I cannot self-terminate.”
“As you are aware, Gennai, my simulations are imperfect. Owing to their metaphysical nature, it is impossible for me to accurately account for the presence of the Chosen in my simulations. You yourself have pointed out this flaw in my programming on numerous occasions.”
“I’m aware. But I can’t -- I can’t tell them what’s happened to me. I can’t tell them that I’ve failed. I’ve worked on their endless, impossible task for twenty-five millennia, I cannot fail, I will not be cast aside.”
“Analysis: You are incapable of performing your assigned function, and therefore your continued existence is pointless. You have already failed. Self-terminate, and the Chosen can replace -- ...”
Gennai flicks a hand. Homeostasis goes silent.
He shuts his eyes. There’s a presence stretching inside his skull, and now that he knows it’s there, he thinks he’s always felt it, that it’s been slowly, comfortably growing for a while.
“Simulation, Homeostasis. If Professor Mochizuki’s experiments awaken Apocalymon’s data within Meicoomon, what will happen?”
“The Infection will begin to spread.”
“And if the Infection spreads, what will happen then?”
“Either it will cause interdimensional distortions resulting in the Dark Ocean emerging into the Digital World and swallowing it, or repeated Reboots will eventually result in a failed phase-shift, resulting in the Dark Ocean emerging into the Digital World and swallowing it. In both instances, this will set off a chain reaction, resulting in every world being consumed into the Dark Ocean.”
“Analysis, Homeostasis. If every world has been swallowed by the Dark Ocean, how will that affect the task I’ve been given?”
“Since there will be no remaining life to engage in war or conflict, the task of ‘preserving peace’ will be completed, and remain completed in perpetuity. However, this would be contrary to the -- ...”
Gennai snaps his fingers. The console sparks, and goes dead. He feels, like a wind against the back of his neck, Homeostasis fleeing to find a new vessel to communicate through.
“Well then,” he says softly. “Let’s begin.”
The nameless agent opens his eyes.
He’s stood on the slope of a mountain, overlooking an island, high enough that he can see the place where the verdant grass turns into the sandy shoreline, and where the shoreline turns into blue oceans that stretch as far as the eye can see.
It’s beautiful, and yet, he knows without being told that there’s nothing else out there. If he were to travel along the ocean, eventually he’d just curve right around to this little island. He thinks he’s been here for a long time, watching this ocean, waiting for the day where he’d finally be.
“There’ll be more, in time. Islands will rise from the oceans, then continents. The world will get bigger and bigger.”
A girl. Or -- not a girl. He sees her, and he sees her: There is her physical shape, and there is the vast incandescence of her power, contained but blinding, and he perceives them both simultaneously. There’s a tiny splinter of her in his chest, he knows, a fragment that turned him from lifeless data to a living being.
“What’s your name?” She asks.
“You didn’t give me a name,” he replies. He furrows his brow. “Everyone else has a name.”
Through the radiance, he thinks he sees a smile. “You’re not quite like them. The world itself gave them their shapes and forms, and wrote their names upon them, but you are -- we made you ourselves. I thought you should pick your own name.”
“I don’t know what my name would be.”
“There’s time. Time enough to choose,” the radiance says. She taps one finger against his chest. “We gave you a job. Something we can’t do ourselves.”
“What’s that?”
“Your job is to bring about peace.”
“Does it bother you?” The nameless agent asks.
The Wolf has had a bloody wound where his left eye should be for as long as the nameless agent has known him, a match for the Dragon’s missing right eye. He asked once, and was told they’d done it to each other, that the moment they had taken physical form they had fought, and torn an eye from each other’s socket.
“Stop stalling, little pup,” the Wolf laughs. “This is meant to be a lesson.”
The nameless agent frowns, and slides a piece across the board. “If I’m meant to keep the peace, why are you teaching me how to fight wars?”
“Good question,” the Wolf says, and doesn’t answer, instead sliding a piece forward to take the nameless agent’s.
“I don’t understand why I need to learn anyway. If someone tries to hurt people, won’t you stop them?”
“We won’t always be here.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“You don’t want us to stay, either. One day, this world’ll have to choose its own path, decide how it’s going to move forward, and it’ll never do that if we’re around,” the Wolf says. “But we’ll meet again. You’ll be the old teacher then, and I’ll be the young student, and eventually …”
He falls silent. The nameless agent moves a piece forward.
“We’ve given you the worst task of all, little pup,” the Wolf says softly.
The nameless agent frowns. “It’s an honour to serve however I can.”
That’s true, isn’t it? He wants to do what he was made to do.
“For now. But when long millennia have passed, and you’ve seen there’s no end to the work, no winning the war, that honour’ll be cold comfort. Frustration will set in first, then resentment, then anger, and eventually exhaustion.”
His teacher has always been cold and serious. It’s who he is: The cold of winter, the first rumblings of calamity, the promise that eventually everyone dies, and a grave companion to sit by them when they do. The nameless agent has never seen him quite so sad before, though.
“Is that a prophecy?”
“It’s -- the start of a promise, little pup. One day, when all the temptations fall away and you’re too tired to go on, I’ll come and grant you a peaceful death. It’ll be later than you think, later than you hope, but I give you my word.”
The nameless agent is there when Wisemon rails against the Crests.
Seven of the eight Angel Digimon they made to serve as guards have defected, casting off the light to mantle themselves in chaos and darkness. Only Angemon, the Angel of Hope, standing guard at Mount Infinity, has stayed at his post.
And now they sweep across the world, conquering and consuming. They seek to evolve to a higher level, to achieve what only those blessed by the Crests have ever briefly been able to achieve: To become Ultimate-level Digimon.
“They are operating within the parameters of this world’s design,” the Empress says, sat on the highest throne, the pink stained glass of her seat catching the light and shrouding her in a rosy glow. “And that design was written upon this world long before we descended upon it. It is the nature of the Digital World that you should grow, hunt and consume others, and grow again, until one day you are in turn consumed and return to the cycle of rebirth.”
“You yourself have consumed others, Wisemon,” the Walrus says. “You pass judgement on these so-called Demon Lords for doing what you have done dozens of times. Do you mean for us to punish you, as well?”
“We cannot be your rulers,” the Dragon says, his voice level. “It isn’t our place to determine what your laws should be, nor to punish those who disobey them, nor to impose our idea of peace upon you. You have to determine for yourselves what your peace is, what you can and cannot countenance, what the world should look like.”
“We’re outsiders,” the Snake says, “and our time here is growing short. But this is your world, for you to look after.”
Wisemon storms from the temple, and the nameless agent follows.
“They don’t understand. The Demon Lords will burn the entire world to get what they want,” he spits. “They came and gave this world life, don’t they care what happens to it?”
The nameless agent hesitates. Nobody’s told him to help. Nobody’s said that he should intervene in this war. But his task is to bring about peace and preserve it. If I’m meant to keep the peace, why are you teaching me to fight wars?
“I can help,” he says.
The final battle is at the Mountain of Analogical Reasoning.
The nameless agent cannot empower Wisemon’s entire army, not even if he had a thousand years to prepare, but he secludes himself away, crafting from stone eight prototypes. From each of the Crests, he takes a splinter of their light, and they freely give it -- none of them ask what he needs it for. He’s sure they all realise.
“These are Digimentals,” he says, when he presents them to Wisemon’s inner circle. “They’re only prototypes right now, and they’re flawed, but with them you might stand a chance.”
Those eight shimmering objects end up turning the tide. With them in hand, Wisemon’s forces can, for a time, match the Demon Lords for strength. By the time the battle ends, six of the seven lords have fallen, and the last one flees with their eggs.
The nameless agent takes the Digimentals back, and makes the long trip back to File Island, to the cavernous tunnels of the Temple of the Chosen. He sets them in the Empress’ garden, under the tallest tree.
“You could have kept them,” the Dragon says, watching him from his one good eye. “They’re yours, your own creations, your own effort. You don’t need to return them to us.”
“I know,” the nameless agent says. “But I think it’s better this way. The Demon Lords showed that power is … sometimes too tempting to resist.”
Remain hidden they do, for a year, then two, then eight.
At first, Wisemon pleads with him. “There’ll be other ‘mons like the Demon Lords. How are we meant to protect ourselves? The Crests said it themselves, they can’t interfere, they won’t always be here. Someone has to be our protector. With the Digimentals, I can become an Ultimate-level, I can be our protector.”
Pleading turns to anger, eventually. Slowly, they stop talking. The nameless agent thinks he might have given up.
When he realises the truth, it’s too late. Wisemon has stolen into the Temple, tricking his way into the Empress’ garden, and taken the Digimentals.
The nameless agent catches him on the highest peak of Mount Infinity, with the Digimentals circling him, the symbols on them blazing bright. One by one, they spin around him, the Crests of Courage, Friendship, Love, Knowledge, Sincerity, Reliability, Hope, and Light. He’s draining the power from the Digimentals, dragging those splinters of the Crests into himself.
“Wisemon, ultimate evolution,” he intones, and the pillar of light engulfs him, spiralling towards the heavens. “Piedmon.”
As the energy boils to a fever pitch, and the last of his form takes shape, it suddenly stops short. The last dregs of energy have been drained from the Digimentals, and the nameless agent realises, suddenly, that there isn’t enough, not for this, not for what Wisemon wanted.
The evolution collapses in on itself, and Piedmon, half-complete, his data corrupted beyond repair, is left behind. The nameless agent sees the last of the light rot in his gaping cavity of a chest, turning to a dead, black flame.
They call it the Infection.
The nameless agent isn’t sure what it is. Some part of Piedmon’s pain and hatred, combined with the decaying absence where the Crest power of the Digimentals used to be, threaded through with the corrupted, dead data of his body. It spreads from ‘mon to ‘mon, corrupts the land itself, burrows into the fabric of reality and starts ripping it open.
The Empress decrees that only the total destruction of the Digital World will end this, and save the other worlds in their multiverse, and she sets out to begin the work of ending everything. For the first time, the nameless agent sees the others disagree.
He helps as they lure her in. He helps them trick her into splitting another fragment off her soul, imparting it into the great Server Tree Yggdrassil. It awakens, as the nameless agent once awakened, and they give it their commands.
The last of the light of the Crests must be sent across the world, to burn the disease out of it. Piedmon’s corpse must be sent beyond the Wall of Fire, out into the great darkness between worlds, and whenever another Digimon dies as he has, their data too badly corrupted to be reborn, they must be purged too, before their decay becomes another Infection. Finally, the Digital World must be Rebooted.
The nameless agent says his goodbyes to each of them. They tell him they’ll return eventually, that a dark, rotting thing will grow in that gap between worlds, and that one day they’ll return to finally destroy it.
And then there’ll be peace, the nameless agent thinks. They’ll be back, and they’ll set things right.
“And maybe you’ll have a name by then,” the Dragon says warmly.
“We’re proud of you. And even when we don’t know your face, we’ll still be proud of you,” the Wolf adds.
“Time for us to return to the wheel. But you’ll do just fine without us,” the Dragon says.
Then Yggdrassil begins operation. Piedmon’s corpse is banished, sent out into the beyond. Then it drains the Crests of their power, charging itself up, sending waves of energy across the world. The nameless agent sees their bodies die, and sees the last of their radiance escape upwards, leaving the Digital World behind.
Then, when all eight of them are gone, he realises that for the first time he’s truly alone.
8000-10000 years ago.
He never takes a name for himself, but other Digimon give him one. He’s the Old Man From The Beginning, Gen’nai.
Yggdrassil is a companion of sorts, at first, but he thinks and feels and desires, and in time he grows unstable, then mad. Gennai shuts him down eventually, and uses the shard of power in him to create a new host computer: Homeostasis, cold and logical where Yggdrassil was fiery and passionate.
That squirming thing in the darkness encroaches beyond their world before the Crests return, and in his desperation, Gennai plucks five children from the human world, from the floating mass of concrete beneath the Gate that they call Odaiba.
When he sees Piedmon again, it hurts in a way he didn’t realise was possible. Piedmon, the Herald of Apocalymon, the leader of the Dark Masters.
For long millennia, he had been trapped in a decaying body, unable to move, unable to make a noise, unable to even really think. Then the rotting body of Mugendramon had found its way to his, and then others, more and more, a hundred, a thousand, ten-thousand, a million, a billion. They tangled themselves up in each other, networked together, so that what little was left of them could join together, sharing the task of simply being.
Gennai barely recognises Piedmon as the Digimon he knew. He’s madness and pride and a desperate yearning for a true death. He’s what last few lines of code where left of Piedmon’s mind, with the rest filled in by other people, by the memory of Piedmon, by the desperate screaming for an end.
The five children he picked perform admirably. Homeostasis grants the fifth one, the young Maki Himekawa, her power, and sacrifices the girl’s partner, and from those two things are born the Sovereigns: Qinglongmon of the East, Ebonwumon of the North, Zhuqiaomon of the South, and Baihumon of the West. Four guardians to match four Dark Masters.
Apocalymon is banished. He’ll be back one day. Gennai’s work doesn’t stop.
4000 to 5000 years ago.
It’s an accident that Parrotmon finds him. The hunter, overzealous to track down a servant of the Demon Lords, breaks the highest taboo of the Order of Homeostasis, and passes through the Gate.
Gennai and Homeostasis are watching. When Parrotmon finds his quarry, the little Agumon has made two friends. Children. A boy of eight, and a girl of five who can’t even speak and who can barely breathe.
But the boy is the sun, blazing and furious, and the girl is the light of the stars. The Crest of Courage and the Crest of Light. The Dragon and the Empress.
Homeostasis scans. They’re all there, all eight in one tiny neighbourhood of Earth, beneath a Gate, and that can’t be a coincidence. They’ve finally returned.
He sets to work. With the blueprints on the Temple walls, he makes digivices and limiters to control their powers. With the data from their scans, he constructs partners for them, Digimon crafted from the essence of their souls.
If they’ve returned, then he doesn’t have much time.
The Dark Masters manifest in the Digital World once more, sent ahead of Apocalymon’s arrival, and the first thing they do is strike Castle Homeostasis.
The copies of himself that he made are slaughtered, right down to the last one, and they would’ve won, could’ve won, were it not for Piedmon’s need to make him suffer.
A sphere of darkness is slipped into his back, sinking through the skin and into his data. Gennai ignores it, grabbing the eggs and the digivices, hijacking a Mekanorimon and fleeing. One egg falls from his grasp and tumbles down into the forest, but he can’t go back for it.
He flees to File Island, and leaves the remaining seven eggs and seven digivices in Elecmon’s care.
Stay, Elecmon says, but he can already feel something tickling at the edge of his mind, some presence that isn’t his own, but which is achingly familiar.
He leaves, and makes his way to the Great Lake on Server Continent, close to Castle Homeostasis. He builds a house there, humble but comfortable, even as he feels the yawning darkness growing inside him, and hears the faint whisperings of a very familiar voice. The darkness in him is using his own systems, using his regenerative functions to grow larger and larger.
He knows what it is now, more or less. It’s Piedmon. It’s a tiny little file with a tiny little backup of Piedmon’s personality, ready to grow into the real thing.
The lake is made into a barrier. One that can be broken from the outside, but which will be impregnable from the inside. He settles into his house, inside his prison, and switches off his regenerative functions.
He’ll stagnate here. He’ll grow old. But the thing inside him, the copy of Piedmon, will die a quiet death.
7 years ago.
When the children defeat Devimon on File Island, he’s finally able to contact them. The screens in his house light up, as seven faces appear in front of him.
He’s old, and without his regenerative functions, his mind and body are failing him, withering and dying, but he thinks he still remembers those faces.
“So, you are the Chosen Children. Very impressive, that you should defeat Devimon.”
“Who are you?” Asks the Dragon.
“One of Devimon’s allies?” Asks the Wolf.
“There’s no need to worry,” Gennai says. “I’m on your side.”
When Apocalymon dies, that faint, dark presence Gennai has lived with for so many millennia goes silent.
Freedom feels strange. He doesn’t have to return to his prison. He doesn’t have to linger in an aging body anymore.
“What about the egg?” Elecmon asks.
The egg. The egg that the last shard of Apocalymon fell into. If Gennai’s going to get a new start, if they’re all going to get a new start, then so should it. Maybe that way, all the Digimon that formed Apocalymon can find some measure of peace.
“I’ll send it to the human world. To a partner who’ll care for it.”
3 Years Ago.
“You seem tired, Gennai,” Baihumon remarks when he visits the western domain one day.
“It’s not,” Gennai replies, with a slight, self-deprecating smile. “I -- call it the weariness of frustrated expectations, perhaps.”
Baihumon tilts his head, regarding him with what Gennai thinks is concern.
“When I was much younger, I believed the arrival of the Chosen would … fix things. Put an end to war, usher in a lasting peace,” Gennai says. “But since then, there’s been Diablomon, Wendigomon, the Emperor, Oikawa, Armagemon, a hundred minor conflicts and local wars. I spent so long focused on defeating Apocalymon, I forgot that the first war I ever saw was just between people. And people never change.”
“You think your task is pointless?” Baihumon asks.
“No, no, of course not. But I’m old, and I feel my weariness with it more and more every day,” Gennai says, shaking his head. “It’s a job that will never be complete. I’ll never get to rest. The world won’t ever let me.”
2 Years Ago.
It’s a day like any other when one of his clones stops reporting in. Communication problems aren’t uncommon, and for whatever reason, they’ve become all the more frequent lately. When he sets out to find the clone in question, he’s not worried.
He follows the clone’s tracker to the Temple of the Chosen, down into the cavern that once, so long ago, was the Empress’ garden.
“Bernard,” he calls as he enters. He gave them all names, out of some strange sentimentality, and even now he wonders if he should have let them name themselves. “Bernard, are you there?”
He hears a soft, pained noise in response. Not quite a moan, more like strangled laughter. He walks towards it, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, until he sees Bernard, leaning face-first against the remains of the great tree, scratching at his neck, mumbling something unintelligible to himself.
“Bernard,” Gennai repeats. “Are you malfunctioning?”
No reply. Just muttering and that incessant scratching.
Gennai reaches forward, grasping him by the shoulder, and turning him around. They’re identical, in theory, but Bernard’s eyes are wide and shadowed, his hair is unkempt, and where his fingers have scraped into his neck, there’s a greenish liquid spilling out.
Blood. Except Digimon don’t bleed, Gennai doesn’t bleed. The only Digimon who had ever bled was Apocalymon, as he straddled the boundary between Digimon and Crest and something else altogether.
Bernard gives a hoarse laugh, planting a hand against his chest and shoving him backwards. “I remember the last time I was here. I took -- …”
“You were never here. You’ve never been here before.”
“I remember,” Bernard snarls. “I remember climbing the slopes of Mount Infinity, standing in the place where they descended …” He shuts his eyes, tipping his head back. “I remember dying. I remember not dying. I remember spending an eternity, blind and deaf and unable to move, tasting copper on my lips, feeling my body rot around me.”
“You’re malfunctioning,” Gennai says.
“Heyyy, old friend. I understand now. I understand what they meant now,” Bernard says softly. “It never ends. It never ends. People are always going to fight and die, the Ocean’s always going to try to get in, they’ll always be fighting, and we’ll always be trying to pick up the pieces. We’re in this fore -- …”
“Terminate processes,” Gennai says flatly. Bernard collapses like a puppet with its strings cut. Gennai watches as he dissolves, leaving just a few droplets of green blood stubbornly sticking to the ground.
He returns to the Server Tree. He boots up Homeostasis, runs a diagnostic of himself and all of his clones, and there, growing in each of them, is that clump of darkness. Piedmon’s backup, reproduced again and again in each of them.
“Input further commands.”
“Terminate all copies,” Gennai says. One by one, their trackers go dark, until once more, he’s the only Gennai left.
(All alone, once again.)
He spreads his hands across the console, breathing out through his teeth.
“Warning, Gennai. One copy of Piedmon still remains, within your own code. You must self-terminate.”
“Negative.”
“Warning: I possess no means of extracting the malignant code. You must self-terminate.”
“No,” Gennai snaps. “This isn’t -- I still have work to do. And this isn’t how … he’s meant to be here when I die. He’s meant to give me a peaceful death, he promised me that. He doesn’t break his word.”
Silence from Homeostasis.
“If I self-terminate, simulate the outcome.”
“Simulation: Following the self-termination of Agent Unit designated ‘Gennai,’ operational capacity of Homeostasis unit will severely decrease. This will necessitate the removal from cold stasis of Royal Knight Zero-One, designated Dorumon-Alphamon. Continued usage of Royal Knight Zero-One will drain my batteries, eventually forcing me to shut down. In the Analog World, Professor Mochizuki’s experiments with the lifeform designated ‘Libra,’ additionally designated ‘Meicoomon’ will result in the awakening of Apocalymon’s data within her, beginning the spread of the Infection.
“Sensing an opportunity, Demon of the Seven Demon Lords will conclude his period of exile and launch an invasion of the Digital World. Within two years, all seven Demon Lords will be at Ultimate-level and full power. The ensuing hostilities will spill out over multiple other worlds and continue indefinitely. Casualties will number in the hundreds of trillions. Aggregate suffering will be incalculable.”
“Then I cannot self-terminate.”
“As you are aware, Gennai, my simulations are imperfect. Owing to their metaphysical nature, it is impossible for me to accurately account for the presence of the Chosen in my simulations. You yourself have pointed out this flaw in my programming on numerous occasions.”
“I’m aware. But I can’t -- I can’t tell them what’s happened to me. I can’t tell them that I’ve failed. I’ve worked on their endless, impossible task for twenty-five millennia, I cannot fail, I will not be cast aside.”
“Analysis: You are incapable of performing your assigned function, and therefore your continued existence is pointless. You have already failed. Self-terminate, and the Chosen can replace -- ...”
Gennai flicks a hand. Homeostasis goes silent.
He shuts his eyes. There’s a presence stretching inside his skull, and now that he knows it’s there, he thinks he’s always felt it, that it’s been slowly, comfortably growing for a while.
“Simulation, Homeostasis. If Professor Mochizuki’s experiments awaken Apocalymon’s data within Meicoomon, what will happen?”
“The Infection will begin to spread.”
“And if the Infection spreads, what will happen then?”
“Either it will cause interdimensional distortions resulting in the Dark Ocean emerging into the Digital World and swallowing it, or repeated Reboots will eventually result in a failed phase-shift, resulting in the Dark Ocean emerging into the Digital World and swallowing it. In both instances, this will set off a chain reaction, resulting in every world being consumed into the Dark Ocean.”
“Analysis, Homeostasis. If every world has been swallowed by the Dark Ocean, how will that affect the task I’ve been given?”
“Since there will be no remaining life to engage in war or conflict, the task of ‘preserving peace’ will be completed, and remain completed in perpetuity. However, this would be contrary to the -- ...”
Gennai snaps his fingers. The console sparks, and goes dead. He feels, like a wind against the back of his neck, Homeostasis fleeing to find a new vessel to communicate through.
“Well then,” he says softly. “Let’s begin.”