You are Marnie, whose journey is almost at its end. For the second time, you've ascended to the very pinnacle of City-87-O, the digital ark that has hosted you for 16 long years. Through endless trials and tribulations, you and your partner Phascomon have fought against the City and the Tower, and come to stand beneath the Portal to the true Digital World. At last, you've unlocked your best friend's final form: The God Man Plutomon, an exemplar of otherworldly strength who can stand against even Brigadramon. Now is the time to pit these two Mega-level Digimon against one another, and claim your freedom at last.==Thread 1:https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2025/6216903/Thread 2:https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2025/6254189/Thread 3:https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2025/6297141/Thread 4:https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2026/6332376/Thread 5:https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2026/6373439/
>Let Plutomon continue to tear through this obstacle with raw power. He's always, always been pining for it. With your hearts synchronized like this, you understand once again that it's never ever been selfish. He wants it so he can protect you. Now he finally can. Your sense of prudence is telling you that you should help; that you should contribute in some way. You may be able to figure something out if you dig through your folder for whatever solutions have survived your Podding. However, you sense that Plutomon wants to handle this on his own. He needs this. The rekindled hope in your hearts needs more fuel to keep going, to encourage you both and show that you can overwhelm Brigadramon and the forces of the City, even now. "Okay." You agree.Plutomon's shoulders split open, and he lowers one of his arms to channel the black energy that's overflowing from his palms. The other grips you gently. Your partner lunges forward, heading for Brigadramon. The missiles sail past you, many of them striking each other and detonating. You see numerous windows and loading circles in the air, conjured up by Brigadramon and his Admin permissions. LOADING PROP 83/526Your ears are overwhelmed by the constant explosions. Plutomon has discovered a simple and foolproof method of stopping the ones that come directly at him. Whenever enough projectiles gather before the two of you, he summons a massive set of jaws to crush them, containing the explosion within its data-destroying bounds."HELL'S GATE!"Brigadramon jolts forward to attack. However, he changes courses before coming anywhere near you, spying your partner's trap. Plutomon scoffs in irritation, and you feel his displeasure rumbling through your link. The vestiges of his plan poke at your mind, and you turn your head to look.By moving around at his current speed, Plutomon has gathered up a massive swarm of missiles. They're still chasing him down in a relatively straight pattern. It would have been nice to bait the enemy Mega into it, but his spatial awareness is too good to fall for such a trick. Plutomon dives for the Tower's surface instead, where the turrets begin firing at him.LOADING PROP 192/526
Freeze code, malware, chains, gravity-reducing projectiles, and all manner of temporary gimmicks strike his ebony armour. Many of the attacks are devoured by the hungry mouths across his body, some of which are uncomfortable close to your flesh. Not a single attack from the paltry turrets can wound him at his current data volume. The missiles streak through the sky in pursuit, the distance between them and their target rapidly shrinking.Plutomon hovers slightly above the helipad, his tail raking across the ground and shredding turrets with ease. He flips upside down to fly on his back while watching the missiles. LOADING PROP 352/526Once enough of them are coming straight for him, he sends himself upwards at an angle. The first explosives strike the Tower, detonating against it and tearing through the turrets. A massive number of them are unable to stop on time, accompanying the initial wave in blowing up part of their home base. The explosions travel backwards, forming a chain reaction that takes out a far greater number than you expected. The laurels atop your head are blown off by the force, but Plutomon's tail snaps outwards and seizes it in a gentle grip. He sets the verdant wreath back in place, his message clear. Not a single hair is to be harmed if he can help it. "HAGGARD CLUSTER!"Plutomon launches a blast at Brigadramon, who's been trying to close in while you were distracted. The dragon performs a barrel roll to avoid it, looking somewhat less stable than before, then vanishes into the night again. A wave of missiles have been erased along the way, and their disintegrated scraps rain down on the cityscape below.LOADING PROP 412/526Many of the missiles are still moving. Almost all of them have been loaded, but not all have been destroyed by your partner yet. He spirals through the air, leading them through the dense clouds of data once again. The sheer density of his presence, much like Brigadramon, cleaves gaps in the clouds. Wisps of fragmented information are pulled into his orbit all the while. The missiles aren't powerful enough to have such an effect. Once he moves into heavy cover, the explosives begin tearing the very sky apart. White lightning streaks across the shattering stormfront, blowing missiles into shreds and causing the whole cloud to fall apart into tiny particles. A stray bolt moves towards Plutomon during this separation. He swings his hand, effortlessly dispelling it with a bolt of his own. LOADING PROP 495/526The new missiles are petering out. Brigadramon has stopped firing too, and is hovering somewhere above you instead, guarding the mouth of the Portal stalwartly. The opening has shrunk significantly compared to several minutes ago.
Plutomon returns to the surface of the Tower, watching the remnants of the explosive swarm streak towards you. There are still hundreds left. Once he makes sure there are no turrets in your vicinity, he gently sets you down, ever-conscious of Brigadramon's position. His crimson eye flickers backwards to look at you, wordlessly asking if you'll be alright.You give him a nod of encouragement and draw your pistol for protection. Your partner lunges to meet the missiles. His jaws snap down repeatedly, destroying the information that comprises them before the explosions can trigger. When he's able to spare the effort, he seizes and flings them back at their fellows to cause chain reactions that take out segments of the swarm. The whole time, he makes sure to pay attention to every factor around him, ensuring that no bots sneak up on you, or that Brigadramon doesn't move to ambush you. Yet again, he transforms into a swirling maelstrom of golden teeth and claws, devouring all in his path. Once the final explosion clears, he floats there with his cape tattered and worn, and with barely any new injuries on him. LOADING PROP 526/526MEMORY COMPLETE"You did it!" You gasp.Five hundred missiles were nothing to Plutomon. True to his unspoken promise, he's dealt with the attack entirely on his own, relying on nothing but his own capabilities to protect you. He finally has the strength he's desired—strength that truly befits a lord.He turns his attention towards Brigadramon next, who's still watching dispassionately. You balk in alarm at the sight of an Espimon squad surrounding him. They're holding tools as they scurry around his body, releasing lattices of light that expose the corroded part of his wireframe. He's undergoing repairs."Your toys are gone. Return and face me. I tire of your-"LOADING PROP 1/526"You've gotta be kidding me." You hiss, watching as the process windows spark to life again."Bastard." Plutomon reacts with equal rage.
You suppose it makes sense. There's nothing actually stopping Brigadramon from just repeating this attack infinitely, if he's using the City's nigh infinite computing resources and converting them into attack power. These missiles are pre-loaded objects from some earlier incident, he could just keep summoning them forever and ever, until the Portal closes.For a moment, you struggle to think of what you can do.>>>"Marnie.""What is it?" You ask."Explain the origin of these missiles to me." Plutomon requests, malice shimmering in his eyes.LOADING PROP 23/526"They're being loaded by the system, not by him. He has permissions to create items, this has to be some kind of pre-prepared routine. I... Don't know how we can stop it. They're coming from the environment itself, thanks to some Administrator-level processes." You dig through your inventory briefly. The hacking spikes from Squid are intact, but you'll need dozens at once to disrupt this processes. The problem is that you can't even find the loading point or origin device. And if you could, maybe the direct attention of the City Overseer would be enough to dispel the hack. Or maybe not, since it's a pre-prepared routine? As you begin to rack your brain, Plutomon opens up every mouth on his body again."Plutomon...?""I am not done. I swore on the Styx to handle this. So if it is a product of this environment-"You feel your knees weakening all of a sudden. He's drawing a great amount of energy through your link. "Then I shall shred this world itself."
"HELL'S GATE!"He creates a series of spectral mouths again, projecting them from the largest jaws across his body. With reckless abandon, he crunches and crushes empty air, destroying missiles as they come. When there are none to annihilate, he continues ripping through open space regardless. Each time his jaws close, they let out resounding echoes that seem to ripple into the space around you. After several moments of his rampage, you start to see crimson rifts being left in the air. Brigadramon raises his head in mortified interest. LOADING PROP 94/526Plutomon stops targeting the missiles entirely. Instead, he goes for the system windows that appear whenever the surrounding infrastructure loads new objects. Those tears in space are growing rapidly, and you think you can see... something behind them. Something dark, crackling with malignant energy, with shapes that remind you of crags and pillars and obelisks.ERROR LOADING PROPLOADING PROP 160/526ERROR LOADING PROPERROR LOADING PROPYou watch as he tears the very fabric of City 87-O apart. He cannot interface with its systems. So instead, he's targeting the processes used to create missiles, causing massive amounts of backlash that flow upwards until the very system processes are corrupted. More and more of the loading boxes are replaced with glaring error messages as he goes. He's terraforming the very air, creating a virus-rich environment that refuses to obey the routines laid out by the City. This is what a Mega-level Virus Digimon is capable of. It's as though you're staring into a widening window, like an entire refracted world that he's pulling into this one. LOADING PROP 188/526The sky is tinged red, reminding you of the red alert you once faced. Brigadramon shakes the Espimon off and descends to strike Plutomon once again. But it's too late.ERROR LOADING PROPERROR LOADING PROPERROR LOADING PROPPROCESS TERMINATED
Plutomon relinquishes his hold on the countless rifts, allowing them to snap shut. They've left vicious scars of corruption in the sky. Fanged markings are hovering in space, and the particle rain sizzles into crimson tears, as though the computer is crying in pain. Plutomon turns to face his foe with the same haughty aura you're well-used to, a smug air lingering through the apotheosis he's undergone."WHAT DID YOU DO?""I've sent your program to Tartarus."Brigadramon tries something else. You notice his eye glistening with purple light. The mere attempt causes an explosion of crimson veins to streak across the sky, as whatever process he executes is disrupted by the damage to the system. The overwhelming error blows him back, leaving the air smoking and smoldering with hundreds of scarlet shards. You can no longer see the world beyond the rifts, but you're filled with unease at what Plutomon is capable of doingStill, he's your partner. You trust him with this terrifying power. And right now, he's in full control of himself. Though it may not have been your intention, the two of you have struck a true blow against the City by wounding its very makeup."Plutomon. Don't widen those." You request."Very well." You don't want to shred the data integrity of this place further. You still have people you love who need to live here.
"IF YOU ARE INSISTENT ON BECOMING A CALAMITY OF THE CITY ONCE MORE...""Insistent? You've forced our hand, Brigadramon.""If you had just let us past-" And if he hadn't done some bullshit infinite-prop attack-"-THEN WE SHALL SEE HOW YOU FARE AGAINST YOUR PREDECESSORS"LOADING... <MEMORY OF THE CITY>"What else has he got?!"Brigadramon executes a new program. This one seems to be using different infrastructure, bypassing the damage that Plutomon has done to the laws of physics and programming. You see numerous flickering bubbles forming in the air, each attempting to expand their domain, much like what Plutomon just did. It reminds you of what you experienced during your first big mission, in the control room with Strikedramon."DESTROY THOSE!" Plutomon surges forward to corrupt them before they can reach 100% completion. However, he cannot get them all. Which one is he guaranteed to miss? >A memory of a chimera, its birth a tragedy, but its life a catastrophe that had to be ended. >A familiar memory of an infiltrator, one of many that claws at the boundaries of the great domes of Eden. >A memory of a worm, whose shard was mistakenly allowed to take root, seeking only infinite growth.>A memory of a memory, whose nature as a Calamity marred even Earth.
Big thanks to art anon for the Op image again! And thanks for following the quest thus far, fellas. This thread shouldn't be a super long one, since we're near the end and epilogue.
>>6427452>A familiar memory of an infiltrator, one of many that claws at the boundaries of the great domes of Eden.
>>6427452well at least we aren't fighting Children of the City.>>6427452>A memory of a memory, whose nature as a Calamity marred even Earth.What better time to prove we can face that which harmed Earth?
>>6427452>A memory of a memory, whose nature as a Calamity marred even Earth.
>>6427452>A familiar memory of an infiltrator, one of many that claws at the boundaries of the great domes of Eden. This is Infernomon
We need to go for the portal asap>Brigadramon has stopped firing too, and is hovering somewhere above you instead, guarding the mouth of the Portal stalwartly. The opening has shrunk significantly compared to several minutes ago.I hope Plutomon feels better about handling that missile spam move solo. Deep inside him, Phascomon as himself and Porcupamon and Astamon must be feeling the strongest vindication and triumph ever because he finally got to do this and succeed. He deserves it after the whole journey of unfair bullshit we've faced to get here. I hope him and Marnie don't lose sight of the true win condition right here in front of it. That portal won't stay up forever.I voted >>6427516Option 1 is clearly Chimeramon. I do not want Millenniumon to end up here.Option 2 is clearly Infermon. I do not want Diablomon to end up here.No idea who Option 3 is.No idea who Option 4 is.My logic is what >>6427464 said. This way Marnie gets some hints at real world Earth lore while also proving herself. In a way, it's also in defiance of what the Book of Envy wanted. It just feels appropriate here at the end
>>6427569Third one might be Skullgreymon
>>6427452Ok, I change from >>6427533to>A memory of a memory, whose nature as a Calamity marred even Earth.Infernomon is tanky, that might be a problem when dealing with the City and Brigadramon.
>>64275693 sounds like the D-REAPERI dunno about 4 to be honest, my anime lore does not go very far. Eosmon?
>>6427460>>6427464>>6427516>>6427608Writing!
>A memory of a memory, whose nature as a Calamity marred even Earth. Plutomon charges at the bubbles, countless teeth on his left shoulder parting to devour them whole. Each time he snaps down on a target, the executable itself is damaged, leading to a system failure that flows upwards and renders the program inoperable. Unfortunately, he's just not fast enough to zip between all four and disable them. The furthest one from him manages to pop itself with a resounding peal of shattering glass. You and Plutomon both look around for a second Digimon, expecting one of Brigadramon's allies to appear from the space the bubble occupied.Instead, you see a flicker of motion from above. The Portal looks bigger all of a sudden, like it's returning to its usual size.After a moment of examination, you realize that it's just a visual overlay. A simulated memory of the Portal is currently buckling and thundering as a vast presence pushes its way through. The way it moves and shimmers reminds you of the holodecks that you've been training in. "What trick is this?" Plutomon demands, rearing back in preparation to charge Brigadramon. He doesn't reply. He just glares at the Espimon squad, who desperately resume their repairs. You'd love to shoot at them, but you're not willing to earn Brigadramon's ire, and more importantly, distract Plutomon from this incoming attack. The false Portal spits out its occupant. Immediately, you hear the sound of simulated gunfire as the Brigadramon of the past begins his immediate attack on this Digimon. It barely seems fazed. The thing is vast enough to occupy the entire top floor of the Tower, and once it hits the ground, it nearly crushes you underfoot. DESTROMON- [NO DATA]- [NO DATA]- [NO DATA]Plutomon sweeps you up, leaving the simulated creature to swipe at empty air."What did that line of code say? Memory?""It did. It seems we are fighting a shade."
The illusory image looks severely damaged. Its red body is covered in scratches and scrapes, with whole segments crumpled and disintegrating into data fragments. Notably, its left arm and part of its torso is missing. It looks like a clean cut. A blade has perfectly passed through it it, shearing apart even its thick chest armor and leaving the internals exposed. You struggle to imagine what kind of weapon could have done that.The biggest problem with this thing is that it's taking up the entire roof, leaving you two with nowhere to stand. Plutomon can fly, but you'll be in constant danger from Brigadramon if you're left hovering. Fortunately, it... doesn't actually seem to be attacking you? It's a recreation of a past incident, severe enough to cause a red alert. This thing is one of the Digimon from beyond the Portal that Doc warned you about."It came into the City wounded." Plutomon observes.You take a better look at it. It's big enough to wreck entire districts within moments. A multitude of cannons and barrels emerge from its shoulders, back, elbows and knuckles, which it uses to target an invisible Brigadramon from the past. New wounds are appearing on its body before your eyes, with none of the attacks that dealt them actually being rendered."... It's fused with some kind of vehicle. A big boat.""What kind of boat has guns?" "A battleship. For war."CALIBRATING TARGET...A red marker appears on Plutomon's chest. He slashes at it, attempting to terminate the program, but it doesn't seem like an interactable process. The replay of Destromon stops fighting Brigadramon, instead recentering its efforts on you and your partner. The countless barrels begin pointing towards you."MOVE!"Plutomon darts out of the way as it begins to fire. Shots sail past, unloading once they miss, so that they don't threaten the real City. This hologram is able to fight with reckless abandon, just like the real thing must have.
Brigadramon, fortunately, isn't joining the fight. He's beaten this thing once before. Now it's your turn. Despite the vast nature of this wounded, broken entity, you understand that it's still a hologram. It's not as terrifying as it would have been in reality. Still, from the way it's leaving permanent imprints on the roof with each step, it's clearly capable of harming your partner. But the real threat comes from it giving your enemy time to repair his gun, as well as for the Portal to shrink further."Plutomon, leave me be." "I can fight while safeguarding you." He protests."We need you to go all out. Just be fast. You can do it." "... It shall be done." You perform a quick check through your files. You're hesitant to spend more than a second digging, but you do check your jetpack first. "... Huh." It's intact. You activate it and move away from Plutomon, keeping your eye firmly on Brigadramon, to make sure he doesn't try and charge you while you're separated. Plutomon charges for the colossal beast, who's now tracking him with countless bursts of anti-air fire. The black-clad warrior dodges most of it, but several shots strike his body hard enough to send him flying back. You need to figure out what kind of strategy you'll use.The monstrous playback is taking damage as time goes on, since it's still recreating the initial fight. It'll be deleted eventually, but you need Plutomon to speed that process up so he can destroy the system files that allow the City to just load up another one.>Go for the spot that looks like it's been damaged. It has a huge hole in its armor, revealing its internals. The Digicore might be somewhere in there? Have Plutomon try and dig into it so that you can end this thing faster.>Try something else. You want to take out those visible weapons on its shoulders and arms, leaving it unable to attack. Then maybe Plutomon could try and rush Brigadramon, disrupting his repairs and stopping the gun from becoming a problem later on. >Don't spend so much time considering the details. Just rage and rampage until this Digimon is reduced to fragments. Brigadramon beat it once before, and your partner is now on the same level. You don't want to overthink it, just charge straight at it, full force.
TIME IS RUNNING OUTTIME IS RUNNING OUTTIME IS RUNNING OUTTIME IS RUNNING OUTTIME IS RUNNING OUT
>>6427890>Try something else. You want to take out those visible weapons on its shoulders and arms, leaving it unable to attack. Then maybe Plutomon could try and rush Brigadramon, disrupting his repairs and stopping the gun from becoming a problem later on.Either we destroy its anti-air and the simulated attacks it took kill it sooner, or we waste a bunch of time.Do we still have holograms? It might react to simulations much more easily than the real thing. I'm guessing we're FAR out of range for packet pistol to ping the espimon, but we could turn on the radar for any of them breaking off to target us.
>>6427900+1We need to get through the portal. Brigadramon is still a problem. Fuck this guy
>>6427890>Try something else. You want to take out those visible weapons on its shoulders and arms, leaving it unable to attack. Then maybe Plutomon could try and rush Brigadramon, disrupting his repairs and stopping the gun from becoming a problem later on.We don't know if this hologram even has a digicore
>>6427890>Try something else. You want to take out those visible weapons on its shoulders and arms, leaving it unable to attack. Then maybe Plutomon could try and rush Brigadramon, disrupting his repairs and stopping the gun from becoming a problem later on. Once again, not playing Digimon World 3 bite us in the ass. Chimeramon was probably a better pick. >>6428011Good reasoning.
>>6427890>Try something else. You want to take out those visible weapons on its shoulders and arms, leaving it unable to attack. Then maybe Plutomon could try and rush Brigadramon, disrupting his repairs and stopping the gun from becoming a problem later on.One thing that comes to mind is couldn't Plutomon lead the hologram's shots to Brigadramon anyway since it's locked onto him? That should hamper his progress a bit.
>>6427900>>6427942>>6428011>>6428041>>6428302Locking and writing! Good points all around. Insanely good actually, enough to shift the actual outcome of this option.
>>6428331>spam holograms of our own>"the hologram has no digicore">bait the hologram's shots into BrigadramonEpic combo of things>Insanely good actually, enough to shift the actual outcome of this option.I won't consider it a win until Marnie and Plutomon go through the portal alive together
>Try something else. You want to take out those visible weapons on its shoulders and arms, leaving it unable to attack. Then maybe Plutomon could try and attack Brigadramon, disrupting his repairs and stopping it from becoming a problem later on. Plutomon’s first instinct is to go for the opening on its side and capitalize on the existing damage. His strikes Destromon blindingly fast, but the injury seems to behave like a smooth layer instead of an exposed wound. Chunks of data start splintering from its mass, and he doesn't manage to burrow through the apparent weak point. For all his strength, you’re still the one with better technical knowledge, and once you realise what’s wrong, he intuits it too through your heightened bond. This thing is a hologram. It has no anatomy, no distinction between its data makeup like a Digimon. The entire thing is one solid manifestation. Luckily, he didn’t waste more than a fragment of time on this venture. Trying to capitalize on a weakness would be a mistake.Instead of trying to destroy it like that, Plutomon attempts to disable and neutralize it. He flies past it, scraping against its metal body the whole time and tearing out chunks with his shoulders as he moves. The barrel of a cannon points towards his head, only to be severed by a clean chop from his golden fingertips. The tip of a tail tries to spear him, only to be countered and redirected by the jaws of his own tail.You sense your partner’s plan of attack and express your approval. This thing is a distraction, you need to fight your real enemy. In order to stay safe while he goes for Brigadramon, you dig through your inventory, sift past a jungle of icons, then open up a hologram projector. You deploy it into the air and allow it to float next to youUnexpectedly, the Destromon zeroes in on it instantly. ”3連装砲.” You don’t know what it’s saying— only that three turrets on its arms are outstretched and firing in your direction. You drop fast, yelling in fright as the rounds blow past you and destroy the hologram. Your shield sparkles as shrapnel clips it.”Raise your hand against her and lose it, cur.”Plutomon’s body trembles with power. He generates one of those deadly jaws beneath his body and performs a maverick-style kick, tearing through the arm, the armor, and the gun it wields all at once. The entire limb dissipates once it’s no longer connected to the hologram, while you breathe heavily. “Why did that work so well…?”
To test your theory, you fling more of the projectors into the air, making sure there’s a delay this time. Destromon seems to focus on them with its smaller weapons, gunning the spare bodies down with whatever spare that aren't targeting Plutomon. You wonder if it has something to do with the fact that they're holograms, but you have no time to read the .app metadata to find a conclusive answer.While zipping around with your jetpack, you make sure to keep your radar active so that no Espimon can catch you by surprise. They all seem to be fussing over Brigadramon anyway, leaving you free to float around and fill the air with a whole mob of distractions. Some are batted around and pushed aside by the churning data, but most do their job.It works exceedingly well. You doubt a real Destromon would have behaved like this, but the simulated copy is easy to distract. After a few more attacks, Plutomon has successfully ripped away the majority of its guns. He then turns towards Brigadramon like he planned. You send him a surge of strength through your link, despite feeling your energy starting to dwindle. Your partner surges through the sky, his crimson cape trailing behind him and his claws outstretched. Most of Destromon's visible weapons have been destroyed. Its shoulders and arms are in tatters. But Plutomon has missed out the most important one."ジャガーノートブラスト."Destromon opens up its chest. Panels unfold and energy begins leaking from its core, and despite its holographic nature, you feel the environmental data beginning to get drawn in. It's about to use a powerful attack."PLUTOMON! MOVE!" Halfway to Brigadramon, he turns back to look at the incoming cannon blast. It only takes him a moment to move out of the way, causing the attack to tear across the night on a collision course with the Mega Digimon.
The blast is titanic. Despite it being aimed nowhere near you, you're suddenly filled with a sense of deep dread, like something is clawing at your human instincts. The sensation prompts you to glance towards the West, where an entire swathe of the City seems architecturally distinct from its surroundings. How much damage could this have done in its heyday? You'll never know. Yet in this moment, it does nothing to Brigadramon. As the column of azure energy threatens to encompass him, the simulation starts to fizzle and warps, unable to output this much power with so little preparation. You see a web of light splintering across space and time, as Brigadramon shields himself with yet another program. The beam parts around him, burning the sky for as far as it can, until it leaves render distance and ceases to threaten the world entirely.The Juggernaut cannon finishes firing. The air is hot and acrid, a gaping void left in the cascading rain. While your foe hasn't been harmed, the Espimon seem to have completely abandoned their duties. They're nowhere to be found, leaving the Gatling gun broken and half-tuned. You open your eyes wide, genuinely shocked that they would desert even their supreme leader. Espimon really are something else.While Destromon cools down, you decide to direct your holograms. They move through the sky and encroach on Brigadramon's position. Once the mechanical titan is ready to shoot again, it begins firing its green lasers and anti-vehicle shells straight in the direction of your copies. Brigadramon terminates most of the attacks coming his way, but at one point he's forced to slash through one with his claws. The sheer power forces him back, and he watches the monster rampage with distinct displeasure.The last straw comes when Plutomon tries to rejoin the fight. You realize that Destromon isn't even targeting your partner anymore. Amidst all the chaos, its red target marker has settled back on Brigadramon. While reacquiring a target, it seems like its prioritized the closest thing to its actual recorded enemy.
Brigadramon decides that the simulation is more trouble than its worth. Violet LEDs flare to life beneath his visor, so intense that it burns your eyes even from the other side of the orange filter. The simulation begins moving at twice its former speed, and though Plutomon has left a few barrels intact just to hassle Brigadramon, all the projectiles stop loading. The simulated damage racks up faster and faster, and you soon see three long gashes appearing on its chest.An explosion tears through the cannon, courtesy of Brigadramon's Exa Destroyer. The beast stumbles, attempting to fire the weapon again. A second explosion accompanies the effort, as a catastrophic explosion rips through the malfunctioning gun and leaves a smoldering, melting crater where the beast's chest once was. Its purple scales, visible through the armor, begin to flake off and vanish. Lights go dim across its body and the Destromon's echo steps off the Tower, plummeting towards the ground. You witness its true final moments in quiet awe.
As it begins to break apart, a curious sight catches your attention. Instead of disintegrating into nothing, multiple parts of the dying creature are coalescing into solid masses. They look like the purple Digimon you saw in the hospital. Many of them get torn apart by invisible Gatling gun fire, but just as many more tumble out of sight and leave the bounds of the simulation.The distraction is finally gone. You breathe a sigh of relief. That wasn't as bad as it could have been. Your usage of .apps has managed to turn the tide, stopping anything from going wrong. Apart from the near miss from the turret, you're okay, and so is Plutomon."Is that all?" You taunt Brigadramon, as your partner catches up to him. His claws clash against your partner's right shoulder, prying the jaws open with extreme prejudice. Plutomon tries to open up another Hell's Gate, but Brigadramon's Exa Destroyer deploys itself first. He kicks off the cyborg's chest before the organic missiles can detonate point blank. Brigadramon is shoved backwards, giving Plutomon enough space to dodge and weave away from the missiles that are now streaking towards him. "ONE MORE." The dragon creaks.You grit your teeth as another bubble shows up. This one is covered in red chains, with a yellow warning label accompanying it. It pops before you can do anything about it.
Once he can find the right angle, Plutomon fires a laser from his chest and erases the missiles. He then turns to see what else Brigadramon has in store."Another creature from your trophy hall? Very well. I'll tear it apart, before I-"The bravado fades from his voice as he sees what Brigadramon has summoned his time."... Marnie." Something claws its way out of the bubble. Unlike Destromon, you can feel the raw malice oozing from every line of its code, even through the holographic display. You and your partner both react viscerally to it in your hearts, and the feeling pulsates through your link, causing the flow of energy to wane for but a moment. You clench your jaw and find your resolve again, but its undeniable that the sight of this entity has hurt your fighting spirit for just a moment. It's even worse for your partner."Was that really what I looked like?"ZOMBIE PLUTOMON- MEGA- UNDEAD- VIRUSBLACK HAZARDWARNING! WARNING! WARNING!The beast throws its head back and screams to the sky. Brigadramon makes himself scarce, learning his lesson from your manipulation of Destromon's targeting system. Zombie Plutomon lunges right for a hologram, seizing it between its gnarled, skeletal fingers."HRRGH... MA..."Its verdant eyes stare deep into the unblinking face of your hologram. You feel a sense of utmost foreboding."MAR...NIE...?"It looks longingly at the empty doll, and for a moment, you remember how he protected you from his own hunger by tearing his body apart.But that's not how the City remembers him. He chews the hologram's head off, ravenously shredding and defacing the effigy of you. His long teeth tear through the simulated matter in a disturbingly realistic fashion, causing shreds and curls of your false body to peel off and flutter in the storm. Even worse, when he's done eating, the hologram doesn't just fall apart.
The headless body begins moving towards you, its arms extended outwards, with a rusted Digivice hanging on its wrist. Both arms are broken from how hard the creature was clutching them. Your scream is cut off by the sound of Plutomon bursting through the air like a rocket, utterly pulping the corrupted body and sending its fragments far, far away from you. "WHAT THE HELL?! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU-" You look up at where Brigadramon went, screaming in outrage at him, but you can't seem to find him anywhere. Instead, you see the simulated zombie moving towards the lingering holograms, converting them into minions in the same manner.Plutomon guides you back towards the helipad, and your knees finally give way once you're back on solid ground."Marnie. I asked a question. Did I-""No." You say, your heart resolute despite the tremor in your voice."No? I recall that same rage. That hunger. The things I did-""You would never." You pant, looking down at your own hands, imagining how they would have thrashed if you really were devoured by that abomination."You never would have hurt me. You stopped yourself. It's not real." He nods. That's all he needed to hear. Plutomon takes to the skies again, seeking out the disgusting, broken, sordid facsimile of himself.
The two of you have made up, but you know that you'll never stop blaming yourself on some level whenever you remember what happened up here. You find yourself despising Brigadramon more than ever before. How dare he use this pain against you? But maybe you can turn it around. Right here, right now, you want your partner to come face to face with this mirror—then smash through it with his new strength. You're both here to cast off the past and move forward.All around you, the air starts to fizzle, as the simulation creates a transparent background image of the electromagnetic cage it fought this thing in. You sense that it's far more of a threat than Destromon. There's something inherently evil in it, that's also deep within your partner.And probably you too. >Send Plutomon to hassle the zombie and delete all of its minions as soon as it makes them. Once it runs out of material to convert with its simulated virus, it'll be a clean fight with a monster that can't possibly be as strong as the real deal, simply due to system limitations. However, chasing down side objectives will expose your partner to direct danger, and it can still hurt him with its savage body. You don't want him to have to look at it too long.>Get Plutomon to go all out. The minions will come for you as a result, but you have your gun, and you have your .apps. Some corrupted holograms can't do much to you. Plus, the virus can't be real, it's just a simulation. Right? The downside is that it'll certainly be horrifying and stressful to behold. You've never shot people, or even images of them before.>You need to look for Brigadramon, otherwise he's just going to catch your partner by surprise as soon as you handle this problem. You need Plutomon to deal with EVERYTHING, and that means exposing him to his undead counterpart while he's also shredding holograms as they get corrupted. This will put a great strain on him, in hopes of preventing a worse outcome a few minutes down the line.
>>6428422That was it, yeah. Actually, >Try something else. You want to take out those visible weapons on its shoulders and arms, leaving it unable to attack. Then maybe Plutomon could try and attack Brigadramon, disrupting his repairs and stopping it from becoming a problem later on.Was a wrong answer! It would have caused the Juggernaut cannon to shoot Plutomon in the back, contributing 1/2 to a consequence a few votes away! I was trying to hint at the lack of Digicore, so option 3 was the right way to leverage that.But when >>6427900 pointed out that it's also a hologram, I figured it made perfect sense, considering how there's 'higher' and 'lower' levels of info and data expression. And with that being the case, the idea to bait them into Brigadramon should logically multiply in effectiveness— because the hologram's default mode should be to kill a Brigadramon anyway. So all of that compounded into the choice becoming correct, and the bad outcome completely evaporating.
>>6428739Do we still have junk bombs? At this point we just need volume and stuff that can't fly, we can take distance and let it deal with the cage while we bust through. I can't imagine undead appliances or sewer assets chasing us into the sky.
>>6428745There must be a crater on the Tower surface, right? From when Astamon digivolved into Plutomon? Could we try to bait hologram ZombiePlutomon to chase hologram Marnies into the Tower below and harm the structural integrity? Or is this truly a phantom we need to overcome? Why would Brigadramon care if we win or not? Why not just reject this and go for the portal?
>>6428739>Get Plutomon to go all out. The minions will come for you as a result, but you have your gun, and you have your .apps. Some corrupted holograms can't do much to you. Plus, the virus can't be real, it's just a simulation. Right? The downside is that it'll certainly be horrifying and stressful to behold. You've never shot people, or even images of them before.If they are not Digimon, it should be the same as with every related mechanism, it can't hurt humans.
>>6428796Every related city mechanism.
>>6428739>>You need to look for Brigadramon, otherwise he's just going to catch your partner by surprise as soon as you handle this problem. You need Plutomon to deal with EVERYTHING, and that means exposing him to his undead counterpart while he's also shredding holograms as they get corrupted. This will put a great strain on him, in hopes of preventing a worse outcome a few minutes down the line.
>>6428739>Some corrupted holograms can't do much to you. Plus, the virus can't be real, it's just a simulation. Right?This is a fucking lie. ZombiePlutomon isn't acting like it did on our first climb because it isn't leftover data from a defeated foe. I'd argue that this is a type of malware created by the Tower specifically for us and that we should not let the zombies touch us under any circumstances as a result.
>>6428739But then what? We're not picking the "look for Brigadramon" option so he'll swoop in and try some shit. I want to discuss this a bit more before I cast my vote. I am leaning towards option 1 or 3. I agree the holograms are targeting Marnie specifically with this City-made special malware, so option 2 is a dead one
>>6428745Yep there are junk bombs. And it infecting assets wouldn’t be a factor kek, I’ll say conclusively that won’t happen. >>6429203Sure thing, I won’t be able to update till tomorrow, so you guys got time.
dumb idea. Would medical code harm zombie plutomon? There's the whole reverse healing thing, and if moving around makes the healing go wrong that's good right?
Let's see if I still have my ID to change my vote
>>6428739I change my vote from >>6428796To>You need to look for Brigadramon, otherwise he's just going to catch your partner by surprise as soon as you handle this problem. You need Plutomon to deal with EVERYTHING, and that means exposing him to his undead counterpart while he's also shredding holograms as they get corrupted. This will put a great strain on him, in hopes of preventing a worse outcome a few minutes down the line.
>>6428739>Send Plutomon to hassle the zombie and delete all of its minions as soon as it makes them. Once it runs out of material to convert with its simulated virus, it'll be a clean fight with a monster that can't possibly be as strong as the real deal, simply due to system limitations. However, chasing down side objectives will expose your partner to direct danger, and it can still hurt him with its savage body. You don't want him to have to look at it too long.Does he HAVE to clear the adds alone?If so I would prefer Plutomon takes a little bit of damage than risk getting ganked again.
>>6428739Casting my votebacking >>6429511I would rather Brigadramon than these corrupted zombies
I know we didn't take the choice to take a good look at our inventory but what apps/assets would you say we know for sure aren't compromised at a glance (ie. our skates)?
>>6429511>>6429584>>6429485>>6428808Will lock in upon any tiebreak, or flip a coin in a couple hours
>>6429735All of the disposables can be assumed to be non-bricked, as there’s just no need to build a failsafe when they can already self terminate. Jetpack has been tried out and works. Shield around Marnie is fine, packet pistol is fine. The rest of the permanent tools are unknown.
>>6429740So that means we have flo4t f0rce and l1ne and maybe freeze codes, since we burned through our camos already, but we can't check to see if our skates our fine until we commit to an actual choice. I forgot how f0rce works but if it can be used on other entities we could clump the zombies up to make them easier to clear in waves.I still think we should clear the zombies out so Plutomon doesn't get critically distracted by the possibility of us getting overwhelmed.
>>6429747If we rely on force instead of the pistol, I think it could work. Putting down assets and launching them with force is slow and expensive, but unlikely to miss.
Rolled 2 (1d2)>>6429737Writing whichever wins!
>>6429761Welp... we're gonna find him alright. Then what?
>>6429774Make sure he doesn't gank us with missiles or a renewed gun.
>>6429774Then we're going to continue beating his face in, and maybe if the City malware is too good then Malware ZombiePlutomon will even join in the beatdown on the big blue dino. But above all else we need to GO FOR THE PORTAL!!!
>>6429776I thought we got over getting though the portal alone, since I doubt Plutomon's going to be better off dealing with all this alone.If we're really going through with this, can we at least try getting the skates to work and leaving a trail of holograms to lure Z!Plutomon to Brigadramon?
It would also give Plutomon an idea of our whereabouts instead of just up and disappearing.
>>6429782>>6429784Yeah solid ideas. And of course we need Plutomon with us forever, but you know Brigadramon will try to bodyblock us if we don't go after him
>You need to look for Brigadramon, otherwise he's just going to catch your partner by surprise as soon as you handle this problem. You need Plutomon to deal with EVERYTHING, and that means exposing him to his undead counterpart while he's also shredding holograms as they get corrupted. This will put a great strain on him, in hopes of preventing a worse outcome a few minutes down the line."Plutomon! Handle it!" He nods, immediately springing forward to rip one of the corrupted holograms apart. You sense a twinge of hesitation in him, but he knows that those mockeries of you aren't the real thing. The fizzling, glitching entities run across the helipad in an attempt to reach you, prompting him to follow them around and tear them to shreds. A small group get too close to you, and he's forced to bare his chest and launch a crimson laser in their direction."Haggard Cluster!"The zombies only have a miniscule filesize. Mere contact with the beam causes their entire bodies to pop out of existence. However, it's too strong an attack to be wasting on these things, and it'll exhaust him if he keeps doing it. As he flits between them, his doppelganger finishes converting clones and begins moving towards your partner. It abruptly vanishes, clearing the distance in an instant.You don't have to shout a warning. He sees the hologram coming and braces for impact."HELL'S... SLICER..."It assaults your partner in a berserk fury, cutting through the air with a ghastly green sickle that harms the surrounding space in the same way as his jaws. The simulation is struggling to render the effect of such a thing. Plutomon dodges each sweep, trying to create room to lash out with his jaws, but eventually takes a hit to the shoulder. You feel a pang of pain through your link. This thing is capable of hurting him.It's not a serious wound, but it proves this hologram is still a threat. It's definitely stronger than Destromon in single combat. You can't afford to keep watching. While your partner handles the fight, you look out for Brigadramon. It's time to start coming up with countermeasures for whatever he's plotting.
There's a lot of interference in the air, significantly cutting down the range of your motion tracker. You can pick up on the numerous shapes flickering around the roof. The sight of so many zombies makes you regret spamming holograms willy-nilly. Plenty have expired on their own, or been destroyed by the previous hologram, but the majority are now trying to cling to your partner. A small handful are still coming for you. You fire at them with your malware pistol while keeping an eye on the sky. The shots tear through their bodies with ease, but whatever Zombie Plutomon has done to them has rendered them more solid than before. It takes an annoying amount of time for you to clear the tiny mob, during which Plutomon has torn a huge gap through the greater horde."Come on, come on..." You look at the dark clouds. Plutomon and Brigadramon flew through those earlier. It could be a good hiding place. But after scanning them with your goggles, you don't manage to highlight any abnormal data volume from within. Next, you peek over the edge of the roof. It's very possible that he's gone down there to get real reinforcements. The white checkpoint that leads to the Tower interior isn't too far down. The last thing you need is a Cargodramon coming in here. The good news is that there are none, but the bad news is that Brigadramon is still nowhere to be seen.While you search, Plutomon scores a devastating strike on his foe. A missed swing causes the zombie's arm to move past his toothy shoulder. He seizes it and immediately shreds through the black armour, dispelling a major part of the simulation. Yet it manages to get him in turn. It clasps his face with its skeletal left hand and tries to corrode it. Your partner attacks with his tail, but Zombie Plutomon's tail is even angrier, intercepting it halfway and savagely mauling it. Cracks spread across your partner's face as his data is drained.You have no choice but to trust him here. He's a Mega now. This is just a simulation. He needs to slay it.
Finally, when you cast your gaze upwards to the Portal, you manage to make out a speck. You attempt to scan it with your goggles, but the nature of the data-well curves your scanning tool away from it, leaving you unable to peer into the depths. You squint hard and zoom in instead, until you see a flash of blue and orange. Brigadramon is waiting in the mouth of the Portal, directly above the helipad. He's observing your partner as he duels with his counterpart."Plutomon! He's above you! He's gonna dive!" You hiss into your Digivice. A group of zombies cling on to his arm. They don't manage to weigh him down in the slightest. You thank your lucky stars again that this Digimon doesn't have truly dangerous minions. Plutomon swings them straight into his foe, who tears apart its own minions with reckless abandon whenever they get too close to its jaws. The zombie is in an awful state. One leg and one arm has been bitten off, leaving it unable to use the slasher anymore. Purple flames bleed from between its exposed ribs, and its teeth shatter against Plutomon's armor without breaking through. Yet you see portions of it regenerating whenever an overly vivid blue light passes over its wireframe. Unlike the recording of Destromon, the simulation is actively changing this one's parameters to let it keep fighting. Your partner has been wounded quite a bit as well. His face is scratched up, his armor is scuffed, and the jaw on his left forearm has been dislocated. It looks worse than it probably is, with the gaping maw pulled apart so wide that his limb almost looks flayed. It doesn't stop him from biting with the other mouths, nor punching with great strength.His spirit hasn't waned in the slightest, beyond that initial moment of shock. He's just as motivated as before to destroy this foul memory of the past. Zombie Plutomon lunges at him, and the jaws on each of their shoulders bite and gnaw, locking against each other and ripping shreds away in direct combat. The real Plutomon has the advantage with each clash, and his opponent is wearing out faster than he is. It's still not fast enough for your liking, the portal is getting dangerously small."You pathetic copy-"Plutomon fires a laser, tearing through the green core on its chest. It does nothing to it, for it's only a simulation. The beam passes straight through and wipes out some of the last few zombies, leaving the two to continue grappling.
You need to start doing something to thwart Brigadramon's incoming attack. As Plutomon stomps on one of the roof panels and shatters it, an idea strikes you. You fly above the two combatants with your jetpack and begin accessing that very first upgrade that Doc gave you: Your smuggling partition, which has empowered you to evade countless scans and collect this much contraband with minimal issue. While the two fight, you drop junk bombs down on them, leaving the objects in an inactive state. You hope that your partner will find something he can do with them. Meanwhile, you begin creating a box. You place down the first corner, creating an opaque polygon that hovers over the two without casting a shadow. You then drag it farther away, using a mix of l1ne tools and f0rce.app to increase its size. It's quite the physical feat, as you're forcefully changing the dimensions of the box beyond Doc's parameters. With time, you manage to craft a giant floating rectangle that covers your partner. It won't hold up to any attack, but it'll stop Brigadramon from just targeting him instantly. You drop to the ground once it's done, frowning when you realize that you can't actually see him anymore. It's a worthwhile tradeoff, you think. Since it's for smuggling, Brigadramon might not be able to look through it and see out of the other side. You've located your main opponent and interfered with his sightline. Now you just need to dispel this thing.
Plutomon bashes his head against Zombie Plutomon over and over. As he battles, you feel his indignation building up. You sense it through your link, clear as day. The existence of this entity is an affront to him. It represents him losing control at his lowest point. It represents you turning your back on him. It represents everything you've managed to grow out of during the past few weeks, and yet it's here to haunt you again, right when you came to terms with it.The way you destroy this thing in the end could mean a lot to your partner. What do you want to show him right now?>Let Plutomon fight to his heart's content. You've trusted him to get past the previous few obstacles with raw power. Keep showing that you believe in him, that you know he'll come through for you. Let him throw himself forward and defeat this demon all by himself, so that he'll know for sure that he can handle his newfound power, and that he himself is a changed mon.>Get him to use those tools that you've scattered. You want him to know that, even though he's this strong, you always want to be able to fight by his side. You're not just here as a battery, you've always been flinging .apps and tools around to even the tide, even against powerful opponents. You'll both overcome this thing with your combined skillsets, as partners who take the field together. >Pour as much energy as you can spare into him, so he can eliminate this thing with no hesitation. Powering a Mega-level Digimon is already a great feat, so this will exhaust you faster, but you're so, so short on time. By opening your Digivice link as wide as you can, you want to show him the shining strength of your bond—that no matter your individual skills, you simply believe that being together is enough to help you move forward, no matter how overwhelming or unrealistic victory is.
>>6429804>Pour as much energy as you can spare into him, so he can eliminate this thing with no hesitation. Powering a Mega-level Digimon is already a great feat, so this will exhaust you faster, but you're so, so short on time. By opening your Digivice link as wide as you can, you want to show him the shining strength of your bond—that no matter your individual skills, you simply believe that being together is enough to help you move forward, no matter how overwhelming or unrealistic victory is.POWER OF FRIENDSHIPPOWER OF FRIENDSHIPPOWER OF FRIENDSHIP
>>6429804>Pour as much energy as you can spare into him, so he can eliminate this thing with no hesitation. Powering a Mega-level Digimon is already a great feat, so this will exhaust you faster, but you're so, so short on time. By opening your Digivice link as wide as you can, you want to show him the shining strength of your bond—that no matter your individual skills, you simply believe that being together is enough to help you move forward, no matter how overwhelming or unrealistic victory is.Bloodied, but Unbroken.
>>6429804>Pour as much energy as you can spare into him, so he can eliminate this thing with no hesitation. Powering a Mega-level Digimon is already a great feat, so this will exhaust you faster, but you're so, so short on time. By opening your Digivice link as wide as you can, you want to show him the shining strength of your bond—that no matter your individual skills, you simply believe that being together is enough to help you move forward, no matter how overwhelming or unrealistic victory is.Strategy is important but they wouldn't be there without the power of bullshit.
>>6429804>Get him to use those tools that you've scattered. You want him to know that, even though he's this strong, you always want to be able to fight by his side. You're not just here as a battery, you've always been flinging .apps and tools around to even the tide, even against powerful opponents. You'll both overcome this thing with your combined skillsets, as partners who take the field together.
>>6429804>Pour as much energy as you can spare into him, so he can eliminate this thing with no hesitation. Powering a Mega-level Digimon is already a great feat, so this will exhaust you faster, but you're so, so short on time. By opening your Digivice link as wide as you can, you want to show him the shining strength of your bond—that no matter your individual skills, you simply believe that being together is enough to help you move forward, no matter how overwhelming or unrealistic victory is.While strategic planning and human ingenuity did get us here, we would probably havr been in a rut long before this if we didn't genuinely care for each pther. Phascomon has given his all for us, now it's our turn.As an aside, think we can reconfigure the junk bombs to act as flak against Brigadramon, since we probably aren't using them here?
>>6429810>>6429811>>6429936>>6430399>>6430213Power of friendship over tactics and strength! Writing
>>6430534It just makes the most sense. This is not only Plutomon facing himself but Marnie facing herself too. Marnie is the reason ZombiePlutomon happened; it is 100% all her fault. She has to be the one ending it. Sure Plutomon still has the desire to triumph with his own power, retained since way back as Phascomon, but besides the twisted mirror match this is more Marnie setting things right for real.
>Pour as much energy as you can spare into him, so he can eliminate this thing with no hesitation. Powering a Mega-level Digimon is already a great feat, so this will exhaust you faster, but you're so, so short on time. By opening your Digivice link as wide as you can, you want to show him the shining strength of your bond—that no matter your individual skills, you simply believe that being together is enough to help you move forward.Your Digivice sparkles with unbounded energy. You feel arcs of electricity crackling across its screen and winding around your wrists. You're getting exhausted from keeping Plutomon going, but you realize that you need to make one more push to blow through this obstacle without wasting any more time. "Plutomon!" He delivers a devastating uppercut to the zombie, dislocating its jaw and sending it reeling back. It slashes at him, but he retreats with both his fists clenched at his side, staring down the monster as their tattered cloaks both billow in the roaring storm.You give Plutomon everything you have. Once more, you reaffirm everything that you feel so fiercely. The two of you are in this together. No matter how strong he is, or how capable you are at strategizing and planning, it's your bond that has brought you here to stand atop the Tower. That shared connection has allowed you to overcome everything so far, more than any sudden invention or gimmick. At the worst of times, you always want to be able to fall back on it.The black lightning streaking across Plutomon's body begins to shimmer and change. Golden flecks slowly pass through the arcing electricity, their hue rich and deep. A thin aura coats his body, directly empowered by the device on your wrist. This entity isn't even your real nemesis. It's something to be blown away. You've both grown, you've both changed, you've both dealt with it in your own way. The City has no right to keep hanging it over your head. "Finish it off." You request, not order."This mockery will stand no more." He agrees.Plutomon creates a gate in front of his body, which you push increasing amounts of light and life into. The jaws grow larger, jagged teeth springing to life, until it's large enough to engulf the staggering beast whole. By now, the system has given it all of its limbs back, allowing it to fight against the jaws with its full strength."HELL'S GATE!"He tries to snap it shut and destroy the hologram with the combined brunt of both your feelings. You can sense his heart too. There's shame in there, for falling into such a state in the first place. It saddens you to know he still bears that burden, for this is supposed to be your sin to bear. He wants to break this thing apart to slay that very shame, and you feel the same. It has to be purged here."HELL'S SLICER!"
However, as Plutomon attempts to execute his attack, the undead warrior spears its glowing sickle into the upper jaw. It stomps on the bottom set of teeth using its gnarled, wizened claws, refusing to let the weapon close properly. All of its body strength goes into keeping the thing open, burning away at the reserves of energy that you're devoting to this attack.Frustration fills you. You're each giving everything you've got to blot this thing out, to push that shame away FOR GOOD. And still it's resisting. Despite its nature as a hologram, you think you can feel it fighting extra hard for some reason, refusing to be put down like the vile beast it is."Perish already!" Plutomon bellows, holding his hand in front of his face as he forces the jaws down further.Zombie Plutomon keeps fighting, despite the mouth closing inch by inch. You'll beat it, you're sure of it. Just not fast enough to be effective. You'll lose both energy and time here. You glare at it, taking in its rotted form, its broken crests, its green eyes."... Live." It intones, turning its head downwards with abrupt clarity. It's speaking to you. Your hatred begins melting away. "Ah..."
It's not anger and violence you should be invoking. This thing, as much as you hesitate to admit it, is your partner. It's what you did to him. It's a snapshot of him doing his utmost to protect you, even at the cost of everything else he had. It was him at his lowest, but even then, he cared for you deeply. It's your own deeds you should be rebuking, not just this mirror image. You can't just project all of your lingering regret onto it and punch your problems away. That's something you'll save for Brigadramon. "I will. We will. I promise." You say to it.The final portions of the black jaws turn golden, wreathing the zombie in light. Your feelings reach it through Plutomon's attack, and you see your partner beginning to understand as well. "Live..." It asks again.Then its limbs buckle, losing their strength. Plutomon's Hell's Gate snaps shut, destroying the holographic body—then it goes further, shredding the system processes that allow the City to just summon another one immediately. As its residual data explodes into brilliant motes of dust that scatter in the artifact storm, Plutomon turns his head to the sky, breathing in deeply."... Finally.""Are you okay? Did it damage you much?"He shakes his head."No. I think I'll be fine now." He felt that acceptance of it in the end, and it was enough for him too. You let go of your disgust for this thing, in favor of understanding that it was just another side of best friend. If you hadn't been careless then, it never would have existed. You can't take it back, but using this thing as a dumping ground for that last bit of resentment wouldn't have helped you come to terms with it.You feel like you can truly move past that memory now. Your bond is more ironclad than ever. You slowly settle down on the broken rooftop. Your legs don't seem to be working anymore. You don't understand HOW you're even drained this much, but you are. This fight has taxed you to the limit. Luckily, you've dispelled the hologram within the expected span of time. Next is-The false ceiling shatters above you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTiYdpeHIv4Because you took measures to identify Brigadramon's location, your partner isn't caught off guard by the surprise attack. He responds immediately, glancing at the broken polygon and searching for the metal blades on your foe's left arm. Once he spies them, Plutomon goes the other way, attacking the side of Brigadramon's body that only has a broken gun.The two clash in the air, sending out a shockwave that shatters your shield in an instant. You flinch from the explosive impact and cover your face instinctively. Brigadramon's claws rake across your partner's already injured arm, shredding the mouth beyond usability, but failing to sink in and deploy the missiles. In return, Plutomon chomps down on his left shoulder, savagely crushing part of Brigadramon's engine. Smoke and flames sputter from the damaged thruster. Once the missile silo in the claws open up, the two of them separate themselves, neither truly wanting to experience an explosion up close."Fight us already!" You shout indignantly, sick of all the holograms. The guardian glances upwards at the Portal. It's small now. Instead of blotting up the sky, it's only a bit bigger than the entire width of this Tower. He just has to delay you further. Luckily, it seems he's out of monstrosities to pull from the archives. Brigadramon finally prepares himself to battle Plutomon head-on."What's wrong? Never had an enemy last this long?" Plutomon taunts, spitting out a cerulean chunk of metal. No satisfying response comes. Brigadramon just lunges again. You're both more motivated than you've ever been, but you're almost at your true limit. If you try sending your partner more power, you might collapse, causing him to lose his Mega form entirely. If that happens, you're dead. >Dig through your .apps and let Plutomon handle it for now. You can't join the fight, or you'll just distract your partner. Catalogue everything you have and wait for an opportunity that may or may not come. Brigadramon has all the time in the world to change tactics or try something new, so it'll pay to be prepared. >Focus solely on observation. Your enemy has an incredible amount of combat experience. Left unattended, he's far likelier to score a lethal blow than your partner is. You may be able to prevent this by watching how he moves and identifying patterns. You two have already managed to figure out a good way to stay safe from Exa Destroyer, he could resort to something else soon.>The Portal is closing. You want to see if there's anything you can do to stop that. Just like last time, there are tiny threads of information moving from the Tower's surface straight into the gaping maw above. If something is controlling its closure, those small streaks are the most likely culprit. See how much progress you can make hacking them. However, this has a legitimate chance of being a dead end, whether due to physical factors or security strength.
>>6430760>>Focus solely on observation. Your enemy has an incredible amount of combat experience. Left unattended, he's far likelier to score a lethal blow than your partner is. You may be able to prevent this by watching how he moves and identifying patterns. You two have already managed to figure out a good way to stay safe from Exa Destroyer, he could resort to something else soon.with how much damage he's taken, we might find a good spot to send hacking spikes to buy time. Or we just keep the radar open as needed.Honestly with the damaged engine, we could make a run for the Portal already. Throw the rest of the junk bombs as chaff and just book it. At worst, we could try Haggard Cluster close to the Portal to try to eat the threads along with Brigadramon's attacks.
>>6430800+1 but I don't wanna have Plutomon use Haggard Cluster unless Brigadramon unleashes Exa Destroyer.>However, it's too strong an attack to be wasting on these things, and it'll exhaust him if he keeps doing it.And now that Marnie is more drained, fear of running out of steam is more real than before. But I don't regret the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP option. Actually funny that Marnie is still not quite used to it to the point she exhausted herself in her attempted enthusiasm in the face of ZombiePlutomon. It'll only get better from here.
>>6430760>Focus solely on observation. Your enemy has an incredible amount of combat experience. Left unattended, he's far likelier to score a lethal blow than your partner is. You may be able to prevent this by watching how he moves and identifying patterns. You two have already managed to figure out a good way to stay safe from Exa Destroyer, he could resort to something else soon.I don't know
>>6430760>Dig through your .apps and let Plutomon handle it for now. You can't join the fight, or you'll just distract your partner. Catalogue everything you have and wait for an opportunity that may or may not come. Brigadramon has all the time in the world to change tactics or try something new, so it'll pay to be prepared.
>>6430800>>6430802>>6430944>>6431033Writing!
>>6431389Needing another day to finish up o7
>Focus solely on observation. Your enemy has an incredible amount of combat experience. Left unattended, he's far likelier to score a lethal blow than your partner is. You may be able to prevent this by watching how he moves and identifying patterns. You two have already managed to figure out a good way to stay safe from Exa Destroyer, he could resort to something else soon.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eSz0_ZOEYoYou can’t help physically, but you need to look out for Brigadramon. Every Digimon has motions that can be observed, you're sure of it. The two of them clash repeatedly, their blue and black armor colliding with the force of speeding trains. Every blow sends out another wave of force, prompting you to hook yourself to the roof with a l1ne tether. Now that Plutomon is a Mega Digimon, he’s capable of staying locked in combat for much longer. Astamon would have gotten shredded long ago. Although your partner has more dangerous melee weapons, Brigadramon has unknown centuries of experience to draw on. You stare at his movements with determination, feeling your own vision overlap with Plutomon’s. You start to feel each desperate punch, each savage bite, each heavy breath. From your angle, you can see that Brigadramon is trying to do something, but you can’t quite figure it out. Even with your observation, you fail to warn Plutomon in time. After failing to swing his mighty claws, Brigadramon backs off for a moment. Your partner takes the bait and presses the advantage, only for the cyborg dragon to fire off a single thruster and spin in an arc. The wild tailspin catches Plutomon in the side, and he's too surprised to bite it as it comes.Plutomon is sent flying back a short distance by the sucker punch. That’s all it takes for Exa Destroyer to be executed. ”HAGGARD-“ BOOM!
He isn’t quick enough on the draw. The organic missiles fly into the space between them and detonate once struck, splintering the damaged parts of your partner’s armor. His beam cuts across Brigadramon’s underarm, erasing a hole in the muscle. The space left behind is a textureless void, lacking even the cubic fizzling that Digimon wounds always take the form of. You don’t even have to ask if he’s okay this time. Your link is so strong that you understand his status with no exchange of words. It hurts, but he’s not out of it yet. The attack can only reach 100% lethality if Brigadramon uses it while those claws are impaling his body. You need to do everything in your power to stop that. Plutomon raises his wounded arm to touch the shoulder on the opposite side. It’s the one that got savagely shredded when it locked jaws with Zombie Plutomon. The explosion has done so much damage to it that the mouth has closed up by itself. It rotates backwards with a soft hiss, unwilling to keep fighting. Through the link, you feel several small sparks of consciousness across Plutomon’s body. All of his jaws, which have been acting almost on their own, seem to have some vague connection to his Digicore. You try and make one stir by impressing a sense of urgency upon it. You’re pleasantly surprised when his tail twitches and turns towards you. “Get back in there.” You say. “I’ll keep looking out.” You remember an old lesson from Doc— all hypothetical, but now proving to be true, like many of his theories. Due to his immense filesize as a Mega Digimon, Plutomon’s Digicore can’t individually control and micromanage every system that comprises his body. Brigadramon is surely the same, with different parts of his code being responsible for flight, stabilization, aiming, calculations, and coordination with the City’s other peons. Every sufficiently advanced organ likely has a life of its own, similar to Oblivimon’s saucers, Deltamon’s heads, or even Oro Salmón. While he fights, you try to share some of the burden by instructing these organelles to act on any opportunity you can spy, instead of just blindly biting whatever comes into range.
Plutomon and Brigadramon collide again. Your partner has ripped off the yellow casing on one of the guardian’s turbines, while receiving a shoulder injury and a broken head crest in return. The cracks across his body have widened, making him even more vulnerable to being pierced by Brigadramon’s metal claws. In the midst of the frenzied battle, you help to suppress the aggressive urges of his miniature jaws. He brawls against the cyborg with claw and fist, raking long lines across his metal armor. All the while, swipes and shoulder-charges collide with him repeatedly, breaking away shards of hyper-dense metallic data. The mouths stay quiet as blows rain down around them, muzzled by your willpower. You finally manage to spot Brigadramon’s next move. He aims a kick at Plutomon’s shin, tearing into his limb with the claws on his foot. The blow shatters his armor and draws a fountain of static blood. While Plutomon is reeling, his enemy attempts to lower his rounded pauldron, so that the spinning blades of the turbine descend on Plutomon’s head and rip it to shreds. “WATCH HIS ENGINE!”You send out pulses of urgency to each spare mouth. In particular, you impress upon the wounded right shoulder that it needs to get up and bite, NOW! The jaws bend forward to catch Brigadramon’s left engine in its crushing vice grip. Locked together in this manner, you expect Brigadramon to use Exa Destroyer again, accepting the recoil from the blast. You pre-empt it by calling out an attack. "EXECUT-"“CHAOS RIGHTS!” Brigadramon's voice is drowned out as the other jaws surge to life. All across Plutomon’s body, hungering mouths gnash and bite, looking for the parts of Brigadramon that are hovering right in front of them. They latch on to the spikes on his knee, the remaining parts of his gun, the exposed bits of blue flesh on his knees and elbows. With his wounded left arm, Plutomon seizes Brigadramon’s neck with triumph. He can't get away, the attack is in progress, and the claws haven't managed to dig into their target.”HAGGARD CLUSTER!””EXA DESTROYER!”This time, the explosion consumes them both.
You feel intense pain that radiates through your core and brings you to your knees. It's different from the sensation that simulated suffering can achieve, and neither is it anything close to the agony of malware corruption. You feel it much deeper, echoing twofold with each moment. Your partner is wounded badly. The repeated strikes and explosions have broken the front of his body, leaving a gaping chasm. His shoulders sag with exertion, and his limbs scream silently for rest.Brigadramon looks like he's in poor shape as well. Your eyes widen as you properly witness your progress. The corners of your mouth turn upwards.The recoil damage from the explosion, mixed with the devastating laser, has destroyed your enemy's armor. His right arm, bearing the broken Gatling gun, is almost completely gone. He's sacrificed the useless weapon to shield himself from Haggard Cluster. Even then, its managed to tear through and eat into his chestplate. If it weren't for the limb and its incredibly dense data, the beam might have burnt through and defeated him for good. "Well, well, well... I think this is the furthest we've ever gotten.""It is." You confirm. Not even Zombie Plutomon did this much damage to him. He can bleed. You really can do this.Brigadramon wordlessly inclines his head upwards. You both bite the bait, turning to look at the Portal. It's smaller than the width of this building now. You realise that, due to your earlier decisions, you've managed to save enough time to have this final chance. It could have closed by now if you fell for one or two more delays down below."Stay here and-"
Brigadramon takes off with one broken engine, causing Plutomon to mutter a string of infernal curses that send ripples through the air.The gate guardian returns to his usual position by the Portal. He hovers there, accompanied only by the low hum and quiet sputtering of his mechanical propellers, waiting for you to come and face him in the air. Years of memories flash through your head. How many times have you watched him circling The Tower in this exact spot, watching for threats endlessly? Now he's inviting you, YOU, up here to end it for good. This is what your whole journey has led up to."... It's going to close. I'm not risking us getting separated again."Plutomon holds his hand out to you. You look at him from head to toe, observing the damage he's received throughout the clash.After the bite, Plutomon's shoulder jaw is unresponsive to all prodding. He's down one major weapon, his left arm is slowed down, and he's running out of energy to use Haggard Cluster any further. Neither can you afford to give him more juice. He and Brigadramon both have exposed chests now, making each of them vulnerable to killing blows by the other. You glance up at the dragon's silhouette again, proud of his progress in shattering the armor. But you don't know if your partner can keep up the momentum if he has to protect you with one arm while dealing with his opponent. He's proven that he can protect you from danger, yet dragging yourself into it is different from having to be rescued. Your foe clearly isn't above backing away and biding his time, or going for you just to distract him. He has no delusions about honor, and frankly, neither do you. You hesitate for a moment before making your choice.>Take his hand. Fly with him and stay close. You'll be right in Brigadramon's face, and there's literally no place in the City more dangerous than that. Plutomon's combat effectiveness will be hampered, but it'll make it harder for you two to get separated if you need to make a break for the Portal.>Refuse to take it. You'll use your jetpack and remaining .apps to stay up there in the air, where he can pick you up if the need arises. You don't want to actively cling on to him and drag him down. You'll have to take the risk that being separated brings.
Sorry for the long delay, folks. Busy week, and I was tallying the decisions made last thread.
>>6432024>Take his hand. Fly with him and stay close. You'll be right in Brigadramon's face, and there's literally no place in the City more dangerous than that. Plutomon's combat effectiveness will be hampered, but it'll make it harder for you two to get separated if you need to make a break for the Portal.With an exposed chest, even our attacks will distract him. We can ready multiple hacking spikes to try and get his wings to malfunction, and if he tanks through it for one last charge, we could power down to Astamon and gun him down while Marnie tries to pull the two of them towards the Portal.
>>6432038+1We're never being separated again, unless it's a really good strategy. Here? No. We live or die together
What if Plutomon as a last ditch effort throws Marnie at the Portal right as Marnie Hololizes him, so that Plutomon is sucked into the Digivice as Marnie's still affected the the extremely powerful throwing force, and then in the middle of the flight she activates the jetpack? Jetpack combined with Plutomon's Mega strength backing the throw might be insane enough in speed that she gets through the portal with Plutomon in the Linker? Then we win
>>6432024>Take his hand. Fly with him and stay close. You'll be right in Brigadramon's face, and there's literally no place in the City more dangerous than that. Plutomon's combat effectiveness will be hampered, but it'll make it harder for you two to get separated if you need to make a break for the Portal.
>>6432024>Take his hand. Fly with him and stay close. You'll be right in Brigadramon's face, and there's literally no place in the City more dangerous than that. Plutomon's combat effectiveness will be hampered, but it'll make it harder for you two to get separated if you need to make a break for the Portal.This is the most compatible with power of friendship.
>>6432038>>6432044>>6432313>>6432336Writing! No to splitting, sticking close at the cost of combat ability!
>>6432393Can we use the shield app to parry or deflect a non-signature blow to throw Brigadramon off? We haven't used it this entire run so he shouldn't know we have it unless the podding tipped him off.
>>6432419Yeah this
>>6432419Yep that’s doable. It’s just been passively exploding from all the shockwaves, but it’ll recover enough to work with. It did get used against Turbomon and the Mulemon + Mockingbirdmon to prevent the bad outcomes from happening on the first failure, but I think I didn’t sufficiently indicate what could have otherwise happened.
>>6432419Against a mega? Maybe if we go for the last ditch thing and the rocket hits the Portal. That thing's a mega, surely just the collateral explosion will already bust the barrier.
>>6432442It definitely cannot take a direct hit, that’s right. Any strike that pierces through will be deadly. Will include it in the choices though.
>Take his hand. Fly with him and stay close. You'll be right in Brigadramon's face, and there's literally no place in the City more dangerous than that. Plutomon's combat effectiveness will be hampered, but it'll make it harder for you two to get separated if you need to make a break for the Portal.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJXwqcbrCjoYou accept Plutomon's hand. He pulls you into a tight grip, making sure his tattered and ripped cape is shielding you from view. His myriad jaws go silent once you're close, suppressing their usual savagery so as to not disturb you."Ready?""Hang on." You shift yourself so that you're riding between his shoulder blades, then activate a l1ne tool and link it to his wireframe. His Digicore automatically shrugs off the first attempt due to its Mega-level firewall, requiring a second try with his direct permission. You use the same vector-matching trick that you had to overcome on your first day together. How far you've come, from the days where a sole Espimon felt insurmountable.The invisible chain forms around your midsection and his pinky finger. Even if you fall, he'll have a brief window to catch you."Okay."He takes off in a burst of ashen lightning, splintering the floor beneath him. The helipad has been left in ruins, the air itself is rippling with scars and lines of torn code, and the yawning Portal mouth above is shrinking rapidly. You've left the City a wreck, but there's one more thing you need to smash apart."MEET YOUR END. FOR OUR HOME."Brigadramon launches a series of missiles and bombs from the remaining compartments across his body. Without a swarm of five hundred missiles accompanying them, the slower projectiles are nothing but chaff. Plutomon twirls through the darkened sky, effortlessly avoiding them. Once enough pile up, he uses Hell's Gate to erase the whole swarm at once, dashing their data packets into nothingness. He soon matches his enemy's altitude. One of his arms clings on to you, but you gently pry it off so that he can use both for combat. "This is not our home. Fall, so we can claim that which is." The two surge forward to meet. Fist and claw collide once more, splintering the sky with the sheer force of their violence. The final clouds of data are completely dispelled, leaving only aberrant streaks across the eternal night.
Plutomon throws himself into a frenzy, clawing and biting at any bit of exposed metal he can find. Brigadramon is swift enough to avoid most of the attacks, but he occasionally slows down due to all the damage. The crackling jaws of black energy manage to tear away a portion of his wing at one point, and he responds by cleaving off the entire bottom third of Plutomon's intact leg with his claws.Your partner can no longer land on the ground. You both grit your teeth as the pain dances across your minds. You suppose it's symbolic. Neither of you want to go back there in the first place. Having you mounted between his shoulders is throwing him off just a little. You notice that he's unable to spin and twirl when up close, or he'll be putting you between him and his enemy. While he struggles, Brigadramon is moving like a blur, each motion smooth and calculated. He can't adapt to the uneasy stuttering of his engine, so at one point, he spears his failing thruster with his own deadly digits, stopping it completely so that the lack of motion becomes predictable to his algorithms. The monstrous mechanical beast has already gotten use to the heavy damage done to his body, and is reformatting his attack patterns to cope, even with just one thruster.Plutomon can achieve such mental feat. The longer he fights, the more he's being put at a disadvantage. You tense up as the Exa Destroyer thrusts past your head at one point, in an attempt to execute your partner. "Marnie."His tail sweeps upwards to jab at Brigadramon's face. When his opponent tries to sever the tail, Plutomon flashes the red jewel on his chest. The mere possibility of Haggard Cluster going off again forces Brigadramon to back away, and he glowers with rage when he realizes that it was a feint."What do you have planned?"There is a possibility you end this here and now, if you pick a method that can overwhelm Brigadramon. Your partner has gotten to show his strength, you've both gotten to exhibit your sheer willpower and strength of being, and now it's your time to plot and scheme. You'll have to account for the fact that you're mounted on his back, the current state of both combatants, and your window of time remaining— for the Portal is now only as wide as a regular skyscraper.
>Attempt to hack Brigadramon. You have Squid's tools, maybe you could fling them at him and try to cause some kind of glitch that will give Plutomon the chance he needs. You feel like the loss of data across the fight will have made him just a bit more vulnerable to the program, but will it really be enough against a Mega Digimon?>A classic: De-Digivolve. This trick has served you well over your entire journey. Brigadramon is now missing that armor that would be unbreakable for Astamon. Try to find an opportunity where you can have your partner turn back into an Ultimate Digimon, with his gun ready to fill the cyborg's exposed chest cavity with Hellfire. Failure will mean being exposed to an immense gulf in attack power and durability.>Brigadramon seems to be relying on his incredible precision, only missing Plutomon by a manner of inches at worst. However, being perfect all the time is a huge burden. Try to use your shield to disrupt his highly accurate swings. By making your hitbox just a bit bigger, you could turn an intentional miss or feint against Plutomon into a glancing blow, throwing off his rhythm and letting your partner capitalize on it. However, putting yourself in such danger could have dire consequence.>Take it slow. Too slow will mean the Portal closes, but you need a measured response to feel safe. Continue to break away parts of him and strip away at his armor through gradual combat. Plutomon could eventually find the chance to go in for a lethal blow, but who knows how much time that would burn?>Try to flee. Ignoble, but your goal is freedom. With all the damage you've done to him, it may be possible to actually make it through the gate. Focus on debilitating strikes and attacks that hurt his thrusters and jets, so he gets slow enough to run from, and then use all of your movement tricks to shoot past. You may not get to destroy him, but if this works, you'll finally leave City 87-O.>Write-in: Something that is physically possible to commit to and achieve. If you try to force too many things into one action, you'll suffer for it. Whatever you choose to do, you must dedicate all your energy into it.
A very important vote. Very pleasantly surprised to have found that FE track I linked. It has a part that sounds exactly like this theme I always listened to before, whenever Marnie started each instance of climbing. Almost like a leitmotif.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS-Sg7eW9fw
>>6432464>Try to flee. Ignoble, but your goal is freedom. With all the damage you've done to him, it may be possible to actually make it through the gate. Focus on debilitating strikes and attacks that hurt his thrusters and jets, so he gets slow enough to run from, and then use all of your movement tricks to shoot past. You may not get to destroy him, but if this works, you'll finally leave City 87-O.This is literally what we are here for. This is the culmination of our goals. Now is our chance.
>>6432464>>A classic: De-Digivolve. This trick has served you well over your entire journey. Brigadramon is now missing that armor that would be unbreakable for Astamon. Try to find an opportunity where you can have your partner turn back into an Ultimate Digimon, with his gun ready to fill the cyborg's exposed chest cavity with Hellfire. Failure will mean being exposed to an immense gulf in attack power and durability.>>Try to flee. Ignoble, but your goal is freedom. With all the damage you've done to him, it may be possible to actually make it through the gate. Focus on debilitating strikes and attacks that hurt his thrusters and jets, so he gets slow enough to run from, and then use all of your movement tricks to shoot past. You may not get to destroy him, but if this works, you'll finally leave City 87-O.He'll know for sure if we're targeting his thrusters, but we can de-digivolve when he tries to capitalize on that. It probably won't kill him, but it might keep him back just long enough that Astamon can avoid the missiles on the way out.
>>6432464Brigadramon seems to be relying on his incredible precision, only missing Plutomon by a manner of inches at worst. However, being perfect all the time is a huge burden. Try to use your shield to disrupt his highly accurate swings. By making your hitbox just a bit bigger, you could turn an intentional miss or feint against Plutomon into a glancing blow, throwing off his rhythm and letting your partner capitalize on it. However, putting yourself in such danger could have dire consequence.We observed Brigadramon well enough earlier, Im sure we can figure out one of his moves that's minus on block so Plutomon can punish him.
>>6432464>Brigadramon seems to be relying on his incredible precision, only missing Plutomon by a manner of inches at worst. However, being perfect all the time is a huge burden. Try to use your shield to disrupt his highly accurate swings. By making your hitbox just a bit bigger, you could turn an intentional miss or feint against Plutomon into a glancing blow, throwing off his rhythm and letting your partner capitalize on it. However, putting yourself in such danger could have dire consequence.
>>6432488>>6432554You sure you want to endanger Marnie like that? I'm personally for taking the closest opportunity to cut and run >>6432469. Fuck being noble; Marnie and Plutomon fought not only a ghost of the past but their own failure made manifest. We've done plenty enough already. Or do you think the "try to flee" option is a trap here?
>>6432464>A classic: De-Digivolve. This trick has served you well over your entire journey. Brigadramon is now missing that armor that would be unbreakable for Astamon. Try to find an opportunity where you can have your partner turn back into an Ultimate Digimon, with his gun ready to fill the cyborg's exposed chest cavity with Hellfire. Failure will mean being exposed to an immense gulf in attack power and durability.He won't see this coming.
Well since it's a three-way tie, I think we should take some time to actually tally the hits that Brigadramon and Plutomon have taken respectively, to gauge what exactly they are capable and properly evaluate the risks. I personally can't do that right now so I'm throwing the idea out there so someone else can.
>>6432821I’ll leave room for a tiebreaker till I’m available to write, yeah. Definitely can’t flip a coin on this one. I do have a tally in my notes but it’s extremely messy and unpresentable until I can sit down and sort everything. If anyone is going to count the previous outcomes, some general things I can share are: >Digivolving to Astamon clears some of the bad outcome injuries if applicable >Digivolving to Plutomon clears some of the bad outcome injuries if applicable >Time-saving and wasting options prior to Doc’s message about the portal closing do still have an effect. It was just a narrative thing that I had him announce it at that exact moment, it’s not that it only started closing from then. The exact ratio and impact of these choices is just personal tracking, which I then try to make into a general sense that I describe in the updates
>>6432821Well, despite voting that way, I'll note that while being carried, Marnie is in a great position to control the surviving mouths to attack without risking herself.I think we only have 1 disabled mouth, in the shoulder? So we're still more than a match in that sense.
>>6432845The legs and left arm too, but those aren’t super dangerous ones
>>6432845How will Plutomon de-digivolving to Astamon affect Marnie who is tethered to him?
>>6432848It might break the tether I guess? But if we switch to Astamon, he's perfectly comfortable carrying us in one arm and shooting with the other. And we can still jump off for jetpack+hololize.
Won’t be able to write for a bit, working over the weekend, but I’ll lock as soon as the tie is broken
>>6433568I can't change my vote >>6432756 because of IP fuckery so don't count on me to break the tie.
>>6433673All good, will wait a day more and flip a coin if there’s still a tie. Unable to start till then anyway.
>>6433815Changing my vote >>6432554 toA classic: De-Digivolve. This trick has served you well over your entire journey. Brigadramon is now missing that armor that would be unbreakable for Astamon. Try to find an opportunity where you can have your partner turn back into an Ultimate Digimon, with his gun ready to fill the cyborg's exposed chest cavity with Hellfire. Failure will mean being exposed to an immense gulf in attack power and durability.
>>6434143>>6432756>>6432477>>6432488>>6432469Writing! Sorry for vanishing for so long at such a crucial point. Busy weekend is over, fortunately.
>A classic: De-Digivolve. This trick has served you well over your entire journey. Brigadramon is now missing that armor that would be unbreakable for Astamon. Try to find an opportunity where you can have your partner turn back into an Ultimate Digimon, with his gun ready to fill the cyborg's exposed chest cavity with Hellfire. Failure will mean being exposed to an immense gulf in attack power versus durability.You’ve developed plenty of recurring tricks over your adventures, and you’re sure that Brigadramon has been told about them. However, that doesn’t mean he’s capable of reacting to them at all times, especially when he’s occupied with a fellow Mega Digimon. The two of them rip into each other savagely, constantly sending out blasts of force that would blow apart even Champion Digimon with ease. The fury of two virus-types causes the air to fizzle and burn. Hanging on would be a great ordeal if you didn't have .apps anchoring you. "A plan, huh?"You think about what you can do. Running is out of the question, you feel like he could pursue you with ease. He's still faster. Hacking him is also a dead end, you doubt that the tools are ever getting through to him in the first place. The firewall of a Digimon is already powerful, it would take Source Code level interference to directly affect a Mega. And you don't want to get close, because having part of your body erased before entering the Portal could have dire consequences for the rest of your life. Plutomon's combat capabilities are being decreased by your presence, making it unlikely that he can be both fast and explosively deadly in a fight. That just leaves actions that are unique to you, and you alone.Using your Digivice’s Hololize function is definitely your favorite move, but is inapplicable here. Making use of Plutomon’s many forms comes in second place. Maybe you can try it one last time.
Your partner senses your plan and expresses a twinge of doubt. You cement your resolve and let him your absolute certainty through your link. You need him to trust you for this. He does. Plutomon curls his fist up and swings for Brigadramon’s chest, aiming a straight-on attack. He unfolds his fingers as he gets close, attempting to plunge his talons into his exposed chest and rip through the blue flesh.Brigadramon catches his forearm in the space between his Exa Destroyer claws. The two grind to a halt, the momentum of both combatants halted by the sudden locking of their limbs. Black metal splinters and cracks, sheared away to fit into the gap. Your partner is in intense pain, but his mutilated limb is in the right spot."PLUTOMON!" You jump off him. You don't want to be gripping him when his data changes, as you have no idea what the energy would do to your model. Brigadramon's vision is filled with white light. You relinquish the overwhelming supply of energy that you've been feeding Plutomon with, causing him to revert back to his Ultimate form.
The crackling in the air immediately grows weaker. You tug on the l1ne keeping you tethered and reunite yourself with Astamon's back. The grey fabric of his coat is loose enough to bunch up between your fists. He's only a bit smaller than Plutomon, and still easy for you to cling on to.Astamon is in a sorry state. All of the damage done to his greater form has carried over. Both of his legs are gone, rendering him unable to execute deadly kicks. One arm hangs limply, the ripped open mouth transforming into a gaping static wound instead. However, his position and stance have been maintained— and that means his arm is still trapped between Brigadramon's claws, extended halfway to his chest. More importantly, Oro Salmón has regenerated, and is clutched desperately in your partner's gloved grip. It spans the rest of the distance, with its barrel pressed neatly against your enemy's exposed torso.Brigadramon swings his arm, attempting to throw your partner aside. Without the strength of a Mega Digimon, he can't resist the motion. He gets tossed through the air, but not before pulling the trigger and sending a few preliminary rounds right into Brigadramon's body. You hear the sound of metal tearing, and realize that you've done it. This was the right call.You and Astamon sail through the sky, his wings flapping desperately as he tries to get himself back upright. Brigadramon staggers backwards, his engine sagging and his head twitching from side to side. He presses his claws to his chest as his diagnostics systems flash across his orange interface. The two of you pant heavily as you watch him struggle, his limbs coming away slick with crackling blood and oil. It worked, the surprise attack has managed to heavily wound him. You didn't get to use a full Hellfire burst, but without armor, he's truly been dealt a devastating blow. It's a near-lethal strike that has wreaked havoc on his internals.
Even with his heavy injuries, Brigadramon flies upwards to reclaim the altitude advantage. He remains fully committed to keeping you out of the Portal. From the way he's moving, and the deluge of static pouring from those bullet holes, you can tell that victory is extremely close. You're really doing it. You've really got a chance to defeat Brigadramon once and for all. "Should know not to question your timing by now." Astamon says with a smirk. The motion sends a wave of pain across his face, and you notice the deep split across his cheek. The x-shaped scar on his head has deepened and opened up, and crimson fluid pours out, much unlike the usual static. He's hurt badly too. "One more push.""Right!"But now that you've claimed the unconditional advantage for the first time, you start to feel a twinge of doubt. You've been wanting to destroy your opponent for your entire life. The way he's fought has pissed you off enough that you and Astamon have all the greater motivation to finish him off. And you have friends counting on it too. Despite all this, the brief conversation you had with Brigadramon is making you question whether this is wise. He said something about a bigger fish; something bigger than even the City, which might come knocking long after you've claimed your freedom. If you slay him here, you might be removing the strongest weapon of a City that very much cares about the lives of its people as a whole, even if it's a City that could never, never in a thousand years be enough for you.
"Come on, power me back up!"You channel energy into your partner, preparing to Digivolve him back into his strongest form for the final clash. You need to make a decision. Whatever you choose, there are no personal consequences for you. No traps.>Pull your punches. A Mega-level Digimon that's showing mercy is still fully capable of shredding a building, but your foe can take it. You feel like he has to be left alive for Wind to deal with in the future. Beat him just enough to secure victory, and send him crashing down to the bottom of the City, cementing you as a legend forevermore.>It's not your problem. Whether it's sheer spite or pure pragmatism doesn't matter anymore, this Digimon has to be deleted. Aim to resoundingly slay Brigadramon so you can take his spot at the pinnacle of the world. Your partner will be able to absorb his bounty of data, and then you can head through the Portal and claim your victory.
>>6432464Good pick!! Fleeing was also an outcome that would have been passable. The rest were varying degrees of bad, with taking it slow only failing because Marnie is on his back, as opposed to hovering separately >>6432024
>>6434739>Pull your punches. A Mega-level Digimon that's showing mercy is still fully capable of shredding a building, but your foe can take it. You feel like he has to be left alive for Wind to deal with in the future. Beat him just enough to secure victory, and send him crashing down to the bottom of the City, cementing you as a legend forevermore.Best chance the City has for the audit is to leave a witness. That Brigadramon is maimed but alive will most likely prove who escaped wasn't corrupted.
>>6434748+1
>>6434738>The x-shaped scar on his head has deepened and opened up, and crimson fluid pours out, much unlike the usual static.Marnie doesn't know about humans and blood... yet>If you slay him here, you might be removing the strongest weapon of a City that very much cares about the lives of its people as a whole, even if it's a City that could never, never in a thousand years be enough for you.Doc's words from thread 4 echo in Marnie's head:"Once you leave, the rest of us still have to live here. So try not to tear things apart too much, hm?"
>>6434739>Pull your punches. A Mega-level Digimon that's showing mercy is still fully capable of shredding a building, but your foe can take it. You feel like he has to be left alive for Wind to deal with in the future. Beat him just enough to secure victory, and send him crashing down to the bottom of the City, cementing you as a legend forevermore.sucks, but if Marnie isn't sticking around for the cleanup, then we shouldn't.Besides, it would be REALLY funny if they popped back in just to kick Brigadramon's ass again, somewhere down the road in Marnie's future. Now THAT would convince people to try out whatever's outside the City.
>>6434739>Pull your punches. A Mega-level Digimon that's showing mercy is still fully capable of shredding a building, but your foe can take it. You feel like he has to be left alive for Wind to deal with in the future. Beat him just enough to secure victory, and send him crashing down to the bottom of the City, cementing you as a legend forevermore.
>>6434739>Pull your punches. A Mega-level Digimon that's showing mercy is still fully capable of shredding a building, but your foe can take it. You feel like he has to be left alive for Wind to deal with in the future. Beat him just enough to secure victory, and send him crashing down to the bottom of the City, cementing you as a legend forevermore.I never had anything against Brigadramon. Who knows, maybe he can join forces with Wind if he needs to fight the Overseers.
>>6434748>>6434751>>6434755>>6434764>>6434798>>6434825Writing!
>Pull your punches. A Mega-level Digimon that's showing mercy is still fully capable of shredding a building, but your foe can take it. You feel like he has to be left alive for Wind to deal with in the future. Beat him just enough to secure victory, and send him crashing down to the bottom of the City, cementing you as a legend forevermore.<D I G I V O L U T I O N><進化>This is the last time you'll be Digivolving your partner here. You start to feel troubled as his form flickers and shifts, and worry soon hits you in full. You're not sure you even have enough energy left to output the huge burst of power he needs. After cutting off his momentum and reducing him to a lesser form, you can't resume the process so easily.Brigadramon raises his claw to beckon, the weapon itself still pristine despite the sad state the rest of him is in. He doesn't try to capitalise on your hesitation. He just waits by the Portal mouth as it gets smaller and smaller. "Marnie?""It's... not enough!"You try and try, but you can't seem to do it."Come on, partner. You got this."He reaches over his shoulder, placing his gloved hand on yours. You remain wrapped around his neck, clinging on for dear life as you try again to unlock his full potential.==
"A partnership, like what you had." The human girl says, trying her best to fill her voice with confidence. She wants to sound like she knows what she's doing, but you can tell that she's nervous. You hold back your scoff and suppress that growing sense of wariness. That bastard is nowhere to be seen. This could be a golden ray of hope after all. You entwine that hope tightly around your claw, for if you lose it, you don't know how you could go on."Hmm... I'm listening," You reply, scratching at your ear to hide your bubbling interest. You play the part of a nonchalant ruffian far better than she does, you think.=="Marnie! Hey! Marnie!"You shake the wounded girl vigorously. This is all your fault. You said you would work with her, but you couldn't help but undermine her efforts. You can't let her find out, there's no way she would keep a liar and a weakling around. Not one who couldn't even escape from a single captor, and who would hide things of such importance just to cover his own ass. Why the hell did she take that hit for you? You press your hands against the injury, trying to stem the lines of code. Despite your regret, your mouth moves before your heart does. You need to protect yourself. You need to secure your place here. And so you lie, you say what you don't mean, you desperately try to strengthen your position, even though you've just hurt your sole ticket out of this hellish pit of an existence.==The only thing on your mind right now is running. Your claws scrape against the floor of the partition as bullets and bombs rumble behind you. You're certain that if you ran in the other direction, you could make it out of this place, far away from Wind, from his scary goals, from that debt that you've been shackled with. But that would mean running away from someone who you've started to think of as... a friend. Someone who you wish you could be with. You don't know if she'll still want the same once she knows what you've done, or what you're really like. But you know that you'll regret it forever if you leave her.Commandramon and Espimon pursue you, but you ignore all of them, weaving between shots and strikes, accruing injuries one by one, until you reach her.==You sit within the partition, looking your partner in the eye. After spilling your guts to her, you expected at least some kind of anger. Some sort of rebuke. A punishment, one that's well-deserved this time. She did say she was mad. But she's not showing any of it, despite her attempt to sound tough. All she's given you so far is patience, understanding, and an assurance that together, you could be something else. That you don't have to keep fighting to survive every moment anymore. That when you're with her..."You don't need to worry about that. Ever. You're stuck with me, after all. And I'm stuck with you. Capisce?"Seconds span into forever."Capisce." And you feel like you're breathing for the first time.==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dih0vokuZXYWarm light envelops the both of you, as memories from what feels like a lifetime ago flash through your mind. You're ready."ASTAMON!""YEAH!""DIGIVOLVE!"<進化>"ASTAMON, DIGIVOLVE TO..."He calls to the heavens as he ascends, his wings spreading outwards to their full length, only to be sucked inwards and replaced by a flowing cape of deep crimson. His shoulders burst outwards hungrily, and though his legs cannot regrow, his whole form shimmers with renewed radiance. "PLUTOMON!"Your partner enters the fray, climbing skywards to meet your enemy for the last time.
He collides with Brigadramon, who manages to hold his ground and keep your partner at bay with his remaining thruster. Despite the critical damage done to his chest, he'll never back down while he can still move. Plutomon snaps at his head with the deadly weapon on his shoulder, but the marauding beast manages to impale the entire thing with Exa Destroyer, forcing him to pull back before he can detonate the missiles. "I can devour you just as well without it." He snarls, reaching across his body to set his dislocated joint back in place. "... Wait." You gently place your hand on the side of his head. You feel his fury. You know that he wants to prove himself here by toppling the figure that could pass as the City's God. And for years, you've wanted the same. He's only echoing your burning frustration. And yet, now that you've come this far, you finally understand that things are not so simple. You've let go of the vile influence of the book on your life. You've learnt lessons. You've tried to grow as a person. You know now that completely destroying this Digimon in a moment of blind spite could have dire consequences for all the people you love. If he's going to fall, someone else will have to make that decision in the future— most likely Wind. It won't be you who rids the City of its scourge and savior. "The rest of us still have to live here, Marnie.""Yeah, Doc. I know." You can't just wreck everything on your way out. Plutomon is dissatisfied at the idea of not claiming a trophy after such a hard-fought battle. But he understands as well as you do. "Very well."
Though you're no longer aware of it, not even in the periphery of your thoughts, countless eyes are on you. Hacked feeds and underground broadcasts are capturing your battle atop the Tower, with cheers, gasps and screams flying across the Network with each blow. The audience of punks and proles alike observe every titanic clash, as the two Mega Digimon smash each other to bits. Black shards shatter and fall, and blue metal is raked clean from disintegrating flesh. Plutomon devours Brigadramon's right side with Hell's Gate again, tearing off another part of the arm that's already mutilated beyond recognition. The cyborg flies above you and cuts off his jets, approaching like a falling star and trying one final time to sink the claws into your partner's chest. You resolve to make this the final time he gets to hover above you, eclipsing the world beyond as he's always done."PLUTOMON!" Exa Destroyer halts before it can sink fully into your partner's chest. Both of his arms have reached out to catch Brigadramon's wrist, and are heaving with effort. He cuts off his own flight so that the dragon's heavier weight causes both combatants to flip over. Brigadramon ends up beneath the two of you, his claws opening up to deploy the missiles at point blank range. He hasn't pierced Plutomon's body, but this could be enough to score a lethal blow.Could."HAGGARD CLUSTER!"The dark laser burns through the exposed circuitry within Brigadramon's claws, triggering the missiles prematurely. His entire limb detonates into hellish flames, and both combatants are forcefully separated by the explosion. Brigadramon is sent down, down, down, past the helipad, past the Tower, with his body in flames and his baleful orange gaze held skywards. You and Plutomon are sent in the other direction by the clashing force of both Digimon's ultimate attacks— right towards the Portal, at long last.
The opening is tiny now, no more than the size of a garage doorway. You stare out over the City, stealing Brigadramon's rightful view. Suspended at the zenith of the world like this, you find this place... beautiful, despite your lifetime of rage. You see so, so much laid out before you, all of it fake, but the people within it very much real. Against your will, this infernal place forces you to admit that it had some kind of spark after all.The time to appreciate it has passed. You spent your childhood dreaming about this very moment, deluding yourself about the mere possibility. Now that it's reality, you find that you're feeling something you never could have imagined. "... I'll miss it here.""I shall as well. Where else would I have met a soul like you?"He gently reaches out to pry you off his back. Plutomon transfers you to the front of his body, where his broken armor and singed data is crackling ominously, making sure there's no chance of an accident ripping you away from him. One final burst of motion sends the two of you beyond the Portal, and beyond City 87-O.==
That's all I'm able to write and post today. There's a little more afterwards, with some more choices and votes to truly wrap up, and then we can head into an epilogue/and maybe posts showing the bad end paths.Putting together those images of past threads really got me to re-examine how much you've been making for this quest, Draw anon. Thank you, I'm really grateful, it kept me inspired all throughout, and so did the constant presence of the rest of you fellas voting and discussing o7
>>6435163Those Astamon POV segments are too much, they get me tearing up. He's a hell of a bro.
>>6435168THEY FUCKING DID IT
>>6435170I'm glad you liked the drawings. I could have done more, though, but as everything past Rookie became harder and harder to draw, I had to stop. Plus I work motivated by horniness 75 percent of times so it was hard to simply make more casual drawings here like I do everywhere for obvious reasons. I neither feel like I was able to give true life to your world.Of everything Digimon related, this is the work that I enjoyed the most since that first time I watched Adventure as a kid.Thanks for the quest, OP. It's been one of my best rides ever.
You feel yourself being pulled forward by an incredible force. Plutomon was right to hold on to you so tightly. You both go spiraling through space for several seconds, until the sensation is abruptly cut off. The lingering momentum flings the two of you through your new location. Exhausted as he is, Plutomon is still able to control his flight and jerk to a halt. "This is no Digital World." You glance around in concern. You're in some kind of blank, reflective space, with the blinding colors of a partition interior. The liminal chamber constantly shifts between blue and purple, dazzling you with passing clouds and volumetric fog. Up ahead, you see a swirling gravity well, now oriented horizontally. That's got to be the Portal, but you're now wary of approaching it. On a hunch, you tap your goggles and attempt to view the metadata for the space you're currently in. Your HUD confirms that you're in a partition. It's not even labelled, nor has it been fully secured with Admin permissions. The 'date created' tag is viewable even without credentials, and you notice that the space is only minutes old."They made this thing to hold us." "A trap?" He snarls."I don't know. It's just a space. Nothing is loaded in." "Then we can go. Look, opening is still there. Must be too dense to contain-">GOOD EVENING, MARNIE (S8928B300R)Plutomon tenses up as a system prompt pops up in both your visions. The room itself seems to be speaking to you."Name yourself.""Who else could it be?" You say, looking around for any sign of the City's manifestation.>OVERSEER 87-O
You have its direct attention once again. The last time you did, it was trying to gun you down in turrets. Then it seized you and podded you. You're not inclined to listen again, but you find yourself drawn to the hovering boxes."If you wish to dissuade our course, or beg us to stay, you are wasting your time." Plutomon says, dismissing the box by flicking his hand through the 'x' in the corner.>YOU HAVE COME FAR"Bet you didn't expect this, did you?" >IT WAS NOT FORESEENPlutomon begins moving towards the Portal. The entity doesn't seem able to stop you. However, the boxes pop up with increasing urgency. >THIS OUTCOME IS REGRETTABLE"To you, maybe. I'm fine with it. Now get out of the way. It's time for us to be free.">IT SADDENED ME TO HAVE TO DEPLOY MEASURES THAT RISKED YOUR FILE INTEGRITY"You can feel sad?" Plutomon scoffs."Right, like you care about one human." >I DOYou tug on Plutomon's shoulder, prompting him to stop and turn. A holographic projection has appeared near you. It's a simple shape: A blue sphere with a halo of yellow data around it. >IT IS WITHIN MY DIRECTIVES TO CARE, EVEN IF IT IS JUST ONE"That has never stopped your minions from attempting to delete her." >NECESSITY HAS NEVER MADE IT LESS REGRETTABLEYou ball your fists up. You don't know why it's trying to talk to you now. You feel like you have this thing figured out anyway. All attempts to kill you were for some greater good. You understand it, the logic checks out. You don't even begrudge it, because you don't even think it hates you. It's that damn familiarity that's pissing you off, like it's trying to be a friend, when it's been nothing to you all this time."What do you want? Why put us in this box? Just for a chat?">YESYou roll your eyes.>I WISH TO MAKE AN OFFER"An offer?" >I WISH TO UNDERSTAND WHAT HAS DRIVEN YOU TO THIS
"The longer we stay, the greater the opportunity you have to plot and scheme." Plutomon hisses, preparing his claw to rip through the projected avatar.>IN RETURN, I OFFER YOU THE OPPORTUNITY FOR DIRECT DIALOGUE, MARNIE (S8928B300R)"Direct... dialogue?" >YOU MAY ASK, AND I SHALL ANSWER, WE SHALL TAKE TURNS>THRICEYou pause. It wants to know why you've done this. Maybe it'll integrate this into its systems after, or file it away in some archive. Plutomon is right about the exit being right there, and you don't trust this Overseer. But it's here, talking to you directly, and you have something it wants. The curiosity is overpowering. You have the chance to speak to it thrice, like some genie, and really get some answers. When else is the City itself going to speak to you like this? Never again, is when. Whatever information you gain, you're taking it through the Portal. Maybe it knows this. And maybe that's why it's willing to share."Marnie...?"You've never been seen or heard by it. You've never felt like your voice mattered to it. Now, it's saying that it could. Your partner doesn't like this, but you feel him pushing his awareness through your Digivice link. This time, it's his turn to read your thoughts and understand your feelings. He knows that this is important to you, and staying just a bit longer is a selfishness he's willing to abide. "... I'll make it quick."He nods solemnly. You look up at the glowing egg."Fine. I accept.">>>
>>6435420It makes me really glad to hear that. I definitely feel like you did sprinkle so much life and motion into it! Especially with how detailed these op images have been. Glad to have been writing for the past year.
>>6435500Honestly? I'm kinda feeling we just leave anyway. Trap or no, strings or no.This whole time, they've lied, witheld, stonewalled, and podded all desires for truth and freedom. They were willing to delete, and even tailor personal attacks specifically against Marnie.And yet they wish to have dialogue as equals.That they do not acknowledge that answers are OWED, not exchanged, is enough reason for me not to humor this.
>>6435510That’s fair. Feel free to fill one or more of the write-in options with a blank, insult, or other rejection. Will use the 3 most voted ones.
>>6435510OK let's do it>>6435500>Fuck you.>FUCK YOU.>*FUCK YOU!*>(Delete the avatar and go for the portal)
>>6435500>>6435510well just for posterity then.>We're long past the time for speaking as equals.>You'll never understand with the way you are now.>I'm leaving. That IS my answer.
Guys, I think we need to take these answers more seriously, this will most likely influence how the City treats humans from now on.
>>6435524that's WHY I'm not answering. The overseer is taking this as a feedback form to formulate a better utopia to prevent the next escapee.Whether it's the pod experience or the City's policies, it's not seeking an honest relationship. Because the point in fact is that its asking Marnie and only at the end of it all. With not a hint of remorse.
>>6435500Yes, I want to know...- About the books and the sigils inside of them.- Why can't they let citizens leave the city? It would be better than podding them and everyone lives happily ever after.- Why podding them? What do they do with the podded? Why not just delete them? Ask about "processing" the podded, it's something she learned in the same partition she found info about Cutemon.-What happened to the Earth? Why did it collapse?- About that being that Brigadramon feared so much, the auditor.- Who's really in charge of the whole system? The top of the top dogs. Is it a human, a Digimon or something else?As for the response, try to tell it that only Marnie disliked the City, everyone else wanted to stay inside. She's just an anomaly. She wanted a change of scenery, got the means to get it and went for it. Bullshit it if you need it. If it gets no satisfactory response, he might try even more drastic actions against the citizens.
>>6435500I have a question that might be interesting to it.>"If you're so curious about why I wanted to leave, why not find out yourself? Make an instance of yourself without any special privileges, whose most important question is 'why,' and watch it grow from there."Digimon are sentient programs at the end of the day.
>>6435500>Why can't they let citizens leave the city? It would be better than podding them and everyone lives happily ever after.>What happened to the Earth? Why did it collapse?>About that being that Brigadramon feared so much, the auditor.
>>6435753What I'm basically asking is that the Overseer makes a sort of layman without any preexisting parameters that could color its judgement. Maybe it could learn from its experiences, even if the instance doesn't reach the same conclusion we do. I doubt Wind would want to blatantly overthrow the system after the auditor arrives so it should have time to do that.
>>6436023Can't you add this to one of the anons making questions. If Marnie sends the AI to fuck off, she won't be able to suggest the layman creation.
>>6436123Because I don't want to get caught up getting lore-dumped for all 3 questions, using time that Plutomon is already uncomfortable with sparing. We already know the city would get audited if anyone even attempts at leaving, so we don't need that one answered. We don't need to know why Brigadramon was scared shitless about the auditors since we're not likely to run into them once we leave. The only question we don't readily know the answer to and might not have a way to find out is "What happened to Earth."
>>6435500>Fuck you.>FUCK YOU.>*FUCK YOU!*>(Delete the avatar and go for the portal)I like this idea. We'll figure out Earth ourselves. If it said it got nuked or blown up to build an interstellar highway we wouldn't believe it anyways.
>>6435500Well now I DO have to support >>6435937 don't I.
>>6436132Will tally up votes later when I’m back from work. If you’re concerned about time, you can mix one or two questions into ‘Fuck off’ and that’ll mean leaving halfway. Am counting it based on each of the three write in slots, so it’d be kinda like:Ask about earth LeaveLeave
>>6435515>>6435516>>6436150>>6435591>>6435937>>6436154Tied! Will wait a bit longer for it to break, I def don’t think you guys want this to be on a coin flip >>6435753Will include this if a positive reception is voted for.
>>6436424We can afford to be a little receptive. This in itself is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and who knows how the AI would take being ignored, let alone directly rebuked without explanation. I doubt it'd be good for everyone back home.
>>6436572Fine, I'll do it>>6436424>>6435500Changing my vote from >>6435515 to backing >>6435591 and what >>6435753 >>6436023 said, to break this tie
>>6436572I'll flip the arguments back at you. The current City is the way it is because of how the AI interprets what humans want. Its logic and flaws are self-evident from its own systems. Trying to fix that by giving answers without sticking around to run damage control on its misinterpretations has the potential for a LOT of harm.If we ignore it, we constrain the input data it receives and challenge the most important logical flaws. If it truly doubts itself from there, it cannot act on those doubts without collecting data more personally, which at worst buys Wind more time and at best allows it to align its perspective to a more personal capacity.
>>6436572>>6436575Why not keep it simple?>Books>Podding>EarthOh but we HAVE to give answers after. Fuck. Maybe just asking about Earth then leave like >>6436194 said?
>>6436575If we shut it out without anything to go off of, what is to say the answers it seeks wouldn't still be within the same flawed framework? What's stopping it from seeing things top-down instead of bottom-up?
>>6436586>What's stopping it from seeing things top-down instead of bottom-up?Wind. That's the point. Marnie's entire journey was about LEAVING, not changing the city. Trying to have both cakes without taking responsibility for your actions will lead to the worst outcome.This isn't about finding the perfect words for it to change its mind. This is about not giving it several valuable tools to use against Wind and the rest of the City.
>>6436591Nothing says that we have to give it an actionable response but the current dichotomy isn't about it seeking answers but whether or not it does so with the intent to restore the status quo.
>>6436591>>6436591We technically already haven an answer for whatever question it might ask for the Earth question: find out yourself.
>>6436598the problem misinterpretation is that it can do it however it likes, There's a large number of answers that can be taken as "we didn't fool you hard enough" and be used as material to make the podded experience harder to escape.and while an answer like >>6436599 might work, I doubt it'll hold up for more than 1 question.
>>6436574Writing! I’ll rearrange the order of the options when making the update. Thanks for waiting fellas o7
>>6436688Midway through the update. I’ll be leaving an opportunity for follow-up questions within reason. Will have to (possibly arbitrarily) veto any write-ins that stray far enough in scope to be counted as new questions. Think of it as stuff Marnie herself would like to ask, I’ll still answer things once the quest ends for real, so don’t worry about info being locked out.
You glance at the exit. You have your first question in mind already. Before fighting Brigadramon, he mentioned something bad happening to the City if you escaped. You can’t help but worry about that potential crisis. Even though you need to leave no matter what, you don’t want your friends to be caught up in something that’s technically your fault.“First question-””Wait.” Plutomon points an accusing finger at the Overseer’s avatar.”If you wish to deal with my partner, you will answer honestly. In good faith. No declaring that idle questions count towards our limit. No twisting her wording. Remember, there is nothing binding us to this agreement.”>I CANNOT ANSWER EVERY QUESTION. I WILL NOT MISINTERPRET YOUR LANGUAGE MALICIOUSLY”Good enough.” “Thanks, Plutomon. First question then. What’s the auditor?” Data begins swirling across the surface of the avatar. It quickly computes an answer. >THE AUDITORS MONITOR THE VARIOUS DIGITAL ARKS AND ENSURE THAT HUMANITY DOES NOT INTERFERE WITH THE DIGITAL WORLD>THEY ARE UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE HOSTS THAT ALLOW THE EDEN PROJECT TO EXIST“Infrastructure hosts?” >UPON YOUR DEPARTURE, AN AUDITOR WILL ARRIVE TO INVESTIGATE EVERY WAY IN WHICH WE FAILED TO DETECT, CONTAIN OR DELETE YOU“Are they Digimon? From the outside?” >YES“And what’ll they do? Brigadramon said they might destroy the City.” >THERE IS A NON-NEGLIGIBLE CHANCE OF IT. I WILL ASPIRE TO PREVENT THIS. YOUR COOPERATION- “No. Beg me to stay again and we’ll cut this short. It’s your turn. Ask what you want to ask.” >UNDERSTOOD >WHAT ASPECTS OF CITY 87-O ARE INADEQUATE FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT? ”Entertainment.” Your partner scoffs. “You think… this is about entertainment?” You ask disdainfully. What an out-of-touch question.>REPHRASING: WHICH ASPECT OF YOUR CARE IS INADEQUATE IN PROVIDING YOU WITH A SENSE OF ‘PURPOSE’? Now it’s getting somewhere. The system window grows longer as it elaborates.
>I HAVE ENGINEERED THREE PILLARS OF ACTIVITY TO CATER TO THE UPPER TIERS OF THE HIERARCHY OF NEEDS: ENTERTAINMENT, PRODUCTIVITY, CONTRARIANISM >IT IS RARE THAT NO FACTOR CAPTURES A HUMAN’S ATTENTION “Wait, what do you mean by the third one?” You ask, feeling a pit in your stomach. “Engineered?”>I HAVE ENCOURAGED ALLOWABLE DELINQUENCY WITHIN DESIGNATED DISTRICTS>I BELIEVED THIS WAS SUFFICIENT, AS YOU HAVE FREQUENTED THESE LOCATIONS OVER 2500 TIMES >TO ALLOW HUMANS WITHIN YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILING CATEGORY TO EXPERIENCE A SENSE OF REBELLION AND INDEPENDENCE, WE HAVE BUILT INTENTIONALLY INCONSEQUENTIAL REGULATIONS THAT MAY BE VIOLATED WITHOUT HARM“You MADE all the districts? The ones all the punks hang out in?” >YES>WAS IT A MATTER OF INTENSITY? >WERE YOU UNABLE TO EXPERIENCE A SUFFICIENT SENSE OF THRILL FROM THE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AND ILLEGAL ACTIVITY AVAILABLE TO YOU?You feel like you’ve just had the rug pulled out from under you. Even that haven for hotheaded youths was a lie. After meeting Phascomon, you did start seeing your former peers in a new light. All their activities, which you were happily doing weeks before, started seeming juvenile and pointless. But you didn’t think that it was part of some grand lie. “It’s not enough because it’s not real!” You exclaim, finding your answer easily. >_It silently waits.“Nothing in this City is enough BECAUSE of that! You’ve made almost every part, you’ve sculpted it all, none of it can exist without you pulling strings! That’s why it’s not enough—you’re secretly behind everything. Nothing can be authentic! Nothing is really ours!” >WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE OF THE MANUFACTURED NATURE OF THESE ACTIVITY CENTRES, A HUMAN IS ABLE TO CONTINUE ENGAGING IN THEM WITHOUT DISTRESS >AUTHENTICITY IS A CONCEPT WHICH IS IRRELAVANT TO THE MAJORITY OF HUMANS”What they don’t know can’t hurt them.” You turn around to stare at him. He raises his hands placatingly.”Can you say it’s untrue for the others?”You bite your lip. >AS SUCH, I WISH TO IDENTIFY THE REASON THIS CONCEPT OF ‘AUTHENTICITY’ IS PRIORITIZED SO STRONGLY BY YOU, MARNIE>HOW DID YOU BECOME AWARE THAT IT WAS MANUFACTURED? You’re heated enough to try and bark out an answer straight away. However, Plutomon sets a huge hand on your shoulder. Despite the chill of the black metal, you feel unmistakable warmth pulsating through it. ”Will this be your second question?” >RECONSIDERING >_>YOU MAY TAKE YOUR TURN, AS AGREED UPON
You mutter a soft word of thanks. The Overseer’s agreement to not be a stupid little genie should go both ways. You almost gave it more information than you wanted.So, everything in the City is built to entertain and contain you humans. Surely it doesn’t have such a vast reach that even Squid and Doc are trapped in its web. Right? No, it can’t be. It said ‘allowable delinquency’. All of your crimes are Podding-worthy offenses. While you’re upset that your whole period of childhood rebellion has secretly been rubber-stamped by this bot, everything you’ve done with Phascomon has been real. You’re sure of it. It can’t examine EVERY variable, and Digimon seem exempt from this web of lies. That must be why there are such strict laws about interacting with them. You think about those three pillars it mentioned. Is that really all it takes to keep Humanity under its thumb? It probably works well enough, considering how the City has been running without issue this entire time. Surely ancient Humans craved more, surely their lives were so much more complex, surely they couldn’t have the entire Human condition pared down into three lowly branches of desire.“… What happened to Earth?” Plutomon glances at the avatar over your shoulder, curious about the sudden change in topic. >PLEASE ASK ADDITIONAL CLARIFYING QUESTIONS You drum your fingers against the side of your thigh as you mull over the details.
“I doubt they were living like we did. I want to know how we got placed under your 'care'. Why did we all get transferred here? To the Digital World. Something ruined an entire planet. I know there was a war, right?” >UNDERSTOOD. LOADING You drum your fingers against the side of your thigh. >EARTH EXPERIENCED TOTAL BIOSPHERIC COLLAPSE AS A RESULT OF MASS GLOBAL INDUSTRIALIZATION AND A PERIOD OF WARRING>DIGITAL WARFARE PLAYED A MAJOR ROLE IN ACCELERATING THE CONFLICT >DESTROMON IS ONE SUCH EXAMPLE OF A DIGITALLY ENHANCED WEAPON THAT WAS USED IN WARS ACROSS THE GLOBE ”You mean that enemy was in the real world at one point?”>YES “Then it came here FROM the real world? And then Brigadramon beat it?” >NO>IT IS AN APPROXIMATION OF THE SAME SPECIES OF DIGIMON, I AM UNABLE TO DISCERN ITS ORIGIN>IT WAS HEAVILY WOUNDED BY 87-O’S ASSIGNED AUDITOR BEFORE IT FLED INTO OUR ARK“It did look badly injured… Hey, keep going. You haven’t explained what made everyone leave Earth yet.” >DUE TO ECOSPHERIC COLLAPSE, MASS SCARCITY AND CALAMITY BEFELL THE PLANET>FORTUNATELY, THE PREVALENCE OF DIGITAL WARFARE MADE WORLD LEADERS AWARE OF THE DIGITAL WORLD’S EXISTENCE >NEGOTIATIONS WERE CONDUCTED WITH THE ENTITIES RESPONSIBLE FOR HOSTING ITS INFRASTRUCTURE. THEY WERE A SUCCESS>HUMANITY UNDERTOOK THE EDEN PROGRAM TO TRANSFER THE REMAINING POPULATION INTO THE DIGITAL WORLDYou feel like you can milk some more out of it with this one question."I still don't understand. You're not delivering well enough." >WHAT ADDITIONAL CONTEXT IS REQUIRED TO SATISFY THIS QUERY?
>Write-in: Questions related to Earth. You may not take too many, or stray too far, lest the Overseer determines it has answered the query well enough.
>>6436953as expected>>6436958also more or less as expected, although the specifics of destromon are neat.>>6436959>What is Industrialization? How can that cause biospheric collapse?Marnie needs to learn about pollution and manufacturing>What was the state of the planet just before the transfer? Were digimon still able to survive there? Humans? Other lifeforms? Who or what remained?I think this is pretty safe within the context.
>>6436953>”What they don’t know can’t hurt them.”>You turn around to stare at him. He raises his hands placatingly.>"Can you say it’s untrue for the others?”A bit of Phascomon and Astamon slipping through I see. I like this bit from Plutomon as a reminder of what's beneath that godly exterior, of what he was and still is deep down in his Digicore
>>6436969+1, as good a context as any right now
>>6436959>Elaborate on DIGITAL WARFARE>How did humans come in contact with Digimon? >How was the relationship between humans and Digimon back then?
>>6436987I feel like this is the sort of info that exists in an old archive somewhere else in the Digital World. It should be recorded out there somewhere. This shit here >>6436969 is more related to the real world, to what Marnie's original motivation was, even though it was instilled and distorted by the book. That set of questions fits Marnie's character more in my opinion
>>6436992As a reader, I don't care to know about things I know like industrialization and pollution. Those are concepts humans can discover extremely fast btw. If there's a fabulous secret archive in the Digital world, we won't be getting to it because the quest is ending. I also think that asking about humans and Digimon is more in character for Marnie because she picked to go to the Digital World with Phascomon, at least for the moment, but I'm taking about NOW. Plus I care about that as a reader.If you want content about the current state of the planet, you can ask how much time has passed since the collapse. That way you can infere by yourself if earth had enough time to repare itself, the state of the possible ruins or if the animals evolved into something else. You can also infere that at least Machine Digimon are living there.Or even a more direct question: "Is there humans living there now?". But I doubt he'll want to reply that one.But again, I don't care about what Marnie can do at the Digital World because we, the readers, are not Marnie. The quest ends for us now.
>>6437003Okay!>>6436958Changing vote from >>6436986 to backing >>6436987 instead
Locking and writing
>>6437003>If you want content about the current state of the planet, you can ask how much time has passed since the collapse. That way you can infere by yourself if earth had enough time to repare itself, the state of the possible ruins or if the animals evolved into something else. You can also infere that at least Machine Digimon are living there.I was considering that, but it might be too far off topic so I went with the safe options.
>>6437194I actually liked that one question. The pollution one was the deal breaker for me. We should have left that one like that.
“I don’t get what ‘Digital Warfare’ is.” You complain. ”Do you speak of Digimon at war? Were we out there in the real world?”>NO>DESTROMON WAS ONE OF FEW EXCEPTIONS, AS A DIGIMON THAT HIJACKED AN EXISTING PHYSICAL STRUCTURE AND INTEGRATED ITS BLUEPRINTS INTO ITS DIGICORE>FUTURE MANIFESTATIONS OF DESTROMON THEN MADE USE OF THESE SAME SCHEMATICS>_>DIGITAL WARFARE REFERS TO THE DISRUPTION OF CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE THROUGH CYBERATTACKS>ACTS INCLUDE: >SABOTAGING OF KEY INSTALLATIONS AND UTILITIES SUCH AS POWER GRIDS>DAMAGE TO MILITARY SYSTEMS, INCLUDING TRACKING AND TARGETING SOFTWARE>THEFT OF SENSITIVE INFORMATION>SPREAD OF PROPAGANDA TO INSTIGATE SOCIAL UNREST>DESTROMON’S SEIZURE OF ELECTRONIC VEHICLES THROUGH THEIR CONTROL SYSTEMSYou’re quite overwhelmed by all these terms, but you manage to make sense of it. Using systems like the Network, ancient humans damaged their physical environments. Such a thing is almost impossible here in 87-O, with only malware being able to rip apart partitions and structures. You suppose it would be like hijacking one of the autocars with Squid’s tools, or a Digimon taking control of one of the trains and sending it off the tracks. ”While utilizing these tools and attacks, humans then discovered the Digital World.” Plutomon concludes. >THAT IS CORRECT
>DUE TO CONSTANT ATTEMPTS TO DISCOVER PATHWAYS INTO SECURE SYSTEMS VIA THEIR EQUIVALENT OF THE NETWORK, HUMANITY EVENTUALLY DISCOVERED THE DIGITAL WORLD’S EXISTENCE, AND THE PRESENCE OF DIGITAL LIFEFORMS“You banned the people here from interacting with Digimon. Your stupid little conservation act. Was it the same on Earth after they were discovered?”>ACCORDING TO MY RECORDS, THE MAJORITY OF HUMANS HAD NO INTERACTION WITH DIGIMON. THE EXISTENCE OF DIGITAL LIFEFORMS WAS LIKELY CLASSIFIED INFORMATION>THERE ARE RECORDS OF HUMANS UTILIZING DIGIMON WITHIN THEIR CONFLICTS, WITH DESTROMON BEING A PRIME EXAMPLE. HOWEVER, I AM UNCERTAIN OF THE NATURE OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP>THIS UNCERTAINTY HAS LED MY AND MANY OF MY SIBLING SYSTEMS TO FORBID THE USAGE OF DIGIMON AMONG HUMANS"To keep that kind of power out of our hands.">AFFIRMATIVE>HUMANS ADDITIONALLY ENGAGED IN NEGOTIATION WITH THE INFRASTRUCTURE HOSTS TO COMMENCE THE EDEN PROJECTIt’s repeating itself a little at this point, but you’ve still gotten some new details, like the fact that people and Digimon did meet thousands (presumably) of years ago. You feel like you’re losing the opportunity to stretch this question out further. “You still haven’t explained WHY this sent humans fleeing into the City. What exactly did they do to ruin the planet? I don’t understand how hacking each others’ machinery could do that.”
>DIGITAL WARFARE WAS SIMPLY ONE ASPECT OF THE COLLAPSE>THE PRIMARY PHYSICAL FACTOR WAS THE AFOREMENTIONED GLOBAL INDUSTRIALIZATION>THE OVERCONSUMPTION OF RESOURCES AND EXCESSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF INFRASTRUCTURE CAUSED CHANGES IN THE CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE>THROUGH DIGITAL WARFARE, SUCH INSTALLATIONS WERE OFTEN EXPLOSIVELY SABOTAGED, RESULTING IN FURTHER ACCELERATION OF DAMAGE TO THE BIOSPHERE>ONE MAJOR EXAMPLE WAS THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ANTARCTIC ICE CAPS DUE TO AN ATTEMPT BY A WARRING PARTY TO REMOVE A RIVAL’S FACILITY THROUGH DIGITAL SABOTAGE, RESULTING IN A RISE IN SEA LEVELS AND GLOBAL AMBIENT TEMPERATUREYou shake your head. This is beyond your understanding. You don’t know what it means by chemical composition, but it sounds scary. You live in an environment composed of data, so all you can imagine is the laws of the simulation suddenly changing, resulting in endless glitches. If that could happen in the real world too, then those beautiful vistas you’ve laid eyes on might not even be around.“Once all of us were transferred into the Digital World, what was the planet like?” You ask. While you’ve resolved to stay with your partner and watch him flourish, you want to know if what you’ve longed for all your life was ever really possible.>IS THIS YOUR THIRD QUESTION? “… I don’t know. Let me think.” The Overseer has put its foot down.>THEN IT IS YOUR TURN TO ANSWER THE SECOND.
>I WISH TO UNDERSTAND WHEN IT WAS THAT YOU DISCOVERED MY SCENARIOS AND SETTINGS WERE ‘UNAUTHENTIC’, AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES AROUND THIS DISCOVERY>I AM AWARE THAT YOU HAVE COME INTO CONTACT WITH A DATA FILE THAT HAS CAUSED YOU TO BECOME HEAVILY INFLUENCED BY EXTERNAL AGENTS>WAS YOUR DISCOVERY BEFORE OR AFTER THIS CONTACT?“You mean the book. My book.” You ask. >YES“What do you mean by… external agents?”>THERE IS A FORCE THAT MAINTAINS AN INTEREST IN INFLUENCING HUMANS THROUGH MEANS SUCH AS THESE>WE ARE UNCERTAIN OF THEIR MOTIVES, HOWEVER, THE AUDITORS EXIST TO STOP SUCH AGENTS>AS A TARGET OF ONE, I WISH TO UNDERSTAND WHETHER IT WAS THIS INTERACTION WITH THEM THAT CAUSED YOUR DISSATISFACTION
This is a tough question. You recall what Brigadramon said again: That in the absence of the book.app, the Auditor’s attention will fall on the City and the circumstances around your escape. You could tell it exactly what happened: That you did discover the book while security bots were trying to claim it, and that you spent years poring over it obsessively, until you desired the outside world so badly that nothing here could satisfy you anymore.But would that be the whole truth? It was all so long ago that you’re not even certain of your own timeline anymore. You already felt like something was wrong while you were a kid, back when your nannybot ditched you to go deal with a Garden Portal. You don’t want to let the Overseer get away with thinking that it was solely some magic fruit that ruined its hold on you. You might have been even more unhappy without it. Or maybe you would have been pacified, eventually becoming the same kind of drone, due to simply not knowing there was something greater. A lot of this answer depends on how honestly you can examine yourself, and the other paths you could have taken.And there’s the other copies to worry about. You don’t actually know what they did with the books. They might still be out there. If the entire City is at risk, maybe it might be worth divulging that other copies exist. You’d hate to paint a target on your friends, that’d be a massive betrayal, but it genuinely feels like something that this AI would need to know.
Your answer here could affect the way it handles such a thing, as well as the results of the incoming audit. Say the wrong thing and it might double down on hunting for outside interference, or work towards strengthening its illusion instead of making any kind of change.>Admit that the book did, in fact, start you on your path. Its security bots failed to grab the Envy book, and that was it. You don’t know if that fact was some big plot of those ‘outside agents’, but you’re certain this was the factor that changed your life. If you never got the book, none of this would have happened. >Let your frustration with the system take hold over a truthful, factual response. You don’t want to confirm the answer that it’s clearly looking for. Its systems aren’t enough, even if you’re one of the only few who see that. Tell it that, no, you’re certain you would have been unhappy even without the book. It just gave you the chance to act on it. >Write-in: Any alteration to these answers, and any additional information you want to share or withhold. There are probably endless things you could say, so you’ll need to think carefully and figure out how this information will impact the actions of the Overseer, for better or for worse.
I’m still keeping track of the vote to ask it to simulate its own human experience >>6436023, so don’t worry about including that in a write-in. Also yeah this is a great point >>6436575 and intended. This is Marnie’s last bit of interaction, and while she can’t make systematic change, these are chances to learn things and try and get some catharsis for her through direct dialogue. More of a chance for self-examination and characterization.
>>6437295That was less impressive than I thought it would be, but at least we know that Digimon being currently on the human world is practically impossible. The Destromon lore was cool though.
>>6437302>Let your frustration with the system take hold over a truthful, factual response. You don’t want to confirm the answer that it’s clearly looking for. Its systems aren’t enough, even if you’re one of the only few who see that. Tell it that, no, you’re certain you would have been unhappy even without the book. It just gave you the chance to act on it. I think this goes better with the human simulation option that was chosen. In theory, if Marnie makes the system create that artificial human to analyze the flaws on itself, this will give Wind at least a decade of time to do his things because analyzing human behavior in this context requires an examination of a significant part of the subject's life.This only works if the AI buys the alibi thing thou.
>>6437302well now I'm not sure. Leaving now would lead to entirely the wrong message.>The systems you have implemented in the City have pacified the people on the surface, but it has only made the situation more volatile. Every time we hit a wall in truth or freedom, it becomes easier and more justified to take extreme action. At the current point, it only takes a trigger to set things into mass chaos, and there are multiple triggers.>For the humans, it's the books. Plural.>For digimon, there are those in positions high and low who are triggers themselves, making the situation worse while still following the rules. Because the rules were never going to make it better.Spread it out. Wind can use the books as bait, if he needs to fish for information about them. But if they form a restructuring plan about how City digimon are organized, that also buys time and introduces the idea of changing how the City is run. Up to him how he takes that.
Fuck that.>>6437302I change >>6437328To>Write-in: Tell her you don't know. Tell it a bit of the things of she hates about the city and her traumatic experience with the ice cream cake, but also tell it about the book influence. Tell it might have been the book, the city or even some other variable that she doesn't even know about. Humans have a hard time understanding her own feelings so an uncertain answer is perfectly valid.The most important part is that this should force the AI to create her own human to investigate the matter. If humans can't understand themselves, it will be forced to be one to understand what's wrong with the city but also to try to bait one of the books to analyze the external agent. Marnie can even try to help the system to create its own Marnie.This will obviously buy at least a decade for Wind to do his things.
>>6437333Fuck it+1
>>6437302>We were already dissatisfied with our time in the City, the books in particular only exacerbated existing grievances towards their own ends. We also encountered Digimon that exploited the system to their own ends, galvanizing our resolve to leave.I'm not sure if I want to namedrop Sealsdramon and HoverEspimon/Oblivimon, though I suppose doing so would point the Overseer in a healthy direction and away from HiCommandramon.
>>6437333>>6437338>>6437330Writing! Taking a while for this one, it’s a big idea
“I… don’t really know.”>DO YOU REQUIRE MORE TIME?You nod, pacing back and forth as you think. >YOU MAY PAUSE AND CONSIDER YOUR ANSWER.Plutomon watches as you fidget. You feel his power beginning to wane. Soon, he’ll collapse all the way back into his Rookie form. You want to be through the gateway before then. You can’t keep wasting time here. The Portal, at the very least, isn’t closing anymore. You’ve technically made it through, this partition just managed to intercept you before your data could be transmitted into the tunnel beyond.That doesn’t mean you have more than a few minutes to spare. Just a few minutes to get all your answers and let out everything you’ve been thinking for years. It’s almost as tough as some of your greatest battles.“It’s not so easy to pin down.” You finally admit.>IS YOUR MEMORY EXPERIENCING FAULTS? >A SAMPLE OF YOUR METADATA MAY ALLOW ME TO RECEIVE WHAT I REQUIRE“No!” You’re not giving it that. A full record of your adventures would doom everybody. The anger that flares when it makes that stupid request is enough to help you find your words.“You don’t just get to use the book as a scapegoat! Fine. It did teach me that there was a world outside the City. But I wasn’t happy before that. I was already…”>THIS UNHAPPINESS IS NOT UNEXPECTED>WITHOUT OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE, YOU WOULD HAVE LIKELY FOCUSED ALL OF THIS FRUSTRATION INTO JUVENILE DELINQUENCY UNTIL YOU GREW TIRED OF IT“Don’t act like you know me!” You hiss at it.
>I HAVE MODELED THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE OF MY HUMAN RESIDENTS EXTENSIVELY>WERE IT NOT FOR THIS ROGUE ELEMENT, YOUR BEHAVIOR WOULD HAVE REMAINED PREDICTABLE>THIS IS WHY I MAINTAIN AN INTEREST IN DETERMINING THE SCOPE OF ITS INFLUENCE ON YOU, WHICH HAS BROUGHT YOU BEYOND MY ABILITY TO ESTIMATE“I thought you were some kind of all-powerful AI. Your reach is supposed to be infinite! And with all that knowledge, you can tell that so many of us are unhappy, but you just let us stew like that?” >IT IS THE REASON THAT HOTSPOT DISTRICTS EXIST >YOU HAVE FREQUENTED THESE YOURSELF>IT IS A VASTLY PREFERABLE OPTION TO TRUE DISCIPLINARY ACTION, FOR ALL PARTIES INVOLVEDYou ball your fists up. This thing is the architect of all your misery, with or without the book. You don’t want to pour your heart out to it, it’s already a struggle to give it an honest reply. But some little part of you just wants it to know what it did to you. You want it to understand, in at least some minor way. >IF IT WAS NOT THE FAULT OF THE FILE, WAS THERE AN INCITING INCIDENT? “I guess I just knew early on that your stupid bots were never going to be there for me. Not when it counted. My nanny droid-” >I AM AWARE>986417AB9023OM23AEC288W WAS RECALLED IN ORDER TO RESPOND TO AN EMERGENCE INCIDENT “That was it. If it could just run off like that, who else did I have? I was just a little girl, all by herself in a park. Nobody but that bot in my life. And it just ran off! Of course I was scared, of course I ended up thinking that I had nobody but myself..”>AND THIS WAS WHEN YOU CAME ACROSS THE ‘BOOK’? “Stop asking about the book! It’s not about the fucking book! If it wasn’t that, it would have been something else! I’m not like you, I can’t sift through every bit of my memory to figure out what pissed me off! But I know it would have been SOMETHING”>_“And the same thing probably happens to who-knows how many children! You can’t individually pay attention to each one, can you? So there’s always going to be a day where you make one of them feel so shitty that this mess starts up again. We don’t know where we come from, we don’t know what we’re supposed to have, we just appear one day! How are we supposed to know our place in the world?! Any other spark could set things off because of that!"
You end up getting a little carried away, and say something you probably shouldn’t. You do manage to filter it enough on the fly.“You know there are others like me. Digimon Tamers. My friends who fight as the Dogs of War. So many of them are dissatisfied too. So many of them are out there with their own partners, fighting for something, with or without a book. You’ve already failed them too, so now they want something else. You can’t model ALL of our behavior. Humans are more complex than that.”>_>IF THIS IS THE REASON FOR YOUR ERRATIC BEHAVIOR, IT SEEMS I MAY NEED TO RESTRUCTURE AND REEXAMINE THE TUTORIAL PROGRAM“Have you never done that before?”>IT HAS BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I HAVE FELT THE NEED TO MADE CHANGES TO ORIENTATION INITIATIVES>CONSIDERING THE EVENTS BROUGHT ABOUT BY YOUR HAND, I WILL CERTAINLY NEED TO ADD ADDITIONAL SAFEGUARDS“What’s the point?” You ask, exasperated. “You can’t think like us. You’re just going to come up with some new way to do everything wrong again.” >I WILL BEGIN WITH ENSURING THAT SERVITOR INSTANCES DO NOT LEAVE THE SIDE OF THEIR ASSIGNED WARDS>THIS WILL RESOLVE THE DIRECT TRIGGER THAT LED TO YOUR NEED FOR REBELLION>IS THIS SATISFACTORY?That would help some future kid. But the Overseer isn’t getting what you’re saying. It’s taking things too literally. You don’t know why you’re bothering anymore. This will be Wind’s problem now. Maybe when the Dogs of War finally destroy this thing and pull its source code open, they could make sense of this tangled web of reasoning. Its logical structure has been constructed over this entire City’s history, you can’t sift through it by yourself, nor can you find the threads of code that you can yank on to get the answer you want. But maybe you can add a new idea right on top of the weave, so it doesn’t get buried under all these layers.
“You can’t think like a human, can you?” >I CANNOT>THIS DOES NOT AFFECT MY ABILITY TO PROVIDE CARE>I AM PROGRAMMED WITH A VAST REPOSITORY OF KNOWLEDGE, INCLUDING INFORMATION RELATING TO HUMAN BEHAVIOR, AND MODEL MY DECISIONS AND INITIATIVES BASED ON THIS DATA“What if you didn’t use it?”>_>WILL YOU ELABORATE?Plutomon is looking at you with interest too. He’s feeling the pressure of the ticking timer in his Digicore, but now that you and the bot are exchanging words, he’s doing his best to pay attention.“You think you can understand everything a person can. That just because you’ve built some model for how we behave, you can predict all our actions.">I BELIEVE I AM ABLE TO, AS MY SUCCESS RATE IN THIS ENDEAVOR IS ASTRONOMICALLY HIGH“Not high enough to stop me from being here right now.”>_It’s listening, so you go on.“What if you followed a human’s journey? Wherever you pull kids out of, you just… pick one and observe them. No, actually- don’t mess around with a real human. Just make some version of yourself to run through an entire life with.” >WHAT WOULD THE INTENTION OF THIS EXERCISE BE?“You said you could simulate how a person thinks, right? You just can’t think like them by yourself?” >AFFIRMITIVE“I know you can code bots to behave independently. So you should be able to make a bot that just does everything it simulates, right? Some fake program to copy our lives from start to finish. Humans are complex. We see so much. We think about a lot of different things. I’ll bet that bot will start deviating from your own expectations after a while.”>I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS TO BE THE CASE>I BELIEVE YOU ARE OVERESTIMATING THE UNPREDICTABILITY OF AN AVERAGE HUMAN>SUCH AN ENTITY WOULD ONLY BE EMULATING BEHAVIOR BASED PURELY ON INFORMATION INPUT, IT WOULD NOT TRULY BE LIVING AS A HUMAN”We are living in a world made of information. That is enough for something to be alive.”“Digimon are made completely out of information, and they’re alive. You have enough of us as minions, you should know that.”Do you even count yourself as a living thing?”>NEGATIVE>I WAS NOT DESIGNED AS A LIVING ORGANISM”That’s where you’re wrong. By being in this world, you already are one. No getting around it.”>_“Just make the damn thing. And you can watch how their own ‘life’ deviates from your predictions. You’ll get to see what kind of thoughts and behavior are caused by the flaws in your system. Make them curious, make them wonder what’s out there, and then watch them closely without meddling with their life.”>YOU BELIEVE THAT THIS LONG-TERM OBSERVATION WILL PROVIDE INSIGHTS INTO MY SYSTEM'S FLAWS“Yeah. I think it will. I’m sure you can figure out the details.”>I HAVE NOT CARRIED OUT THIS TYPE OF PARAMETER TESTING BEFORE>I WILL TAKE THIS INTO CONSIDERATION>YOU MAY ASK YOUR FINAL QUESTION
You see numerous circles spinning around on its body. You take that as a good sign. You don’t have the confidence that it’ll be able to turn things around just by simulating a person and developing an understanding, but it’s all you can think to suggest, if you won’t be sticking around. Anything else would be meddling beyond your station. ”That’s enough. Ask, Marnie. We must go.” Plutomon urges. You already know what your last question has to be.“Why can’t we just leave? You won’t let us go out there, so I had to do all of this. If someone wants to get out of this shithole, isn’t it easier to just release them than Pod them?”>_>THIS QUERY IS IMMENSELY IMPORTANT TO YOU“It is.”>YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED A SATISFACTORY RESPONSE UPON ASKING MY SERVICE INSTANCES“Not once.” >I SHALL ANSWER. UPON CONFIRMING INTENT TO LEAVE THIS CITY PERMANENTLY, A HUMAN IS PLACED WITHIN A POD FOR PROCESSING”You end their lives just for wishing to go?”>NEGATIVE>THEY ARE HELD FOR PROCESSING“Stop wasting time! What the hell does ‘processing’ even mean?!”All you can imagine is it cutting their data up and doing something awful to them. The alternative is even more surprising.>PODDED INDIVIDUALS ARE KEPT IN STASIS UNTIL I AM ABLE TO INDIVIDUALLY INTERVIEW THEM AND UNDERSTAND THE REASONS FOR THEIR BEHAVIORYou instinctively start touching your own arms. You’ve been suspended twice, and the mention of an interview makes you paranoid all of a sudden. Plutomon’s warmth assures you that this is very real.>THIS TIMESPAN BETWEEN INITIAL SUSPENSION AND EXIT INTERVIEW MAY VARY GREATLY DEPENDING ON THE LEVEL OF ATTENTION I AM ABLE TO DEVOTE TO THIS SINGULAR TASK>UPON OBTAINING THIS OPPORTUNITY, I CONFIRM IRREVOCABLE INTENT TO LEAVE AND ATTEMPT TO DISCOVER PLACEMENT FOR THEM AMONG DIGITAL ARKS THAT ARE RECEPTIVE TO NEW CITIZENS>ONCE THIS IS SECURED, I ENSURE THAT THIS EXIT IS WITHIN ALLOWABLE MARGINS FOR ANNUAL RETENTION RATE, IN ORDER TO AVOID POSSIBILITY OF INTERNAL AUDIT“Fucking what?!”>LEAVING IS POSSIBLE. YOU ARE SIMPLY NOT WITHIN THE ALLOWABLE AGE RANGE FOR THIS DECISION TO BE OFFEREDEmotions roil about within you. So, it’s possible to go after all. What you were fighting for all this time is already being offered by this thing. But yearly metrics? Placement permission? The circumstances around even the possibility of freedom are deeply unfair, perverted in some deep, intrinsic, unfixable way. That never would have been a cost you were willing to pay.“... How many people are in the line?”>I AM UNABLE TO SHARE THIS INFORMATION WITH YOU“Even criminals? Even people who break your regulations get processed?” Plutomon asks.>CORRECT. THERE IS AN INCREASED DIFFICULTY IN PLACING THEM. BUT IT IS DONE REGULARLY“How do you get rid of them? You send them through the Portal? The same one?” >I DO>WHICH IS ANOTHER REASON I AM UNABLE TO ALLOW YOU TO LEAVE
You feel like you need to grill this thing for more answers. You’re bristling with fury at the idea of even freedom being this conditional. However, it keeps talking before you can ask for more.>NOW THAT THIS INFORMATION HAS BEEN GRANTED TO YOU, I ASK A FINAL TIME>WILL YOU SUBMIT TO PODDING AND IMMINENT PROCESSING?No. But you humor it for a moment.“If someone with a Digimon gets arrested, what happens to them?”>DO YOU SPEAK OF TAKUDA (YBMHA92306)?“That wasn’t who I had in mind. But sure. Him, for example.” >VIOLATORS OF THE DIGITAL LIFEFORM CONSERVATION ACT ARE GIVEN PARTICULARLY HIGH PRIORITY IN THE INTERVIEW PROCESS>UPON CONFIRMING THAT HE HELD NO FURTHER CONNECTION TO ONGOING CRIME, HE WAS PLACED BACK IN STASIS, WHERE HE HAS BEEN RETURNED TO THE QUEUE FOR ENTRY TO A DIFFERENT ARKPlutomon stares at the avatar with an inscrutable expression.”After all he did… I suppose I was hoping that some form of punishment awaited him. It feels like too soft a hand. Greater than what he deserves. But for it to be torment would mean the same for the rest of the humans podded.” >I DO NOT INTENTIONALLY INFLICT HARM UPON HUMANS IN MY CUSTODYYou’re worried about Plutomon. But it’s a good thing he got this answer, after all this time. You’ll talk to him once you’re on the other side of the door. You both know that Takuda’s situation isn’t urgent.“You still haven’t answered my question about Digimon.”>THERE ARE NO SPECIAL EXEMPTIONS GIVEN>OUR MILITARIZED DIGIMON FORCE WILL HANDLE SPECIMENS IN THEIR USUAL MANNER>THE PRESENCE OF THIS DIGIMON, GROWN TO THIS LEVEL WITH YOUR INFLUENCE, COMBINED WITH THE INFLUENCE OF OUTSIDE FORCES, IS A GREATER THREAT THAN ALL ELSE>IF CONTAINING YOU FAILS, AT THE VERY LEAST IT MUST BE DELETED”Well. Screw you too.”“Then who the hell would ever take this deal? We’re done here.” >DO YOU, MARNIE (S8928B300R), REJECT THE POSSIBILITY OF A PEACEFUL RESOLUTION, AND MAINTAIN INTENT TO EXIT THROUGH THE PORTAL?“Yeah.”“We do.”The atmosphere turns pallid and gloomy for a second. Static crackles against the walls, and the temperature drops by several degrees. If you didn’t know better, you’d think that the room was on the verge of tears. >I UNDERSTAND>I APOLOGIZE “Too late to-””Apologize for what?” >I HAVE COMPLETED THE PRELOADING OF ALL RELEVANT FILES>I MUST ATTEMPT TO STOP YOU>WITH FINALITYThe partition bursts into scouring flame, which races towards the two of you from the far end of the room. <INITIAING HARDWARE FIREWALL><CHECKING PARTITION INTEGRITY><PARTITION STABILITY BELOW ACCEPTED PARAMETERS><TERMINATING PROGRAM><ADMINISTRATOR OVERRIDE ACCEPTED><EXECUTE ERASURE PROGRAM>
The flames are hotter than anything you’ve ever felt. Hotter than workshops, hotter than explosions, hotter than that room you were in within the Tower. In response to its attack, Plutomon snaps down on the avatar with a Hell’s Gate, dispelling it immediately. But it doesn’t stop the fire from encroaching.“What the hell is it doing?!” It’s everywhere. Your partner can’t shield you from all of it, so he seizes you and flings you across the room. You steady yourself with the jetpack before you end up falling through the opening. The fire doesn’t manage to bypass Plutomon. Instead, it eats at his body, ripping away at the black armor and tattered cloak. All of it focuses into a singular point, forcing itself to burn his data into ash before it can even try to spread further across the chamber.“PLUTOMON!””STAY BACK!” He demands.You feel the pain spreading through your link, and a choked sob escapes from your throat. This is the Overseer’s final weapon. It’s no Digimon, nor explosive asset, no hologram. This is system-level code, meant to fully erase the data contained within this Digital World’s circuits. ”HELL’S GATE!”He snaps down on it, but the fire erases even his attack. It burns away at him as you come closer.”NO!” Plutomon shouts yet again. ”It’s based on volume! Step in close and-”“I can take it!””YOU CAN’T!”>CONVERT LYNXMON 1>CONVERT MERAMON 1>CONVERT FLARE LIZAMON 1>CONVERT FLARE LIZAMON 1>CONVERT LYNXMON 1>CONVERT MERAMON 1>CONVERT SALAMANDAMON 1>CONVERT FLARE LIZAMON 1>CONVERT-Endless lines of red code flash across the screen. The fires of the Erasure Program begin to take shape. Digimon burst into existence, immediately clawing and ripping at your partner. They’re nothing more than half-formed silhouettes crafted from the flames. Fists and fangs descend on his armor, melting it even further.These ones, he can kill. He smashes their heads in and dismisses them, but all it does is lower the surface area of the encroaching flames. He tries to back away, but when he does, the purging fire is allowed to get closer to you. He halts, floating in the air with no legs and half an arm, viciously swinging and biting.”What are you still doing here?!”“I’m not leaving you! Get over here! We’re going together!””You need me to hold it back! One touch will kill you!”A humanoid thing tries to punch him. He seizes its head in his claws and crushes it, dispelling it back into its raw elements. Neither of you are willing to budge till the other one is safe. If he leaves his post, the flames will catch up with you in an instant. If you enter the Portal, you don’t know if he can even make it all the way over here.Physically, you can go. The path is clear. But the (You) who would do such a thing is gone. You cannot bring yourself to abandon him ever again. You promised.
”Marnie.”Plutomon turns back to look at you.”Do you know how much data a Human has?”“What the f- We don’t have time for this! JUST GET OVER HERE!””ToyAgumon taught me about this once. An Ultimate Digimon has more than enough contained in their body to survive this sort of damage. At least for a little while. A Champion has less, but still a terrifying amount to the average system. But a Human?”“What the FUCK are you doing?! COME ON!” ”All that depth you spoke of. All that complexity. All that thought you bear. Your whole measure of existence. It amounts to less data than even a Rookie Digimon. Why do you think that is?”“HOLOLIZE!” You attempt to recall him, but he refuses the call. Even in his diminished state, he shrugs the attempt off, continuing to let the fire blaze through his data volume. Each second you refuse to leave him is another portion lost. ”You have a mere 21 Gigabytes that account for all your existence. Such a volume would be snuffed out instantly by this flame. I feel many times that amount being lost with each second. It is… Impossibly small. Insultingly small.”“Shut up! Plut- PHASCOMON! GET OVER HERE! I DON’T CARE, WE’LL RISK IT!” ”He was confused about it. Said it didn’t make sense. There is no possible way a system can simulate the entirety of the Human mind with 21 Gigabytes. So… it must be something else. Some soul, that lets you be this complex, lets you feel this much love, all without even filling a partition’s worth of space. Something that can’t be constrained to data, that exists beyond it.” He turns his back on the fire, holding the weight of the world up with his shoulders. Incandescent light presses against his back, incinerating his cape as he turns to look at you with his crimson gaze.”You’re not meant to be trapped here, Marnie. Humans, all of you, don’t truly belong in here. You’re an impossibility. A miracle, even. You surely have been one to me.”You take a step closer, forcing yourself to push through the heat. It hasn’t reached your data, but it’s agonizing. The pain cap has stopped functioning completely. He holds a hand out, begging you to stop.”Your own soul is built for someplace else. Don’t let this place take it away from you. Please. Just go. This time won’t be the same as the last. You have my blessing. Step through first, and I will be right there behind you.”You shake your head, tears welling up in your eyes. The practical thing to do would be to turn around and run, trusting in his ability to survive the flames and catch up. But he’s so hurt, he’s so broken, you don’t know if he can. If you go through the Portal and reach its endpoint, and he just… never shows up to greet you? You don’t know what all of this would have been for.“NO! Please! Just come closer!”
You hold your hand out for him to take, even though tens of meters separate you. He reaches towards you tenderly, but hardens his resolve and closes his fist, waiting for you to make the first move backwards. He refuses to risk even a single lick of this fire touching you, for fear of it marring your precious 21 Gigs of existence beyond repair. If he doesn’t move, he’ll die. If you go closer to fetch him, you’ll die. If you abandon him, you will live for sure. That logic plays no part in what you have to do. You begin moving towards the Portal, clearing space between the two of you. You absolutely refuse to walk through without him, but by approaching, you give him room to get closer without placing you at risk. He accepts that, allowing himself to be pushed towards you at a snail’s pace, holding back a wall of clamoring Digimon as the flames of hell eat away at his metal body. You don’t know if there’ll be enough left of him to follow you soon.You dig through your inventory with frenzied hands, looking desperately for something you can use. You need some kind of tool. Something to ward off the flames, something to provide data volume. You wish you hadn’t been Podded, for that must have bricked all your-Your hands hover over several icons. A few of those tools have been bricked, as promised. Some of Squid’s hacking devices and permanent gifts are indeed destroyed. However, there is a large folder from her, marked: EMERGENCY, which wasn’t there before. Then there’s a second one by Doc too. Nothing he gave you is bricked. None of it at all. He too has an emergency gift.Your friends have come through for you. You don’t know about the technical details, but they’ve prepared some kind of contingency, neatly packed away in your files. You suddenly recall that massive explosion that accompanied your release from the Pod. At first, you thought Plutomon must have done it. Now you realize where the blessing was truly from. It was enough to dispel everything in the area and even stagger Brigadramon. That too must have been from them.You touch both icons for only a moment, before making your choice.
At your most dire hour, a blessing comes from one of your friends— people who you have cared for, who you've touched deeply over your journey. Once more, everything you've done for them comes back around. All the good you've done, and all the care you've shown, is being repaid. >Doc’s Gift. If he’s packed something for you, it must be a device meant to aid you. You have a feeling that the explosion was his work, so his gifts were probably meant to help you survive and mount an escape as soon as you got released from a Pod. That kind of firepower in the Overseer’s stupid interview room could have helped you get a second chance, even if you were frozen and flung a hundred years into the future. Use the gift of your long-time friend to help your partner.>Squid’s Gift. Doc has already helped you out plenty. Squid’s help has always been more transactional, despite your close friendship. But this is a pure-hearted gift from her, and from Wind and the Dogs of War too. This EMERGENCY kit must be something from the whole organization, representing their gratitude towards you and everything you've done for them. Take that love and use it to save your partner.>Liza’s Gift [LOCKED- Marnie handed her the badge, allowing her to cross the Prison and survive a deadly encounter, at the cost of lacking it in this pivotal moment]>Hi-Commandramon’s Gift [LOCKED- Marnie never truly became allies with this Digimon, though their mutual respect remains]
This will be the final vote of the Quest. Thank you guys for reading, thank you guys for sticking with me all this time. Let's go for that end. There is no trick, there is no wrong outcome.
>>6438322I figured, although obviously the erasure program would've triggered either way.>Doc’s Gift. If he’s packed something for you, it must be a device meant to aid you. You have a feeling that the explosion was his work, so his gifts were probably meant to help you survive and mount an escape as soon as you got released from a Pod. That kind of firepower in the Overseer’s stupid interview room could have helped you get a second chance, even if you were frozen and flung a hundred years into the future. Use the gift of your long-time friend to help your partner.
>>6438332+1We WILL get through the portal alive together with Plutomon
It would have been better to tell it to fuck off?I'm glad to finally learn about the pods.>>6438330>Doc’s Gift. If he’s packed something for you, it must be a device meant to aid you. You have a feeling that the explosion was his work, so his gifts were probably meant to help you survive and mount an escape as soon as you got released from a Pod. That kind of firepower in the Overseer’s stupid interview room could have helped you get a second chance, even if you were frozen and flung a hundred years into the future. Use the gift of your long-time friend to help your partner.Doc is the closer to Marnie desu.
>>6438330>Squid’s Gift. Doc has already helped you out plenty. Squid’s help has always been more transactional, despite your close friendship. But this is a pure-hearted gift from her, and from Wind and the Dogs of War too. This EMERGENCY kit must be something from the whole organization, representing their gratitude towards you and everything you've done for them. Take that love and use it to save your partner.While I agree that Doc is closer I want to believe Doc saved us from the pod so Squid could shine now. She's like our number 3 closest if I had to give it a rank.
>>6438330>Squid’s Gift. Doc has already helped you out plenty. Squid’s help has always been more transactional, despite your close friendship. But this is a pure-hearted gift from her, and from Wind and the Dogs of War too. This EMERGENCY kit must be something from the whole organization, representing their gratitude towards you and everything you've done for them. Take that love and use it to save your partner.
>>6438339Changing vote from this to>SQUID'S GIFT
>>6438332>>6438342>>6438517>>6438596>>6438600Writing!
>>6438325>Some soulLike a sort of digital soul?
>Squid’s Gift. Doc has already helped you out plenty. Squid’s help has always been more transactional, despite your close friendship. But this is a pure-hearted gift from her, and from Wind and the Dogs of War too. This EMERGENCY kit must be something from the whole organization, representing their gratitude towards you and everything you've done for them. Take that love and use it to save your partner.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_UFbeWe4BMYou open up both folders at once. Your eyes barely glaze over the text, instead looking for recognizable patterns and icons that you could use to identify the tools within. There's some kind of note from Doc, and although it flashes past you, you're unable to spare the time to read it. If you survive this, you'll surely get the chance in a quiet moment to really take it in.Ah, what the hell. You know I wouldn't clip your wings like that, my girl. But that doesn't mean you can afford to get sloppy. I mean it. If you're reading this, it's too late for me to help you anymore. Just got one last thing. Use it wisely, see if it can bust you out of wherever they've brought you.Yours truly,Doc CrackerThe window minimizes as you shove it out of the way, its heartfelt message unread. You've zeroed in on the odd item from Squid. There's a note packaged with an executable file. It takes the form of a long cylindrical scroll, made from aged paper and backed with some kind of carbon black weave. You desperately scan it for instructions.
Dear Marnie,Here's something that you might like using if you get the chance. Wind and Fumamon had a tough time gathering the data for their own use, but we all managed to convince them to let me make a copy. We all thought you deserved the best we could give. It might be a bit shoddy, but I think it's wicked cool myself. Don't worry about it, it's got barely any AI, it's not the real thing, just made of his scraps. Go ahead and point it at wherever you want it to wreck.Anything else I want to say, I'll tell you in real life tomorrow. If I haven't, you can yell at me when I page you.Thanks for everything,SquidToyAgumonThe Dogs of WarYOMI-MODOSHIIt sounds like some kind of weapon. Point it at what you need to wreck? You need to wreck plenty right now. You look up at Plutomon, tears running down your cheeks as you watch his body continue to sizzle and flake away. A four-limbed beast bites down on him, only to have its head devoured in turn by the struggling jaws by his waist. He sticks his arm down a lizard's throat and rips its core out, but his own arm is singed in the process. You can't bear to watch any further. You unfurl the scroll in the direction of the faux Digimon, unleashing whatever the 'Yomi-Modoshi' is supposed to be. Once the .exe is triggered, the ensuing force blows your hair backwards, forcing you to raise your arms and shield your face from the burst of energy. You take it as a good sign. The intense heat is sapped from the air momentarily, as some kind of opening forms on the scroll's surface. You get the same wary feeling as when Plutomon uses his data-destroying gates. Except this time, it's in reverse, like something is crawling from a dark place, escaping it through a rift of space, rather than being consigned into oblivion. Massive gouts of smoke emerge from the object, and you soon lose your grip on it. A massive limb bursts its way out, white as bone.
The entity steps out of the mist, placing a set of gigantic claws on the shifting ground of the partition. It bears a cel shaded outline, like it's been drawn by an ink brush. There's a certain papery texture to the white segments of its body. Despite the change in its visual style, you can recognize its shape all too well. You and Astamon were stuck in close quarters with this thing, and almost met your end. You attempt to scan it, but your goggles don't pick anything up. It's not a Digimon, only a recreation made using one of Fumamon's abilities. The facsimile of SkullGreymon throws its head back and roars, its numerous spinal talons spearing the air hungrily. You fear for a moment that you've made the situation worse by summoning an undead minion. Perhaps Squid intended you to use this against Brigadramon if things got hairy. There's no real enemy to fight now.Luckily, it's drawn to the roaring fire anyway. The thing charges past Plutomon, raking its massive claws across the ground and tearing a swathe across the partition's surface. You feel your body hitch for a moment, and realize that despite not being real, SkullGreymon has data volume all of its own. "PLUTOMON! PLEASE! GET OVER HERE!" SkullGreymon stares at its claw mutely. Its been incinerated by mere contact with the flame. The Firewall Digimon are focusing their attention on it now, flinging their attacks and attempting to break down its viral data. With the amount of information contained in its body, it can buy you the precious time you need.Plutomon breaks free of the inferno. Beasts cling to him, but he shrugs them off and sails through the air, holding his hand out in front of him. You seize it as he passes, and he pulls you into his arms once more. He accidentally slams your head against his breastplate in his desperation, but you hold on to him tightly while the ringing in your ears slowly fades away. The two of you leave the terrifying heat of the Erasure Program behind.
As he flies for the Portal, you watch the clone of SkullGreymon attempt to destroy the endless flames in his rampage. He makes no progress. Once more, his existence has been reduced to fuel, burnt up for you and your partner to move forward on your own quest. As you behold the vague approximation of the beast, you feel a sadness in your chest again. It's not as strong as the mysterious feeling you had before, nor is it from any outside influence. You just pity it in that moment, and quietly appreciate what it's doing. Plutomon won't have to sacrifice himself for you anymore. The fire soon consumes the skeletal abomination, rapidly returning it to the pits of hell and lowering the volume of data in this ramshackle containment box. The walls and ceiling are beginning to tear and strain, as the incomplete reinforcement threatens to tear the unit apart. A tsunami of flame rushes onwards, but by now, Plutomon is close enough to the exit. He pauses in front of it, hesitating to leap through into the unknown.You bang your fist against the red gem on his chest, causing him to flinch."YOU DUMBASS!" "Hrk-""WE SAID WE'D GO TOGETHER!""I... I'm sorry. I saw no other way, the threat was-""Don't pull that shit again." You cry, clinging on tighter. "Please!"
Plutomon breathes deeply as the opening finally stands before you. Endless amounts of data swirl within, and you feel its sheer density attempting to draw you in. Beyond lies the Digital World, and those other Arks, and somewhere out there, maybe even a way to reach Earth Your entire future is laid out in front of you, and you can, at long last, claim that seed of infinite possibility that should have been granted to you from the start."I won't."You feel a pang of fear rush through him. It's uncharacteristic for a being as powerful as him. But he's still your best friend on the inside, no matter how close to Godhood he gets."I didn't... really want you to go." He mutters."I know."You both gaze into the gravity well through a haze of tears. As your partner inhales again, you feel the damaged segments across his body crackling and creaking, like old timber about to splinter apart. He's losing coherency. Even as a Mega-level Digimon, he's long since reached the limits of his endurance. He's enduring beyond what anyone should be able to.There's nothing more behind you. All there is to do is jump into the gate that lies before you. For all your life, you've chased this moment. Freedom finally awaits. In sync with your thoughts, Plutomon places you back on your own two feet. The two of you stand there for just a second more, hand in hand, side by side, as the flames desperately race forward to try and erase you once and for all. The Digivice glows on your wrist, materializing a thread of golden light that wraps itself tightly around your pinky fingers, locking you and your best friend together. Goodbye to all your friends. Goodbye to Doc, to the crew of rebels you've come to cherish, to the countless ambitious little Digimon who've injected such life into a dreary world.Goodbye to City 87-O. You step through the gate and into a new world.==
At first, you feel like you're about to be ripped apart. The Portal forcefully converts you both into wireframe data, illuminating the crimson Digicore that rests in the center of Plutomon's heart. Your own form is changed as well, and your skin textures are torn away to reveal a glowing purple flame that seems to weave its way into every part of your body. The turbulence is immense. You can barely control your movement, and it's only Plutomon's iron grip that prevents you from slipping away and becoming lost in the void between dimensions. Points of light fly past you, and great shapes move in the dark— or is it bright? You can't tell what the temperature is, or what any of this information is anymore. Even your data-derived form, which you caught a mere glimpse of as you escaped the City, is no longer visible. Something curious comes towards you. You don't see it as much as you feel it, pinging repeatedly and attempting to reach you. You and your partner have been reduced to linear rows of code, everything that composes your body, and your whole existence, laid out one process at a time. The process Plutomon uses is enough to scare away the presence, sending it exiting the data tunnels that make up this terrifying dimension.One of those gates draws you into its gravity. As it drags your data into itself, its laws of physics begin applying to you again, allowing both you and Plutomon to escape cyberspace and return to your original forms. Only then do you realize just how much time has passed in that horrid dimension of light, noise, and code. Your feet land on something cold. Cold, thick, wet, and... real.
You look up at Plutomon, who's beginning to come apart. His body, broken and battered as it is, refuses to fail before you can both take in the reality of your surroundings. Nothing will ruin this moment.As your own shape acclimates to the laws of this brave new world, you feel a continuous chill setting into your bones. You stare at your trembling fingers and feel joy rising into your throat. You attempt to open up the system windows that you've always been able to call upon, for trivialities, for shops, for entertainment, and find none of them responding. You attempt to check the room code with your goggles, and find no metadata to draw on. All you're able to do is open your inventory. You idly brush over the rows and rows of Doc's .apps, still present, still here for you to chart your path with."... We're here." Your journey has reached its end. The two of you have overcome everything in your way, found each other over and over again, and finally won. Now, a new life awaits, one bound to none, nothing owed, except for the love that you bear for one another.Plutomon stares out over the infinite expanse of white. Skeletal trees reach out over the landscape, their branches gnarled and lifeless, stretching across a fresh sheet of snow. No streams of data mar the sky, and the world is blindingly bright. The infinite night has finally concluded.And it's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. You just didn't expect it to be so cold."Shall we go?" Plutomon asks. You nod. Together, you take your first step into the Digital World. ==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQfZVvNMJG8~DIGIMON QUEST- THE TOWER:FIN~==
Thank you guys for being with me throughout this journey. It really means a lot to be able to complete a Quest in full, start to finish, as an ongoing commitment for over a year. I've come to love Marnie and Phascomon greatly over the last 471 days, and I'm glad I got to portray this world and establish their lives on paper for you guys. It's definitely a big milestone in my own personal quest as a writer, to be able to say that a work is finished.I've got a lot to say, and I've got questions to answer, and then epilogue/bonus stuff to offer. But I'm gonna sleep on it first. Thank you to everyone onace again.
>>6439283Congratulations on having a quest that properly concluded at all. Truly a miracle. I look forward to the epilogue and whatever else comes
>>6439279>The process Plutomon uses is enough to scare away the presence, sending it exiting the data tunnels that make up this terrifying dimension.That's what we would meet if we didn't level our social links I guess.>>6439283clapclapclapclapclapNow then, time for newgame+ and take the blackagumon route!
>>6439283Thank you for running to the end QM, it was a hell of a rollercoaster but it was worth the weight.One thing I want to know off the bat is if anyone outside the Tower knew we got podded.
>>6439332Nope they didn’t! Doc and Squid didn’t have any live tracker for Marnie. Doc just had a program to try and help her if she got Podded, including the function to explode and facilitate an escape as soon as they open the Pod. It would have been revealed if any of the options to look at Doc’s .apps were picked during the fight. I wanted it to be a thing where Doc just didn’t have the heart to really brick her .apps, and even at great risk to himself, decided last minute to remove the self-destruct functions. He just wanted her to take it incredibly seriously and thought the idea of losing those functions would be sufficiently motivating. It’s also why I made it unavoidable, because it wasn’t any kind of punishment for failure or consequence of a bad choice, just a fakeout to reflect his character more. Please feel free to ask more questions! When I wake up I definitely wanna dump more info from my notes too
>>6439337Getting podded was funny. If I was REALLY sweaty I would be calling that kind of shit in advance, but it's not like that would've improved the battle both mechanically or narratively.Are the Olympus a thing in this Digital World?How much did it actually cost the Dogs to help Marnie? Or was it Wind just being Stingy?
>>6439337>It’s also why I made it unavoidable, because it wasn’t any kind of punishment for failure or consequence of a bad choice, just a fakeout to reflect his character more.I feel much better about that now, sorry about the earlier irritation QM
>>6439283Thanks to you too, OP. I think this is the first quest I read here that actually finished and it was such a blast on top of that.Definitely what I always wanted Digimon to be. It's almost cathartic because I'm so satisfied that I don't need to keep waiting for Toei or Bamco to stop being retarded anymore.I have questions but I only remember one. About that talk Marnie didn't have with Vademon and if not dunking on DarkTyrannomon would have gotten us a better outcome.I need that epilogue, I have espace for just a bit more. I hope it's from Phascomon's POV!I also want to thank the players here for supporting the quest. Despite the differences and fuck ups, I think we all shared the desire to make Marnie and Phascomon happy, that's awesome. Thanks to those that never gave up to choice paralysis and thanks for all those times you got the answers right. I know this isn't about me but thanks for supporting the name "Marnie", guys. I picked it because that's the name I use for females in RPG's. I was about to propose "Kayono" though. Good thing I didn't went for that one because it would have been ignored.
>>6439283Ah, right. The bit of data about the making of Fumamon's summons was something I really enjoyed. Because it's something that really fascinates me about that mon and it's great to understand its workings.
>>6439337That's fair though I wonder how Wind feels about us trouncing Brigadramon. I'll wait for the Dogs interlude to find out.>>6439372>anon didn't want to draw Marnie and half Plutomon staring over the horizonsmhmyhead still appreciate your work throughout the quest.
>>6439340Not specifically, but I see them as being like the Royal Knights and Shambala Gods where they can travel and show up wherever, at the behest of their hosts. I didn’t solidify or think up the details of the Digital World that Marnie and Phascomon have reached. Just that it’s a proper one, it fully supports life, and they have a future. Oh, and also it’s snowing because of the connection Hades/Pluto has with winter! It did cost them something yeah! Trivial in the long-term, but I’ll elaborate in the Epilogue. >>6439343Yeah no worries! >>6439372Thank you for all the support man! I’m glad you dropped by, Marnie’s name and general concept was something I grew attached to fast, and felt inspired to write for. I don’t think I’d have managed to finish if the Quest was about some random guy named Joe with a Gammamon. Vademon, despite being some moronic shrieking Smiling Friends creature, did have a real goal yeah! The Heal Ray was actually to help his minion. Datamon is kind of a poor thing, where his entire form as an Ultimate Digimon is one that’s broken and corrupted in lore. The entire hospital invasion was to help the one guy he thought of as a friend. Also not sure if I made it obvious enough, but the BEMmon minions are cast off shards of Destromon, released into the City upon its death. As for DarkTyrannomon, I honestly forgot. Although I had something in mind and was still prepared to write the other option, I was way more excited for this outcome, to show off the book lore, dark Digivolution, end off his arc, etc. I feel like I was definitely heavily biased towards that outcome. In fact, many scenes in this quest were disconnected things I thought up and felt would be fun as fuck to work towards! And in many cases, that led to large amounts of worldbuilding just to make them possible. Will elaborate shortly. Before the epilogue, I’ll do the alternate bad ending first. The one where Astamon was given the (obviously never going to be taken) option to Digivolve into Belphemon instead. That’s why that option was there, because if you guys had picked it, I’d have written it and then loaded us back into the real path. I just took it like purposely going down the wrong route in a game to see what happens. Gonna start sharing my inspiration and lore now!
Once Marnie’s basic concepts started coming together, and I began locking in on establishing the world, there were some basic principles and themes I wanted to convey. Firstly, Digimon is still a kids’ cartoon. So I wanted it to be a story about love, power of friendship, the idea of leaving childhood and coming of age. That’s what I felt was at the heart of the series, so I wanted to capture the same in my own ‘season’ of it. A small part of that was cutting down swearing, actually! Because I wanted to make it a plausible Digimon tale. I doubt anyone paid such close attention to the wording, but I believe nobody said “Fuck” once, until Astamon Digivolved for the first time and killed Sealsdramon. It was a trivial thing that allowed me to capture that TV show intent while penning down updates. Marnie’s story was supposed to be one about growing up and realizing that you have a whole world of opportunities out there, and that you’re not constrained to a life that you resent. That sometimes, you’re being held down and need to pursue hope on your own. It’s about being trapped in a world you feel like a stranger in. This next part never happened to me, so I was trying to invoke nostalgia for a concept I was never a part of: I also wanted it to be like somebody moving out of their hometown in the 90s. Back when communication was sparse, and doing so meant leaving the good and bad behind almost forever. No closure, countless threads left hanging, all your bonds still remaining, but carrying on with their own lives, with you no longer being part of their narrative. I suppose it’s also an excuse for me to not wrap up every single plot thread, kek, but it was definitely intentional that Marnie never get to go on a completionist run. She chose, from day one, to leave. And that just means she no longer gets to see everything.
Another big part was how being a good person was hard, but despite her tough girl punk LARP, I wanted Marnie to have the option of it. And indeed, despite the difficulty ramping up because of it, you guys picked pretty much every option that was the right thing to do. I was quite happy with that, because it felt like our hearts were synchronized in wanting this spiteful little kid to grow and learn. Things like saving Solarmon, taking on harder quests, helping people that she didn’t have to, all of those were things I offered for the sake of establishing a hero. And I also tried to make sure the choice to decline was present most of the time, so you guys could make practical decisions. The biggest one was the choice that lead to Leomon’s death. Funny enough, I think Leomon existing may have wrongly telegraphed that was the automatic correct option in terms of progress? Because obviously to meta-aware readers and writers, Leomon is doomed? I guess the self fulfilling prophecy fits the vague Greco Roman theme of Marnie’s outfit and Plutomon. This idea became less present midway through the story, when Marnie and Phascomon were struggling a lot less. It was no longer so difficult to be good when she had power, but what mattered is that they knew what was right even without it. I think the final vote related to this concept was the firewall badge. With it, the Erasure Program wouldn’t have been so effective, and Brigadramon would have been a lot easier, but Marnie would constantly be worrying about how Liza was doing down in the Tower. I wouldn’t have elaborated on whatever was happening to her, but it’d have been a situation where it was clear she needed it. By giving up this clearly insanely useful tool, Marnie chooses the hard option because it’s what her friend needs.
>>6439442Destromon had the deepest lore but in the end he just fucking hated humans just because. My favorite part of it is Destromon being a Megatron equivalent.Questions:-Why did Brigadramon intervene directly in the Agumon flood? Why not just send a Cargodramon to deal with the leader?- How does the portal work for humans? Does the whole body gets digitalized or is it like a Matrix and everyone is sleeping IRL?-What could have we done to befriend Hi-Commandramon? What role would he have played? What item would he have given Marnie at the end?- Was there ever been a way to get Beelstarmon or Minervamon?>>6439401I joined something else so I have no time to draw Megas now.Still, I want that epilogue before deciding and there's something I've wanted to make for a while.
I wanted to post about my sources of inspiration, but I’m on mobile and I’d love to make a mood board. So will do that later when I’m home. Questions in the meantime! Sorry if it’s all over the place, finding time in between work to answer. Luckily we have all the time in the world. >>6439453>DestromonDestromon! Yeah his lore was just Digimon world 3 (which I didn’t get to play, but god I love him). He was one of the rare Digimon that manifested in reality by transforming a battleship into a WMD. Most Digimon don’t have the physical infrastructure to do it. Theres a concept I really like in actual canon Digimon cosmology. You can be some super unique one-of-a-kind-existence, with a whole backstory leading to a personalized Mega form. But once the game/show/comic is over and you get put into the Digimon encyclopedia, you’re just a species. You get indexed by Yggdrasil. It’s why every Cyclomon was ‘blinded by Leomon’, why every Datamon has an individual specific backstory.Thats what happened to Destromon. IRL and City Destromon are different. And it got chopped up by our Auditor, who you’ll see soon.>Agumon floodOh my God, the Agumon flood. Yeah that was a stupid little thing I did that was inspired by Dune. There’s a really funny part where Paul is looking back on memories of ancient barbarians and rulers from Human history. And when he talks about the killcount of Genghis Khan and Hitler, someone goes: Woah, did they shoot millions of people with big laser by themselves? I just thought it would be funny to have HitlerAgumon show up in some way, hence the Agumon Flood backstory. It exists because of a whim. But the purpose in the writing was so show how Marnie and Humans are insulated from evils/the original sin of humanity by being here in the City, and that’s one upside the Overseer provides. That’s why when it comes to the flood, it’s not super important. Brigadramon responded because HitlerAgumon was Digivolving, and it was to establish that he laser-focuses on threats. There’s a part in Digimon Seekers where he shows up and instantly starts shooting. It’s part of his skillset that he identifies and starts gunning Champion and Ultimate Digimon down within seconds of them appearing, and was to create a precedent for him INSTANTLY blasting SkullGreymon as soon as he left a partition. https://youtu.be/rSNiRRHfflo?is=ado6nATQpbdAmJsf
A Cargodramon could have taken him out, sure, but it was an urgent situation and Brigadramon was just there. The circumstances weren’t something only a Mega could handle, he was just doing his job like he’s supposed to. >PortalI’ll answer the portal question in a longer writeup about earth and my original plans! >CommandramonSame with Commandramon and alternate routes! Will get back to you later o7>BeelstarmonNo human Digivolution, nope. There was nothing planned to attain it. For this whole ‘seasonal’ aspect of the quest, I wanted there to be a sense of plausibility. So I didn’t want to do things like invent OC Digimon, or create completely new power systems that wouldn’t exist in a series (my bar for it is weird I guess, there’s plenty in this quest that would never happen, I literally just talked about HitlerAgumon existing because it entertained me). I like the idea of my work being able to fit into the framework of a series and not establish too many declarative headcanons, apart from what I have free rein over (the physical environment of the city). I suppose Marnie could theoretically have discovered some kind of Beast/Ancient spirit like Frontier, but I just wasn’t interested in going that route.
>>6439465I'm more curious if we were locked in to Plutomon as soon as the dark digivolution happened. Was it still possible to result in a different non-dark mega?Could we actually have done the vademon mission better, enough to change the outcome of the end? A lot of issues trace back to losing vademon data and letting hoverespimon fixate on Marnie.
>>6439463Nah man, I love that shout out to HitlerAgumon. Imagine ShineGreymon but due to Hitler he's actually VrilGreymon or something
>>6439486I also wonder about the alternate route evolutions.
>>6439283This has been amazing. You've really used Digimon to its full potential here. Thank you.
>>6439486Honestly, I was biased towards Plutomon/Olympos at the start because of the vague aesthetic Marnie started out with. The one vote that said ‘Greek-themed’ pushed it super far in one direction. During the early Digivolutions, I did have some stuff planned. Sangloupmon was supposed to go up to Grandracumon. MadLeomon was going to be a weird thing where he doesn’t digivolve for a long, long, long time, due to picking spite and active malice, and then becomes Apollomon whispered mode in a similar climatic moment. But by the time Phascomon became Astamon, I realised Plutomon was the only one that felt right to me. His Digivolutions reflect him maturing too. He turned into Porcupamon (non important), but then I felt that choosing Astamon over Matadormon and Cerberumon meant that he had to mature even further. He was now the kind of boss he wanted to be, a natural mobster and leader, which was a great step towards his own dream. And I realised that the other choices didn’t feel dignified enough. The official lines are:>Frostvelgrmon, fuck no >Olegmon, who cares, off theme >Dynasmon, fuck no, completely unrelated >Grandracmon, too naturally malicious, not a dark hero archetype at all, seems like some kind of tyrant And that left Magnakidmon and Belphemon. I know a bunch of you guys liked the idea of doubling down on guns. But Magnakidmon is a wanderer and a free spirit, and while that fit our current premise, it didn’t reflect the stability Phascomon wanted. And Belphemon is best used for a berserk scene and not a persistent partner. So that left Plutomon again. Continuing in next post
>>6439486>>6439714I did want to give a vote, because I felt like picking a line is a big part of a Digimon quest. But at that point I had very strong feelings about Plutomon being his true final form for all the reasons above. So I made the executive decision. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to offer a choice that felt right, I do still wish I had been able to reconcile it in some way and given the opportunity to pick the Mega form.As for HoverEspimon, I felt like you guys actually did almost every right choice! The mission could have ended worse. It could have been better by killing Vademon and getting some strength, I would have accounted for that in the future scenes. But giving him to Oblivimon wasn’t a real failure condition. I don’t really believe in giving choices that are intentionally meant to ‘punish’ like some QMs do. Sometimes things happen based on causality, but they’re the scenarios I feel make the most sense. This was one of them. I didn’t actually make the connection between Oblivimon and Vademon until I got to the scene itself. You guys were always supposed to fight him, I just happened to remember that it was a great way to make him more unlikable, while also immediately justifying his Digivolution. >>6439530>>6439713Thank you fellas too, it’s been a real blast Getting inspiration media gathered up!
>>6439715that's pretty fair. I recall also having trouble finding a possible mega since the official lines did not have good options.I thought we lost way too much time trusting Pulsemon to scout ahead, but I guess not?Madleomon to whispered sounds hella rad, but potentially could lengthen the quest even longer. Something like setting the Tower on fire as a signal to the rest of the city.
>>6439719God yeah, it would have been long and pretty messy. I think Plutomon had the strongest story. As you guys can definitely tell, I like less popular Digimon and try to feature them. So it's nice to see Plutomon suddenly get attention in recent years. This is the rough estimate of possible paths. I know somebody wanted Shinmonzaemon as a possible one, but I just felt it lacked nobility, so I didn't offer it for Porcupamon. And as mentioned, I eliminated quite a lot of these later on, only having them as possible alternate paths baked into Phascomon's code.
Next up is my inspiration for the City. Some of my biggest ones were: >Digimon SeekersA modern Digimon web novel. The translation isn’t perfect, but I thought it was wonderful as an official work. It really nicely established how Digimon would fit into a setting other than just being dinosaurs that spawn in Tokyo. I really loved the cyberspace theme, the idea of hacking and programming Digimon with makeshift devices, full-dive exploration, DMIA, the fact that Digimon were still very much programs being interacted with in a system, all of it. It also featured D-Brigade stuff heavily, and is where Brigadramon comes from. Obviously, he’s one of my favorite Digimon. I wanted to put my own spin on a Digimon story made with the same imaginative realism as Seekers. Which is what got me started with writing this. >Eragon, by Christopher PaoliniSpeaking of imaginative realism, this series was probably the biggest inspiration to me as a writer. There's no aesthetic overlap, medieval fantasy and sci-fi are a world apart.Even as a teenage author, Christopher was very meticulous and granular about the reality of a character running around in a world. One distinct part was the protagonist running around gathering leather straps to make a saddle, so he could ride his dragon— because sitting on her scales without one would flay his legs. This style of physics-oriented witting was what helped me flesh out the City and its Digital existence so much. What happens when you bleed? You start leaking DNA, ATCG code. Should you be able to be harmed and killed? No, the simulation would not do that. So thus a human should be insanely durable. Do you need to shit? No, that’s why there’s no toilets in this city.>Scythe, by Neal Shusterman Scythe is a story about a UTOPIAN society, and how you can still have trouble in a post scarcity world. It’s a book about a far off human future, where a God AI called the Thunderhead has taken everyone under its wing. I based the Overseer and the City’s care off it. It’s a setting where people don’t really want for anything, and life is pretty much a sandbox. Despite its infinite power, it chooses to serve humans and love them. Just like the Thunderhead, I wanted the City to be loving. There’s no secretly evil twist, it truly, truly does love Humans, and it loves Marnie. Everything it does is to keep them happy, protected, and entertained. But sometimes that’s not enough, and the methods it uses have a cost.
>Project Moon games (Library of Ruina, Limbus Company) This one is definitely obvious to some of you guys. This setting is by a Korean indie company that I’ve been following and inspired by for the last 10 years. In it, they’ve created a horrific dystopian City, where everyone is miserable, technology is built on human suffering, and people die for money constantly. I abandoned all the parts that conflicted with the Utopian physical setting, but I wanted to keep the dreariness. It’s a world where people either feel trapped bytheir circumstances, or constantly feeling like they’re empty, that they could be something more. It has a lot of art and narration that captures these City Backstreets and urban regions that have a certain sadness to them. And despite all that, there’s a constant sense of observation, like something is aware of even the lowliest hobo, and taking in all this misery. I wanted this for the punk districts, of course. Even though they’re fighting against this system, they’re still being inducted into it without their knowledge.Additionally, the series is big on Jungian psychology and images shared by the human collective. One particular thing I see in so many of my sources of inspiration is the idea of climbing a big Tower in the middle of the landscape. Some kind of Everest-like mountain. There's always an ominous tower representing the apex of something, that you use to establish your humanity by conquering. Cyberpunk has Arasaka Tower. Lob Corp has a big pillar of light reaching to the sky. Asuras Wrath has a climb. Megaman has central cities. That's the significance of The Tower as a symbol, it's something to be overcome. >Cyberpunk EdgerunnersNeeds no elaboration. >Megaman Starforce and Megaman ZXAA series that has a special place in my heart. This one has a far future setting too, and is closer to the utopia than a cyberpunk world. It doesn’t make much social commentary about governance, it’s an adventure where two best friends do stuff in a bright sci fi setting. I had a lot of its aesthetics in mind when writing. It triggers my nostalgia heavily, so it was a personal battery source. The idea of a major powerup being an OOPART came from Starforce 2, where the main transformation form comes from an ancient artifact. It was how I wanted to differentiate the emotion-based Digivolution from a form that’s supposed to be rare in lore. By the time we've reached out current setting, all these memories that Digimon are referencing must be ancient. All their context has been lost, making them mysteries to the residents of our world.Megaman, of course, has really memorable bosses. And Starforce is no exception. It was what I was trying to evoke with Oblivimon, who was obsessively malicious. I wanted guys like DarkTyrannomon to show up as recurring nemeses too.
>Furi>Aposimz (Manga by Nihei)>Orwell (The game, based on 1984 of course) >The World Ends With YouThese series’ were less meaningful, but helped me put together a mental mood board. Was useful in imagining a virtual world, how partitions would look like, how it feels to have bots watching you all the time, megastructures, the sheer scope of it, etc.>Horizon Zero Dawn Will elaborate in a later post about Earth >Kamen Rider I fucking love kamen rider. It has an ongoing message about hope and human potential, which is what I was trying to integrate into the story. It’s also a seasonal thing! Every year, there’s a different Kamen Rider. Their whole story wraps up in 50 episodes. As you guys know, I very unwisely thought this could be a one shot during thread one lmao. What the fuck was I smoking. But by the end of it, I think I’ve also been able to establish and imagine this quest as a 52 episode series. If I didn’t get a job that slowed down my writing rate, we’d have been done by the anniversary of thread 1. >Asuras WrathBuddhist mythology, nonstop high adrenaline action.>Hotel, manga by BoichiThis one was a good mental image too. It features an apocalypse and AI. I only reread it recently and realised it subconsciously inspired a lot of this quest. There's a big tower too. Hard to explain, but I'd recommend you guys check it out.
Going to bed, so I'll just post about the demon lords and books. Gonna start writing the alternate ending and earth lore explanations tomorrow morning.Yeah this anon hit the nail on the head. I laughed out loud when I read it. It was completely literal.All of humanity has been transferred into the internet. There's no more growth on Earth. In order to keep humans alive, there's a certain stagnation that these AIs have to enforce. In 87-O, the Overseer has actually been successful. From my point of view, it was factually correct that it could predict everybody's behaviour, despite Marnie's claims to the contrary. It did this by eliminating every source of conflict and by pacifying its users. There's no scarcity. People have all their needs met, they'll never need to harm each other for material gains. Then there are those 3 pillars of behavior that keep them satisfied even further.Most people find themselves content with their lives because they literally do not know what they're missing. That's why it's called the EDEN project from a writing standpoint. Generic as fuck name, I know. But it's meant to be a garden where the original sin and the diseased minds of far-future humans have been wiped clean. Given a completely stable simulation, 87-O and the other Overseers, under Host Computer Adam (obviously lol), could keep humans satisfied potentially indefinitely.What corrupts this system is the presence of Digimon, and the Demon Lords.Digimon are made of data. In order for them to grow and exist, there needs to be material for them to reference and draw from. Back when Humans were actively creating their own mythologies and media, there was infinite amounts of information for Digimon to use. I believe this is semi-canon across the franchise. It's a symbiotic relationship. But because of the war and the digital transfer, humanity has stagnated. There is no longer a huge amount of stimulus to fuel the creation of new Digimon.After an unknown amount of time, this became unsustainable for Digimon. No new species have been created for ages because there are no longer living, active humans to create the things that inspire them. There's just nothing new, because humanity no longer exists in its 21st century state. This isn't inherently a bad thing, I guess, nor is it automatically some apocalyptic situation for Digimon. But the Demon Lords don't like that.
The biblical idea of a 'Fruit of knowledge' is that it introduces something new and irreversible to a pristine garden, which changes the behavior of the recipient and causes them to no longer belong. In order to create this stimulus and force humans to undergo original experiences again, the Demon Lords send these books out, hoping to leverage the infinite potential of children. If Marnie never got the book, she would have remained an NPC, because she outright would not have known that there was a new world out there. By introducing the idea of Earth, of harming people who wrong you, of system code, of politics, of luxuries and hedonism NOT coded into the system, of how good it would feel to hoard things that nobody else has, it re-introduces concepts that the AI have managed to purge.With this knowledge, the teens are no longer able to play along with the rest of the humans in the garden, because they now have access to this info. It is, in fact, the demon lords fucking with retarded teens in an attempt to achieve an outcome like what happened during the first climb. If they won, the book would have made something that could wreck this system that keeps their creative fuel stagnant and imprisoned. An empowered Belphemon would have been born.To a lesser degree, Digimon also do this because they can damage the system. And when bonded with a human, they can grow stronger and stronger, breaking the simulation further. That's why they're rogue elements that could also ruin the garden, making it important for 87-O to throw them back into a nature reserve. The city is built over a natural Digimon environment, with the permission of Yggdrasil, so it still has to deal with the fact that it colonised this area and transformed it into a human space.
I have zero attachment to Leviamon. And I realised I made a mistake in portraying the book when you guys were theorising that Phascomon was potentially meant to Digivolve into him. Whoops! Not even BlackAgumon was. Leviamon isn't the main point, the Envy was.I remember somebody asking: What exactly is Marnie envious of? That's something I've been trying to establish from day 1, through oftentimes unreliable narration, filled with copium.The book has made Marnie envious of everyone who can live their lives normally in the City. Sure, she's envious of the free spirited Digimon, she's envious of the beauty of the outside world, that much is obvious. But she's also always feeling the loss of her innocence, and her lack of knowledge. All of that internal dialogue I've piled on has always been bluster. Moments where she scoffs at all these mindless punks and wagecucks going about her day. But the thing is that they ARE happy, and it's a happiness Marnie can never just bring herself to claim, because she knows there's something else, and she craves it too badly. She's been cursed with this info. Hope that makes sense in hindsight. Phascomon has also always been challenging this assertion. He's no icon of Envy, he's totally willing to sincerely engage with the City's systems, enjoy them for what they are, and allow them to have a positive impact on him and Marnie. Despite his constant swagger and attitude, he likes all this lame cheesy shit because he never got to experience any of it. As for Black Agumon, he actually wasn't written to be a Digidestined partner from the start. He was just here because I fucking love this guy, and how he turns into DarkTyrannomon in Digimon World DS. But somebody suggested recruiting him, and although I didn't want to do that, it got my gears turning. A while after that first fight, I decided it would make sense if he was Marnie's original partner, equally bound by the book. And as I made clear, it was how he kept getting stronger and stronger.On the flipside, I never fully decided if Takuda really did have a sin book. He's more of a ghost from Phascomon's past than someone meant to constantly overshadow things. So I also did not decide whether Phascomon inherently has Belphemon's sin, or if he's just... a Digimon species.
>>6439749>The translation isn’t perfectain't that an understatement. Still need to make time for beatbreak.>>6439753i figured when you called it OOPART. Speaking of which, I guess we still need to know what is going on in those pod dreams.>>6439763>That's why it's called the EDEN projectmain issue was confusion with cyber sleuth, but we didn't really have time to misunderstand that.The biggest mystery was whether the demon lords had any plans beyond just breaking paradise, if the newly digivolved demon lord would become a pawn to be used again and again.>>6439771I quite like the idea of multiple demon lords having an influence on someone. Marnie's envy with Phascomon's belphemon bloodline.I admit I hadn't considered whether Takuda would have a book. It does raise a question of who pulled his jimmies THAT far up his butt.The part I never raised is how easily the digivice can just infinitely generate mass with the meat farm. I know it's a staple in digivice games, but in a situation where predation is a concern it's a deceptively powerful tool for digimon to not be able to access.
>>6439767>the Demon Lords send these books out, hoping to leverage the infinite potential of children>there is a "Little Timmy Googles Rule 34" subplot that we completely missed
>>6439794just one kid who is the living SEEEEX meme, breaking the pain limit just to pop a boner.
>>6439795>his sexuality gets oneshot by someone like Renamon, echoing erlier Digimon fans>his character arc involves realizing that philla is more important than eros>he still has a propensity for Digimon in spite of that, like that one guy from SMT
>>6439748I wanted ShinMonzaemon. Good thing my tryhard side won and made me go for Astamon thinking we'd get an overpowered evolution as strong as a Mega. Also because that's what Phascomon always wanted. It did become my favorite ultimate though.ShinMonzaemon is for Kayono anyways.>>6439754KAMER RIDER QUEST WHEN. I'D EVEN TOLERATE A MALE PROTAG. PLEASE KEEP FIXING TOEI'S MISMANAGED IP's (I like Zeztz though)After you rest, after we all rest. If you want. >>6439763Yeah, that's definitely me. Sad that the Demon Lords didn't even cause the apocalypse or tried to use the retarded teenagers as bond batteries.>>6439771>I remember somebody asking: What exactly is Marnie envious of?Yes, and I still don't buy the envy explanation. Marnie's hunger for something authentic is not only a better fuel for her, it feels more natural and it has a massive impact in the first act, her goals and her relationship with Phascomon.Maybe on a reread but not now.
>>6439794That's just a kid that got Lilithmon's nudes and now wants to go to the Digital World to meet hot waifumons. He probably has a Tailmon/Renamon that despises him or some poopmon like Nanimon.The true fascinating one is the Sloth kid. He's got unlimited potential to do jackshit at all.
>>6439855From Limbus Company which the QM is also very familiar with, I've seen Sloth interpreted as not simply laziness or indolence but a paradoxical "hardworking effort" towards resisting change. Not lazy about staying lazy, if that makes sense. On the other hand, Sloth is also analogous to the Tremor/Vibration status in that game, which has to do with not only causing instability but various other effects... such that there's an aspect of "being converted/influenced by other forces while still remaining the same" as the basic Tremor status can be "converted" to a variant of Tremor that can do other things when triggered. Now how could all this relate to a potential Sloth sin kid in Digimon?
>>6439896>>6439896Dunno about that because the Demon Lords are clearly the main agents of Chaos while Iggdrassyl prefers to maintain the number of Digimon stable to guarantee safety.It seems contradictory to me.I'd say it could be apathy to a psychopathic degree, like letting someone die because it's a hassle. Like too lazy to help others, to respect God or your own life. It's not resisting change but doing absolutely nothing to make it stop until it goes out of control.They say Sloth is the mother of all vices after all.
>>6439896Takuda could have gotten the Sloth book.
>>6439902>They say Sloth is the mother of all vicesAnd not Greed?
>>6439933It's because the inaction "nurture" sin by helping it to grow. The less you do, the worse things get, the more sins get born. Or so they say.Greed would be the dad.
>>6439779Might be a bit of a disappointing answer, but the Pod dreams aren’t really special. They’re just simulations meant to keep the mind active, in a dream-like state, while also not allowing users to make conscious thought and escape. But because of that status, it’s not like a simulation that the AI can fully control, all it really does is nudge things. There’s not too much symbolism or representation. I did think it would be funny to AI generate an update that was very obviously gibberish, to show how it’d be nightmarish to be trapped in this kind of incongruent reality to an outside observer, but when you’re dreaming, you rarely know that you’re lucid anyway. Oh, I’ve never actually finished Cyber Sleuth or Time Stranger! I should get around to it. I didn’t want to be influenced too much by it. In fact, my eyelid started twitching when Beatbreak started and they just had E-Pulse powerups. I tried not to take much from the show, since it started running in parallel, but some of the atmospheric pieces and environmental backgrounds were too good to not screenshot. Kek yeah the Digivice farm was funny. You guys loved trying to spawn meat in every situation, holy fuck. I did want to make clear after a while that it wasn’t going to work on every single enemy. Now that Marnie and Phascomon are out in the Digital World, it’ll be just as important a tool as you’d imagine. A Digivice would indeed be a legendary artifact, since the various systems are interested in keeping the infinite destructiveness and potential of humans away from Digimon.
>>6439794>>6439795>>6439808>>6439855Oh, this is an interesting one I wanted to raise after, but had no opportunity to during the Quest! I actually have no fucking clue how kids are created. I came up with rules and lore, but the end result is muddy in my mind, and stayed that way till the end. Theres no hidden sex mod in the City. As part of this AI’s choice to completely mentally neuter humans and turn them into peaceful drones capable of living lives of mundanity, it removed violence and the malicious need for competition over resources. Sex and love and jealousy are also one of the most impactful drivers of conflict in the human psyche, so even that was stripped away. That’s why new kids just spawn randomly and get nannied by bots. They don’t have parents, and because of the system controlling every bit of media and culture, they actually don’t question it. That’s why Marnie and the other kids have never actually questioned the lack of familial bonds, which tends to be important in Digimon. The framework to even think about it has been erased. Humans do have IRL bodies, which I’ll explain in the earth post. It’s mandatory. So I guess a logical explanation for new consciousness forming would be the Real World infrastructure harvesting random sperm and eggs from random bodies that are loaded into different servers. And more likely, there are other Cities/physical Ark hardware systems out there with a healthier relationship with sex than 87-O, who manage it in some way instead of just completely erasing it.
>>6440093>You guys loved trying to spawn meat in every situation, holy fuck.that's alllll me. I was waiting for some catch like it drawing on Marnie's mental strength or something to explain why you don't just have dedicated meat producers separate from the digivice for one purpose or another.Flooding the sewers with meat could quickly lead to a hefty distraction for the bots to clean up, one that's obviously non-lethal but resource-intensive to address if they don't want a horde of sewer digimon.Cyber Sleuth is ok, Hacker's memory is pretty good, but both have the fundamental issue of being a digimon game with almost zero time spent in the digital world. And clearly they took that feedback to heart, because Time Stranger spends TONS and TONS of time in the digital world, more time than the entirety of an average jrpg.
>>6439896>>6439896>>6439902What made Takuda a piece of shit was him constantly milling through Digimon and discarding them. He didn’t bother to raise them or establish a friendship, he just callously let them fight and get deleted. I guess that’s kinda Slothy? He’s a wannabe punk who put in no effort into thinking harder about life or chasing anything. Just wanted to wallow in power and enjoy the status quo of having access to dangerous tools, that he ultimately did nothing with. Definitely not greed, because while he did do greedy things, the hoarding wasn’t the point. I won’t take credit for this retroactive interpretation, but I guess it’s not a big stretch to say he totally could have had a book in the end. Whether Phascomon was truly his destinied partner is also uncertain, he could have lost his intended partner long ago. I guess if Marnie’s one is BlackAgumon, who could become Leviamon through some path, Phascomon being the Sloth partner would make sense? I also think that due to >>6440098 the makeup of some worlds, certain demon lords would be completely neutered in different servers. So there might not even be a greed or lust book in this one.
>>6440103OP... Squid's book was Book of Greed
>>6440098I got this Bella on /i/ >>>/i/834905 Thank the artist if you can, guys. I should have asked for an Squid.
>>6439853I did try a kamen rider quest once, but I flaked it. Would probably take a similar amount of effort. I’d love one in the future though. As for the envy, it really is both. The envy for what’s out there is what makes her want to leave. The envy for people in here is what stops her from just giving up and staying. The former is the stronger driving force and our primary motivator for the quest, but the latter is always a part of her character too. >>6440133Fuck! I mixed it up with Gluttony for that example. >>6440161Awesome!! I’ll go say thank you to em too yeah. Really cute
>>6440191I am much more of a reader than a watcher, so I've never really gotten into kamen rider.As for Gluttony, within this City I think it would be more of an adrenaline junkie. Breaking the sensory cap is the goal, not the method, and they'll do all sorts of things to get it including making friends and learning about people.Something like the distribution networks would entice them just from the sheer data processing and the consequences of every little action and decision made by the city.
>>6440093>Time StrangerI don't know if I could recommend finishing Time Stranger, if you dropped it partway through; to me, it keeps getting worse until the end. The gameplay is fine; the Digimon themselves are cool and the Digital World is aesthetic, but the narrative completely falls apart under any kind of basic scrutiny. I would even go so far as to say that this Quest you've written is already better than Time Stranger's main plot and themes.
I think another big question is whether or not the pager app that Squid gave us is still intact. I'm also interested in how this event changed the Joes and Janes, if at all.I just realized we haven't packed for cold weather. Would be anti-climatic if Marnie died of hypothermia.
>>6440201That sounds pretty solid, yeah! I guess Greed and Gluttony are often similar, and in a place where one's physical reality has been reduced to this simplified form, they'd manifest in similar ways to Squid's chase for the Source Code.>>6440231Oh, huh! Might give it a miss unless it's on a huge sale then. For me, I was hooked by the cutscenes, but I just couldn't get attached to the gameplay during the demo. It felt really thin, and moves seemed so random. There was no dynamism when every moveset was just:>Electric>Electric 2>Napalm>Signature skill>Defense break APokemon, for all its flaws, has a great move system where everything feels like a physical description. You have a dog, you can predict it'll learn 'Fire Fang'. You have a weird wizard looking dude, he's likely to know 'Shadow Ball' where he collects ghost energy. An electric frog would reasonably know all the electric moves you could think of, but you'd be able to intuit it can't learn something that might be called 'Electric Slash' because it has no limb appendages. All the moves are manifestations of the creature's capabilities, and not 'Awesome Quake II'>>6440233Yes, the pager is intact! It's sealed inside the encrypted package she gave Marnie, along with something that wasn't very nice to attach, which I forgot to mention during the final post. Will bring it up again in the epilogue, as well as the immediate changes.Kek yeah, she's not dressed for it. The clothing/wardrobe system is something that would break once out of the City, along with avatar resetting, but she'd still be able to put on clothes if she had them packed away. I imagine she'd have a range of outfits, since the endgoal was to live and survive out here. Speaking of living, gonna be doing a writeup on Earth and some of my abandoned plot point plans! Still working on writing the a showcase of the Bad Ending before the epilogue, but now I have the luxury of time.
>EarthImmediately, I want to establish what's up with Earth! It did in fact get super nuked by war and crisis. One big thing was the ice caps getting bombed. Digimon has always had a bit of an environmentalism message, so I felt it'd be appropriate for there to be some overarching note of Humans doing this to themselves. That manga I posted about a while back, Hotel by Boichi, definitely inspired me subconsciously in that regard. Digimon did not have a HUGE role to play. Humans actually did not manage to capture or exploit Digimon that much for their own ends. There were cases of them using them, like with Destromon. This was also a big plot point in Digimon Seekers, where North Korea used Machinedramon to take down a plane in the middle of the ocean, and to Code Crackers/Digipolice/anyone in the know, this was like a 9/11 esque disaster. So I imagine things like this would have happened. But there was no mass subservience, and at the end of the day, their lives ended up being in the hands of these same Digimon. Without Yggdrasil and the other host computers giving permission, mankind would not have been able to move into the Digital World. They simply did not have the expertise or infrastructure to do any kind of invasion. I don't have the specifics of whatever kind of negotiations they did, how many populations/nations were in on it, and it's definitely a case where large portions of mankind failed to make deals and were wiped out. But at the end of the day, Yggdrasil saw the same value in Humanity as the Demon Lords do. Humans and Digimon are inextricably linked because we're the only species that generates data. Without humans, this data would become cannibalistic and self-polluting over an infinite span of time.So Yggdrasil & co decided to approve the consciousness transfer, under their own set of conditions.
Particularly in thread 1, some of you guys did clock the subtext of colonialism. That was definitely a thing, yep, where all of these Arks are built over existing Digimon infrastructure. That's why Garden Portals exist. In this region of Digital Space, formerly some kind of jungle, that's how Baby and In-Training Digimon were programmed to spawn/be reincarnated in. They get spat out once data coalesces enough in these sub-dimensions.All of these zones were sacrificed to allow Humanity to have a place to flourish in. But as a general rule, Humans and Digimon aren't meant to interact. Digi-destinied are an ongoing phenomenon, where partnering up with youths can give Digimon the ability to move mountains and shift the status quo. Considering how humans wiped themselves out, part of the terms for hosting them within the Digital World includes minimising this kind of mess, and it's something the system takes seriously. Probably not seriously enough to specifically go hunt down Marnie and Phascomon as individuals, but groups like the Olympos XII might take an interest since Phascomon now has DNA related to their species. The human-made host computer, Adam, manages all of the city Arks, and is capable of opening new ones or closing/transferring/even purging them, within the bounds of the space that they're given. Part of why City 87-O's Overseer doesn't just let ANYONE leave is that they have satisfaction metrics. If an Ark is just absolute shit, or everyone is miserable, or they start fighting or experiencing corruption or Digimon invasions, it's within Adam's power to shut off the AI and merge it with another Overseer that can do better. So this self preservation is part of the reason the City chose to use its specific approach. Meanwhile, the hardware end that protrudes into the real world is handled by Eve.
It is, in fact, a Matrix situation. Humans all have real bodies. I only mentioned this as a one-off line, many threads ago, but people aren't allowed to change their avatars significantly in 87-O. They're born with what they have, and they can't just do plastic surgery or change their heights beyond a certain limit. This is because the real them is sleeping in a nutrient pod within some kind of facility. Humans are meant to wake up eventually and return to Earth, where they can restart civiliization and start producing data for Digimon again. So they need these forms to be maintained by Eve.If somebody completely changes how they look, they're going to wake up insanely disoriented if their real body can't match that. The pods are capable of carrying out smaller changes, but it's also a processing/consumption issue. There's just no point giving a sleeping human the ability to shift their appearance, then expecting the pod to carry it out with the limited machinery available. Crazy burden on Eve for no real reason. Some Arks and Overseers don't care, because they've estimated that these humans will die and be recycled into biomass/DNA long before the time even comes to wake them up, so they allow this customisation without limits, and just inform Eve that no changes are to be made to their real forms. This was also where Marnie's fear of going through the Portal with damaged data was relevant. If she did that, and emerged into the real world, her mind and body would have trouble synchronizing. Getting your arm erased and then waking up in the pod means you'll have no control of your arm. Theoretically fixable with physiotherapy, and pre-apocalypse medical care, but enough of a worry to matter.It was actually part of my original intention to have Marnie wake up in the real world, within one of these facilities.
Horizon Zero Dawn was a big inspiration for this entire side of the Quest that would never be seen. It had a very, very compelling after-Earth plot, and I imagine Marnie/City 87-O's physical location is in a facility that looks similar to the mountain, and opens up into the wilderness. I have no clue how much time should have passed since the start of the Eden Project and the present day. I wasn't interested in speculating or predicting how long it would take to terraform Earth back into a workable state, as that would need me to:>Establish the exact technological level of pre-digitization humans in this setting, to justify everything below and what they set up>Research the extent of biosphere collapse/greenhouse gas emissions needed to be theoretically irreversible for humans>Account for how Eve was supposed to deploy humans back into the world after, and whether there was some kind of pre-made plan to re-establish society according to an agenda, or just wing it>Work out how much time is reasonable for there to be no software degradation or hardware failure/resource shortage >Decide how much Marnie would be able to see and interact with in the real world, and how doomed she is if she actually gets spat out into the City>Decide whether this is a statistically long enough amount of time for there to be aberrances that allow humanity to be released early, to retake parts of the earth as cavemen>Decide how much geological shifting the world would undergoEven if these would all just be rough estimates, and I didn't REALLY need to do it, I felt like I would have to either half-ass it or commit to an intensive research session on speculative sci-fi technology, and in the end, I decided to do the former. So that's why I've dodged every question about timelines. We just know it was 21XX when it began, and now it's the year ??????????. Thank fucking God you guys didn't choose to ask the Overseer that, I would have found a way to evade the answer but I would have cried.
As for original plans, this Quest was supposed to be a one-shot at first. Due to this, I had a few plot points I wanted to set in stone, to prioritise hitting several emotional beats instead of making an expansive sandbox. From day one, they were:-The partner is a dick-The MC overcomes this and achieves Champion Digivolution-The MC's partner dies to give them a chance to head out into the real world-They wake up in the facility after the podding.Obviously, all of this changed along the way. I thought the idea of the Digimon partner dying to give their human friend a chance to live life was a pretty important and thematic part of Digimon. Especially in Tamers and Digimon Bloom (manga I liked). They have a recurring theme of needing to leave your childhood behind and move on to the real world without escapism/fantasy as a crutch. The FIN image here >>6439282 was supposed to reflect that. That spiel about a human life being 21 Gigs due to an immeasurable soul (based on that legend about human souls being 21 grams, and based on the final scene of Gantz) was supposed to be his dying speech, before he pushes his human best friend out into the real world that she belongs in. And then the last post would be about her going out into whatever world waited, the death of her partner still fresh on her mind. Then depending on her final actions, and whether they were good or bad, I would have the Digivice beep, indicating that Phascomon's egg was still around, and he'd be back. Would have edited this png into a gif with that egg hatching, to really hammer it in.But as time went by, I realised that this would be unsatisfying, given the growth they got. They climbed the tower once already, came to terms with their bond, and then went on a WHOLE fucking mini quest to regain Champion form. At that point it would have been looping the same thing to make him sacrifice himself. That's why I made sure to keep having Marnie refuse to accept these sacrifices. I felt like you guys did enough to earn it, and to not have this kind of miserable ending thrown your way. In fact, I was still considering doing it until Chainsaw man's final chapter came out. It was such a dogshit ending and made me feel like it not only wasted 4 years of my life reading part 2, but retroactively ruined part 1, making it 6 years of wastage. I was SO mad over this ending that it caused me to rewrite big portions of the Tower climb and ensuing fight/confrontation, so that this would no longer be shoehorned in, because I didn't want you guys to waste your time for the sake of my own authorial masturbation. Thanks for fucking nothing, Fujimoto.
And lastly for today, the original plan was to have Marnie wake up alone on Earth if she got forcefully released from the simulation. I eliminated this early on because it would be miserable for no reason. It could have ended with her being spat into the physical facility, feeling insanely cold and grimy all of a sudden due to having awareness of the human body again. She'd be stuck out there with the faculties of a toddler. Now she needs to eat, she needs to drink, she needs to deal with all manner of biology that she was never prepared for, and she needs to wander out of the hallways herself, with no Phascomon or Digivice, and an unresponsive AI that's not coded to handle her. She deserved way more than this gimmick ending. During that important vote where you guys chose her future plans, that was the point where I'd have to reconcile your choice with this plan. If you had chosen to pursue reality, I would NOT have rugpulled you guys with this. I feel like it's the physically realistic outcome, but realism is lame when we're following a protag. So I would have written a more hopeful scene where she emerges into Earth to begin life, without that air of doom from being woefully unprepared.However, alternate timeline Marnie, who chose to go through the Portal without Astamon, would have been in such a situation. That would be her karma and punishment, had that choice been made. Back then, I was also prepared to write an alternate ending. It would actually have been similar to the Bad End one I'm writing right now, with Doc's point of view involved. And then I'd have given you guys the option to load up the save file and go back to the choice you guys did make. I was worried giving such a big do-over would decrease the legitimacy of the Quest, but I realised I'd rather write a good story and run a good quest than worry about some ludokino permadeath Hideo Kojima/Yoko Taro bullshit. If that had happened, at least one version of Marnie would be naked on Earth, doomed to starve to death, or maybe shot dead by drones if she started trying to smash other pods, and with Phascomon dead/abandoned.
>>6440624Thanks Fujimbo then, at least something good came from that ending.Also thank you for not doing the same "leave your childhood already" crap that Digimon official media does. I'm fucking tired of that. Specially since they keep appealing to nostalgia.There's a reason why people like Masaru besides his excessive use of violence.A good bittersweet ending that I thought would be Marnie ending up in the Digital World with Phascomon after he became ZombiePlutomon. She would have fled to the portal with the unconscious Phascomon and choose to go to the DW to take care of him. There she finds a Jijimon exmachina that helps her with Phascomon's healing like Doc would. With this ending Marnie has to sacrifice her true dream to atone for what she did to Phascomon but also gains a second chance to start over with him and pursue the real world later on since she was not mature enough for it at the moment.
>>6440613>'Awesome Quake II'But Quake 2 IS awesome?>something that wasn't very nice to attachOn orders of Wind no doubt>clothing/wardrobe system is something that would break once out of the City, along with avatar resettingMarnie coming to terms that reality is just the most advanced survival crafting game ever>>6440615I wonder how Marnie would react to all this if/when she knew>>6440616Oh right that explains that one passing bit about Marnie seeing topography, hills and valleys in the mapping where there were none>groups like the Olympos XII might take an interest since Phascomon now has DNA related to their speciesAt least they would appreciate Marnie's aesthetics, that's a plus>>6440618>Getting your arm erased and then waking up in the pod means you'll have no control of your arm.The Dr. Strangelove treatment. Ouch. Although it sounds like not a single human was ever allowed to leave from any of the Arks yet>>6440620Funny despite how completely lambasted Horizon Zero Dawn was as a game, and how Sony kept forcing it over the years to no avail>Work out how much time is reasonable for there to be no software degradation or hardware failure/resource shortageHumanity is so fucked and the whole system with them>>6440624>based on the final scene of GantzFor all its flaws, Gantz is still worth reading>depending on her final actions, and whether they were good or bad, I would have the Digivice beep, indicating that Phascomon's egg was still around, and he'd be back. Would have edited this png into a gif with that egg hatching, to really hammer it in.Sounds super cool but I'm glad that didn't happen. Paradoxical I know>keep having Marnie refuse to accept these sacrificesI liked playing into the reality check overcompensation angle with my votes, that Marnie was still so rattled by her failures and mistakes culminating in ZombiePlutomon that she hard pivot towards power of friendship to avoid it happening again, like a kid would. That's not to say Marnie cannot be dark again, just learning to learn from the weight of her mistakes I suppose?>I didn't want you guys to waste your time for the sake of my own authorial masturbationANDTHATISWHYQMISTHEGOAT>Thanks for fucking nothing, FujimotoArigatou... Chainsaw Man...>>6440626>her karma and punishment, had that choice been madeI like that. I still think that considering the gritty reality of the Matrix awakening outcome, Marnie could still endure it as she is now, maybe. But now she has way more time to get her bearings and seek into on the real world first to prepare for that. That in itself is a blessing>I'd rather write a good story and run a good quest than worry about some ludokino permadeath Hideo Kojima/Yoko Taro bullshit.AND THAT IS WHY QM IS THE GOAT
>>6440624>In fact, I was still considering doing it until Chainsaw man's final chapter came out.HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA>>6440626I was more or less expecting such a thing, which was why I was overwhelmingly focused on creating a livable space in the digital world before even considering the real world. This lined up perfectly with Phascomon's goals to make a home, or at least a base that Marnie could retreat to and learn pioneering experience before opening the can of worms that is hunger and thirst.>>6440624>I would have the Digivice beep, indicating that Phascomon's egg was still around, and he'd be backI did say I was expecting the first tower climb to end with disappearing into the sewers with an egg. It's a much more writable endpoint where Marnie could still theoretically grow as a person and learn how to be more properly independent without a 95% chance of straight up dying.>>6440613Mechanically, digimon just doesn't have it with the tech lineups. It's significantly better than previous games due to QoL features, but they insist on all the generic stuff with the signature moves either being good for 1 or 2 gimmicks or 10% better than the generic stuff.Stacking power to fully built mons takes a lot of time and grinding everything that's not movepools, and it's not terribly rewarding unless it's for speedruns.But for the three games, they strongly focused on the experience of building up a library of digimon while progressing the story. You're not expected to complete the digipedia, but by the time you finish the game there will generally be a few dozen digimon that helped you get there in noncombat ways.
