Writing resurrecting Digimon Data Storm [PG]

[Circ]

I am actively looking for a co-writer (or at least a devoted assistant) in working on this restarted fiction. While I consider myself a good writer, I am of an appalling incompetence to build and join up storyline, not even talking about endings. The story is also up at [url="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2146192/1/"]FanfictionNET[/url].

There is a lot to this complex alternate universe, and the main details were posted a while ago, making a search fro "digimon data storm", should unveil the topic that mentions all of the critical informations.

Comments and suggestions are encouraged, obviously.

--------------------
Chapter 1
[size=3][b]ÖNINOPOHPOXOHQUI - And then I was swept away [/b][/size]

[i]Several well-known websites have reported massive server breakdowns in the last few weeks. A code of unknown origin seems to clog data transmission between important servers. Most noticeably, Amazon and the entire Google network have been all but impossible to access for the past twelve hours. Many, if not all, of the most popular free hosting networks also went berserk, deleting large batches of user accounts. Geocities, Lycos, Angelfire and Tripods hostees are desperate, for they are unable to even access their sites to check whether their accounts have been terminated. This new catastrophe is striking the dot-com industries at one of...
[/i]
A hand reached out and tuned down the sound. It retreated to the mouse and added text to a picture of stylized blooming flowers. Andrea quickly completed the last of her conceptual works to be presented to her boss that afternoon and saved it. She sighed, stretched and reached for her coffee mug.

"Alright... A last shot of caffeine before printing."

Her shoes brushed on the carpeted floor as she walked out of her cubicle and to the coffee maker and pressed the "espresso" button. The device gurgled happily at being solicited and filled half of her mug. She grimaced, and pressed the button a second time, eventually managing to get her mug mostly filled.

Even before she walked back to her cubicle, she noticed the sound. A weird digital rustling that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She looked cautiously inside the walled area, fearing to see some "blue screen of death", and her eyes widened at the techno-nightmare vision showing on her screen. She would have screamed in frustration weren?t it for the fact she had never seen such a bizarre sort of bug. The screen looked like a matrix analyser gone wild, with multicoloured streams of code streaking across it in all directions. The slight pulse made her nauseous and she looked away for a second.

She then attempted to use the mouse to close the window or something, but the mouse somehow felt [i]different[/i].

"What the..." the conceptual designer trailed.

She slowly turned her head back toward what once had been a perfectly normal laser mouse. It had became wireless and three prominent buttons had appeared on each side. The round part was now much flatter - actually, it was now constituted of a green-grey screen covered with words. She tried the various buttons and the scroll wheels caused the words to change. "No messages", "Encrypt", "Hack" and "Data Storage" went by.

The computer's rustling stopped abruptly. It took at least ten seconds for Andrea?s ears to retransmit the info to her brains, and she cautiously turned back at the screen. The data had stopped moving, but a white area had formed and apparently floated over the code. It's shape seemed vaguely familiar, then realization dawned on her like in a B-movie.

"No way!" she mumbled.

Her world was slowly sinking into insanity.

"What do I have to loose?" she asked aloud and put the mouse against the screen to check if the shapes were as identical as they seemed.

[i]All lights disappear, Andrea seems paralysed. The view rotates around her until it comes to her face, then it zooms into her right eye where the reflection appears to be herself, still standing in pitch darkness, but leaning forward as if pressing her "mouse" against an invisible vertical surface, then she start plummeting down...[/i]

Andrea blinked a first time, then a second, then a third just to be sure. Nope, she quite obviously wasn?t at work anymore. She felt terribly ditzy and sick. A crashing noise came from behind her. She twirled and managed to distinguish some kind of tropical wilderness behind the mist in her eyes.

"Okay... No more... coffee for... me." she mumbled before falling to the ground, unconscious.

---

Was it a second later? A minute? An hour? She didn?t know and at this point, didn?t care either. She had nearly recovered consciousness, that she knew. [i]All I need to do is open my eyes and I?ll be back in front of my computer. I?ll realize that I have slept a couple of seconds, then I?ll print these concepts, show them to the boss, and be off for the weekend![/i] She smiled. A nice fresh waffle smell was floating in the air and her smile widened, then the almost-into-place puzzle exploded again.

"WAFFLES!?" she exclaimed, abruptly sitting up.

"Yes, miss, waffles, would you like some?" a male voice casually answered from the next room.

She heard a sound she related to a waffle-iron opening with a puff of vapour thrown in for flavour. She got up and wobbled out of the room in a dazed state. The "next room" seemed to be the kitchen. Someone looking like an African shaman from those old cartoons wearing one of those gigantic ethnic masks was conscientiously cutting something, using a meter-long boomerang-shaped sword whose blade was dripping red blood. This scene would have filled many's definition of "odd" and finally managed to snap Andrea out of her trance.

She yelled and nearly jumped out of her skin.

The masked figure did a good approximation of the same, even adding it?s own personal tweak by launching the sword up. It stuck straight into the stone ceiling. Both kept yelling for a good minute until they simultaneously ran out of air. Andrea struck a pose the best she could.

"Don?t get near me! I?m black belt (Which was true) and I?m getting out of here and back to my office!"

Her "opponent" put his hands to his hips. Wasn?t it for the mask, she would have sworn he was looking at her amusedly.

"How?" His tone probably confirmed her supposition.

It took her another ten seconds to fully grasp that she didn?t know where she was, who she was facing or how she got there. Her brain was definitely [i]not[/i] appreciative of espresso today. She groaned and took yet another ten seconds to look over the figure... and really wondered where she actually was.

He (from the voice, she could assume it was a he) was covered with short brown fur, his chest and belly's being white. Bandages covered his overgrown wrists. His feet rather looked like animalistic clawed paws, green hair (she could only assume it was hair) and large feathers covered his head, hanging over the upper edge of the mask. She started shaking when her brain finally registered the fact this was certainly not a human being, confirmed by the simple fact this... thing... had a tail.

The mist was floating back before her eyes. In the nick of time, she was fainting again and the "thing" rushed to catch her before she crashed on the floor.

---

It was starting all over again. She just knew it. At least, this time, she knew, or though she knew, a bit of what to expect. The first thing she noticed was the smell of fruits and waffles. [i]Strawberry... That?s what it was cutting.[/i] Her memory somehow functioned, which was seemingly good news. She moaned and her eyes flickered open.

"There, you had me worried for a little while, miss." A rather comforting male voice commented.

She decided against looking away. The mask, the same blue, green and red mask she had seen previously. The... person was sitting on a chair by the bed she was in.

"Where am I?" she managed to ask. "How long have I been out of it and who are you?" Her anger was slowly building up.

"Well, I?ll reply in order." Amazingly, the mask didn?t seem to alter the tone in any way. "You are in Axolotl Node. First time you?ve been out half an hour. Second time around, you?ve been out of it for at least two hours. Apparently all this screaming took its toll on you. And last, but not least, your servant is known as Sepikmon."

"Sepik-what? Axol-what?" She refrained herself from yelling and downed her tone to just a bit loud. Her throat still felt sore from that shouting session.

"Sepikmon" He looked closer at her and stated, "You?re not from around here."

"That would be the understatement of the century. Sepikman, eh? I must still be out cold and I?m dreaming about superheroes or something." The creature tilted its head. Andrea considered it must have been its way of staring.

"You [i]definitely[/i] are not from here." He seemed to think a moment. "You are from the Real World!"

Andrea glared back at the thing. Of course she was from, and still in the real world, or at least hoped so. However, some insistent grumbling kept her from snapping at her interlocutor.

"Oh God, I?m hungry." she muttered.

"I?d have guessed so. I had to eat the first serving of waffles after a while, but those are very fresh." He grabbed a tray on the nightstand and put it before her. Andrea glimpsed the furniture in the room was all made of stone but was too hungry to comment. What was his name again? Sepikmon looked at her as she devoured the food.

Once she was finished, she sat and tried to walk across the room. This time, aside from a slight wobbling, her legs seemed receptive to orders from her brain. She reached the window on the other side of the room and threw a thin curtain aside.

"Oh, dear, this is not Canada."

Large palm trees cast shadows over luxurious vegetation where she recognized yuccas and various orchids. A flat paved road was going straight ahead up to a Mayan pyramid. Small stone buildings lined the street. A demented mechanic from some demented mind walked pass the house she was in. Built from stone and wooden parts, it looked like some vehicle driven by two meter-high frogs with a cornet sprouting from their necks. She blinked, then faltered back to the bed and started sobbing.

[font=Verdana][size=1][color=red]Please do not forget to rate your thread. From December 1st, any thread that is not rated will simply be closed, so it's a good practice to get into now. I've rated your thread as PG -- to cover anything that might occur in future chapters. If you feel this rating is not correct, PM me with the correct rating and I'll change it for you. -- Lady Asphyxia[/color][/size][/font]

[JJ]

[Color=DarkBklue][size=1]This is looking great Mr. Circéus. It really flows very well, bringing the reader along for the ride.

I would love to help, and if you send the information my way, I'll see about helping out.

Please keep going.[/size][/color]

[Circ]

Chapter 2:

[size=3][b]COCHIHTLEHUALLINTLAN - The land of Dreams[/b] [/size]

A hand came to rest on her shoulder.

"There, there. Things can't be that bad, can they?" the humanoid said in a soothing voice. Her sobbing rose to a higher pitch. "Okay, maybe they can," he conceded, "but I know someone who is likely to be able to help you."

Her cries eventually came to a halt and she looked up hopefully. "Did you just say what I think you said?" She could have sworn he was smiling.

"If you think I just asked you to dance the rumba with a dandelion up your nose, I doubt it," he teased. " But I did say I might know someone who can aid you."

She sniffed and rubbed her eyes. He extracted a handkerchief from a pouch at his side and offered it to her. Andrea took it, thanking him with her eyes and wiped the tears off. She got up again, her legs more solid under her, and felt the sudden urge to kick something as her vision blurred another time. When the haze subsided, she looked defiantly at Sepikmon and spoke up.

"Well, let's get on our way." And with that she walked out of the room.

Sepikmon looked at the door in perplexion and smiled. On the bedside, the device the woman had clung to while he carried her to his home gave a short, bright burst of light and its screen turned black. However Sepikmon didn't notice this as he was already walking after Andrea, rapidly catching up to her. He found her standing in the middle of the street, looking around in a dazed state. He gave a deep, low chuckle.

"Don't worry, if anything, Coatlmon is just as surprised at seeing you." he pointed out. He guided her, "Welcome to Teocaltintlan, the city of temples." He waved with his arm for added emphasis. She watched the same road she had seen earlier. Further down, twittering discussions surrounded a few stands. Rectangular stone buildings decorated with intricate carvings bordered the paved road. A frog nearly her size jumped past her, startling the young woman. Sepikmon chuckled again.

"You'd better get used to it, Miss. You are going to see a lot of things like that." She cringed.

"My name is Andrea."

As they walked down the street toward the pyramid, Andrea could do nothing but look in astonishment as these creatures walked, entered stores, bargained, discussed and argued just like humans; there were plants, bird, frogs, lizards, snakes and even an armadillo. And then there was the vegetation, familiarly tropical, yet unlike anything she had ever seen. Palm trees no higher then a couple feet sprung from the buildings' roofs. Clusters of lilies mottled with red and white emitted a penetrating scent. Large black beans spotted with white were kept into a cage. She looked at her guide quizzically. "Jumping beans," he explained, tapping on the cage lightly. The beans immediately reacted in an explosion of small cracking sound as they hurled themselves at the bars. "Eh, we grow them pretty hardy here." Then some apple-sized peppers kept under a transparent dish-cover caught her eye. "Tlacempanahuihtin, 'overachievers'. So spicy you need to wrestle the smell before you can even taste them." She shook her head. She wasn't sure that would beat wasabi, but she wasn't one to try and touch food that seemed to be able to burn through quite a few materials.

As they made their way toward the pyramid, which seemed to steadily grow more levels as they approached, Sepikmon came to an abrupt halt. "Oh no..." he whispered. Andrea looked for what had put the creature in such a state. A group of heterogeneous beings had gathered tightly around a house. From what she could see, even more where crammed inside, if that was possible. Those standing outside talked softly, often glancing through the windows. Sepikmon advanced and tapped a large humanoid lion on the shoulder. It turned around and looked at him with a mourning expression.

"Eztepoztli!" he exclaimed.

"So, Tiyacauhtzin, it is it?" he asked in concern. The large being looked down in a surprising display of sorrow.

"It seems so. Her wound has infected. Sharmamon reckons she's at her worst, so we came to give her our last homage." Sepikmon's head hung down now. Andrea couldn't help herself and rubbed his shoulder.

"Did you know her?" she asked softly.

"If I knew her? Everybody knew Toxochiton!" he exclaimed. His leg gave away and he sat down. "Such a sweet Piyomon. And now she's leaving us." As he spoke, a flurry of small butterfly flew through the window. Their twinkling wings caught Andrea's eyes and she remarked they hadn't any true feature. They were made of light.

"There she goes." Tiyacauhtzin said, just as the butterfly that had landed on his extended finger dissolved away. Sepikmon gave a small sniff and got up as another one disappeared in his hair.

"We have to go now." he half-cried. As they walked away, Andrea kept looking behind her at the group of dispersing creatures. She finally gathered the courage to speak up.

"What was that about?" Sepikmon looked at her. She could only guess what he looked like under the mask, but she assumed he would have been glassy-eyed.

"When a Digimon dies, their data transforms into these butterflies you saw and returns to the Data Streams. However, parts of it can be absorbed by the Digimon standing nearby." He explained. She made a disgusted noise.

"Ew, that's morbid." Andrea herself was surprised at what she'd said.

"Not at all. It is just the way it works in this world. It is an honor to accompany a friend in their last moments. And I am certain Piyomon was happy to see all those she knew there." Sepikmon countered, "It's not like you humans who burry your dead. Now that's unhygienic. A dying Digimon knows that those he loves will always keep him in their hearts. Some will acquire a little of Piyomon's natural grace, or her amazing cooking skills."

"I see." Andrea tried to understand, but it still felt like opportunism to her. Another question immediately surfaced. "Digimon? What is that?" Sepikmon seemed a bit lost in his though as he caught a plant-like Digimon who had tripped and helped her back up.

"We are Digimon. It means Digital Monsters. We inhabit the Digital Worlds, made of the Nodes connected through the Data Streams. This is Axolotl, where we speak atlahtolli, the language of water..." he recited in a daze. But new questions overrun her and she interrupted the Digimon.

"And why do you call her Piyomon? You said everyone knew 'Toxochiton'." Came the query.

"Her nickname, 'Our little flower'. You normally call a Digimon by his name. Bt when you know someone more intimately, you can call them by their nickname. You do not refer to them using it, though. You can call me Eztepoztli if you want. Means Bloody Sword." Sepikmon answered, still in his dazed state. Andrea shuddered and, glancing at the large sword hanging on the Digimon's back, wondered for a moment whether that was a good sign. She mastered herself.

"Why do they call you that?" she asked Sepikmon, who was now leading her a couple of steps.

"Excuse me? Are you talking to me?" The figure turned to look at her. She immediately noticed it wasn't the same Sepikmon and stood dumbfounded for a second. [i]Oh,[/i] that's[i] what he meant[/i].

Knowing that, unfortunately, didn't tell her were "her" Sepikmon was. She looked frantically around and finally spotted her guide mechanically walking away. Sepikmon had turned in an alley without her noticing him. She shoved her way through the crowd until she reached him and grabbed his arm to stop him.

"Uh, what?" he mumbled as his spirit was brought back down to earth. She had forgotten her question in her panic.

"We were going to meet someone who could help me go back to the real world."


[size=3][b]COAMEHTLAHTOANI TENAMIQUÏLO - Meeting the Snake Lord[/b][/size]

Sepikmon looked uncertain for a second, then regained his composure.

"Right. This way please," he bowed like a cartoony steward.

They had now reached the pyramid by its eastbound side. No door was visible but a stairway to the top of the pyramid, which seemed to have gained another couple levels. Her eyes widened.

"You mean we have to climb all that? No funicular?" He got up on the first step.

"We might have all day, I do think you'd prefer to be up there as soon as possible." he commented. She rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"And I thought the stairs to Saint Joseph's Oratory were bad," she sighed. Giving in, she climbed onto the first step. "Let's get this stair rolling," she added, going for the second.

Then the stair started moving with her caught in mid air. Her arms flailed around for a few horrible seconds until one came to rest on a large stylized statue of a lion. She chose to ignore the fact there were no lions in America to be statufied and just stand there dumbfounded as the steps moved up the side of the temple in the grinding of stones. She turned and shot a nasty look at her partner.

"You could have warned me!" Her ears were whistling now.

"I expected you could take care by yourself now," he deadpanned her. She huffed and turned away.

The wind grew stronger as the stairway rose, sending her mid-long hair flying around in all directions and flapping her clothes against her. As they elevated, she could see farther, notably how straight the roads where in the whole city. Low buildings like white mushrooms in a badly kept lawn sprouted here and there in the middle of surprisingly colourful gardens. A few flying creatures hovered above the streets. Some of them, she noticed, should not have been able to fly. But then, she should not have been transported to Meso-America by pressing her mouse to her computer screen. As she dwelled on these thoughts, the mechanism came to a halt and to the top platform.

"Welcome to the Palace." Andrea jumped and almost fell off the building, only to have her wrist snatched by Sepikmon. "Please leave any weapon in the antechamber. Do not forget the offering to the Gods," the voice continued, undeterred.

"Thanks Shiisamon," the warrior-like digimon said, as if such things were a daily occurrence in his life. Andrea tried to walk looking at the white and golden statue and ended up tripping on her own foot.

"You mean, he was a..." she uttered.

"Of course he was a Digimon too. He's just paid to stay there without moving most of the day," Sepikmon stated.

They entered the room. The walls were made of massive stone piled without mortar. Andrea wondered for a moment if there was enough room between them to slip a strand of hair. In the wall opposite them niches had been carved in various sizes and shapes. Sepikmon reached behind his back and brought the sword to his front. He got on his knees and reverently saluted the statue of a winged human with a deer's head in the corner of the room. He then delicately placed his sword in an oblong niche off the middle of the wall. Reaching to his pouch, he extracted a small fragment of veined green stone Andrea recognized as malachite and placed it alongside the sword in the niche. He then turned around and motioned for her to do the same. She stared at him, but he tensed and she relented. [i]When in Rome do as the Romans do.[/i] She knelt before the statue, joined her hands before herself and bowed. She then slowly got up without looking back at it. She glanced at Sepikmon who nodded his approval. And motioned for the wall.

"Uh..." she trailed off. "I'm afraid I don't have anything that could qualify as an offering to the gods: I left my purse at work." Sepikmon looked a bit distressed at this.

"We can't leave the room as is. It'd be sacrilegious!"

"Mind you, not being of your religion, or even from this world, I think this could hardly be considered sacrilegious." Andrea pointed out, a bit miffed. Sepikmon raised a hand under his mask and she assumed he would be nudging his chin.

"I guess you've got a point. We'll decide of this later." He motioned for her to follow him as he went into a darkened corridor.

Horizontal slits occasionally pierced the walls, allowing light rays to light up the area. The corridor ended in an archway. A soft, uniform light hid any vision from beyond it. As they approached, what she had thought to be statues appeared to be two nightmarish creatures. Demonic thin bodies covered in metallic bends were attached to pairs of angelic wings on their back and heads. They had no visible eyes. The one on the right was black; the other was white. Nearly 2 meters-tall (compared to her guide's almost normal size), they towered menacingly over any incomer.

"Everything is more than you know," the dark one greeted them.

"And everything is less then you think," the second completed.

"Aztapiltictecuacuilli, Pahpalpiltictecuacuilli, shall you let me pass, for this guest seeks to speak with Santiramon," he said. It sounded quite official.

"What do you seek from the Snake Lord?" the dark one responded. Andrea realized he was talking to her. She tried her best not to stutter.

"I..." she almost choked under their gaze, despite the absence of any visible eye. "I seek help in returning to my world." They looked at her as though they were seeing right through her soul and stepped aside.

"You may enter," a deeper, hissing voice came from the inside of the room. Andrea shuddered. The voice had a strangely appealing quality. Closer to the rustling of a book's turned pages or the rubbing of silk than the actual hissing of air through a hole too thigh in one's eardrums. She crossed the barrier of light.

"Here she goes, here she goes," the white creature commented flatly.

"Well, I'm gone too," Sepikmon stated. He went through before the surprised creatures could keep him.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Andrea entered an immense room. She didn't lose any precious mental resources wondering how such a large room could fit in the small construction atop the pyramid. The ceiling started (or ended, depending on one's point of view) at least a dozen meters above her head and provided a welcomed shortcoming to walls covered with engraved glyphs. Coiled against the wall on what she could only describe as a ceremonial platform, a massive snake loomed over the few persons present. It acknowledged and beckoned her with a movement of its head. A few short orange lizards she guessed to be servants wore simple red loincloths and stood motionless against the wall. Completing the vision was a large machine her sight described to her brains as a walking clock from which a humanoid shape holding a hammer sprouted. Her brains dismissed the description and proceeded to shut down. But before they could complete the process, a figure appeared that brought a much sought for touch of reality. A man. Not quite the hero in shining armour, more like a middle-aged man who could use more exercise, but her brain nonetheless latched onto the fugacious figure.

"Great. We lost her again," Sepikmon deadpanned as she collapsed in the human's arms.

"She fainted," he observed. The three short digimon rushed to help set her down. One of them ran out of them room and came back accompanied by two walking plants holding cushions and a bottle of salts. Soon after, Andrea was again more or less conscious, her eyelids fluttering like jell-o in the middle of an earthquake.

"She had a difficult day. Getting sent to another dimension looking like nothing she knows, discovering strange creatures, and I haven't yet told her about the prophecies," Sepikmon explained. Andrea's eyes popped out and she jumped up so furiously she knocked down one of the servants.