Cyber Effect (DS:CS x ME)

In the year 2027, Humanity mastered a technology less than a Decade old, allowing the people of their world to communicate across the world with an ease never before seen.

But there was more to this technology than the average person knew, and the ramifications lead to a war that nearly destroyed two worlds.

While Corporations and Governments attempted to hide the results of this new technology, it was too far and too late to prevent this knowledge from reaching the world.

In the decades that followed, the mysterious that this revealed gave rise to startling new technology, enabling the people of that world to travel to the furthest stars.

They called it the greatest invention of the history of mankind.

But to the common person, it is simply known as

THE CYBER EFFECT​

---

Washington Middle School, Room 215
Dìqiú City
Shanxi
2117

Elizabeth 'Lizzy' Keiton was trying her very best to keep her focus on her teacher, Mrs. Shelly, but in the end it was a lost cause. There were less than fifteen minutes before the end of the last class of the day, and Lizzy's mind had finally given up the ghost, instead meandering between thoughts of what she planned to do with the rest of her day, what she planned to do over the coming weekend, and naturally... Thoughts of food.

It wasn't that Lizzy was a bad student, but she was a twelve year old girl and it was the last class of the day on friday. And while many of her fellow students would completely understand the girl's status - her teacher did not.

"Miss Keiton?" Her teacher said from the front of the room, snapping the girl's mind back from the forests behind her home, "Your answer please?"

Lizzy flushed, quickly nodding as her eyes danced across the board in the front of the room. "Ah, uh, Yes Ma'am." Lizzy stumbled over her words, as she quickly stood. "Humanity first discovered the alien ruins on Mars in twenty fourty..." She pauses for a moment, trying her hardest to remember the correct answer. "four. Scientists studied the ruins for several years before it was discovered that the alien computers used... Hexinary?" She paused again. "Base seven maths for it's programming, rendering it completely inhospitable for human or data based life. Then, in 2052, it was thanks to the legendary doctor Soudou that we managed to first activate one of the alien spaceships stored within the alien complex."

The teacher nodded for a moment, before sighing. "Very close Miss Keiton, but- 2042, Septenary, 2054, and I was asking about the first time that we managed to activate a Architect Gateway." Lizzy deflated, nodding slightly embarrassed. "I understand that the day is nearly over Miss Keiton, but the day is not over yet, so you need to keep your focus.

"Yes Ma'am."

"Good. Now, perhaps you would like to finish your partner's question, Minomon?" The teacher asked, looking to the small insect like creature resting on the girl's desk.

The creature perked up, nodding once. "Of course Mrs. Shelly. The gateways were first discovered a few months after Doctor Soudou first managed to activate one of the Architect ships. Doctor Soudou and Doctor Sanada managed to activate the computer systems and with the assistance of several scientific teams managed to create a rudimentary translation that allowed us to read the computer systems externally." The creature began, "Professor Sanada managed to discover a starmap of the system and using it we were able to discover that a small ball of ice orbiting Charon, one of Pluto's moons, was actually an architect device." The small creature yawned, before adjusting itself in it's hardened shell before continuing.

"It was about a year and a half later that the Coalition of Sovereign Worlds decided to uncover the Gateway, after NASA managed to create a functional version of the Zeronium powered device that the alien spaceships used." Mrs. Shelly nodded, as she continued to listen to the creature's speech, not yet interrupting. "And while our Zeronium ships are still far from reaching the speeds of the alien ships, the first generation were even slower than the modern ones, only able to reach speeds of about five lightyears in a day. It was in December... I think, of 2055 when John Grissom was sent through the first gateway."

Mrs. Shelly nodded, "For the most part, very good Minomon," She said as she glanced up at the clock, "However it was the United Nations that approved the mission, as the Coalition hadn't been formed yet. Now, Everyone, for your homework you are to read Chapters 8, 9, and 10 in your history books, and fill out the vocabulary sections. You don't need to worry about the Questions at the end of each chapter this time, because these chapters are not written up to my personal standards, and you'll need my assistance to finish the questions in the book, so we will be going over them in class next week." As the teacher finished, the bell started to ring, and she watched as her students gathered up their things, almost rushing to get out the door.

With Minomon balanced on her shoulder, Lizzy made her way through the halls of her school, heading towards the bus stop outside when she heard a boy's voice call out to her, "Keiton." And it was all the girl could do to barely contain her sigh - because doing so would only have made this next little end-of-the-week ritual take even longer than it was already going to.

"Michael." The girl said as she turned to face the scruffy brown haired boy. "It's so nice to see you." Lizzy did her best to keep hold of her sarcasm, but some of it must have slipped, given the way the boy started to scowl.

"Careful," Michael bit out as he stood there, flanked by his two cronies Jeremy and Samantha. Jeremy was a lanky, bony boy nearly eight inches taller than Michael, who was three inches taller than Lizzy, with hands and feet that seemed to be two sizes too big for him. Samantha on the other hand could have possibly been considered cute, with a heart shaped face and her hair in a short bob with a little butterfly pin keeping her bangs out of her eyes - the defining word here is could have been considered cute, but there was nothing cute about the way the girl pursed her lips like she just took a bite into an overly sour lemon and squinted at everything around her. "Taking a tone like that with your betters could get you into trouble." Michael said, sending his two followers into a tizzy.

For some reason, Michael seemed to think that the fact that his digimon, Palmon, was a rookie level instead of Minomon's In-training level somehow meant that he was her 'better'. It was abject nonsense, not the least of which being the reason that the boy's Palmon was tiny, barely up to her waist, let alone his, when a properly cared for Palmon should have been nearly to his shoulder. And given that Jeremy and Samantha hadn't even been able to get a Digimon to agree to partner with them the idea that any of them considered themselves to be Lizzy's better was a patently ridiculous idea to her, and she wasn't particularly interested in playing to the boy's delusions.

"Is there something that you want?" She asked flatly, hoping that the boy didn't have anything further planned than trying to boast about how much better he was than her.

"I just wanted to check up on how the late-bloomer is doing," Michael said with (what he probably assumed was) a vicious grin.

"Minomon's doing fine," The girl said, starting to turn away, "He'll digivolve when he is good and ready, don't you worry about that." Lizzy really didn't want to be having this conversation, she had things to do.

...Mostly her homework and then going out into the forest in order to train digivolving with Minomon, but that was still things to do. "I wasn't talking about that little runt," Michael sing-songed. "Though I admit that it's a disappointment, but with a disappointment of a tamer what more can expect." Jeremy and Samantha were being as quiet as they ever were... Actually, now that Lizzy thought about it, she can't remember either of the two of them actually ever saying anything to her. Or... at least, if they did it was just as bland and boring as they are, so she must have forgotten it. "-ght at the third server arena, or else! You got that!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Lizzy said, turning and waving at the boy, before walking away.

Michael was laughing as she left, but at this point she was just so done with the idiot and his complete failure to even be the slightest bit intimidating. "Hey Lizzy..." Minomon said after a few moments as the two exited the building and got onto the bus. "Were you just paying any attention to what you just agreed to?" The small digimon seemed to be a little exasperated, but more often than not that seemed to be Minomon's natural state, so it didn't faze the girl much.

"...Not really, did I agree to something stupid again?" She answered, leaving the small insect like creature to laugh.

"He wants his Palmon to fight me." Minomon said quietly, "I mean I-" The bus started to rumble, and the small digimon paused, looking over towards the front of the bus, where the air slowly starting to bubble outwards, purple cubes tesserating the air where the edge of the Digital Space that held the school ended. Once they passed that line, the two wouldn't be able to speak until the girl got home and finished her homework. "Nevermind, we'll talk about it when we go train, alright?" Lizzy nodded, and in a small flash of light, she watched as her Digimon zipped away into the small set of goggles that the girl wore around her neck.

---

Spoiler: Screw it!

Seriously, I have crossposted this on both SV and SB.

Is giving feedback really so difficult?

Trying to improve my writing doesn't work if all I get are LIKES

Blugh, I'm really not happy with this. I tried to balance getting some more of the lore details out with introducing Lizzy and her digimon Minomon, but I kind of feel like I only ended up botching both instead.

But I want to get through the important plot details explaining the Coalition and how the development of some of these technologies impacted the evolution of humanity and their relationship with Digimon before I get to the Gatekeeper's War.

But if I could get any feedback and the like that would be greatly appreciated.

 

Tokyo, Japan
Earth
2117

Even before the sun had started to rise over the city of Tokyo, the day was already beginning. Men and Women across the city were pulling themselves from their slumbers, and while a few might have hit the snooze button to allow themselves a few more moments of sleep, they were the exception rather than the rule. High above the hustle and the bustle, the ancient creature calling itself Arata Sanada sat atop the railing of his penthouse suite, legs swinging out into the thin air of the city.

The early mornings were Arata's favorite time of the day, when the early morning light slowly dyed the world in golds and purples, where it was truly quiet anymore, but it also hadn't reached the dull roar of daytime in the city. The ninety years since the War for Digital Tokyo had been good for the former human, in no small part because his transformation into one of the Eaters which caused the war had frozen his growth. No matter how many years passed, Arata still looked like the seventeen year old he was when he traded away his humanity for power.

Hearing the now familiar static-like sound of the barriers between dimensions warping, the apparent seventeen year old stepped back onto the balcony, watching as the false doorframe began to tesseract outwards, the air bubbling out glowing purple pixels until the warp in the air formed to the doorframe, and plunged a false hole into the solid steel wall.

After a moment of nothing but the quiet sound of static, a tall, thin figure shuffled through the doorway, one hand wrapped in bandages and held within a sling. "Arata," The figure said, giving a short nod to the former human.

"Doctor Soudou." Arata responded back with a nod of his own, before the two entered into Arata's suite.

Akemi Soudou was much the same as Arata - Nearly a century ago, he was involved in the development of the full dive virtual reality successor to the internet known as EDEN. While working on the project, he discovered that if there was enough data moving through an area, the very rules of physics would begin to warp and change. Even more fascinating was the fact that should there be a network in the same area, it was possible for a gateway to be formed between the physical world and the 'Digital Space' within the network.

He continued his research on the nature of how digital and physical spaces interacted with each other, until eventually EDEN's beta test came. Five children - the two children of EDEN's CEO, Arata, and two of their friends were allowed to play in an area that had been specifically created for children. Due to a small flaw in the programming of Galactica Park, and the sheer amount of data that was being transferred, the children managed to accidentally create a gateway from EDEN to a fully separate and distinct world. Unfortunately for both worlds, tragedy then struck.

For while the children managed to move from EDEN to what humanity would eventually come to call the Digital World, something else managed to cross through that same gap from somewhere else. The Creature, which would eventually become known as an Eater, attacked the children, and it was only the quick thinking of the CEO's son, Yuugo, that the creature was distracted so that the other children could escape. However, in doing so, he was unable to escape, and the eater consumed his mind, leaving him in a coma-like state. The other children managed to make their way back through the gateway, causing it to collapse. The event was considered so traumatic that Soudou decided that the kindest thing he could do for the children was erase their memories of watching someone so close to them essentially die.

Unrealized by humanity, the Eater began to rampage across the digital world, consuming all the data it came across, transforming a world that was a paradise into a living hell, thus eventually leading to the War for Digital Tokyo.

Eight years later Arata, Yuugo's sister Yuuko, and the other two children, Nokia and Ami ended up meeting once again. After an encounter with the eaters, Ami's connection with her body was severed, yet somehow her mind was intact, and somehow able to manifest in the real world as solid data. Being taken in by a freelance detective, the girl became her assistant, and case by case ended up accidentally digging into a hidden conspiracy led by Crusadermon, one of the Royal Knights of the Digital world, who had come to the conclusion that the Eaters had came from the world of humans, and that it had been an intentional attack on Digimon kind.

Using Soudou's research, Crusadermon sheered open a massive gateway in the dimensional walls above the city, leading an invasion force into the streets of Tokyo, and pouring so much data from the digital world that even to this day Digimon are able to manifest in the real world and the city is prone to 'Digital Shifts' where the real world and the digital structures of the networks begin to overlap and warp. Back during the days of the invasion this was a huge problem as the primary network was the internet, which didn't have any kind of structures within their digital spaces, causing the real world to randomly open up into gaping maws of nothingness.

It was during the invasion that Doctor Soudou contacted Arata, convincing the then seventeen year old boy that in order to be able to fight back against the invasion that he needed to defeat and absorb one of the eaters who had followed the invading force from the digital world to the real world. The procedure was a success, but due to the misunderstood true nature of the eaters, absorbing one into himself slowly began to twist and corrupt the boy, causing him to become more and more obsessed with power. In the end Arata was nearly subsumed within the hivemind of the eaters, and it was only thanks to the luckiest of breaks that Ami was able to shut down the connection between Arata's new body and the Eater Hivemind, allowing him to retake his human form.

Shortly after restoring Arata to his human form, the four children managed to travel back to the Digital world with the assistance of Soudou, there they discovered the horrors that had been wrought. A world once full of life and color, now coated in sharp black and white dazzle camouflage, with a sickly purple sky. The world was lifeless, dead. The four chosen heroes battled their way through the horrors of this broken world to it's core, facing off against the shattered remnants of what was once Yggdrasil, corrupted near beyond repair by the eaters.

The battle was long and hard, but it was here that Soudou proved that for all his shady dealings, for all the times that he betrayed both human and digimon, Royal Knight and detective, that at his core Soudou did indeed want the best for the world. He allowed himself to be taken into the Mother Eater, and using his skill and knowledge, he changed the coding of the Eaters, reverting them back to the form that they had before encountering the Digital and human worlds.

He used their mighty power to restore the Digital world to the way it was eight years ago, before the very first Eater entered into the world. He tried to rewrite time itself to create a world where humanity never encountered the Eaters...

But the human world is made of matter, no data, and such changes were almost beyond him. Because by giving up his own humanity, he became one of the Eaters, allowing him to write himself out of existence.

That should have been the end of Soudou, except one eater had been missed.

Arata was still an Eater, one that was no longer connected to the maddened hivemind. None of the others could remember Soudou. Arata could, and little by little, the more he remembered the man, the more that his erasure was gnawed at, worn at.

Until one day the Eater calling itself Soudou reappeared to the world at large. They didn't truly remember him, but for a man who gave everything to save the world, just existing was enough.

---

Gah, this turned into just a massive lore dump.

I'm going to have to completely rewrite this later.

Actually, screw it. I'm going to write out the other bit that I was planning and get all of the various plot points I need written out, then figure out how to best organize them into a chapter that makes sense.