This one was very very loosely inspired by a certain inflatable Veemon TF by the amazing   drdocmd , who should try their hand at some more TF stories, even if they're just short ones attached to their art. But I'm of course rather biased.

Hopefully there isn't a teamup between Belphemon X and Lucemon. That would be soooo bad. cough

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

25) ‘Error’

A strange package had arrived at your doorstep in the mail, the sender clearly listed as an old friend of yours, Professor Van Lanning. A bit eccentric, as all the best researchers were, he was obsessed with Virtual Reality and the ‘Digital World’ as he liked to call it. You didn't really get it, but hey, he was fun to be around, and sometimes you got weird tech. You wondered what this one could be, as you set the box down in your living room. Last time it had been some glasses that allowed you to see the flow of electricity, even radio waves and wifi.

Opening it up, and navigating through the layers of bubble wrap and paper cushioning, you found… a brick? Actually it looked like one of those old flip phones, yet somehow even bulkier. You opened it up to reveal a screen, along with some buttons, the device taking that as its cue to buzz to life, a loading bar appearing, before you were greeted with a message

[Digivice No 1.0.4]
[Welcome New User]
[Please Enter your name]

You'd stare at the screen for a brief moment, before going ahead and inputting your full name, tapping away at the keys before pressing Enter

[Processing…]
[Name Registered!]
[Profile Found. Loading…]
[Syncing Data]

[Welcome _____!]
[Please Stand by for Transfer]

A beam of light suddenly shot out from the device, scanning the walls of your apartment.

Before your eyes you watched a wave of light emit from the device, expanding from where you stood. Everything the light touched seemed to lose its detail, as lines of 1's and 0's streamed from their surface, recognizable to you as strings of binary code. They'd float aimlessly in the air, starting to pile up around you, before suddenly being sucked into the device like a vacuum, all the while the wave expanded outwards, consuming more and more of your room.

You watched in shock and awe as the world around you began to glitch and warp, losing depth and texture as everything was reduced to simple polygons, furniture breaking apart into simple wireframes, as bands of code streamed into the device.

[Beginning transfer…]
[Registering User…]
[Error: Database C-cor]
[Species ‘Human’ not found]
[Critical Error!]
[Aborting Pro-]
[Process cannot be aborted]
[Digital Entity Located!]
[Error: Unknown or Corrupted Code detected]
[Scanning Database for Species template]
[Compatible Species Found!]
[Performing Data Recovery. Please stand by]

A Blue Light from the digivice suddenly struck you in the arm, as you watched your fingers start to go numb, colour and depth fading from them as they too started to be reduced to a mere wireframe, as code started to spill out from the area and be absorbed. If that wasn't strange enough, you watched as a second stream of code flowed out from the device and into the new wireframe, a warm feeling permeating through the area as you watched the shape of it deform before your very eyes, lines shifting in size and direction, some even joining together, as your hand was reconstructed, before feeling and weight returned to it as it reformed. But it was no longer your hand, nothing even remotely human now. Thick claws attached to a scaly white wrist.

Your clothes would start to dissolve into data, shirt fading away, replaced with a blue bandana tied around your neck, leaving your torso completely exposed as you watched it slowly be rewritten, grey scales marking your slightly larger belly, while white lined your sides, meeting with your arms. Your pants likewise followed suit, your legs being sculpted into a digitigrade stance, while your toes were squished into two pointed claws, the data coming in to coat them in the white scales that now covered most of your body.

It wasn't until you noticed another bit of wireframe slowly being built just over your butt that you started to realise how serious this was getting, fiddling with the device, pressing whatever buttons you could to try and back our and cancel the device, but no matter what you did, the response was always the same

[ERROR: Cannot exit until Data Recovery is completed]

[ERROR: Invalid Command, please wait until Process is finished to resume program.]

You tried to pause the Program, just as colour began to coat the wireframe, starting with a black tip, and moving its way down towards your body

[Process cannot be paused. Please wait until Data Recovery is completed to resume program]

You tried to power it off, holding down the power button, a brief shock running through your body as the scales met with your body, feelings from your new limb suddenly flowing through you as your tail swayed back and forth behind you, the loading bar on the screen nearing dangerously close to finishing.

[ERROR: Device cannot be powered off at this time. Please wait until Data Recovery is finished before resuming program]

Desperate, you used your new claws to get the back of the case off, exposing the batteries. Without these, it'd have to shut down right? You'd grab ahold of them with your remaining human hand and tugged, only for the device to spark and Zap your finger, knocking you to the ground as it floated in the air.

A chuckle rang out through the hollow space, though you couldn't see where in the empty void it could be coming from.

“Wow, that was way easier than I thought. Haven't you ever been told not to accept strange packages from strangers?”

“Huh? Who's there?!” You cried out, your voice sounding odd, artificial almost in this virtual space

“Oh, that's not important. Not to you anymore at least. Maybe if you were still a human that posed a threat to me I might have told you, or maybe not, who's to say~. That friend of yours, Professor Van Lanning was it? He had been working with some… rivals of mine to prevent me from taking my rightful place as the true ruler of the Digital World, and much like they did against my predecessors, they planned to use some nobodies outside of their little circle as the catalyst. You, and that little Dorumon. It's a shame they didn't think I would learn from past mistakes, or that I would be monitoring their little text chats, learning all the intricate details of their plans.”

“They planned to have the two of you meet and form a partnership using that device there, and then use that data to create more of them, with the end goal of creating some hodgepodge team to stop me. It's a shame I got to it first. All that time and effort gone to waste~. Oh, don't worry about the delivery man. He's enjoying a nice new life as a Kudamon.~”

“Speaking of which, I can't have you interfering with my plans, so I'm afraid your little meeting must be cancelled. A human is needed to operate these devices, so how about I go ahead and finish removing that for you?”

Smaller and smaller your body shrank, your limbs becoming stubby, your once human arm joining the other as your fingers turned to claws, and white scales covered its surface, save for a strange red band. It didn't take long until you were the size of a young child, if that. More pressingly, your face was starting to itch. Stronger and stronger it grew, until you could take it no longer, scratching at your cheek with your new claws, elevating the urge, at the expense of your skin, which began to flake away, revealing now recognizable pearl white scales underneath. Even after you realised what was going on, it was too late, the scales starting to spread across the rest of your face and head, as your jaw started to ache, pushing forward as your nose was absorbed into the forming short stubby snout, your teeth becoming tiny pointed fangs, one of which that poked cutely over your lower lip despite your best efforts.

Your hair became spiky before starting to harden, being painted white as it became a crown of red tipped spines, while two horns pushed their way out of your now smooth and scaly skull, a third smaller one popping up from where your nose used to be on your scaly snout, giving you a definitive triceratops appearance. The final change was the most drastic however, as you felt your mind start to shift, becoming younger, more innocent and pure, as your eyes grew larger, slowly turning a soft yellow in colour as your human memories were filed away, replaced by new memories of you hatching from an Egg, living as a creature of code. A Digimon… a…

“Gammamon, since you've been such a good subject for me, I've decided to give you a reward. It's your favourite~” the voice would say as a spotlight illuminated a Floating Bar of chocolate. Now, as a human you would've been suspicious, but you weren't a human, you were Gammamon!

Your Amber eyes locked onto the sweet treat, impulsively lunging for it and snagging it in your stubby claws. You didn't pay any mind to the wormhole that opened beneath your feet, merely satisfied that you had obtained your ‘Champion’, taking a victory bite out of the bar as you were transported elsewhere, soon finding yourself landing in a exotic looking forest, as you continued to devour your prize, clueless to the new world around you.

“Hey! I've never seen you around here. Are you new? Did the Professor send you?” A voice would ask, the source being a purple looking dragon.

“Huh? Oh! I'm Gammamon!” You would cheerfully respond, before going back to your ‘Champion’.

“Gammamon? It's nice to meet you! Say… have you seen a Human around here? Mr Raymond said they'd be arriving today. They were gonna take me to the human world, but they never showed up, and I'm worried something has happened to them”

“A human?” You'd tilt your head in confusion “is that some kind of snack? I've never seen one of those before. Does it taste good?” You'd question, staring innocently at the Young Dragon

“No no, they're like… uh… I don't actually know what they look like, but I will know when I see them! They're like… tall, and they wear weird clothes. I'm just worried they've gotten lost. I don't think the digital world is safe for humans…”

“So you lost your friend? Can I help? I'm really good at finding things. I'm sure if we work together we'll find your friend in no time!” You'd say, wiping the crumbs of chocolate off your snout as you leapt up “Plus, if we don't find them… I'll be your best friend instead! So you aren't lonely!”

The Dorumon would chuckle a little at that “Okay then, but you don't need to do that for me. How about we just be normal friends? You can have more than one you know” they'd say, the realisation almost blowing your mind as you let out a ‘woah’.

“Okay! Let's go find this human, and then we can all be friends! All of us!” You'd exclaim, leading your new friend by the claw as you rushed through the forest.

Though you never exactly found this ‘human’ Dorumon was searching for, your journey together was an adventure of its own, with many twists and turns, fending off Digimon strangely fixated on capturing your new friend, even meeting the Professor they'd been telling you about! Apparently, they'd created a device that allowed humans and Digimon to focus their bond into actual strength, allowing them to gain far greater power! But the Evil Lucemon had somehow gotten ahold of it, and the original user had gone completely missing. The Professor suspected he was being held at Lucemon’s Lair, but there was no way to know for certain until they arrived. If only they knew how close they were to the truth... Thankfully, they still had the blueprints to make more, and a few other candidates that would be arriving. Your new goal was to act as a guide and help them survive in the Digital World until they were ready to face Lucemon, and who knows, maybe they'd find a human partner for you too? That prospect surely had you excited.

Whatever lay in store going forwards, you were ready for it, and with your friends by your side, you were unbeatable! Lucemon would never see you coming.