The Day When Technology Fails (Weekly Prompt)

Hello, fellow people at LV! I'm glad to see that the site's been revamped. It's looking great so far. I'm sure it's only going to get better from here on out.

This is a Weekly Prompt story. This prompt was from a while ago, but inspiration hit me with both fists. Here's the prompt: Your computer is taking a while to update... What do you characters do while they wait?

Oh, this is going to fun.~

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The Day when Technology Fails
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​

In this day and age, people expect things to happen when they want them and exactly the way they want them. Things being slow and imperfect aggravate them. Technology is especially notorious for falling under this high standard, so when it fails, frustration quickly onsets.

Such is the case with one unlucky author's computer.

"Gosh darn it! Why is this taking so long?" Aewynessa mutters. Her Windows laptop recently forced an update on her, and, having forgotten to uninstall the forced-install updater from a previous patch, she resignedly accepted the new update. The update's description only included minor fixes, so she assumed that it would only take about ten minutes and could go back to writing on her fan fiction.

How wrong she was.

"I know my laptop's crappy, but this is a whole new low," she says. The laptop's screen displays a few lines of text: "Configuring Windows updates. 5% complete. Do not turn off your computer." The words had not changed in the past fifteen minutes.

"Don't be failing me now," she groans. She places her head in her hands. "I was just writing a good part in my story, too. My characters are going to kill me..."

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​

"I am going to kill her!"

A luxio paces back and forth in the darkness. His tails swishes angrily back and forth in tandem with his stride.

Ever since Aewyn started the computer update, everything had gone black. The setting and plot of her story had faded into nothingness, leaving her characters trapped in limbo.

"Zane, it's not that bad. The update isn't that large. It shouldn't be much longer," an eevee says reassuringly.

Zane halts his pacing and whips around to face the eevee. "Of course I know the size of the update isn't that large. It's the time it's taking to update that's infuriating me. This should have been done a long time ago!"

Mona shakes her head. "It's only been fifteen minutes, Zane."

"Ten minutes too long," Zane snorts. He resumes his pacing and angry muttering.

Nearby, a combusken and riolu are sitting next to each other, exchanging words.

"...I punched him in the jaw. He fell unconscious. That is how I won my first fight," the combusken says, finishing his story. His arms rest lightly on his crossed legs.

"Hmm," the riolu grunts. "I think I have something to top that, Kyle."

Kyle raises his eyebrow. "How so, Ray?"

Ray fingers the yellow collar fur around his neck. "I was only two at the time..."

"Dear Arceus, if I have to listen to another one of your macho stories, I'm going to scream," a glaceon complains from nearby.

Irritated, Ray turned to face the glaceon. "Lucy, I didn't ask for your opinion. I haven't even met you in the story, and I already don't like you."

Lucy sticks her nose in the air. "Well, I hope that we never meet. Come on, Gloria, Grace. Let's leave these braggarts to their...bragging."

Gloria and Grace, a grovyle and kirlia, respectively, follow Lucy away from Kyle and Ray.

"We're in a giant blank nothingness! You're going to hear us no matter where you are!" Ray shouts after them. They ignore him.

While those five had been bickering, Mona had begun speaking with a breloom.

"Eris, are you okay? You look kinda shaken," Mona asks the breloom.

Eris hugs her thick her close to her chest. "Um, w-well, I don't really like this..."

"How so?" Mona asks, tilting her head.

Eric glances down towards the metaphorical floor. "I don't usually m-mind the dark, but, uh, this...place feels...weird. Wrong."

Mona frowns. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Something about this update isn't right." She tilts her head upward to view the words floating above her: "Configuring Windows updates. 5% complete. Do not turn off your computer."

As she gazes at the daunting text, the words flash in and out of existence. Confused, Mona stares at the text.

"Funny," she says, still concentrating on the text. Nothing happens.

"What is it...?" Eris asks in her quiet voice.

"Nothing. I thought I saw something; that's all," Mona responds. However, something in her tells her that the text does not spell anything good.

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​

In a quiet corner of the realm of cyberspace, a lone figure floats amidst an array of vivid white lights that pulse with the rhythm of a heartbeat. A cloak as black as the emptiness around him covers his body, and a cowl shadows his face.

The figure's gaze roams over the shining display around him. He pauses upon beholding a small line of text: "Configuring Windows updates. 5% complete. Do not turn off your computer."

He drifts closer to words. A clawed hand reaches out from underneath the cloak and lightly touches the glowing text. A static charge surges out from words and singes his hand. He mutters a low curse and withdraws the burned claw.

"How interesting," he muses. He continues to observe the words, his contemplative mood darkening with each passing second.

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​

Sitting angrily in her chair, Aewyn sips on her glass of water in an effort to calm her raging nerves. She had recently returned to her computer after eating lunch and folding clothes to find that the text had still not altered in the slightest.

"This is ridiculous," she says. "Next time I have enough money saved up, I'm buying a Mac. This craptop has fried itself to pieces."

She rises from her chair and exits the room, her glass of water abandoned on the laptop's desk. In her flight, she neglects to notice that the screen of her laptop had begun flashing random colors. The text on the screen jaggs out to the sides before winking out of existence. In its place, a new set of words appear: "Anti-virus system disabled. Configuring viral update. 15% complete."

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​

Inside the laptop, Aewyn's characters had noticed the looming text's ominous change. Anxiously, they huddle together.

"Great. Just great! There's a lovely virus just sitting in this laptop, waiting to devour us all," Lucy says. She flicks her blue locks in annoyance and brushs off a loose strand of fur.

"Don't be so melodramatic. It's just a glitch; it'll pass," Zane rebukes, his yellow eyes piercing Lucy's blue ones.

"I'm not so sure about that. Why would Microsoft push out an update with a glitch that stated that it was disabling the anti-virus system and uploading a virus?" Mona questions Zane.

"Don't ask me; I'm not a developer at Microsoft. Why does it matter? We're still trapped in this nothingness, and it doesn't look like we're leaving anytime soon!"

Kyle steps in between Zane and Mona. "Enough. We must work together," he states, pushing his feather arms against Zane and Mona's shoulders.

Mona purses her lips in thought. "Let's say we've got a virus. The best thing we can do is get the anti-virus system up and running again. It'll eliminate the virus, and we won't have to worry anymore," she suggests.

"How're we going to do that, genius?" Gloria poses. "We have to somehow find the program in this abyssal darkness and get it running again. Us. Just little bits of code that viruses eat for breakfast."

"What do you expect us to do, Gloria? Sit down and twiddle our toes, hoping that problem just goes away?" Mona says, her voice strained with hints of anger.

"No, I...Ugh, do whatever the heck you want," Gloria says dismissively. "I'm not dealing with it. I've heard what viruses can do to people like us. I don't want to get eaten alive." Placing her hands on her hips, she struts purposefully away from the rest of the group.

Grace and Lucy exchange a glance. "I don't want to get eaten, either. You guys can figure this one out on your own," Grace mutters. Lucy nods in agreement, and together, the kirlia and glaceon follow their grovyle friend.

A brief moment of silence reigns over the remaining Pokémon. They share uneasy glances with each other, disturbed by Gloria's words. What would happen to them if they decided to mess with the virus? The text says that the virus's installment was already 36% complete. Who knew how powerful it had become?

Mona casts her gaze to the foreboding text once more. That virus is going to keep spreading whether or not we do something about it. Something has to be done, she thinks.

She drops her eyes back to the friends (and enemies) around her. "Listen, guys," she says resolutely. Everyone in the group affixes their attention on her. "We can't just sit here and do nothing. That virus," here she gestures to the message above them, "is growing more powerful with each passing second. We're going to be erased if we don't stop it. At this point, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. We have to after the virus and take it down. Whether that means we activate the anti-virus system or straight up erase it ourselves, that virus has got to go."

An air of thoughtfulness lingers in the midst of the gathered Pokémon. Tentatively, Eris says, "Maybe...Maybe Aewyn c-can help us. She's, um, good with laptops...right?"

Mona shakes her head. "Aewyn just knows enough bluster to get by. She told me that a while back. Anyway, it's not like she can do much of anything. She can't access any programs on this computer while it's updating."

Eris closes her mouth in discouragement. "Oh..."

Mona walks over to Eris and places a paw on her knee. "We're going to be alright, Eris. We're going to make it through this."

Eris stares at Mona, fear dancing deep in her eyes. "How...do you know that...?"

For a moment, Mona doesn't answer. Then, she says, "Because we have to."

A harsh static sound splices through the numbing emptiness. Eris gasps in fear and immediately looks at the hovering text. A whirling mix of black and white erupts from the words. Its reach extends across the infinite space around the characters, corrupting the peaceful darkness with its mindless black and white chaos.

"What is that?!" Lucy's voice cries above the ringing static noise.

Mona's mouth drops open in horrified awe. "It's the virus."

The cloud of swirling black and white expands over the Pokémon. Like raindrops falling from thunderclouds, bits of the cloud plummet toward the Pokémon. They morph into demented versions of Pokémon and crash against the invisible ground. As the characters back away from the virus spawn, the creatures shake out their limbs and turn toward the vulnerable Pokémon.

"Rrrraaaaarrrraaaarrrrggghhh!" roars a primal voice from the static cloud. The spawn emit similarly garbled shouts before charging at the Pokémon.

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​

In Aewyn's room, Aewyn meticulously arranges and folds her numerous socks and underwear. The air uncomfortably pressures her with its insufferable heat. Eventually, she stops in the middle of folding a pair of underwear and wipes the sweat off her forehead.

"Geez, it's hot in here. Did the AC turn down again?" she says to herself. She checks the thermometer next to her bed, but the display only reads 69 degrees.

Not desiring to turn the AC down a few degrees, but still wanting a reprieve from the sweltering heat, Aewyn strides over to her office to grab her water glass and fill it with more water. Her hands reached out to grab the water glass but stalls when Aewyn beholds her laptop's screen. A mess of blindingly vivid colors and black and white static mix in a disorderly amalgamation. The text on the screen, now colored pitch black, reads: "Anti-virus system disabled. Configuring viral update. 57% complete."

"What the heck is going on?" Aewyn says. "What kind of update is this?"

Hastily, she darts to her bedroom and grabs her iPhone off her nightstand. She punches in a number and waits for a pickup on the other end.

"Hello, this is Microsoft Support. My name is Linda. How may I help you?"

"Hi, my name is Aewynessa. My laptop is having a heart attack right now. I began installing the latest update for Windows 10, but for some reason, it was taking a long time. I went away for a while to fold clothes, and when I come back, a bunch of colors and black and white static are flying across the screen. What's more, the text that usually says how far the update's coming along turned black and is telling me that it's configuring a virus. Do you have any idea what's going on? Has this happened to anyone yet?"

The Microsoft Support woman makes a few indecipherable sounds, then says, "I'm not quite sure what you mean, Ms...Aiywenesa. I'm rerouting you to our Security Department."

"Wait, ma'am, don't you--"

Calming music interrupts Aewyn's sentence.

"Gosh darn it!" she shouts. She flings the iPhone down on her bed and leans against her bed. Sighing, she rests her head in her hands.

"What's going to happen to my characters?"

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​

"Ahhh! We're going to die!" Eris screams in fear. She pulls her mushroom-shaped head hat down close to her face and crouches behind Mona. Mona herself feels like cowering to the ground in the face of the virus's mighty, horrendous onslaught.

"Don't be stupid; we're not going to die!" Zane shouts in rebuttal. To prove his point, he looses a Charge Beam at the nearest virus spawn. The Charge Beam dissolves the spawn upon impact.

"See? They're weak. We can easily eliminate them," Zane says smugly. However, pieces of black and white explode into existence from where the spawn had been destroyed and reformed into the spawn. Zane's bravado falls from his face at the sight of the regenerated spawn.

"...And they can reform," Ray states dryly. "So much for that theory." A spawn rushes him, forcing him to repel it with a powerful Force Palm.

"Aiieeeee!"

A spawn had tackled Grace to the ground. Grace struggles against its hold, her psychic power unable to dislocate the abomination. Unflinchingly, the creature lowers itself over her, smothering her with its body. Grace's muffled screams intensify, and her struggling becomes more desperate. Abruptly, the screams die, and the mass stops moving.

The mass convulses once, then erratically bubbles and shifts. The static stretches upward and flows downward, billowing outward in its lower half and growing slender arms. A head with two thick, curled locks forms at the top of the creature.

The gardevoir spawn turns its head toward the Pokémon that it once called its friends. Two deep black orbs fill the space where the eyes should have been, a small white pinprick in the middle of them. The creature that Grace had become emits a terrifying roar before firing a Moonblast at the nearest Pokémon to it: Lucy.

Lucy has no time to react. The oscillating orb hits her square in the chest, sending her flying toward a pack of spawn. The spawn pile on top of her, quickly devouring her. A glaceon-shaped spawn soon arises from the spawn pile, its emotionless eyes trained on the remaining Pokémon.

"Run!" Mona yells, turning tail on the corrupted kirlia-turned-gardevoir and glaceon. The others waste no time in following her and abandon the spawn that they were fighting. The rumbling of sprinting feet and the screeching of primordial cries dog the Pokémon's heels as they flee into the empty unknown.

"Does anyone...know...where the...anti-virus...system is?" Mona asks between heavy breaths. She glances over her shoulder only to see a collective shaking of heads.

"Wait...," Eris gasps. "I...I know. I...saw it...before...when I was...exploring."

"Do you...remember the way?" Mona asks.

Eris nods.

"Then...lead us...to it!"

Eris dashes to the head of the group and roves her eyes around the horizon. Briefly, she closes her eyes.

"This way," she says as her eyes snap open. She angles to the right, the group tailing close behind her.

Gloria, who is running at the back of the pack, staggers to the ground when the weight of a spawn comes crashing down on her. Claws dig into her back, and her agonized wails cut short as the spawn ensconces her in its whirling body.

"Keep moving, you idiots!" Zane commands when he notices that everyone had begun to slow down for Gloria. "She's gone, and we will be, too, if we don't speed it up!"

In that moment, Ray and Kyle glance at each other, a similar resigned expression on their faces. Simultaneously, they turn to face the horde of demented spawn.

"Ray! Kyle! What are you doing?" Mona shouts, halting. Eris and Zane (unwillingly) follow suit.

"If we all go, we won't make it. Someone has to hold them back," Ray replies. Kyle nods in accord.

"No, I'm not going to lose you guys, too!" Mona says passionately. She tries to step to them, but Zane holds her back.

"Let them go, Mona. They're right. Those spawn will catch us if we all go," Zane says definitively.

"No... NO...," Mona sobs. Tears threaten to spill out of her eyes.

"Go!" Kyle says as he kicks a spawn away with his Blaze Kick. Ray bats away a spawn with a backhand and slams his fist into the face of another.

Mona, Eris, and Zane face their backs to the brave duo and resume their flight to the anti-virus system. They do not look back, even when their hear the pained screams of their friends falling victim to the unstoppable virus.

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"Hello, this is the Security Department. My name is John, and I'll be taking care of you today. How can I help you?"

"Hey, John. My name is Aewynessa. I recently began installing the latest Windows 10 update, and for some reason, my laptop was taking a long time to update. I went to fold my clothes, but when I came back into my office, my laptop's screen had corrupted into a mess of colors and black and white static. The text on the screen is telling me that the laptop's anti-virus software is disabled and that's it's installing a virus. Could you please tell me what's going on?"

"Hmm, well that does sound like a problem. How long have you had this laptop?"

"Um... About seven to eight years."

"Well, as laptops get older, their parts start to wear down. Laptops don't have as effective cooling systems as desktops, so over time, the heat can damage the parts. They don't function like they used to, and sometimes, programs can stop working."

"Are you telling me that a virus from your update got onto my computer because my laptop's old?"

"No, it's just that as your laptop gets older, the parts start to wear down."

"...Okay. Is there any way I can get my documents and programs off my laptop?"

"Can you access your home screen in any way?"

"No, I can't."

"Well, there's not much that can be done. Unless you recently did a backup of your laptop, you can't recover any of your files. Have you done a backup recently?"

"...No, I haven't."

"Then I'm sorry. There's no way to get your files and programs off your laptop. We could maybe try to take out the hard drive and recover the files from it, but there's the chance that the virus has already corrupted the hard drive."

"Is there any way to remove the virus? Any way at all?"

"If you don't have your anti-virus system working, then I'm afraid not."

"..."

"Ma'am? Are you there?"

Click.

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​

In the distance, a mass of glowing lights appears. They sporadically flicker as if struggling to maintain its luminosity.

"That's it," Eris breathes.

Zane checks back over his shoulder at the spawn horde. Ray and Kyle's sacrifice had bought them some time, but at the rate at which the horde is gaining on them, they would not reach the system before they the rampaging virus consumed them.

Zane turns his head back to Mona and Eris. He glances one last time at the horde and mentally sighs. I'm going to regret this later.

In the space of a second, Zane firmly plants his forepaws in the ground and skids to a stop. "Go on without me!" he shouts to Mona and Eris.

Mona wheels about at the sound of his voice. "No, Zane! We can make it!" she says in denial.

"Don't be stupid! Now just go before I regret this!" Zane growls. Ignoring Mona's pleas, he confronts the ever-growing horde with a defiant gleam in his eyes. His fur ignites with a yellow glows, and electricity explodes from his body with the light of a thousand suns.

The pure intensity of the Discharge forces Mona and Eris to cover their eyes. Squeals of pain and terror resound from the spawn as Zane's Discharge courses through their digital frames.

"GO!" Zane's voice calls from the radiant blast.

Tears spilling from Mona's eyes, the two sprint away from Zane as he continues to pour electricity out of his body. Zane's valiant roar emanates from the center of the wild Discharge, spurring Mona and Eris onward. Mona glances over her shoulder in time to see the spawn charge over Zane like a stampede of rabid tauros.

With their borrowed time, Mona calculates that they will reach the anti-virus system before the virus can. For a brief moment, a smile cross her face. They could stop the virus. They could save everyone. Everything would--

Whumph.

A small pack of spawn emerge from the ground in front of Mona and Eris. Their jaws widen and emit savage, gravelly roars. At once, they lash at the two Pokémon with extended talons and claws.

Mona's eyes widen in terror as a spawn leaps at her. Her legs freeze in place, and her gaze locks onto the spawn's blank eyes. She can feel the pure malevolence behind those empty black orbs, a feeling that terrifies her down to her very core.

"Nooo!"

A forceful hand pushes Mona to the side and out of harm's way. Horrified, Mona twists as she falls and watches as the spawn that should have attacked her attacks Eris instead. Time seems to slow down as the spawn nears Eris. In the brief moment before the spawn impales Eris, Mona sees a tiny smile stretch across Eris's face. Then, the spawn crashed into her, sending her onto her back. More spawn landed on top of her, completely covering her with their sheer size.

"ERIS!" Mona screeches in agony.

The mass of black and white static stills. Slowly, a hideous form rises from the frothing pile of black and white. A long, thick tail protrudes from the creature's back, and a bowl-shaped head manifests at the creature's top. Black orbs of hatred and malice open like the eyes of a newborn kit and glared at me to the depths of my core.

"Krrrreeeee!" the breloom spawn screeches. It lunges at me without a second's hesitation.

Choking back a sob, Mona rolls out of the breloom's path and scrabbles toward the anti-virus system. She hears the breloom spawn stagger to its feet before pursuing her with deranged shouts and growls.

With the spawn gaining on her, Mona dives into the anti-virus system and stumbles onto her belly. Fearfully, she whips her head around in dreadful expectance. Her mouth drops open at the sight before her.

The breloom spawn's body hangs suspended in the air. Bluish-white light crackles over her frame like lightning. With a parting roar, the spawn leaps backward, the light fading from its viral body.

"What the...?" Mona mutters in shock. She observes the area around her. Pulsing veins of light form a rough, barrier-like sphere. The spawn attempted to penetrate the barrier once more, but the light shocked it and repelled it.

The anti-virus system must still be somewhat active if it can repel viruses from its control center, Mona thinks. I don't know how long it'll last, though. I have to hurry.

Surging to her paws, Mona approaches a control panel in the center of the sphere. She immediately gasps and retreats. Virus covers the control panel, blocking access to the panel's buttons and code.

"No, this can't be," Mona says. The virus has infected the core of the system. There's...There's no way I can erase the virus. We've failed. I've failed.

Lowering her head in defeat, Mona permits the tears she had been holding back to spill freely down her face. She hears the sound of more virus spawn attacking the barrier. The barrier groans under the weight of the malicious code, threatening to break at any second.

This is it. We're all finished, Mona thinks, resigning herself to her fate. Reclining onto her haunches, Mona closes her eyes, a strange feeling of calm settling over her.

"Are you really giving up?"

Mona's eyes snap open, and her head jerks upward toward the source of the voice. A tall figure, cloaked in black, floats in the air. Even though she cannot see his face through the impenetrable shadow of his cowl, she automatically knows who he is.

"Shroud," she seethes at the villain from her past. "What are you doing here? Are you the one who loosed this virus that's destroying everything?"

From under the cowl, a low laugh emanates. "You know better than that. Even I wouldn't dare touch a virus."

He sinks to the invisible floor and continues, "If you want everyone you know and love to live, you must listen to what I have to say."

"How can I trust you?" Mona counters aggressively. Her fur raises upward defensively, her legs tensing.

"It's either me or death," Shroud responds simply. "I, too, wish to live. As much as I hate to admit it, we need each other in order to survive."

"How would I ever need someone like you?" Mona spits in disgust. She steps back as Shroud draws closer to her.

"Because you can kill the virus."

Mona freezes in shock. She stares at Shroud in disbelief. "You're lying," she accuses. "You're just trying to get me killed."

"If I wanted you dead, I would have done it myself already. However, desperate times call for desperate measures," Shroud says. "Now, will you listen to me?"

"...Fine. Just know that I hate every moment of this," Mona says.

Shroud ignores her last comment. "You are a Pokémon of the normal type. A virus is an entity of chaos and complexity and cannot stand the presence of order and simplicity."

Mona's mind begins to process Shroud's words. "My normal-type energy repels viruses..."

"Yes. That is how you have been able to live so long: the virus was not yet powerful enough to overcome your affinity energy."

"Then if normal type energy can repel it...," she trails off, glancing toward the corrupted control panel. She turns back to Shroud. "Is that why you needed me: to repel the virus?" she asks.

Shroud nods. "I can turn the system on if I can access the control panel." A spark of dark energy flickers over his form as he speaks.

Mona walks over to the control panel. "I guess I'll have to clear it, then," she says. From deep within her being, a flood of normal type energy pours forth to the edge of her skin. The energy condenses into small pockets that throb with a powerful intensity.

Focusing all of her concentration on the virus before her, Mona unleashes a stream of Swift stars at the control panel. A shrill scream erupts from the black and white mass as the normal-type attack barrages it. With each hit, a bit of the virus disintegrates into meaningless code.

"Get out of here!" Mona yells at the virus. She increases the speed of her attack until all she can see is a bright, yellowish-white light.

"Enough. it is gone."

Shroud places a hand on Mona's shoulder, pushing her away from the control panel. His cold touch snaps her back to her senses, and her rage recedes from her mind.

Shroud raises his hands above the cleansed control panel. A shadowy, otherworldly energy coalesces on his claws. He plunges his hands into the control panel, sending waves of dark energy across its surface.

Mona gasps in surprise. "Shroud, what are you doing? You're going to destroy it!" she cries.

Shroud does not answer, instead increasing his energy output into the control panel. Streaks of stray energy whip across the air. Gray fog rises from Shroud's feet and spreads across the metaphorical ground. Shroud pushes his claws deeper into the control panel, and dark energy explodes from the control panel and latches onto the barrier sphere.

"Turn on," Shroud commands, twisting his hands in a peculiar manner.

As if it is a poochyena obeying its, the anti-virus system roars to life. Shroud's dark energy immediately drains into the system. An intense white light shines outside the sphere, burning all the spawn in its infinite range.

High above the anti-virus system, the virus cloud trembles at the annihilation of its familiars. More ripples travel down its length, contracting and bending its form. Two broad wings extend out of the cloud, and a long, thin tail emerges out its back. A lean chest and stomach emerge from the bulk of the cloud. A triangular head with two round, forward-facing ears protrudes from the forefront of the virus. Two slim, but muscular hind legs form the remaining bits of the virus.

The noivern-shaped virus screeches a war cry into the infinite cyberspace. Its scalene black orbs peer down at the infinitesimally smaller Pokémon that dared to defy it. Pinning its enormous wings to its side, the virus dives at the anti-virus system, a beam of malevolent energy forming at the back of its mouth.

Mona and Shroud watch as the virus plunges at them. The barrier of the anti-virus system ignites in a furious light, gathering in a spot directly opposing the virus. A beam of pure, malware-eliminating light shoots from the barrier toward the plummeting virus.

Roaring, the virus launches its own deadly beam from the back of its mouth to the anti-virus system's beam. Both energies collide with a bang, the resulting flash temporarily blinding Mona and Shroud.

Silence reigns in the aftermath. Squinting upward, Mona watches as the remnants of the virus drift downward and vanish into nothingness.

"It's over," she whispers. "The virus has been erased." Mona turns toward Shroud but recoils when she cannot find him.

I guess he left while I couldn't see, she thinks.

"Mona!"

The shout attracts Mona's attention. She faces her head to her front and smiles gleefully. Eris, Ray, and the others are running to her, their appearances returned to normal.

Mona and Eris embrace when Eris reaches Mona.

"Oh, M-Mona, I... I...," Eris sobs.

"Shh, shh, it's okay. It's all over. It's all over now," Mona coos, rubbing her head on Eris's knee.

"That was certainly...eventful," Ray says sarcastically.

"I hope we never have to go through that again," Lucy says, brushing a piece of stray fur back into line.

"For once, I agree with you, Lucy," Zane concurs.

"Everybody, look," Grace says, pointing upward. The group looks above them and finds that the update text has reappeared and reads: "Configuring Windows updates. 100% complete. Installing..."

As soon as they read the words, color begins to blossom around them. Grass springs up from the newly formed earth. Trees stretch to the blue sky. Clouds dance in the wind. The sounds of nature reverberate among the reformed woods. Air as warm as a summer day encases them in its gentle heat.

Mona sucks in a deep breath and slowly releases it. "We're home," she breathes.

-=+=+=+=+=-
​

Aewyn stares despondently at her laptop. The screen had turned black moments before, killing her hope that she would be able to recover it. Sighing, she extends her hand to the power button to restart the laptop in a last-ditch effort.

Suddenly, the screen flares to life. Aewyn yanks her hand back in surprise, her eyes glued to the screen. Text appears on the screen: "Configuring Windows update. 100% complete. Do not turn off your computer."

"What...? How did...?" she asked herself.

In the next moment, the text and loading screen disappear, replaced by Aewyn's home screen. Before she can even react, a brown blur leaps out from the screen and tackles Aewyn to the ground.

"Ouch, geez! Mona!" Aewyn laughs, hugging the eevee tightly to her chest.

"I missed you so much, Aewyn," Mona says. She rubs her head against Aewyn's chest.

"Hey, hey, you're okay now," Aewyn says.

While Aewyn and Mona hug, Aewyn's other characters emerge from her laptop's screen. Kyle sighs in relief as he breathes in air from the real world.

"Remind me to tell Aewyn later that she needs to install at least three different anti-virus software on her laptop," Ray whispered to Kyle, who nodded in agreement.

Oblivious to Ray and Kyle's exchanged, Aewyn strokes Mona's forehead. "What happened in there?" she asked Mona.

Mona shook her head. "That's a story for another time. Right now, I just want to stay here for a little bit."

Aewyn smiles. "If that's how you want it to be, then I don't mind."

In the resulting silence, everyone sits together on the floor, exhaustion and relief overwhelming their bodies. Aewyn pulls Mona more tightly to her, not wanting to let her go after such an ordeal.

"Hey Mona?" Aewyn asks, breaking the silence.

"Yeah?"

"Guess what I'm going to do."

"What?"

"I'm buying a Mac."

Mona raises her head to look at Aewyn. Suddenly, she breaks out laughing.

"You're--You're buying a Mac? Now?"

Aewyn begins to chuckle. "I probably should have done that sooner, shouldn't I have?"

"YES!"

The laughter spread infectiously around the room; soon, all the Pokémon are chuckling merrily. Even Zane cracks a broad smile.

The laughter does not die for a long time.

-=+=+=+=+=-
​

A silent figure stares at the group from the screen of the laptop. Under the shadow of his cowl, a ghost of a smile form at the corners of his mouth. Turning away from the screen, he quietly soars toward the depths of the laptop and fades into the darkness.

-=+=+=+=+=-
​

What did you guys think? I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it!

Go ahead and tell me what you think. Leave a reply down below and say what you liked/didn't like about the story. I'm always open to feedback!

Have a good day!

 

Thanks so much for the feedback! It makes me glad to see that you thought that way of the story.