Chapter 16: The End

It had been two weeks. Two weeks since the NetOps and Navis had managed to leave the fragment world. All of the ones affected had now been gathered at the labs, and were sitting in a meeting room. The abnormally large screen before them showed a strange ball of glowing blue data.

"So, 'Pokemon' was the name of a game. A video game, a card game, an online game... even a TV show," said Maylu.

"The first wave of modern viruses were the ones who corrupted the files," Chaud said calmly, typing away on a laptop. "They grew and multiplied, and attached themselves to various data linked to it."

"All of the data was infected. Any computer with the data instantly crashed. People had to delete all of it they could find to get the net working properly again," said Raika.

"The data they couldn't get their hands on converged and melded together. Ash was from the anime. The maps and items were from the game. I think you get the point," said Chaud.

"It was all just renegade data, and we were lost enough to stumble upon it."

"Those files are still corrupted," said Megaman, prompting Lan to pull out his PET and set it on the table. The little hologram navi appeared, Trill at his side. On the other side, Protoman appeared as well.

"The viruses didn't affect the Navis, as we are programmed to be immune. A virus can kill us, but it cannot corrupt our coding. Humans, on the other hand, are not so lucky."

"That's why you NetOps couldn't remember the real world, or the cheat codes for very long. The virus was messing with your minds," said Megaman.

"Yeah, but it all seemed so real!" said Lan, propping his head in his hands. "Ash and everyone..." Megaman nodded.

"Yeah... but I suppose that we'll just have to accept... that they were only corrupted data..."

"...And then they just disappeared. It was like they'd never existed!"

"What do you think, Professor?"

Professor Oak made a humming sound, deep in thought. The three young pokemon trainers sat on the couch, watching him intently.

"It seems to me... that the ones you saw live in electronic space. How else could they vanish into a computer? Perhaps they are some sort of variation on Porygon. Porygons live in cyberspace, after all, and their evolutions are meant to work in different dimensions!"

"But they looked like normal people and pokemon!" said Ash.

"You forget that a Ditto can change its shape to any it pleases. Who's to say that there isn't a shape-changing pokemon in cyberspace? That there isn't a new form of Porygon or Ditto? The key to pokemon research is to keep your mind open to new things," said Oak.

"So you're saying we might've discovered an entire new race of pokemon?" said Brock.

"It would seem that way," said Oak.

The three trainers looked at each other in wonder. Pikachu simply sat in Ash's lap and smiled. It had known from the start that the others weren't normal.