Fear and anxiety gripped my heart like a vice as I drove to HQ. I knew what they were coming from but I still couldn’t stop them. Today was the day I will be going through with my decision on what to do with my partner, Regi.

One month ago, my partner turned into Leviamon and went on a rampage on the net. Though he was turned back into a digiegg, I was told the catalyst that caused him to change, the keycard of envy, is fused with Regi’s data and that he could change again at any moment should he be hatched from the egg. Because of that risk, the idea of simply deleting Regi while he is still an egg was suggested. I still remember the pain I felt when I was told to kill my partner Digimon because he might be too much of a risk for everyone. It nearly broke me. That is when the commander gave me the choice: delete Regi or hatch him and risk him becoming Leviamon again. I was given time off to think about it and come to a decision.

For an entire month, I would struggle with that dilemma. To kill a friend and close partner or to let him live and risk more destruction on the net. I would jump between the possible decisions and outcomes, unable to make my mind until just now. Even now I worry about this choice being the right one for me. But I can't keep procrastinating on making a choice forever. Even now I still have second thoughts about my current decision, gnawing at me.

I parked in an open parking spot and let go of the wheel. It was only when I let go of it that I realized how tightly I held the wheel on the drive here. In my head, I just think about running away again. Just grip the wheel and drive away as I have done before. As I sat there, the doubts in my head got louder and louder, telling me to run away again. But I can't keep doing this, I can't just keep running away from this problem. I leaped out of my car and did a full-on sprint to the main office. I ran to the office with all my strength. I needed to put as much distance between me and my car as soon as possible. The farther away I am from my car, the more I can fight the urge to run away again. I can no longer keep running from this choice.

I burst through the reception area, my legs burning and I was gasping for air. I walked over to a wall and leaned on it for support. I thought I was in better shape than this.

“You know you could have just walked,” a flat monotone voice said. I recognized Nicolaus easily.

“Sorry,” I forced out, gasping for air. “Just...had to do it.”

I turned to see Nicolaus, his clothes were meticulous and neat, neither hair nor wrinkles were on them. His face, as blank and emotionless as I have always seen him be, “You didn’t need to run, we weren’t going anywhere.”

“Come on Nikky,” another voice said, “it's just something somebody had to do.”

Nicholas pulls his digivice out of his pocket, “what do you mean, Tesla?”

“Sometimes people do random things for thoughts that make sense only to them, we have been over this.”

“Oh right.” Even though he said that Nicholas’ face and tone didn’t change as he looked at me, “Anyway Fisher, what are you doing here?”

“I, uh you see, ah,” I tried to say anything, but the words were not coming out of my mouth. Fuck just fucking say it.

“I can guess why he is here,” a matter-of-fact female voice said behind me. I turn to see Amilia, a stern look on her face. “Finally nice to see you here, Fisher.”

“Y-yeah.” I shrink away a bit. Amilia was not someone I liked talking to, “I am just here to—”

“I know,” she interrupted, “I also know where you want to go,” she turned away from me, “come on, I’ll take you to the egg room.”

I follow her around. As we walked through the halls, I saw other people walking around, most just giving me a glance or a nod. A few gave quick greetings, but none stayed still more than a second before moving past me. It was nice to know that there wasn't something like a big party or group waiting for me at the entrance wishing to welcome me back and such. But Amelia hasn't said anything since we left the reception area. Not a peep out of her.

I tried to break this silence, “look, um I’m sorry for—”

She suddenly stops, “Despite what you think, I am not one of the people you should be apologizing towards.” she didn’t even bother to turn around and face me, “whether or not you decided to come back wouldn’t have affected me in the slightest.”

Amilia’s words cut deep. It hurt to hear that from a coworker, but nothing out of character for Amillia.

“However,” she continued, “there are people who would have been affected by your decision. People who have been waiting for your answer, wondering if they have seen you for the last time or not. The people you cut contact with once you came back to the real world. If you feel you must apologize for taking so long to make a decision, I suggest you save it for them.”

I digested what she said. It was true that my decision would have affected other people. Why haven’t I thought about what other people might have felt by my actions? Why didn’t I think about it? Why didn’t I consider them? It might be easier to say I didn't want to consider them. During my whole month of being on the emotional rollercoaster, I haven't considered that people would have been sad, for either me or Regi.

“However, even before them, there is someone you must apologize to first, your partner. For the entire time you have been using it to make a decision, your partner has been asleep, waiting for you to wake it up.” she turned around, showing me her poised face, “that is why you are here, right?”

I nod.

“Very well, come on, we can’t keep waiting.”

We continue to the egg room. When a criminal Digimon is turned into a digiegg, the agency takes it in for containment. Because Regi went on a rampage, when he turned back into Digi egg, he was taken in by us for monitoring.

The inside of the room hasn't changed at all since I left. Rows of computers filled the room. Some of them had people going over data, but some were empty. Amelia goes to a free computer and starts to navigate the system. Within a minute, she pulled up Regi’s egg.

A rush of emotions filled me when I saw the egg. Happiness. Fear. sadness. Relief. Just emotion after emotion hitting me all at once. Maybe my whole month away from him just made me realize how much Regi mattered in my life.

I pull out my digivice and scroll through the options. I remember the commander’s words about it being connected to Regi’s container, the process might be just the same as the other times I hatched Regi. my finger hovers over the confirmation button. No going back. No more hesitation. I press the button.

On the screen, the egg started to move. A little shaking at first, but rapidly escalated, hitting the edges of the container. Cracks start to form on the surface of the egg. Bits and pieces break off and dissolve into data. The egg glows softly as the entire shell dissolves, leaving behind a small white creature, Pichimon.

The pichimon groans as he opens his large red eyes, “mmmm, what happened?” he slowly looks around his enclosure,  “where am I?”

Tears went down my face as I saw him, “Regi, is it you?”

The Pichimon faced me, “huh, what are you talking about? Of course, it is me.”

“Thank god it is you,” I sobbed, “I was so worried that you would, that you wouldn’t be.” my words kept getting stuck in my throat.

“Huh? Why are you crying, Fisher? Did something happen?”

“I can explain that,” Amelia injected, “but first, what was the last thing you remember Regi?”

Regi had a confused look on his face, “the last thing. Hmmm.” he paused for a minute before speaking again, '' I remember us going to the Cracker’s hideout. After that, Fisher and I, along with a few other teams, went to investigate the hideout. After that, my memories are a bit hazy.”

So he didn’t remember transforming into Leviamon. A part of me felt some relief that he didn’t remember that part. If he knew the destruction that he caused, I have no doubt it would just crush him immediately.

“Fine then,” Amelia said, “I will explain what happened.”

“Wait, don't,” I place my hand on her mouth to stop her.

She just responds by grabbing my arm and pulling it down, “Fisher, he has to know.”

“N, no I mean, I should be the one to explain it to him. He’s my partner after all.”

“Fine,” she huffed, “but you didn’t need to grab me.”

Regi just watched us with a puzzled look on his face, “I’m sorry but what's going on?”

I turned to Regi on the screen, “w,w, well the thing is um.” I turned away. It felt painful to look at him. Or maybe I just didn’t want to see how he would act from the news. “Something happened while we were investigating the hideout.” my chest started to tighten. Fear once again started to fill me. The urge to simply run away again reared its ugly head and whispered sweet lies into my head. But I must hold strong, I can no longer run away. “At the hideout we found something. A keycard of sin. When I handed it to you,” I bit my lip, pondering my next words carefully, “it caused you to lose control.”

I couldn’t see his reaction, but I could hear his confusion, “I lost control? What did I do?”

I bite my lips harder; I could taste the faint iron hint of my blood.

“Fisher, tell me!”

“You turned into Leviamon and went on a rampage on the server. People died that day, Regi.”

Regi looked horrified by what I said. “No,” he muttered, “Fisher please tell me that is a joke.”

“I am afraid he is telling the truth,” Amelia said, “You caused damage to the server, which affected the real world as well.”

“no-no-no-no. I couldn't have. I wouldn’t.” The numbers and meters started to go wild as Regi cried out in pain. An alarm from the computer sounds out as dark shadows crept out of his body as cracks showed up on Regi’s body.

“What's going on?” Amelia typed on the keyboard, “damn it why isn't the system responding?”

I look at my digivice. On the screen, it was saying that Regi was about to digivolve. “It says he is digivolving, but I have never seen him digivolve like this.” wait? Is this what he meant? I immediately go through my programs and activate a certain one, “activating ‘Sin Eater’.”

The program activates as the words, Sin Eater, come on the screen. The dark shadows that were covering Regi leap off of him and jumped through the screen, going into my digivice. As the program ran, Regi slowly calmed down and the cracks that has formed on his body started to fade and the Pichimon was just gasping for air. When the last of the dark energy was consumed, the sin eater fired off the email to the creator.

I immediately turned my attention to my partner, “Regi, Regi speak to me, are you okay?”

The Pichimon turned to me, “Fisher, what happened?”

“But are you in any pain? Or do you feel anything else that can be wrong?”

“No,” he said, “but I feel so weak and sleepy.”

Relief washed over me as I realized the program worked as intended. I pulled up Regi’s status menu and saw that he is under the exhaustion effect. Thank god it worked as intended, even the side effect was just as predicted. Honestly scary how good he is.

Amelia grabbed my shoulder and forced me to look at a face I had never seen on her before, one of complete shock, “Fisher, what the fuck just happened?” Oh, fuck she swore too. “What was that thing you did with the digivice? What was happening with Regi? How did you get your hands on the program or even what the program even is?”

“Now calm down, I can explain.”

“Then start fucking doing it!”

I held up the digivice, “well first off the program is called ‘Sin Eater’ the main function is to control the power of the key card of sin that is mixed with Regi’s data. If it looks like Regi might turn into Leviamon again, I am supposed to use the program to sort of drain the power out of Regi.”

“But how did you get that program? I am familiar with the programs used by us and I know for certain that I have never heard of a program with functions like yours.”

“I know because it's a new one. If the email was correct, it is only a few days old at most.”

“But how did you get it? Only people within the organization could make programs for the digivice and I haven't heard of anything about” she stopped, probably realizing who could have sent the program to mean, “was the sender-?”

I nod, “yeah, from the man himself, Zero.”

Amelia dropped her mouth as she heard me utter the name of the person who is in control of our organization.

No one knows who this Zero is, or even if they are a real person. However, they are the ones who built and designed the digivice and all of its programs involved. For all we know, they might even be the guy who even makes the partner Digimon that comes with each digivice. The only time he contacts us is when they seem to have sent another digivice to another person. The fact that I got an email, and even a handmade program, from this person, it's not hard to see why Amellia would be so shocked.

A tense silence filled the air. It was then that I noticed that the commotion that happened also got me the other eyes of the people in the room, each of them in their state of shock. I feel a bit uncomfortable with all the eyes on me.

I hear the door to the egg room open as someone walks in, “I had a feeling you would have come here first.” all eyes turned as the Commander steps in, his gaze locked firmly on me.

“Commander,” I said as everyone salutes him with me.

“At ease.” The commander comes over and sees Regi has hatched from his egg, “I see, so this is your choice.”

“Yes sir.”

“That means you are willing to go back then, right?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. Talk with Izzy about going back into the rotation and while you are there, have the lab analyze the program you received from Zero.”

Ameilia spoke out, “Commander you knew?”

The Commander turned to her, “Fisher contacted me once he received the email. We tried looking into the program he received, but it seems it can only be read by a digivice. Putting it on a computer just messes up the entire thing, making the code unreadable.” The Commander turns to me, “We will have to scan your digivice to understand what Sin-Eater can do. As it stands, we do not know if it does anything else besides balance out the power of the Keycard of Sin. we don’t even know if it affects the other key cards.”

I spoke up, “At the very least, it works on the Keycard of Envy. Regi was about to digivolve into something before you got here, but the program stopped him.”

The commander's face didn’t move, “and you certain it wasn’t just a normal digivolution?”

“If it was, Sin Eater wouldn’t have worked. Zero stated in the email that it will only activate when the power of the Keycard of Envy acts up and Regi just hatched a few minutes ago. Besides, what type of digivolution involves dark shadows and cracks forming on the body?”

The Commander raised an eyebrow at that remark, “I see. I will take your word for it then. For now, I want you to carry out your orders and get that program to the lab. Everyone else, return to your duties.” as the Commander left, the people around us saluted and returned to their duty.

I turn to Regi, who has caught his breath and looking sullen.

I move my digivice close to the terminal, “come on buddy, we have a lot to catch up on.”

The Pichimon didn’t move. “Hey Fisher,” he said, “will everything be okay? I won’t lose control again would I?”

I try to give a warm smile, “I promise everything will work out. I’ll make sure it will. We have the Sin-Eater and each other. I promise you won’t lose control again.”

Bold words. Fear whispered in my ears. But how can you promise something you can’t control. Even with the program, it might not even be enough. Even Zero themselves admit that the program might not even work at times. Are you still willing to take that chance? Risking everyone’s lives on a belief it will always work?

Regi’s gaze alternated between me and the digivice. “Alright, I’ll trust you.” Regi slips out of the containment field and settles inside the digivice, “I know you won’t steer me wrong.”

I feel my eyes tear up a bit. I pull the digivice’s screen to my face, “glad to have you back, partner.”