Author's Notes: Welcome back to the next installment in the X-Tamers series Upgrade. I'd like to also give a heads up if you haven't noticed, my new profile name is Count Dantes. I hope you enjoy the story, and I hope if you do you'll leave a review.

Disclaimer: I don't own a Digimon series or X-Men…yet.

Upgrade – Surge

"Thank you for the ride Sensei," said Henry as he got out of the car. The tamers were back in Japan, both to visit their families and to pick up their latest recruit, Suzy Wong. Her powers had begun to recently activate and after several 'incidents' involving furniture in their home, it was decided that she should go with Henry to learn to control her powers.

"Just remember to bring your sister for training tomorrow," said Wolverine, releasing the trunk so Henry could get his bags, "We'll see just what she can do."

"I will. Bye guys," Henry waved a quick goodbye to the three other tamers, painfully aware of their missing member. The fact that they all got to see their families was saddened by the fact that Takato wasn't seeing his. They still had no word from the boy, not since he had disappeared several months ago. They had decided to visit his parents on the flight over, and were planning to do it the next day after training.

He rode the elevator up to his apartment, each ding reminding him he was almost home. Finally the doors opened and he found the door to his apartment, knocking on the door. The door quickly opened and Henry found himself staring at his mother's face, her eyes red from crying.

"Mom, what happened?" he asked.

"It's Suzy, she's disappeared!"

While he waited for the other tamers to arrive, Henry's mother filled him in on what had happened. They had been waiting for Henry to come home when Suzy had gone to check her e-mail. When she didn't come back for an hour their dad went to check, and found the room like it was now.

The room was a small mess; items from the desk had been knocked to the floor and the monitor sat on its side, showing a continuous code of binary. The 1's and 0's multiplied continually, a seemingly chaotic pattern that had kept on going since Henry had entered the room. The only other clue to her disappearance was the open window, from which you could see ten stories down to the street.

He had spent his time scanning through the mysterious program on the computer, finding no clue as to why his sister had disappeared. All he had managed to find was a virus embedded in the program, it wouldn't seem relevant, but anything related to the message might be important at this point.

The X-Men finally managed to get to the apartment, and Henry filled them in before they took to the streets to find Suzy.

"That's all there was in the e-mail, a program and a virus," Henry said over the communicator. The tamers were trying to figure out what was going on, and four heads had a higher chance of figuring out what was happening.

"Well I'd guess her mutation advanced if she could get out through the window," said Rika, "I don't think any of Lopmon's abilities could have done it."

"Something in the e-mail must have caused it," said Henry, "I mean, we haven't advanced yet and our powers have been around longer. But why would a program make a person upgrade?"

"You said it was just multiplying data, right?" said Kenta, "Well maybe whoever sent it made it so she absorbed it, like how the Digimon did."

"That would take someone a lot of work to figure out," said Henry, "I don't know if Forge could do anything that advanced."

"Well it's the best idea so far," said Kazu, "It helps explain her powers upgrading too."

Henry's phone interrupted the conversation and he looked to see a number that he hadn't seen in almost a year.

"Mr. Yamaki?" he answered.

"Henry, we've got a problem here," said the man.

"We've got a big problem of our own honestly," Henry replied.

"I've heard," said Yamaki, "But they tie together. The HYPNOS security system detected an intruder half an hour ago. It's your sister, and she's heading for the Juggernaut core…"

Rika rushed into Henry's apartment and into Suzy's room while the other headed for HYPNOS. Being the fastest, she had been selected to get a copy of the mysterious program for Yamaki and meet them there. She got a cd from Henry's mother and began to download information onto it, though the file was so big now that it would never all fit.

"Come on, come on," she thought as a sample was uploading, the bar seeming to move slowly despite going up 1-percent every second.

Finally the upload finished and Rika teleported herself to the next rooftop, using this method to propel her toward HYPNOS and the rest of the team.

However, back at the apartment, the data pattern suddenly stopped. It began to delete itself, with the data in the center twisting itself into some kind of serpentine form. The process began to accelerate and at the last digit an image appeared on the screen. It seemed to burn itself into the screen for the few seconds it appeared, despite leaving no physical traces. Three red triangles joined by one in the center, the symbol of the Hazard.

"What are you kids involved with?" asked Wolverine as they rode the elevator down to the level of HYPNOS' computer core, the location of both the core of the Juggernaut program, and Henry's sister.

"Even you don't remember," said Yamaki, looking at the man, "And I thought your healing protected you against the Purge."

"How do you know…"

"I'm very good at my job," interrupted Yamaki. "We're nearing the floor, hold on." He grabbed the rail and the others did likewise, before the elevator screeched to a halt, nearly toppling them.

"I'd get that fixed," said Kazu as he straightened up.

"This floor is in lockdown," said Yamaki as the doors slid open, "That's designed as part of our defense system, not advanced, but it works well."

"I think the rest of your system needs work," said Wolverine as he looked at the hallway in front of them. Thick metal doors filled it, a great security feature except for the hole torn through each one as far as they could see.

"Scans have her nearing the last door," said Yamaki as he looked at the image on his palm-computer. "I'll program the security system to recognize you and start on an anti-virus." He moved into a side room and slipped behind a computer, getting immediately to work.

The X-Men moved down the hallway, the sound of clanging metal echoing around them. Finally the sound stopped and the sound of laser fire filled the air, the tamers immediately speeding up, no matter what happened, she could not get the Juggernaut program. The tamers had seen what it had done to the digimon, and they did not want to see what would happen to them if it was reactivated.

They finally made it through the last door in time to see Suzy slice through a security turret with one of the two axes she held. The girl was covered in a dark glow and her eyes were red, almost glowing in the dim light.

"Suzy!" shouted Henry, drawing the girl's attention. Her response was to hurl one of the axes at the group, which Kazu dove in front of, denting his metal armor and knocking the wind out of him. Suzy flipped toward the group and picked up the weapon, before swinging it in a wide arc…

"What kind of program is this?" thought Yamaki as he scanned through the file, waiting for the antivirus to finish uploading to disc. It was an almost impossibility, even for him, a program that produced data that was 'empty' for lack of a better term. It never completed producing the data, so it never managed to be anything other than just a continuous stream.

"Upload Complete." Flashed onto the screen and the man grabbed the new disk and headed toward the tamers, hoping they could keep Suzy busy long enough for this plan to work.

He made it to the core as Wolverine severed one of the coolant pipes around the room, hitting Suzy with a blast of high-pressure water and knocking her off the railing she was standing on. She simply bounced off the floor and went back into the battle, no acknowledgement in her empty eyes that she had just fallen almost two stories.

Yamaki rushed up the staircase to the walkway that surrounded the spherical core. He went to the access terminal and began to upload the antivirus, while working on some way to increase defense around the core. He couldn't activate the last defenses, they had been designed in the early days in case of Digimon attack in the core, powerful magnetic weaponry, and he wouldn't use them against children. He could only pray that the anti-virus would work.

There was nothing more he could do…

"Suzy, fight this," said Henry as he fired another near-miss at the girl. He couldn't bring himself to attack her head on, but he could at least draw her fire when he could.

"I don't think it's working," said Kazu, who was beginning to run out of steam, his armor dented all over.

"Back down!" came Yamaki's voice from the hallway, and he signaled for them to follow. Trusting the man the tamers did, and Wolverine followed, covering their backs. From behind them Suzy began to approach the core, and soon a bright light and a strangled yell came from the room.

"Suzy!"

They ran back to see that Suzy was on the floor, the dark glow around her gone. The antivirus had worked.

The X-Men decided it was best to get Suzy back to the Institute as soon as possible, so they left soon after the battle.

"You're going to love it at the Institute," said Henry, his sister almost asleep in the seat next to him. They had been flying for hours, and it was amazing she had stayed awake this long after all she had been through.

"We're nearing the Institute," said Wolverine, beginning to prepare the Blackbird to land, "Get ready to land."

"What's that light?" asked Suzy as she looked up toward the console. Wolverine looked and saw that the ramp to the Blackbird was now open. He ran a quick scan and discovered a short in the ramp controls, but no one on the jet except the X-Men. He put the jet on auto-pilot and stepped down to the hold, sniffing the air.

That was the first clue he had that something more than a glitch in the system had happened. He couldn't smell anything, not the oil in the Blackbird's system, not the other X-men, not even his own scent. He edged his way closer to the open ramp, the jet beginning to slow down as he did as it prepared to land. The control box cover was loose and he pried it open to find some of the wires stripped where something had been attached, creating the short. He turned check the security cameras last, he hadn't seen anything on the ride over, but why was now obvious. A small device had been plugged into the camera, probably feeding a loop since they had taken off.

Someone had come with them from Japan, someone smart, and someone who did not want to be found…