Sweet! I get to say the first thing this chapter!

Whoop-dee-tap-dancing-doo for you.

Uh, let's get this chapter on! Man that was short.

Yes, let's.

Lee stood glaring at the screen, trying to come up with a way out of this jam. In the Cyberworld, Cypher had positioned himself in front of the exit of Serena's homepage, facing off against the grinning thug and his hostage.

Serena stood behind and a little off to the side of Lee, watching the situation nervously. She kept glancing from Lee to her PC.

After a few minutes, Lee came up with a probable solution. He relayed the information to Cypher as quietly as possible so the thug wouldn't get wind of it. "Cypher," he whispered.

"Yea," came the reply.

"We're going to attack."

Cypher tried not to let his surprise show. "What?"

"You heard me."

"I'm just checking to make sure that you didn't mean to say we're going to pretend to attack."

"No, we're full on attacking. Just trust me on this."

"OK…"

Lee turned to Serena, who was standing there shocked at what she had just heard. "You're going to attack? But…"

Lee put up a hand. "First, don't say it too loud or else he will hear. Second, you've just gotta trust me. Now, get your PET." Serena did so. "Where are your battlechips?"

"I don't have any."

Lee stared at her like she had nine heads. Or more. He shook it off. "Never mind, I'll just lend you one of mine." He gave her another look. "You do know how to use them, don't you?" Serena nodded slowly. "OK, good."

Lee flipped open the compartments on his PET, selected two chips, and handed one to Serena. "Now, when I tell you, you load that in as fast as you can, alright?" he directed. Serena nodded again.

"OK, let's hope this works. Ready, Cypher?"

"I guess so."

"Step Cross, battlechip in, download!"

The thug grinned as the sword loaded in and Cypher speeded toward him.

Lee waited until the last possible second before yelling, "NOW!"

"Area Steal, battlechip in, download!"

Cypher smirked at the look of astonishment stamped on the thug's face as Dolph teleported to the other side of the homepage… leaving him wide open for Cypher's attack.

The thug staggered backwards, a glowing X across his chest. His data started breaking up. "This isn't the end of it," he shouted. "Now that they know, the organization will stop at nothing to get you! Both of you!"

Net navi, deleted.

Cypher grinned. "We did it."

Lee let out a huge sigh of relief. He was nearly knocked over by Serena giving him a hug. "Thank you!" she said.

Lee smiled. "You're welcome, kid." He turned back to his PET. "Cypher, see how her navi's doing."

"Already on it." Cypher jogged across to where Dolph had landed, and was now trying to get up. Cypher held out a hand. "Here, let me help." Dolph grabbed it and Cypher pulled her upright. He found that he still had to support her a lot, though.

"Thanks," she said weakly.

"It's what I do." Cypher replied. "Are you OK?"

"I just feel… really…" She collapsed.

"Lee!" Cypher did a quick scan of her. "Her energy levels are extremely low. Like they've been…" He paused a second. "…drained."

Lee raised an eyebrow. Almost exactly like what happened to Cypher a few days ago, he thought. "OK, prepare for an emergency transfer." He quickly tapped a few commands into his PET.

Before long, Chaud's face showed up on the screen. "What is it, Lee?"

"Are you still at Sci-Lab?"

"Yea, why?"

"I'm transferring over a navi who needs immediate recovery attention, similar to what happened to Cypher the other day." Serena started to say something about that, but Lee waved her off.

"Okay, I'll let Dr. Hikari know," Chaud answered.

"Then I need you to come and pick me and the navi's Op up. We'll meet you part-way."

Chaud nodded and ended the transmission.

Lee tapped a final key and Dolph's data was transferred to Sci-Lab. He started to head out of the room, beckoning for Serena to follow him. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"We're going to meet a friend of mine who will take us to Sci-Lab. That's where your navi is."

"You mean we're going to see Dolph?"

"After she recovers, yes."

After explaining the situation to Serena's mother, who was still slightly confused about the whole thing, Lee and Serena began walking in the direction of Sci-lab. After a few moments of silence, Lee glanced over at her. He recognized the look of concern on her face. "Don't worry," he said, "it's gonna be OK."

"Yea, besides," Cypher added. "You're lookin' at one fully recovered Sci-lab patient right here."

Serena looked up. "You mean your navi got hurt once, too?"

Lee shrugged. "Sure, everyone's does sometime."

"But you're so good. You stopped those guys and saved Dolph easily."

"It only looks easy. There's a lot of work that goes into getting that good."

"And a lot of pain, too," Cypher put in.

"Well, you certainly make it look easy," Serena said. "I know that I'll never be that good."

"Maybe someday," Lee said. "You just gotta work at it. Look, there's our ride."

Chaud's car pulled up and Lee and Serena climbed in. Chaud was waiting for them. "Dr. Hikari and Famous have already started working on the netnavi's recovery," he reported.

Lee nodded. "See," he said to Serena. "Everything's fine."

Serena gave a half smile.

Lee knew exactly what she was thinking. That won't be true for me until I actually see Dolph fully recovered.

Upon arriving at Sci-lab, Lee and Serena waited outside the room where Dr. Hikari and Famous were working on Dolph. Chaud went off somewhere to do more work. Lee noticed that Serena still had that look on her face. "I told you that it's going to be OK," he said. "I had the exact same thing happen to my navi."

"Not exactly, exactly," Serena said still staring at the floor.

Lee took a deep breath. He had been waiting for a time to bring this up. "Actually, yes, exactly, exactly." Serena gave him a look. "Did anything weird happen to Dolph before those guys showed up?"

Serena thought for a moment. "As a matter of fact, yes. We were on our way to pick up some things for my mom. I had jacked Dolph in so she could go on ahead. On the way, she got cornered; by those same navis in fact, only the gray one wasn't there then. I was trying to get to her, when all of a sudden, this weird light surrounded her." Lee raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. "Next thing I knew, the colors of her outfit had switched around and she had this strange blue light constantly around her. She attacked, but her attacks didn't seem to do anything to the thugs. But when they attacked, their attacks didn't seem to do anything either. It was like she was instantly recovered or something. Anyway, they got scared off. Then, the light disappeared and she was all weak and everything. She said she couldn't really remember what had happened. But wait a minute, how did you know to ask that?"

"Because the same sort of thing happened to Cypher." Lee started. "We were fighting some guy, he got us good, and then that weird light came on. Cypher's colors got switched around, too, so he looked exactly like my brother's navi, and a strange yellow light was around him. His speed went way up, but whenever he attacked, he got hurt instead, but whenever someone else attacked, they got hurt. Then it shut down and he got weak and everything, too."

"I don't really remember any of it either," Cypher added.

"Strange…" Serena said.

They both sat there a moment, thinking over what they each had related. Dr. Hikari interrupted them. "Excuse me, but we're done now."

Serena jumped up. "You mean I can see Dolph now?"

Dr. Hikari nodded. Serena dashed into the room. Lee followed behind her. "Hey, Dr. Hikari, what gives? That was way shorter than it took for Cypher."

Dr. Hikari smiled. "Two reasons, Lee. One: Cypher was the first time we had seen anything like that. Two: We were also making those modifications to your PET, remember?"

"Oh, right." Lee thought for a second. "Wait, you mean Cypher was the first navi ever to have something happen to him like that?"

"Yes, as far as I can remember. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason really."

The two of them walked into the room where Serena and Dolph were chatting away as if they hadn't seen each other for days. Lee watched them. "Well, they're definitely glad to see each other."

"That's for sure," Cypher said.

Serena spotted them and came over tugging at Lee's arm. "Come on, I want you to meet Dolph."

Lee allowed himself to be dragged over to the console where Dolph was on the screen. Serena began introductions. "This is my navi, Dolph."

Dolph smiled and waved. "Hiya."

"And Dolph, this is… I'm sorry, I don't think I ever got your name," she said apologetically.

"It's Lee."

"Oh, OK. Dolph, this is Lee."

Lee acknowledged her with a small, quick salute. Then he thought of something. "Oh hey, do you wanna meet your rescuer?"

"Lee…" Cypher said nervously. Lee ignored him.

Dolph nodded vigorously.

"Alright then, here he comes."

"But, Lee!" Before Cypher could protest further, Lee had already jacked him into the console with Dolph. He stood nervously off to one side. "Um, hi."

"Hi there," Dolph said cheerfully. "Thanks for saving me."

"Hmm? Oh yeah, that. Well, uh… you're welcome."

Dolph hurried over and gave Cypher a big hug. He just stood there, blushing. Lee and Serena both laughed. "Um… could you let go of me now?" Cypher pleaded.

Afterwards, Lee met with Dr. Hikari. "Well," he started. "I'm glad that it all worked out." Dr. Hikari simply nodded, expecting that there was more to it. "Dr. Hikari?"

"Yes, Lee…"

"During Dolph's recovery, did you… I don't know, find anything similar about her data compared to Cypher's?"

"No, nothing that jumps out."

"Really? Nothing at all?"

"No, nothing. Why do you ask? First, there was that reaction to me saying that Cypher was the only navi we had encountered so far with those types of problems and now this. I can tell you're thinking about something, Lee. What's going on?"

"I don't know…" Lee said, half to Dr. Hikari and half to himself. "I really don't know…"

What is going on? You could guess in your reviews, though it's really to vague to make a good one. Guess you'll just have to wait for next chapter. R&R and later days!