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Home Field Disadvantage
Organizing her modify cards had always felt like a contradictory activity to Suzie. Leafing through them one at a time, the obvious intent should have been to arrange them in the order that was most efficient in a fight. Except the glaring flaw in that logic was that every fight was different, and there would always be cases where the number of unknowns made setting a reliable card order impossible, let alone setting a perfect one.
Some choices were a given, like putting a throwaway card on the top of the pile. That way, she had something to transmute into a Blue Card so that Lopmon could digivolve to Ultimate. Suzie also liked to keep Vaccine cards within her reach, as a leg up on the Virus types she felt like the Tamers were always facing. Beyond that, though, she sometimes wondered if she might as well shuffle her deck like she would in a match.
To be fair, it wasn't like she had much else to do in the infirmary room the remaining Tamers had gathered in while Henry's group searched for Diaboromon. Looking outward, most of them hadn't moved since the last time Suzie had checked on them. Lopmon sat on top of her head, attentive and patient as ever, and likely wouldn't move unless prompted to.
A little ways away, Ai and Mako sat on opposite sides of an end table they had moved, having cut their own deck of modify cards and seemed to be sorting them into piles. Despite their silence, arched eyebrows and fluctuating expressions meant they had still found a way to argue with each other. Impmon sat on the floor at the foot of the table, leaning back against it with a neutral look on his face.
Kenta occupied a chair at the foot of Kazu's bed, the two of them and their respective partners only recently having paused their small talk as a courtesy to Jeri. She was the only one in the room making any noise, wrapping up a phone conversation with Rika if Suzie had been hearing correctly.
"Just be careful out there," Jeri requested, the concern in her voice genuine.
Jeri paused, listening to Rika's reply. In the middle of said pause, a smirk appeared on her face.
"I know you guys will be fine." She paused again, this time to lean back in her chair. "Honestly, I'm more worried about you and Alice being together."
As Rika gave her reply, Jeri's smirk and eyes widened.
"Oh, I'm not worried about that. I just don't want you two becoming best friends behind my back."
Jeri's eyes closed for a moment, clearly her efforts to hold back laughter.
"Remember, she'll never love you like I do!" Jeri insisted, putting an extra dose of fake drama into her voice. After one last pause, she hung up her cellphone.
"Everything seem okay?" Kenta asked almost instantly.
"Sounds like it," Jeri answered, mostly confidently.
"Relax, Kenta," Kazu cut in, apparently having gotten some of his bravado back. "That Digimon was tough but he wasn't that tough. Honestly, having to face all three of them, I almost feel sorry for him."
Suzie found herself wishing the night could be that simple. In the more recent years, she would usually have pushed back against being left behind while the older Tamers fought a dangerous wild Digimon, but this time she hadn't. Not that she was remotely scared of this Diaboromon, but she felt like her rash judgment over the last couple months was finally catching up with her.
As if to drive the point home, Suzie looked back down at her cards and found one with the image of an Ophanimon staring back at her. Potentially having the ability to rip a hole in reality, she wasn't even sure she felt comfortable calling this option a wild card. With this in mind, she made it a point to place this card at the bottom of her deck, to know exactly where it was but also to not be within easy reach.
Suddenly feeling a bit more antsy, Suzie pocketed her cards and stood up. The possibility that Diaboromon could be targeting Hypnos wasn't lost on any of them, and Suzie understood what her current responsibilities were. Whether she would actively patrol or just ended up wandering around to stretch her legs, she walked out of the room, avoiding eye-contact with the rest of her friends as she did.
Stepping out into the empty hall, Suzie glanced both ways, unsure of which direction to pick. A slight shifting of the weight on top of her head delayed her making a final decision.
"What's on your mind, Suzie?" Lopmon asked, though their connection and her previous view of Suzie's cards meant she likely had a few guesses. "I mean, besides me, of course."
"Just thinking," Suzie answered as she turned to her right and started walking.
"About what?"
"More just in the general sense." Suzie paused after only a few steps, stopping to lean herself against the wall. "I don't even know what I'm worried about. Tonight's just another night."
"Still, it doesn't hurt to be prepared," Lopmon replied warmly, a soft smile appearing on her face.
Suzie paused, looking down at the floor and then back up at her partner. "I feel like I've forgotten how to do that."
Lopmon shrugged. "Maybe you have."
"Well that's not very encouraging."
"I-I was going for honest." Lopmon nervously scratched her face, clearly still not completely comfortable with being forward despite years of encouragement and practice.
Suzie sighed. "I guess everyone else would agree with you."
"The others want you to think through your actions, which isn't wrong, but that doesn't mean you should ignore your instincts," Lopmon explained, gaining her confidence back. "I still trust them, and so should you."
"Which is fine until I screw something up again." Suzie's eyes were drawn to the cards attached to her waist.
"And that's when your friends step in to help you," Ai's voice suddenly chimed in, drawing Suzie's attention to the left where her, Mako, and Impmon stood just outside the infirmary.
"Besides, it's not like we haven't beaten Diaboromon before," Mako added casually as he and his sister moved to stand on opposite sides of Suzie.
Ai frowned and shook her head. "Mako, we almost didn't make it out of that fight."
"Eh," Impmon piped up as leaned against the wall next to Mako. "We was outnumbered that go around. Now we got the numbers advantage."
"Good to know someone isn't lacking confidence," Lopmon commented quietly, in one of her rare instances of sarcasm.
Suzie giggled under her breath, though kept her focus on Ai and Mako. Nods and smiles were exchanged between the three of them, assurances that the twins had Suzie's back and that she had never doubted that fact.
They might have even gotten around to verbalizing some of those thoughts had the lights above their heads not started to flicker.
Jeri caught up to them just as Suzie hit the call button on the elevator, with a halfhearted story about wanting to take a walk. Suzie couldn't think of a reason to try and dissuade her from joining them, and with Kenta having apparently volunteered to keep Kazu company, she supposed it wouldn't hurt to have one of the older kids present.
After a short walk following stepping off the elevator, their group was standing in front of another security checkpoint. A few minutes of bureaucracy later, they were allowed entry to the main Hypnos hub, which seemed to be as busy as could be expected given the day's events so far.
"Jeri!" Calumon's voice broke through all the noise as he flew over to greet them.
"I've been wondering what you've been up to," Jeri replied as the little Digimon landed in her hands.
"I'm helping Tally fix her flying chair," Calumon beamed as they moved to the center of the room.
"He's quite the attentive supervisor," Tally confirmed, a wire stripper in one hand and a handful of cords in the other. By the look of things, her control panel had seen better days.
"What brings you up here?" Yamaki asked calmly, not moving any closer from his spot in the middle of the hub.
"Just a hunch," Suzie answered innocently, rocking back and forth on her heels as she glanced over the many monitors around her. While she was far from a tech expert, she liked to think that living with Henry and her father would help her spot something if it were out of place. "Is the electric bill payed up?"
Yamaki held is vision on her for about half a second before looking upwards again. "The building's power faltered right before Diaboromon bio-emerged. We're running diagnostics and internal scans as a precaution."
"Internal scans as in something might have found its way into this building?" Jeri asked, remaining calm though clearly at attention.
"Like he said, just a precaution," Riley called down from her workstation.
"But what if we do got a visitor?" Impmon insisted.
"Building security is increasing patrols in key areas."
"We should be helping them," Suzie stated, both firmly and instinctively. "A wild Digimon smart enough to get in here is too dangerous for them to face alone."
Yamaki nodded. "Have the security checkpoint give you radios on the way out, to keep in touch."
"Alice sent up some info to narrow our search parameters," Riley relayed down to them. "Should I tell the away team to come back in?"
"Negative." Yamaki clicked his lighter. "A wild Mega still takes priority. Check in with them and tell them to redouble their search efforts."
Suzie had no intention of sitting around and waiting for more orders to be doled out. With one last look to Ai and Mako to make sure they were on the same page, she turned back around to the hub's entrance.
Suzie poked her nose into a couple empty office cubicles, which were apparently workstations for daytime staff that didn't factor into dealing directly with the threats Hypnos defended against. Whichever department this was, however, it didn't seem to be the intended target.
Looking over her shoulder, Jeri followed just a step behind, having chosen to partner up with Suzie while Ai and Mako took the floor above. No reports from them or the building's security had been made, and with Riley having said she let them know the second anything abnormal was detected, all that they seemed to have been left with was an uncomfortable silence.
"You know you don't have to be searching with us, right?" Suzie told Jeri, a voice in the back of her head feeling as though the words needed to be said.
Jeri shrugged aloofly. "Well, I can't very well search alone, especially with Calumon moonlighting as a Hypnos tech."
"You know what I mean." Suzie didn't need to be psychic or even particularly intuitive to see through the older girl's deflection.
"I do, on both counts." Jeri's expression became a bit more muted, not quite sad but also not happy either. "Sometimes I forget you're about as old as we were when the Digimon first appeared."
Suzie hesitated, knowing full well that Jeri knew better than anyone that her place wasn't in the field. If Suzie was being completely honest, though, she preferred having Jeri around over her other older teammates. Jeri listened to and heard everything she had to say and always looked to her as a capable member of the team, which alone was a stark contrast to Henry's overbearing personality, Rika's attitude, and Takato's short temper. Of course, there were more factors to consider than just that.
"It's not that I don't want you around," Suzie said eventually, just managing to keep eye-contact. "I'm just worried I can't protect you as well as the others could."
That worry was justified as far as Suzie was concerned. She and Lopmon still hadn't bio-merged, or even gotten the latter to digivolve to Mega like Impmon could. Granted, this wasn't something they had ever actively pursued, but it was still a disadvantage they carried into a fight. Adding that to the questions the Ophanimon card hard raised in regards to Lopmon's origins and latent potential, Suzie wasn't sure she was fit to be protecting anyone.
Jeri's smile suddenly came back. "Funny, but that's almost word for word what I was thinking."
"Where does that leave us?" Lopmon piped up softly.
"That depends," Jeri replied with another shrug. "You guys mind humoring me while I try anyway."
Suzie slowly smiled, a feeling similar to what she had felt earlier with Ai and Mako coming up. Despite her obvious restrictions, Suzie still trusted Jeri, and knowing Jeri, it was that same sentiment she was trying to communicate.
"We got something," Riley's voice said through the radio in Suzie's hand. "At about the same time the lights flickered, a maintenance log appeared on our main internal server, which is not something we would have approved given current circumstances."
"Then what's the play?" Suzie asked into the radio.
"The server's on the floor just below the main hub. I'll meet you there."
Without waiting for any kind of confirmation from one another, they made a beeline straight for the nearest stairwell. Conversation didn't pick back up, the only audible sound from them being their footfalls as they ran upstairs. Suzie couldn't help but a feel a little uneasy, mostly for the typical reasons associated with running into battle with an unknown enemy, but something else was poking the back of her brain that she couldn't quite place.
The line of thought didn't have any time to go any further as they rounded a corner and arrived at an empty security station in front of an open door. Riley arrived at about the same time, though any greetings were cut short by screaming coming from the server room.
"Ai!" Suzie yelled as it clicked who the voice belonged to. She barged inside, and became instantly aware of what had triggered that reaction from her friend.
Two members of the Hypnos security staff lay completely still on the ground. Ai knelt down in front of them, hands clasped over her mouth and eyes wide with shock. Mako steadied himself against a nearby wall, though didn't take his eyes off the scene either.
"No, no…" Ai muttered.
"Guys, we don't gotta wait here," Impmon pleaded as he walked to each of his partners and ineffectively tugged at them. He paused when he realized everyone else had stepped inside.
Suzie approached slowly, noting the guards' blank expressions and discoloration around their necks. Whether they had been strangled or had had their necks snapped, Suzie's medical knowledge didn't go deep enough to say. She looked to Jeri, who had a neutral expression on her face as she knelt down next to Ai and put a hand on each of the girl's shoulders. Meanwhile, Riley only paused for about a second before stepping past the bodies and over to a nearby computer monitor.
Letting it all sink in, Suzie found that she was more angry than distraught. Angry at the Digimon that had done this, maybe. Angry at Yamaki for ordering the guards to step inside without one of the Tamers nearby, or if that hadn't been the case, angry at the guards ignoring orders to wait. Angry at herself for being too many steps behind this intruder.
"Contact confirmed," Riley said calmly, pausing to look over her shoulder. "Two casualties in the server room."
"Damage report?" Yamaki replied instantly over the radio.
"None that I can see. It looks like they were trying to access information." Riley hit a few keys, then tilted her head at the monitor. "These are tech specs for the Danger Room."
"Get down there."
It took a false start or two, but the group eventually found their footing again. Now down several floors and moving as a group, the Danger Room wasn't more than a few steps away. Suzie couldn't come up with an idea for what the intruder wanted the Tamers' training facility for. While she understood how impressive the technology was, she didn't know what use a Digimon would have for it.
Once again, though, the line of thought went no further. Just as they began to close on their destination, Lopmon shifted uneasily from her spot on Suzie's shoulder.
"What's wrong, Lop?" Suzie asked as she slowed down slightly.
"Metal footsteps," Lopmon answered, throwing herself upwards without a moment's hesitation.
She began to spin rapidly, the little brown twister making contact making contact with the nearest ceiling panel. The impact caused the panel to fall out of place, and with it, a lamp-sized cylinder with arms and legs fell at their feet.
With a mostly metallic body and glass casing making up the top of its head, Suzie didn't need her D-Power to identify Datamon. While not particularly intimidating, she knew she was facing an Ultimate and made it a point to not let her guard down.
"Quite perceptive," Datamon said as he picked himself up. "Though now I know what areas my Data Cloud falls short in."
"Think on it while you still can!" Riley snapped as she took a step towards the Digimon. "This is your first and last eviction notice!"
"After all the strings I pulled to distract you from my materialization, do you really think I'll scare so easily?" Datamon raised his hands up, in some kind of ready position. "I've already dirtied by hands with your human germs once today, and I'll gladly do so again."
"You're nothing but a little monster," Ai growled, with a quiet anger that Suzie had never seen from her friend.
"Am I now?" Datamon's voice quieted some as he narrowed his vision. "And what is it you intend to do with me then?"
"Take you down!" Mako shouted as he moved to stand next to his sibling. "Impmon!"
"Right!" Impmon leapt forward to position himself in front of his partners, all three ready to charge forward.
Suzie suddenly realized what was about to happen. "No, guys, wait-!"
Too little, too late as Mako clamped a hand down on the DigiVice Ai was already holding. It lit up, as did Impmon, giving way to his digivolution into Beelzemon.
It was at the end of the process, however, that the flaw in their plan became evident. Beelzemon finished his transformation in hunched-over position, the only way he could fit in this hallway. If everyone's current lack of mobility wasn't concerning, Datamon's grin at facing a Mega certainly was.
The little metal Digimon sprang forward, latching himself onto Beelzemon's face. Using all the strength and momentum he had and then some, he pulled Beelzemon downward, shifting just enough to slam the Mega's face into the floor.
With the same motion, Datamon outstretched a free hand, launching tiny missiles from his fingertips and blowing the nearest door off its hinges. Before the smoke could clear, he scampered through the doorway.
"He's going for the Danger Room," Suzie grunted as she climbed over Beelzemon.
"Go after him!" Riley called out. "I'll head for the control console and try to lock him out."
Suzie didn't even bother to give an affirmation. With Lopmon in tow, she sprinted forward and down a small stairway, eventually emerging in the room in question.
Deactivated as it was, the Danger Room was just a paneled box, with completely blank surfaces save for the observation window where the control console was located. At its current scale, it was large enough that Antylamon could fit inside it, but not big enough that she would be able to effectively fight. Suzie was considering the use Lopmon's Champion form when the sound of a panel being ripped off a wall directed her attention to the opposite side of the room.
"Contemptable fleshbags," Datamon said irritably as wires from his own person seemed to integrate into circuitry he had just exposed. "You unleash your D-Reaper on our territory, our world, and then deem it fit to exterminate us when we attempt to find sanctuary elsewhere."
"What is your plan here?" Suzie asked, her and Lopmon carefully stepping closer to their enemy.
"Retaking what you stole from us." Datamon paused, looking around the room before grinning again. "I begrudgingly admit that what you stole you also improved upon, though that only makes it more fitting that we use it to destroy you."
Suzie grabbed her DigiVice. "Is that all you need to hear, Lop?"
On cue, Lopmon flew forward, though Datamon didn't so much as flinch. With a gesture of his hand, the Danger Room came to life, rocky surfaces now coating the walls. Said walls began to shift around them, causing both Suzie and Lopmon to hold in place, at least until it became clear what was about to happen.
"Lop, brace yourself!" Suzie called out, reflexively ducking down and trying to shield her head with hands.
Not that she expected that to do much as the walls and ceiling came crashing downwards with the obvious intent of crushing them, though luckily, the impact never came. Opening her eyes again, Suzie saw the walls slowing down and even retracting some.
"Persistent fleas," Datamon muttered, slack on the wires attached to him giving him room to walk away from the wall he was plugged into.
Suzie stood up straight, also noticing some slight shaking and distortion on the walls around them. If she had to put money on something, her bet was that this was Riley's doing. Their cave-like surroundings never faded, but Riley's save had left them a tunnel right towards Datamon.
As Datamon continued his clumsy hand gestures, individual rocks began to wriggle themselves free from the walls, indicating that he still had some control over the environment. Feeling current circumstances were more than manageable, Suzie pulled the first few cards from the top of her deck and picked the one she thought would be most helpful.
"Digi-modify!" Suzie slashed the Gatomon card through her D-Power, just as the rocks began to fly.
With her new catlike reflexes, Lopmon ducked and dodged out of the way, eventually leaping closer to Datamon. Now within striking range, she pulled her arm back.
"LIGHTNING PAW!"
Lopmon threw her punch, clocking Datamon in the face and sending him sliding backwards. Extending one of his mechanical hands, Datamon tried to counterattack, though Lopmon was able to easily sidestep out of the way. Closing the distance again, her tiny fist connected a second time and managed to knock her opponent off his feet.
Clearly annoyed but not defeated, Datamon stretched his arm out in Suzie's direction. Feeling the rocks beneath her feet start to loosen some, Suzie returned her attention to her surroundings. Nearly tripping over herself as the rock under her foot gave way, Suzie dove and rolled aside, just barely dodging the rocks falling from above her head.
"Suzie!" Lopmon desperately called back to her.
"You traitors are too easily distracted!" Datamon taunted, having taken the opportunity pick up a sizable rock himself and slam it on top of Lopmon.
Her partner now pinned and barely back on her own feet, Suzie tried to think of a new plan. What ended up worrying her most wasn't so much that she had no ideas, but that one specific one stood out to her, and it was sitting at the bottom of her stack of modify cards.
Suzie was nervous that her earlier doubts and the corner she was backed into were coloring her thoughts, and that there was a more obvious answer she was overlooking, which didn't even account for the unknown side effects the Celestial energy would have in their current setting. Still, control of the Danger Room gave Datamon too huge an advantage, and they needed a way to flip the fight upside-down, either by wrestling control away from him or shunting him out of it.
Unfortunately, Suzie had let herself hesitate. Another rock fell towards her, grazing her arm and causing her to drop her DigiVice. Before she could reach to grab it again, Datamon's mechanical hand extended towards her, grabbing her by the throat and dragging her back towards him.
"As I said, only fitting," Datamon said sadistically as he squeezed.
Too far away to even ineffectually kick at the Digimon, Suzie grabbed and pried at the hand currently choking her. She couldn't think, not even having enough air to cough. The thoughts she could form were less fear of her death and more disappointment in it. After everything she had been through, she didn't want to die, not here and not like this. She wanted to keep fighting, and she felt like she could make it happen if she had just a little more leeway.
Just as her vision started to dim, almost as though her thoughts had been heard, a purple blur arched over her head and landed next to the arm that was holding Lopmon in place.
"Guess who's back, bucket head!" Impmon shouted as he grabbed hold of the arm and tugged hard.
Suzie felt the vice grip on her throat loosen some, not enough that she could free herself but enough that she could breathe. She glanced in the direction Impmon had come from, finding a small but significant hole had been taken out the digital zone, also likely courtesy of Riley. Through it, she could see the Danger Room's entrance, as well as Ai and Mako holding their D-Power and whatever modify card had made their partner so spry.
There was some movement behind them, but Suzie found her eyeline drawn forward again. Behind Datamon, Jeri approached holding a fire extinguisher, which she bashed into the shoulder that was holding Suzie upward.
"Let her go!" Jeri slammed the extinguisher down a second time, this time succeeding in getting Datamon to release Suzie so he could swing at her instead.
Suzie dropped to the ground, though not before noticing the gap in the digital zone get slightly bigger. Adrenaline kicking back in little by little, Suzie sat upwards, seeing that Datamon had knocked Jeri backwards some and was approaching her.
"And what did you expect to accomplish with that?" he asked, almost manically.
"This." Jeri aimed the fire extinguisher, this time using it for its designed function, spraying the wiring connecting Datamon to the Danger Room before turning it on the Digimon.
Datamon raised his right arm to block the foam, not hurt but now overtly angry. He screeched and grabbed for Jeri.
"BLAZING ICE!"
Suzie turned at the sound of one of her partner's signature attacks. In the chaos, Impmon had finally lifted the rock on top of Lopmon, giving her a chance to flash-freeze the extinguisher foam.
Significantly slowed but not stopped, Datamon continued at a crawl's pace towards Jeri. He might have reached her, had another metal arm not entered the fray, essentially chopping off Datamon's frozen arm and the frozen wiring in one swing.
"Hands off the lady, brigand!" Guardromon commanded.
Datamon screeched again, bringing around his remaining hand and letting loose another handful of little missiles. Guardromon grabbed Jeri to shield her, though the barrage never made contact, intercepted by a heart-shaped barrier. Suzie looked to her left one more time to confirm Kenta and MarineAngemon's presence.
It was at this point that the rock tunnel around them began to dissolve, confirmation that Riley had regained control. Datamon's eyes darted around the room like he had lost his sense of direction.
"No…" he hissed, a new set of wires ejecting from him as he scrambled back to the exposed wall panel.
Now officially done with whatever game their intruder was playing, Suzie looked over her shoulder and located her missing D-Power. Knowing exactly what needed to be done, she dove backwards and reclaimed the device. Her throat sore and muscles aching, she pulled out her now infamous Ophanimon card and swiped it with no fanfare.
As Datamon plugged back in, Lopmon began to glow, white tendrils emitting from her person and embedding themselves into the digital landscape. The zone began to condense, phasing through all of the room's occupants but one.
Like a gravity well, the Danger Room's contents crashed into Datamon. His last screams sounded incoherent to Suzie, though she admitted that could have been because she had zero interest in anything he had left to say.
Eventually, the digital remnants dissipated, leaving the Tamers and their partners surrounded by nothing but a paneled box. With that, Suzie finally let herself exhale.
"So where did you send him?" Suzie asked her partner, who had returned to her spot on top of her head as they walked back to Hypnos' main hub. Her voice was raspy and it still hurt a little bit to talk, but Suzie's curiosity got the better of her.
"I don't think I sent him anywhere," Lopmon answered as she thoughtfully scratched her chin.
"How's that?" Impmon chimed in. "Didn't you use them crackly Sovereign powers of yours?"
Lopmon stared off into space. "Well, yes, but once I had my footing, I didn't see the need to push past any dimensional barriers. I just felt Datamon pushing and I pushed back."
"So basically you sent him to oblivion," Suzie summarized, unable to resist putting on a playful smile.
"Please don't phrase it like that." Lopmon hid her face behind her ears, possibly even blushing under her fur. "You're making me sound like one of my old coworkers."
Suzie found herself laughing and coughing at the same time.
"So's warpin' reality somethin' she can just do now?" Impmon asked, causing all of them to perk up and listen attentively. Eventually, all eyes fell on Riley.
"That might be more a question for Shibumi," she offered, raising her hands defensively. "Though I know the Danger Room distorts space, so might have been more of a tandem effect with the environment you were occupying."
Suzie was okay with accepting that explanation for the time being. She knew Henry would have plenty of questions and theories once they relayed the story to him, so it wouldn't hurt to leave the subject on a shelf for a little while.
Besides, it was at that point that they made it to their destination. Stepping back into the hub, it was about as busy as when they had left, which Suzie couldn't quite decide if she would label as reassuring or disconcerting.
"Did we find that Diaboromon?" Riley asked as they made it too the center of the room.
"We have another problem," Yamaki replied without taking his eyes off the map of the city. "Our guest sent a sizable data packet out from inside the Danger Room."
Riley's eyes lit up as she looked upwards. "Can we trace it?"
"Easily," Tally answered, now back in her usual chair with Calumon sitting on the headrest. "Little glitch must have been in a hurry."
"Where'd it go?" Ai asked nervously.
"Looks like somewhere in Ichigaya."
"Ichigaya?" Suzie muttered to herself, something about that section of the city clicking in her mind. She couldn't place why at first, but then the events of the day started to fall together, forming a very specific picture.
First had just been Datamon's tone and demeanor. While the Tamers had struck down many wild Digimon over the years, he didn't seem to be talking in the general sense when he brought up their actions. His experience with them seemed more personal than that.
Then there was his fixation on the Danger Room. Hypnos had not limited their studies to digital fields when developing it, branching out to any and all digital phenomenon they came across, and Tamers had had run ins with quite a few.
Lastly was just the simple web of different evolutionary lines all Digimon were capable of. There were plenty of different Digimon that Datamon could potentially digivolve from and into, but one possible Mega form was currently staring them right in the face.
"What's wrong, Suzie?" Jeri asked suddenly, likely having picked up on how lost in thought she was.
To be fair, Suzie couldn't blame Jeri for not instantly hitting the same conclusion she had. While Jeri had been given plenty of first hand accounts on the day of the incident, she had missed it in its entirety. Suzie herself hadn't even been at the center of the invasion, though memories of it still stood out. Her throat still sore, she summarized with a single word:
"Parasimon."