"Well that sucked," Yumi said as the gang left the factory.

Odd looked at her quizzically. "What are you talking about?" he asked. "We deactivated the tower, we stopped the bad guy and we won. How does that suck?"

Yumi sighed. "Ulrich got stabbed in the head. I got a stomach piercing I didn't want. There's a new enemy that explodes and Jeremie had to modify his radar before he could see it. Despite our win, I'd like to think that qualifies as 'suck.'"

"Doesn't matter," Ulrich piped up. "A W is still a W."

Yumi rolled her eyes and shook her head. She knew that the end result was all that really mattered. However, she would have liked it if it was done in a cleaner manner. Rather than continue the debate, she decided to move on and change the subject. "So, Jeremie, any idea on what we should be doing next?" she asked.

Jeremie frowned as he entered into a state of deep thought. The group fell silent in order for him not to break his concentration and because they were also anxious to hear what the plan was going to be. After a few moments, Jeremie had an answer. "Nothing."

Everyone in the group was surprised by the answer, especially Aelita since she always thought of Jeremie as the type of person to have two or three plans going on in his head at the same time. "What do you mean by 'nothing?'" she inquired.

"Look what happened today," he explained. "The radar failed to pick up those red hornets until I went in and modified the code. When you guys sent out those nanobots a while back, they had returned with plenty of new information. The first time I looked at it, I thought that it was just useless code and ignored it. However, after what happened today, I realized that XANA did more than just tweak Lyoko. He's been modifying everything so much that it's made our current programs close to useless now."

"That's why we can't do anything?" Ulrich asked.

"Well, you guys can't do anything outside of reacting to a XANA attack," he answered. "I've got to spend some time implementing the new code that the nanobots found into all of our programs. The radar, the bestiary, everything. I can't promise that the process will be quick but I'll do the best I can."

Yumi grunted. "In the meantime, I say we go and try to find out exactly where William's scanning point is."

Ulrich turned to her an raised an eyebrow. "Talk about trying to find a needle in a haystack. That could be anywhere in this city. How do we know where to start looking?" he asked.

"I haven't thought about that yet," she admitted. "I just know that we've got to find out where he's virtualizing from sooner or later. If we're only going to react to XANA attacks, then we might as well use the rest of the time trying to figure out everything about William." The gang walked a few more blocks before stopping short of a house. "Well, this is my stop. I'll see you guys tomorrow," she said as she headed for the side of her house.

"You didn't go through the front of your house?" Ulrich asked.

Yumi shook her head as she stopped and turned around to address him. "My parents don't know I'm out either so sneaking in is the only option."

"What about you little brother?" he asked.

"Don't worry about him," she replied, grinning. "We made a deal. He stops trying to rat me out, I give him pointers on how to hook up with Milly." With that, she turned back around and began the climb up the side of her house.

Ulrich stood there as he watched her climb. He had seen her climb up cliffs and monsters taller than her house a million times on Lyoko. Yet seeing her climb in the real world gave him a sense of awe and wonder. Every step she took made him smile and wish that he was right there climbing alongside her. Before he could linger on those thoughts, he felt the sharp sting of a hand flying at high speed across the back of his head. He turned around to find Odd giving him strange looks.

"We have to get back too, you know, before Jim catches us," he reminded him.

The brunette rubbed the back of his head as he turned around to catch one last glimpse of the friend he admired from afar. As soon as he had seen her climb through her bedroom window, he turned around and caught up with the rest of his party.

Odd turned to his friend as he slowed down to walk beside him. "You know, your girlfriend..."

"She's not my girlfriend!" he was quick to remind him. "We're just very good friends."

Odd sighed. "Fine. Your 'friend' still seems to be obsessing over William lately. Does she still think it's her fault that William turned on us like that?"

Ulrich responded with a sigh of his own. "I keep telling her that it's not her fault. No matter how many times she tells me that she understands, deep down I think that a little bit of her still blames herself for all this."

"I hope she can get over it," the purple-blonde-haired boy replied.

"I hope so," he said as they all made their way to campus to prepare for a good night's sleep. "I really hope so."


Author's Notes

Fairly short chapter this time around. I'm using the chapter split as a way to shift scenes instead of using a line break to show a passage of time or change in scenery. It's a cleaner feel for me. This chapter also establishes a few things that will not only happen later in the fic but in the overall series as well. Much like the previous fics, I'm a big fan of continuity so don't be surprised to see plenty of ties in each fic.

The next chapter is going to be longer than this, that's for sure. If anything, you'll have an understanding for why this fic has this title.