Thank you so much to Lonelydreamer27, "yumi" (anonymous), "macfanboy" (anonymous), and ulrich4me for reviewing. When I saw that you reviewed, I started jumping up and down in my living room and my mom thought I was going crazy. Since I was so happy, I decided to start working on the next chapter. I hope you like it!
I don't own Code Lyoko.
Chapter 2
Jeremy and Aelita spent all night looking for Yumi. Still, they hadn't found a trace of her, and Jeremy was starting to lose hope.
"Jeremy, we have to keep trying," Aelita said. "Maybe she found a Replika and is safe on it."
"She's never going to be safe until we find her!" He yelled at the keyboard. "There's still so much we don't understand. Yumi could be virtualized, controlled by XANA, or worse, for all we know!" Jeremy was shaking; he was so frustrated.
Aelita slowly backed away, unsure of what to do. This wasn't the Jeremy she had grown to know... even love. Jeremy never became angry or flustered. He always had a clear head.
Jeremy turned and saw the hurt in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Aelita," he said. "I don't know what came over me. I just feel like I truly failed this time. Yumi might never come back."
Aelita only nodded. "Well, why don't you take a break. I'll take over and you can find us some breakfast." She raised her arms over her head and stretched.
Aelita was completely taken aback when she felt Jeremy's arms around her. He held her to him, almost to the point of crushing her. "Jeremy, what are you—"
"Every time I stop thinking of what I have to do, what to try next, I keep wondering what would have happened if you were the one to disappear," Jeremy said. He sighed and laid his head on her shoulder. Aelita was surprised to feel tears in his eyes. "I think I understand how Ulrich feels."
The two were interrupted when they heard a frantic beeping coming from the supercomputer.
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When he woke up, Ulrich decided to climb the wall in the gym. He needed to get his mind off Yumi.
Now, it was about three hours later, and it wasn't helping much. All he could think about was that one class when they all had to climb the wall. Yumi had reached the top, smiling and making a peace sign as everyone clapped below. Ulrich kept going, each hand reaching for the next hold. He wanted to make it to the top, even if it kills him.
The sudden ringing of his cell phone almost made him fall off the wall. He pulled it out of his pocket and up to his ear after the third ring. "Jeremy? Did you find anything?"
"No… well, not exactly."
"Then why in the world are you calling me?!"
"If you could settle down for a moment, I was going to tell you that we have an activated tower."
Ulrich hung up with an exasperated sigh, then jumped down and ran towards the factory.
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About ten minutes later, they were all standing around the supercomputer… minus Yumi.
"So, if XANA is controlling Yumi, we'll know when William comes to attack us," Aelita explained.
"All right!!!" Odd yelled, jumping up and down. "Time for some hardcore interrogation. You know, I've been working on my Good Cop, Bad Cop…"
"That won't be necessary, Odd," Jeremy said while typing on the keyboard. "I've created a new program that will constantly monitor one's digital trace. It should work on Lyoko and in the entire digital sea."
"So it's like a tracking device?" Ulrich asked.
"Exactly," Jeremy replied. "We just need a fresh bit of William's digital trace. I think he'll take the bait."
"Bait?" Odd repeated, confused.
Aelita nodded, smiling. "We activated the tower. Just before we called, Jeremy had finished installing the program. Naturally XANA will want to use the tower, so they'll send William. Didn't you notice that nothing unusual was happening this time?"
"Huh. I guess I didn't," Odd replied. "Wow, you two really outdone yourselves this time!"
"Where are we going this time?" Ulrich asked, impatient to start.
Jeremy brought up a window on the screen. "The mountain sector. Head to the scanner room."
The three headed to the elevator. "Okay, transfer, Ulrich. Transfer, Odd. Transfer, Aelita. Scanner, Ulrich. Scanner, Odd. Scanner, Aelita." Jeremy hit the ENTER button on the keyboard. "Virtualization."
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"Hey, Jeremy, we've been here for a while," Ulrich asked a half hour later.
Jeremy checked the radar. "Maybe XANA is smarter than we thought." Right when he said that, four blinking red dots showed on the radar. "Oh, wait, four boxes at five o'clock."
Ulrich smiled. "Hmm. I guess I spoke too soon." He pulled the swords from his back, running to meet their foes.
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Yumi was surprised to find that there wasn't a key lock like the other Replikas. Just a small tunnel shooting up and into whatever was up there. She had to do a belly crawl, but now she was staring in awe at what was before her.
The vast area before her was made of bits and pieces of all the different sectors. Around the edges were copies of the forest, mountain, desert, and ice sectors. In the center was a duplicate of Sector 5, the twists and turns in the walls molding themselves into a building. Yumi ran toward it, looking to see what was there.
Coming up to the door, she noticed that there was a handprint sensor. Oh well, I might as well give it a shot. Pressing her hand to the plate, she ducked down to escape the alarms.
Surprisingly, there was none. Instead, the doors opened without a hitch. Cautiously, Yumi entered the building. When she turned a corner, she almost came face to face with a couple of crawlers. Not something you want to do every day. She jumped back, just nearly escaping them. Looking out a window, she noticed three mantines circling the building. She hadn't seen those before. Of course there'd be security. Better be careful.
After a few more twists and turns, she came up to another door, this time with a keypad. Pressing her luck, she keyed in the numbers for XANA, 9262. The doors opened once again. I guess luck is on my side today.
Inside the room was another supercomputer, just like the one in the factory.
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All of the boxes had been destroyed except one, and now their job would be even harder.
"Here comes Mr. Sunshine," Odd remarked. It was true. Coming up behind them was William, riding on top of a tarantula. He jumped off and faced them.
"So, I guess I've been tricked," William said in his evil voice.
"Oh no, what made you think that?" Odd asked. William scowled at him, which made him back away.
A low sound, almost a growl, came from Ulrich's throat. "Where is she?"
William laughed. "I guess you're talking about Yumi. You know, a certain shark of mine told me that he had a little encounter with her yesterday."
Aelita was now furious, which was completely unlike her. "What happened to Yumi?"
William shrugged. "How should I know? The tide swept her away before my shark could do any damage." He turned to Ulrich. "Face it, your girlfriend's as good as gone."
With a loud cry, Ulrich launched himself at William. He pulled both of his swords out to face William's large one. As William swung at him, Ulrich flipped backwards onto his feet. William turned into smoke and followed him. They faced each other again, each swinging and blocking the other's attacks.
"Ugh, no one says that about Yumi and gets away with it!" Odd shouted, loading his paws with arrows to help Ulrich.
Aelita held out an arm to stop him. "Stop, Odd. You can't help him. Ulrich has to fight this battle for himself."
Odd stayed back, but he wasn't too happy about it.
Suddenly, William seemed to be distracted by something. Using this as an opening, Ulrich lunged with his sword, and William disappeared.
Ulrich sheathed his swords and straightened up, breathing heavily. "Jeremy, did you get the trace?"
"Yep," Jeremy replied. "Hook, line, and sinker."
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Yumi couldn't believe what was on this supercomputer. She was really thankful that Jeremy made them learn how to work it, or she wouldn't have understood anything. There was so much information of here, if she didn't know any better, she would say that Jeremy had been there!
Deciding to figure out where she was, she pulled up the radar, but it was of the mountain sector. Why would XANA have radar like this? But wait, someone was there. She counted a box, a tarantula, and… four red dots. That must be Aelita, Odd, and Ulrich! But was the other one William? No wonder she hadn't seen him yet.
Suddenly, all the dots vanished. She knew she had to get out of the room. Running to the doors, she opened them and ran straight into…
"Well, I finally found you," William said while holding her. She involuntarily flinched. His voice was so menacing.
Other than that, she was speechless. "William…"
William yanked on her arm, hauling her outside. He pulled her to the edge and was about to throw her off when—
All of a sudden, he fell to the ground, clutching his head. Yumi was so surprised that she was motionless. She couldn't do anything to help him.
After about half a minute, he finally stopped twitching, and slowly sat up. Tilting his head up to look at her, she noticed that his eyes were clear. "Yumi?" he asked, this time in his normal voice.
Yumi blinked, making sure this wasn't a dream. She also pinched herself before staring back at him. "What… w-what hap—"
He chuckled, not an evil one, but more cheerfully, like he used to be. "Come on, Yumi, you don't really expect me to be under XANA's control all the time, do you?"
Yumi could only stare back, at a loss for words.
Yay!! Second chapter done! So, what do you think? I hope you liked the fluff. The Jeremy and Aelita part came earlier than planned, but I just got the idea in my head, so I had to use it. Also, I hope the fight scene wasn't too bad. I'm not very good at that, so I tried to avoid most of it. Thanks so much for reading! Please review!
Tamiro :D