Chapter 2

Jeremy's head was throbbing as he opened his eyes. The sickeningly sweet smell of some sort of gas made him wince, and there was the sensation of something hairy pressed against his leg. As he sat up, he discovered that that something was Odd's head. Propping himself up, he gave the younger boy a gentle shove.

Odd stirred. "Ugh… Jeremy? W-where are we?"

"I don't know, Odd," answered Jeremy. Then he remembered everything: Fazbear's Fright, the disappearing child, the school trip…

The school trip! Jeremy's eyes darted to his wristwatch.

"Eleven forty five!" he exclaimed. "The tour ended hours ago! How could they have left without us?"

"Oh no!" agreed Odd. "We're dead meat, Jeremy! Jim's gonna kill us all for sure!"

Suddenly, from behind them came the sounds of moans and groans. The boys spun around in a flash, only to find the rest of their friends waking up.

"Where… is this?" Aelita moaned.

"Ugh… that kid!" Yumi grumbled. "I knew there was something I didn't like about 'em. And what's that weird smell?"

Jeremy took another whiff of the mystery odor. "Halothene vapor," he announced. "Sleeping gas. So that kid led us into a dark room and knocked us out, but why didn't the group come looking for us after we disappeared? And how are we gonna get out of here?"

The room was pitch black, save only for the moonlight cast upon them through a single window. Then…

"Hey guys! I found something!" Ulrich called out.

A sliver of white light could be seen stretching across the floor from Ulrich's location.

"Well, it looks like we found a door!" said Jeremy. "Let's hope it leads to a way out of this place…"

There was a pause as Jeremy fumbled around in the dark in search of the doorknob, but finally he found it and pushed the door open. A glare of light enveloped the Lyoko warriors, and their jaws dropped to the floor.

…

The door swung open to reveal a small room, flanked on all sides by electric equipment. In the center of the room stood a small table mounted by a large computer. Several large wires snaked from the monitor down across the table, their terminus a large, circular metal disc that lay on the ground before them.

Aelita recognized it instantly. "A scanner!"

Jeremy was stunned. "H-how is this possible?" he exclaimed, flabbergasted. Fazbear animatronics possessed by XANA were one thing, but… after all this time, could this place, the very heart of Fazbear Entertainment, have some special connection to Lyoko?!

Yumi approached the discovery and began inspecting it. "Looks older than the ones we've been using at the factory. Wonder if it works just the same!"

"Well, only one way to find out!" yelled Odd, and he marched up onto the disc. "Fire away, Jeremy!"

"Hold your horses, Odd," said Jeremy. "We're not even sure if this thing actually works. Besides, we don't have time to play around, we need to find-"

Without warning, a jolt of electricity erupted from the computer, enveloping Odd in its surges, and the blast flung the other Lyoko warriors backwards.

"ODD!" Aelita screamed, horrified.

Odd wanted to scream, to run, to do anything but just stand there as the machine sprung to life around him, but for some reason he found himself rooted to the spot. Then he looked down, and with a thrill of terror, he watched as first his feet, then his legs, then his torso were turned to code. The machine was dematerializing him!

The warriors were powerless to watch as their friend slowly faded away, until finally he had disappeared altogether, and the electrical whirring of the scanner had ceased. As if on cue, the computer on the table nearby came to life, with the eerily familiar start-up chime of an 80's-era Apple II.

The time, it read, was 12:00 AM.

…

Odd sat up, blinking. He took in his surroundings: above him, a bright blue sky, dotted with clouds, that seemingly stretched in all directions; below him, an ungainly blue platform. For a moment, he wondered if he was dead. Then he glanced down at his body, only to discover he was clad in the garb of his Lyoko self, and he remembered: he had been virtualized. But… where? This was clearly not Lyoko… so what could it be?

Must be some sort of Replika, Odd thought to himself, when the sudden sound of a voice from behind him derailed his train of thought.

"Come to interrupt our plans for revenge once again, have you?" it spoke, in a high, cold tone that made Odd's hair stand on end- more than usual, anyway.

Startled by the voice, Odd whipped around.

All he needed was a single glance at the gaunt, white-faced figure before him- that was motivation enough to turn and run.

"Trying to escape, are you?" With a giggle of macabre glee, the apparition reappeared out of thin air in front of Odd, its white pupils glaring down at him.

"You can't…"

…

"Odd!" Aelita continued to yell as she sunk to the ground, pounding the scanner as if doing so long and hard enough was going to bring him back.

"It's hopeless, Aelita," Jeremy said solemnly. "Odd's gone. Probably permanently deleted. You saw it yourself, there's no way to recover him once he's data's been-"

"Don't say that, Jeremy! Can't you see Aelita's losing it?!" shrieked Yumi, as she attempted to comfort Aelita, who only continued to wail, kicking the scanner hard.

Suddenly, a window appeared on the monitor. "AIR SECTOR ONLINE- AWAITING DATA TRANSMISSION" it read, with a graphical display more than a little reminiscent of an old Atari game system.

"Wait, hold up! Guys, something's happening!" yelled Ulrich.

Jeremy dashed to the computer. "I don't believe it!" he gasped. "It's Odd! And it looks like he's in some kind of Replika on Lyoko!"

"So… that means this scanner really is tied to Lyoko somehow?" asked Ulrich.

"Either that, or a very archaic Lyoko prototype of some sort," Jeremy concluded. "I still don't know how this older hardware works, though. I'm gonna need some time to figure it out before I can bring Odd back. For now, why don't the three of you look around this place and see if you can find a way out?"

"We're on it! Come on, Aelita," said Yumi, helping the pinkette to her feet. Ulrich led the way out of the computer area and back to the room where they had awoken, and after much stumbling around in the dark, they found what appeared to be a door. Yumi gave the door a firm shove, and it swung open with a loud creak. A sign on the door, illuminated in the faint glow of the hallway lights, read "SECURITY".

"Huh. So how did we end up in the Security Office?" wondered Ulrich aloud, when a noise at the end of the hall interrupted him.

Curiously, Aelita took two steps toward the noise- then she froze with fright, as the eerie shadow of a humanlike form was cast upon the wall. A human form, with a pair of odd protrusions above its head- two long, almost rabbit-like ears.

"Guys," Aelita whispered. "I don't think we're alone in here…"