Disclaimer: I don't own Code Lyoko.
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"Just what we needed," Odd says under his breath.
He paces, and Yumi looks out once again at the barren landscape. She doesn't see a tower, but they don't always spot it at first. Right?
She draws her other fan, just in case.
"Xana has hidden the tower," Jeremie says. "And I don't mean he's made it invisible. He's stored the data and actually hidden it. I don't believe this! How are we going to find it now?"
Odd wrinkles his nose. "Couldn't we just go to Sector Five?"
Above, there's a sound of euphoria. "Of course! Odd, you're a genius!"
Jeremie's doubtful proclamation only causes Odd to look puzzled, while Yumi cracks up. "Really?" she says, amused.
"Never mind that," he says brusquely. "Hang in there while I transport you."
Odd salutes the empty air. In just a moment the transport orb appears, and all three of them prepare for the turbulent ride to Sector Five.
…
As always, the orb drops them off at the core of Sector Five, nicknamed 'the arena'. The three warriors are deposited in the middle of a large Xana symbol, which always creeps Yumi out. It looks like a giant eyeball.
Clutching his stomach, Odd falls to his knees dramatically. Yumi rolls her eyes but helps him up.
Sector Five: it takes her breath away even though it's unspeakably dangerous and pretty much out to get her. Xana's inner workings make a kaleidoscope of data falling through the air like whitewater. It's intricate and precise. She's always amazed at how easily this sector can rearrange itself into complicated mazes, configured traps. But naturally, it's never a good thing to go on and on about the beauty of something when it'll end up killing you if you don't pay attention.
"Any word from Ulrich yet?" she calls to Jeremie.
"Nothing."
Yumi tries to hold it back, but she's starting to get worried. What if Ulrich has fallen victim to a Xana attack, and that's why he hasn't shown up, or called? The possibility eats away at her and she almost tunes out Jeremie's voice as he instructs them toward the key.
"It should be straight ahead, about fifty feet in front of you. But watch out. I know our friend Xana well, and he's always got a trick or two up his sleeve."
Sure enough, they can all see the key, staring at them temptingly from across the room. Yumi swallows. The path looks stable, and neither she nor Jeremie has spotted any of the usual monsters yet. Are they hiding? Or maybe there aren't any, because Xana has thought up something that doesn't require any extra help. And then the Scyphozoa will swoop down and steal Aelita's memory, and they'll all be done for.
Positive thoughts, Yumi. Postitive thoughts.
She turns toward her friends. "I'll go first, Aelita in the middle, Odd last. Hopefully we'll be able to spot whatever Xana has planned." Drawing her fans, she takes a hesitant step forward. Nothing earth-shattering happens. Yumi figures that's a good sign.
"When things are quiet, that's when I start to worry," Odd grumbles.
The countdown begins from above. "Two and a half minutes," warns Jeremie.
"Maybe," Aelita suggests, "we should move faster."
Yumi breaks into a run, and that's when all hell breaks loose.
Before she can even react, a block of the floor she's just reached slides into the ground. She just barely has time to jump from it before it dematerializes completely in a shower of fluttering white. Jeremie is probably biting his nails like mad. It's a terrible habit of his.
"Jump!" she yells to Aelita and Odd. The two make it over the first gab just as a second appears, and Yumi has to grab Odd's hands to keep him from slipping. They race towards the key side by side. But it doesn't look like they're going to make it. Desperation fuels Yumi as she dashes, sidestepping the sinking chunks of floor—
She's not careful enough.
Once again, Yumi is grabbing the edge, trying not to fall. This always happens to her. She bites the inside of her lip and hopes that Odd and Aelita keep going. Maybe they'll make it.
"Jeremie," she groans.
"I'm bringing you in." He sounds nervous, which is not very reassuring.
Yumi grits her teeth. There's no time, she thinks. Below her the floor has disappeared. If she drops, it will be straight down into a sea of binary. Probably just like the digital sea, which she's actually fallen into once before.
The stillness was overwhelming. It was like being suspended in a soundproof tank, unable to move or speak or even see. And gradually she began to forget: her name, her age, everything she knew and loved.
She doesn't want that experience again.
"Thirty seconds," announces Jeremie. "Yumi, just hang in there. The program is almost ready."
Her fingers choose that very moment to become very slippery.
Not this time.
But finally she sees her virtual body begin to dissolve, all color melting away from her outline, a cascade of blank fireworks flying from her. "Thanks, Jeremie," she whispers in relief.
Virtualization feels like being taken apart and then stuck back together, like a rough child's puzzle. Devirtualization—Yumi can't even describe it. Basically, it sucks. She wakes up a rag doll curled in her scanner, always with the air choked out of her lungs.
Heart pounding, she gets in the elevator. Jeremie is muttering to himself upstairs as she walks unsteadily over to him. "Did they get it?" She asks him breathlessly. "Did they get the key?"
He nods, obviously a bit preoccupied. "Aelita is getting the tower's information right now. Hurry up, hurry up…" She was right, he is biting his nails. "And I've been trying to reach Ulrich, but no luck. This is bad."
Yumi takes a deep breath. "Okay. I'm going to find him."
"Okay. Go! Quickly."
Instilled with a new sense of urgency, she sprints out of the factory.
…
Yumi hasn't known Ulrich that long. A year and a half, two years maybe. The first time they properly met, she kicked his butt at Pencak Silat and he wouldn't even bow to her afterwards. That was her first run in with Ulrich's pride.
It feels like she's known him forever, though.
She's gotten to know William pretty well, too. But not the way she knows Ulrich. And that's always puzzled Yumi.
Here she is running across the bridge, ducking into the tunnel, leaping onto her skateboard. The sun will go down in about an hour, she has to find Ulrich, but William always edges into her mind somehow. William and Ulrich and their stupid feud.
Maybe Yumi's not very fast, but right now she feels like the wind.