Virtual worlds, crazy computer programs, a girl trapped in the virtual world. It's a short list but that's pretty much the gist of what I learned. The factory is some sort of place that harbors a technologically advanced system that houses Lyoko, a virtual world comprised of various different climate locations, forest, ice, desert and mountain being the ones that the fighting and towers take place in. When I first helped Aelita, the others and all in Lyoko I was pretty overwhelmed by the feelings and stuff for my first time there. The new look, atmosphere, heightened senses and look of the place just made it all so much more surreal, especially being the avid gamer I am.
Speaking of the others, some of them have been somewhat chill with me knowing and being kind of part of their group now. Jeremy was a little wary at first but seems to warm up to me considering I was the one that was able to help and keep Aelita safe during the last fight with XANA. Aelita herself is happy with me being able to help as well, which is obvious considering I saved her at least a few times during my first time being there, is on board with me as part of the group. Odd is cool with the idea of me being there as well and hasn't really done anything to counter my presence or tried to dissuade me from being there, which is awesome and has been a relief, even though his outgoing attitude is definitely something I'm not entirely comfortable with.
The other two however, are a different story. Ulrich has been… somewhat alright. He hasn't gone out of his way to make me feel uncomfortable and all but he has been keeping an eye on me. He's more neutral to me but I've been seeing him stare at me at times, most likely to keep an eye on me and make sure I don't do anything or stupid, like spill the Lyoko and XANA secret. Yumi though is not as reserved. I've seen her outright glare at me without hiding at and can even feel the disdain in her voice if we were to hold a conversation or join in one. She doesn't like how I joined the group apparently, or kind of snuck around, heard them and pretty much snuck my way into the factory without any of them knowing. I think she would like it if they were to use the 'Return to the Past' function they have to wipe my memory of the day I found out and leave me blissfully unaware of everything. Unfortunately for her though, since I already placed myself in Lyoko before they had a chance to find out, this means that I am now immune to the RTTP and I remember everything.
I can understand the secrecy and all, even doing what they can to 'screen' in a way anyone that would find out about the supercomputer and mess everything up. Since I kind of went around them completely and forced myself a little into their group, that's as good a guess as any for her anger towards me. It's not like she's going to straight up tell me why she doesn't like me.
Either way, besides those things school has been pretty alright as of so far. Nothing out of the ordinary has come up and required us to go to Lyoko so the days have been uneventful. I've been trying to hang out with the others and get to know them more, since we'll more than likely have to hang out a lot more in case of an attack and all.
But things are still tense for me with everyone so its slow going for now. Right now I'm hanging out with Jeremy and Odd by a tree outside the cafeteria after having finished eating. Jeremy opted to skip gym again in order to continue to work on the materialization program that we are going to use to bring Aelita to the real world. It's not as easy bringing her to the real world as it is the rest of us so he's got to work as much as he can in getting her here.
"Hi Yumi!" Jeremy says, making Odd and I look at our female friend walking up to us, having most likely finished class.
"Hello." She smiles warmly at the two of them barely passes a glance to me, nor the smile. Like I said before, slow going. "Hey look over there. Its Ulrich." She gets our attention on something very important. We look out from behind the tree to see something surprising. Over near the cafeteria entrance we see none other than Ulrich and much to our surprise next to Sissy. Now I may not have been a part of this group for a while but even I know that's a weird sight to see.
"But-… what's he doing with Sissy?" Odd asks out loud, even though none of us really know the answer. As I try to look closer, I notice its definitely not a good situation for Ulrich what with his glum and dower look he has. Something else besides liking her is what's keeping him there.
"Hmmm, let me try something." I say before strapping my backpack on me. "Go ahead and call out to him. I'll be back." I propose and begin casually walking towards the cafeteria wall, my head aimed low.
"Hey Ulrich!" As soon as I make it to the wall, I begin walking towards the weird couple slowly, acting as inconspicuously as I can until I start to hear them.
"Hey that's blackmail. Why do you expect me to give into that?" I keep myself stone faced neutral as I hear this somewhat alarming news but focus on walking and listening.
"First of all because its hard to say no to a pretty girl like me." I stop past them as Sissy says and crouch down before pulling my backpack in front of me, acting like I'm rifling through it to get something. "And second of all I'm not going to give you any choice." She playfully tells him, making it so that he won't have much in terms of being able to get out of this easily.
When she starts giggling and pulling him away I get up, turn around and begin heading towards the others but not before giving Ulrich a subtle nod. Having been adept at trying to avoid people all the time, and making myself as little as possible when it comes to people looking at me, it was relatively easy being able to walk by like that without drawing their attention to me.
"Well?" Yumi impatiently asks as I walk up.
"What's going on?" Jeremy asks. I let out a sigh and run my hand through my hair.
"They were pretty vague but it has something to do with blackmail." I tell them what I know, which isn't much but blackmail is the main thing we need to know.
"Blackmail?" Odd asks confused.
"Yeah, seems like Sissy's got some dirt on Ulrich and is holding it over his head. What exactly? You'd have to ask him."
"This isn't good." Yumi states.
"No kidding." Jeremy agrees, along with nods from the rest of us. Suddenly the bell begins to ring, signaling its time for us to get to class now. "Alright, Odd and I have class with those two. You two get to class while we find out what's going."
"Alright."
"Yeah let's get—" I begin to say but Yumi already about faced and left to class, leaving me standing here awkwardly. "Huh, she doesn't like me much does she?" I sarcastically ask out loud.
"Well, you did kind of sneak your way into our group without our consent." Jeremy says. I hum in agreement.
"Ahh don't sweat it!" Odd pats my back as he tells me with a wide smile. "Just give it some time and I'm sure
"Yeah." I mutter hopefully. 'One can hope.' I sigh and signal for us to begin walking. "C'mon, let's go ahead and get to our classes." They nod along and we all get going.
Once classes were done, Jeremy gave us the run down on exactly what was going on with the blackmail. Turns out Sissy snuck in Ulrich and Odd's room and made off with Ulrich's diary. While having your secrets revealed to everyone at school is not something that anyone would want, the fact that he also has mention of Aelita, Lyoko and XANA in said diary means we cannot let anything in it be revealed by any costs. Right now Sissy is focused on being with Ulrich rather than finding out exactly who or what those people and things are so we have some time to find the diary.
Yumi wasn't happy at all that and she especially wasn't happy with being stuck with me as we ransacked Sissy's room. Since Odd, Ulrich, Sissy and a bunch of the other students or going on a shuttle bus to the pool, that'll give us time to find the diary while Jeremy goes to check on Aelita.
"Ughhhh, nothing. Find anything?" I groan from my lack of luck in finding what we need from behind her table and ask Yumi. She doesn't answer and instead lets out a frustrated sigh and lie back on her bed. Before I think on where else to look, her eyes widen and she grabs the pillow.
"Ah-haaa." Yumi opens up an 'I Love You' heart shaped pillow from Sissy's bed and pulls out a diary. "Bingo." She happily states with closed eyes
"Ulrich has a pink diary?" I question.
"Huh? Oh… this is not Ulrich's handwriting." She locks closely at the book and its true that that's not what we are looking. She begins flips through a few pages and gasps a little. "It's Sissy's." I come close and lean to the side to see what she's reading. She's so focused on the diary she doesn't shoo me away from looking. We're even more surprised at the one page that has Ulrich's picture in it. 'Oh wow. Definitely not Ulrich's.'
"I'm tired of his acting as if I don't even exist. I can't stand standing watching him pay so much attention to Yumi. So, while he was in the lunch room I went looking around. I just wanted a picture of him," The diary entry says. 'Wow, stalker much.' Despite that I keep reading along with Yumi. "But I found something much better than that. Now he can't possibly turn me down. I know what I'm doing isn't nice but it's the only way I can get him to stop ignoring." It ends.
"Of all the nasty things." Yumi says in disgust as she slams the diary closed.
I lean away and let out a short sigh. "Huh, well at least she knows what she's doing is wrong." I comment.
"And that makes what she's doing better?" Yumi crossly asks, not liking that I'm somewhat sympathizing with Sissy of all people.
I shake my head at the question. "Not at all. At the very least now we have some dirt on her. You know, fight fire with fire?" I propose with a smile. While finding Ulrich's diary would end this whole debacle right then and there, finding Sissy's diary and counter blackmailing her would probably make her think twice before she does something like this again in the future.
"That's good. C'mon lets get out of here before someone comes by and realizes we're not supposed to be here." I nod at Yumi's suggestion before we quickly exit Sissy's room and begin heading out of the building, unsure where to go but for now just putting some distance with our stolen package in tow. One quick call to Jeremy later to get him up to speed on what we found. Soon enough, we stop in front of the entrance to the girls restroom. Yumi quickly pops her head in and begins looking around before stepping in turning back to me.
"Stay there and don't move. I'm gonna make the call." She crossly tells. Despite the slight anger laced in her tone, I nod nonetheless and step away before I'm not next to the door. Afterall it would be weird, creepy and downright put me in a negative light if I'm standing outside the girls room. I lay my back against one of the pillars of walls and stare out into the sky. That's all I pretty much do, just act nonchalant so I don't bring attention to myself.
I don't have to wait long as Yumi soon exits the girls restroom.
"You got something?" I ask when Yumi steps out.
Despite her suspiciousness to me, she smirks and holds up Ulrichs diary.
I smile. "Nice. Let's go before someone sees us." Without wasting any time, we go ahead and begin running back to the dorms so we can drop off Ulrich's diary at his room. I don't know what she did with Sissy's but I don't really care about that right now, just focusing on our friends as of this moment while we run.
"Yumi? Alex?" We are stopped from our running as someone calls our names. Over in a nearby classroom, we spot one of the teachers looking at us through one of the classrooms. "What are you doing there?"
We freeze up and look at each other before looking at him. "Just some last minute studying sir. We're heading back now." I quickly inform him and we start running without waiting for him to reply or question us anymore. We make back to the boys dorms without any problem on our part and we drop off the diary. "Perfect. That takes care of that. What should we do…?" I begin to ask but as I turn to her, I notice Yumi already walking away. "Yumi!" I call out to her in slight surprise but she just keeps on going without bothering to look back at me. I am saddened to see her ignoring me yet again, even though we worked together to help one of our friends being blackmailed. I let out a sad sigh and begin walking back to my room. 'Man, I was really hoping that by helping out with this I could at least start to get in good with her and diminish her anger towards me. I don't want her and Ulrich to be angry with me for kind of forcing my way into their group… but they are. How do I make it so they stop?' I wrack my brain around that as I let out a steady sigh and step into my room, alone as usual. I just go ahead and lay on my bed as I usually do when I've got nothing better to do and maybe catch a few Z's.
My intended nap doesn't last long as I suddenly find myself awake and alert via the ringing of my phone. "Hello?" I ask answering it.
"Alex, it's Jeremy."
"Jeremy?" I sit up fully now completely awake as I remember that Jeremy was at the factory checking things up with Aelita as a precaution. "What's going on?"
"Not good that's for sure. XANA has activated a tower. I need both you and Yumi here ASAP. I already called her and she's on her way."
"So am I. See you soon." I reply firmly and shut off my phone. I tear my door open before I begin running towards the sewer entrance. Since a good number of the students are on that bus heading towards the pool I'm not stopped or run into many students as I go so I make great time in heading to the manhole. Odd and Jeremy were nice enough to inform me of this alternate route we can take to the sewer and for eventually towards the tower. As I come within range of the manhole, I spot Yumi beginning to climb down it already. She is no less pleased at seeing me as I run up.
"You know you don't have to come. I can handle this myself." She glares at me as I slow myself up to the manhole.
"True… but I don't think we should take any chances. You can try to stop me if you want but that would mean less time to help Aelita." I point out to her with a smirk. She's still suspicious of me and doesn't do anything to hide her animosity towards me as usual but my words are hopefully logical enough that she doesn't literally fight me from helping.
She doesn't reply, she just simply scoffs and continues climbing down the ladder towards the bottom followed by me. When we hit the bottom, she grabs a skateboard while I grab mine. Unlike Odd, Ulrich and Yumi, I have my own little scooter like Jeremy there as well for me since I'm not really a skateboard guy, nor have I ever ridden one. Regardless, we pass through the sewer as usual before coming to the other manhole entrance leading to right outside the factory. Unlike the first time I came here, I actually grab one of the chains like Yumi does and swing and slide myself to the bottom. I grip the chain harder than I would have liked but hopefully soon enough I'll get used to it and be more confident in the swinging. We don't waste time as we enter the elevator and begin heading to the supercomputer. The door opens to us seeing Jeremy at his station frantically pressing buttons on the keyboard.
"Hurry in the scan! The situation is getting worse." Jeremy informs us urgently. Without any debate, Yumi hits the button for the scanner room and we descend to it before entering the scanners without a word.
With a grunt, both Yumi and I land on the ground in the desert sector. I haven't been able to properly explore the other sectors besides the forest like my first time. I was told there are a few other sectors that we could go to should the need arise: the desert, the mountain, and the polar region as well. Don't know if they actually convey the same types of weather they might have as the names suggest but considering being in the desert I am now I'm not sweating like crazy in the getup I have now, I wouldn't worry.
"Yumi! Alex!" Any moments of contemplation or wondering where we should go is interrupted by the voice. We turn to see a familiar pink haired girl running and waving to us. "I'm so glad to see you both."
"Glad to see you too Aelita." Yumi greets her with a smile and a head nod.
"Same here." I comment as well before we feel the vibrations indicative of XANA. "And it definitely looks like we're all needed aren't we?"
"Your right." She agrees with me and points away from us. "A towers been activated and we need to get to it."
"Lead the way." I reply as I pull out my rifle. We begin sprinting as fast as we can towards the best route we can take to the activated tower. Going in a direct path is not really an option as while a large majority of the desert sector looks to be open field, I do see plenty of small islands, broken pieces of land, narrow paths, rocks, cliffs, ledges and the likes. Aelita explores these places for a living so she's our guide. We come upon a small ledge leading to a lower section of land with a slanted flat rock connecting the two. I slide down the rock incline first, my rifle up and aiming around in case of any hostiles waiting for us. When I see its clear, I wave for them to come down. Yumi slides down first before Aelita follows. "It's clear for now at least."
"Yeah… too clear." She mutters in suspicion as she looks around. "No wait." Just as Aelita begins to move to guide us, Yumi throws her arm out in front of her, stopping her. "This is too easy." She pulls out her fan and cautiously steps forward, ready to throw and fight if need be. "Coming all this way without seeing even one monster? There's gotta be a trap." She's right. Since we got here, we have not encountered a single monster or anything hostile towards us at all.
I pull up my rifle and aim around, using the scope to examine things from a distance. "As much as I hope your wrong, there is a high chance you are right. No way XANA would leave the tower unguarded without some form of protection or guard." I contemplate on what we could face as my sweeps show nothing in the distance. My aim is thrown off by a gust of wind hitting me. I grunt from the strong breeze and turn around. "What's that?" I ask the others as I spot something behind us on the piece of land we were on before. They look as what looks like a giant swirl of dust, sand and dirt begins to get bigger and bigger.
"A sandstorm!" Aelita calls out.
"You have that here?" I ask in disbelief at seeing an actual sandstorm here in this place… and coming right towards us. "Uh-oh."
"It's a tornado." Yumi says and not wanting to get sucked up we all book it as fast as we can away from the force of nature. "Jeremy! We got a problem here!" She informs our observer.
"Make that two. Theirs a monster behind you!"
"What?!" I ask in disbelief before glancing backwards but all I see is the tornado on our tail and gaining even though we've made a few turns. 'Actually, that should be the first indication considering it is following us.' "The tornados chasing us! Is it a monster?!" I ask over the sounds of the tornado following close by.
"That's stupid!" Yumi scolds me but doesn't stop her running.
"No its not! If anything, the monster may be using the tornado as cover." Aelita informs me.
I chance a glance one more time back before grunting in frustration. "Well that's just great." I mumble in annoyance at the enemy we can't see. We can't keep running forever as soon enough the tornado has overtaken us, batting us with dust, dirt and sand all over. We're forced to slowly walk with our arms in front of us in an effort to keep the debris out of our eyes. I've had to bring my bandana up to cover my mouth and nose and I can't even properly hold my rifle up as its mostly being held to cover my eyes from the dirt. "This isn't good. We're sitting ducks out here." I mumble to myself as I'm pretty sure they probably wouldn't be able to hear me over the storm. We know there is a monster here in the storm itself but with practically zero visibility we are completely blind to attack or dodge its attacks. Pretty sure we won't be able to hear it either. 'Not good. Very not good.'
"Yumi, Alex, becareful at the ridge. If Aelita falls into the digital sea she'll be lost forever!" Jeremy reminds us. Not that we really need a reminder on the dangers of the digital sea but the ridge warning is welcome. Afterall we're still having trouble moving and seeing in this blaster storm. "Becareful in front of you! It's a Megatank."
"In front?! But it was behin—"
*PEEEERRR*
The sound. A massive sound of energy sends warning signs through my entire body at the sound whatever the monster is makes. Another indication is the massive wall of red light that pierces through the storm and heads right to us. Yumi tackles Aelita out of the way while I dodge roll in avoidance as well. As soon as we try to get back and try to attack, the light disappears and the monster is gone once again. We run as fast as we can from our previous position to put as much distance between us and whatever the Megatank was.
"Whoa!" Yumi suddenly comes to a stop as the ground begins to shake. Just in front of her the ground splits apart and pulls away from us, causing Yumi to almost fall in.
"Yumi!" I call out in worry and move forward, quickly grabbing one of her flailing hands and pulling her back from the edge until she's stable once again. "Close one. You okay?"
"Mm!" She doesn't give me a verbal confirmation she is, just a simple grunt and jerking her hand from mine. Any means of replying on my part about her attitude doesn't even enter my mind as I notice that all of the land around us being broken apart and pushed away from our own bit of land under us. "XANA set a trap for us."
"Heck of a trap." I comment quietly to myself as I see we are absolutely stuck where we are with no visible means of getting to the larger pieces of land that split off. "Well… what now?" I ask out loud seeing as how I have no idea on how we're going to get out of here. No one really answers me directly, but the answer to my question comes in the form of Aelita kneeling and setting herself in some type of meditation pose and letting out an angelic moan in concentration. Similar to how she did back at the tower with Odd the first time I was in the forest sector, a rock bridge begins to form on our small island and begins to connect us to the main land. In no time at all its complete and we have our path. "Nice one. Awesome to see WE have someone who can manipulate the land here." I think I see Aelita blush at the compliment.
"Good work Aelita!" Jeremy praises her as well and we get moving. Not wanting to get caught in another one of XANA's traps we run as fast as we can to hurry up and make it to the tower and be done with all this.
*PEEEERRR*
"Arhhahhh!" In an instant, a massive wall of red light hits Yumi in the back and almost hits me too. I jerk away from the attack and move closer to Aelita as we watch in horror at Yumi being knocked down.
"Yumi!"
"Yumi!" Both Aelita and I cry out at our teammate being hit so hard. I go to move towards her and help but the same sound that accompanied the laser pierces through the air again. I barely have time to move out of the way before the attack rushes right past me, tearing my rifle from my hands and hits Yumi yet again before she can even get up. "Yumi." I breathe her name in worry as I take several steps back at how close I almost got hit too. The realization of just how bad it is to be hit by that thing is very evident and no laughing matter as I watch Yumi's body dematerialize.
"Oh no!" Aelita exclaims in shock at us watching our friend get taken down so quickly and easily.
"Oh… wow. She couldn't even fight back." I mutter in disbelief at just how quick that was. Only two hits and she's gone.
"We have to get out of here!" Aelita says and begins backing away. Hearing her snaps me out of it and begin following her.
"Ye-yeah. We do. We have to—"
*PEEEEERRR*
"WATCH OUT!" In the middle of me talking, the sounds goes off again and it takes my instincts to jump forward and tackle Aelita out of the way. The laser wall rushes past us just where we were standing before moving. "Move!" I yell and pull Aelita to her feet before ushering her forward. I quickly pull out my blaster pistol and begin shooting back at whatever that Megatank thing was. Much to my chagrin, my shots simply bounce off its armor like nothing. "Crud. Not a scratch. How do we take that thing down?" I ask out loud.
"It's weak spot is in the middle of it at the center. Unfortunately you can only hit it when its exposed, which is when it fires." My heart sinks as Aelita explains how to defeat that thing.
"Seriously? Great. That's just perfect." I grumble but don't stop in our running and putting as much distance away from that thing as we can. The sandstorm is all but gone from us and we lose sight of the Megatank, which I am both thankful for and regret as not having seen that thing was exactly what took out Yumi so easily when our backs were turned. "Hold up. By that rock." I tell Aelita as we begin to pass by a large rock formation. We slow down close to it where I quickly sweep my blaster around behind it in case of any monsters hiding behind it. Thankfully we find none so we take the time to catch our breath after all the running we did. We keep the rock between us and where we were running from since that's where we know for sure the Megatank was. While Aelita sty in cover, I peek out from around the side and keep a critical eye around in hopes of finding the tornado or the Megatank. "I don't see the tank." I pull myself back and lay against the rock. "I both love and hate that." Aelita looks at me confused. "I love that I don't see it anywhere, but I hate I CAN'T see because I'm worried it'll sneak attack us again just like it cost us Yumi." A fighters a fighter. She may not like me and I'm starting to get a little annoyed at her attitude but having her here to help fight is WAY better than me going at it alone. I'm not prideful to a fault where it could cost us dearly. Aelita cannot have any chances taken.
"What do we do then?" She asks me.
I take another look around and still don't see anything. I let out a frustrated sigh as I pull back. "We have to get you to the tower, but I don't like the idea of moving out in the open when its just the two of us when we have no idea where the Megatank is. Or possibly any other monster for that matter."
"Don't worry you two. Odd's just about there." Jeremy suddenly informs us. I flinch a little at his sudden voice but it soon turns to relief at the knowledge we now have some backup.
"Well theirs that at least." I say with a smile, which Aelita mirrors.
We don't have to wait long as several seconds later we watch as Odd appears and lands on the ground easily.
"Aelita?! Alex?! Aelitaaa?!" The both of us sigh in relief at having some backup.
"Welcome to our world!" We wave to Odd as Aelita calls out to him, making him turn to us and smile.
I take a few steps forward when I stop as I hear crumbling rock behind me. Much to my surprise, I watch the floor beneath Aelita begin to split apart, throwing her off balance. "Aelita!" I call out in worry and move towards her as Odd sprints to us. Before she can fall in, I grab her hand and pull as hard as I can towards me. She's pulled to safety but I'm left slipping off the ledge instead.
"Alex!" Aelita calls out my name as my feet leave the ground. My arms slam hard onto the edge of the ground as I do everything I can to keep myself from falling the rest of the way and being lost forever.
"Hold on!" Before I can fall, Odd dives forward and quickly grabs my arm before I'm gone. "I gotcha." He says and quickly begins pulling me up. Aelita comes up and helps him help me up as well. We struggle a bit as they manage to pull me but eventually, I'm pulled up enough for me to swing my legs up and out of danger. I roll away from the edge a few times until I'm far enough away where I won't fall. I lay there on the ground taking a few deep breaths as the others sit on the ground next to me. "Okay… that was a close one." Odd says lightheartedly.
As much as I was close to falling, I can't help but share his tone, allowing myself to chuckle a little and smile. "Yep… thank you both." I thank them.
"I should be the one thanking you." Aelita tells me with sincerity.
My heads cranes to the side a little as I look at her confused. "Thank me? For what?"
This actually makes them confused as they look at each other before looking back at me. "Uhhh, because you kind of saved her." Odd points out and at Aelita.
"Oh yeah." I sit up and turn to them. "But, that's kind of going to be the norm between us all isn't it? We protect you Aelita no matter, right?" I ask them. That's kind of the thing that we had established when I first got here. While Yumi, Odd, Ulrich and I can get devirtualized and be transported to the real world, Aelita does not have that luxury so any hits or attacks meant for her we have to prevent or take with our own bodies if need be.
They glance at each other again before back at me. "Uhhh people? Not to interrupt or anything but don't we have a tower to deactivate?" Jeremy takes the opportune time to remind us of our crucial mission objective here.
"Oh man! He's right!" Odd jumps to his feet and offers Aelita a help stand. "We gotta get going before something bad happens to Ulrich and everyone on the bus.
"Crud!" I scold myself at getting caught up in the moment. I roll back onto my hands before pushing myself up onto my feet and standing. "Let's move." They nod and we run. Now that we're back up to a better state of strength, we make our way back in the direction of the tower. So far as we move we don't see or encounter anymore enemies for the time being but Aelita and I are on the lookout for anymore tornados and its Megatank.
"Careful. Theirs a ridge." We are forced to slow down and stop when we find that the ground begins to part way again, splitting the ground near us and halting our progress.
"Okay this is really getting old." I comment hatefully at the cut off path yet again.
Odd hums in agreement. "Huh?" I hear him mutter in confusion right after. As he does, the sandstorm that's been chasing us surrounds us yet again. Odd readies his arrows while I grab my blaster and ready myself the fight that's most likely going to come.
"Watch it Odd. Theirs a Megatank in this sandstorm but its hard to spot." I warn him as I strain my ears and vision to look for the enemy that's been hounding us all this time. It got the drop on us before and it cost me my rifle and Yumi without a chance for her to fight back. Letting it hit any of us again is completely out of the question. This time though, it seems it doesn't wish to do anymore sneak attacks on us as I can hear the rolling sound of the Megatank ahead of us. I try to think and come up with some form of plan on how to deal with that thing because I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with the idea of waiting for it to attack first.
I go to aim at the enemy and get ready to fight. "Hey." Before that Odd gets our attention. We turn to him as he seems to be looking around for something until he stops. "I have an idea. Follow me." Before we can even debate on what his plan is, he grabs Aelita's hand begins running. Not wanting to be left behind with the approaching monster I follow after them and we begin running away from the sandstorm.
While we begin running I can hear the Megatank behind us as it follows, as well as the sandstorm too all around us. It's hard to tell exactly what it is that Odd is planning but it doesn't feel good as we begin make our way closer and closer to one of the ridges. "Odd! What are we doing?!" I ask frantically as he doesn't look to be stopping even though we are running out of ground to run on.
"Odd your out of your mind!" Aelita somewhat follows my example of questioning Odd's plan, or his actions at this point. Odd doesn't say anything and when we get close to the edge, he begins to spin both himself and Aelita around, using the momentum to launch her over the ridge before spinning himself over the ridge as well. I don't immediately jump as well and instead slide into a stop right at the end of the ridge and turn around.
"Alex!" I hear Aelita call out to me in worry at the rapidly approaching Megatank.
"C'mon c'mon c'mon." I silently mutter to myself as I watch the enemy roll towards me at a fast speed, watching and waiting for the right opportunity. 'Almost there… almost there…' I think as the monster makes no means of stopping and is fully intent on flattening me no matter. 'NOW!' With a mighty heave I throw myself as hard as I can to the left just before the enemy hits me. As soon as I hit the ground, I turn around and look where I just was and to my immense relief I don't see anything there. A few seconds later a massive spire of light and floating water I think shoots out from through the ridge gap. My plan worked and the Megatank went off the edge and into the digital sea. 'So that's what happens when you fall in? Heck of a way to let everyone know you fell.' I sigh in relief regardless and let myself stay laying down and propped up on my elbows. Pretty sure I hear Jeremy let out a long whistle of relief too. "You know Odd, that was a lot simpler than the throw and jump you did!" I can't help but call out to him from my spot on the ground while keeping the smile on my face too.
"True…" He begins to say before looking off to the side and then back at me. "But then we'd still have to cross it in order to get to the tower!" He finishes saying and points. Off in the distance on their side of the ridge gap, I spot the activated tower.
"Ohh… okay then." I push myself up onto my feet and dust the nonexistent dust off me. "Alright, get going Aelita! Looks like your all clear."
"Right! Thank you both." She thanks both Odd and I and begins running off post-haste.
"Well, that was something." I can't help but comment to Odd as we wait for Aelita to deactivate the tower.
"Yeah, it sure was. Good work protecting Aelita before I got here." He compliments me. I wave him off.
"Aaahhh, I barely did much. I mostly had us hunker down and wait for backup and that's about it." I tell him.
"Still, just making sure she was safe was a good move still."
"Thanks." We lull into a small silence as we continue to wait. "Do you think we made it in time?" I ask, in reference to XANA's attack in the outside world.
"I hope so. If we didn't…" Odd doesn't finish his statement and he doesn't need to. Already the tower loses its red color and the whiteness from the Return to the Past function activates. We can just hope we made it in time.
"You think he got it?" I ask out loud to the other occupants in the room.
"Well, we know Sissy's waiting outside with a smug look right now ready to blackmail Ulrich. So I'd say she probably already put it in her hiding place, which Yumi knows about." Jeremy points out.
"So all she needs to do is grab it, hand it to Ulrich and bye bye blackmailing Sissy." Odd adds with a smirk and a hand wave at the end to accentuate it.
"That'll be a relief." I say. Right now Odd, Jeremy and I are waiting in Ulrich and Odd's room so we can learn at once if we were successful in preventing Sissy's trick. While Yumi went to go get his diary and bring it too him, we are just here waiting for his return. After we hunkered down at wait we eventually heard Sissy place herself just in front of his door and wait for him so she can start the blackmail, which as we are hoping is going to be pretty unsuccessful.
Only a few minutes later we hear voices on the other side of the door and it opens soon after. We all look up expectantly to see a grinning Ulrich hold up his diary.
While Jeremy claps at the avoided blackmail, I smile and give a thumbs up. "Yeess!" While Odd jumps in joy as well.
"And that's another problem averted." Jeremy says with a smirk.
"That's a relief." I comment. "XANA's already dealt with for now and now having Sissy off your back is going to be good as well."
"It sure is. Hey Jeremy. Speaking of problems…" Odd begins to say then gets the other guys attention. Probably to talk about some math problems or something like that while we're here.
"Hey Alex." Ulrich calls to me. I look at him and notice that he looks… awkward about something, seeing as how he's not looking right at me and rubbing the back of his head. "I… just wanted to say, thanks… and I'm sorry."
"Hm? Sorry? Sorry about what?" I ask.
"You know, for being angry and suspicious of you a lot. I haven't exactly been that good with you and I wanna apologize. You helped Aelita when the rest of weren't there to help without any obligation on your part, and I wanna say thanks." Ulrich sincerely tells me.
I smile and nod at him. "No problem Ulrich. I know why you've been suspicious or even angry of me, but I can assure you that I have no intention of doing any harm to you guys, the computer and especially Aelita."
"That's good to hear. Hearing it right now being put into words, after you helped me, feels right, you know?"
I smirk with a nod. "It does. So," I hold out my hand to him, "Friends?"
He returns the smile and takes my hand, shaking it. "Friends." I got to admit, hearing him actually call me a friend is a load off my shoulders. "Good to have you aboard."
"Thank you, Ulrich. You have… no idea how much of a relief it is to hear you welcome me like that finally." He smiles in response to the grin I have. "Now… I just have to work on the only other person of the group that hates me even more." I don't have to say anything on who as they already know exactly who has had a problem with me.
"Yeah, she's something like that." He seems to be embarrassed by what he says, judging from the way he isn't looking at me and rubbing the back of his head even more so. "But she means well." He finishes saying when he turns back to me.
"Oh, I know." I mutter before sighing and looking at the door, thinking of Yumi and her suspicious way of me. "It just means I need to work harder in getting her to trust me."
Hey everyone. Apologies for taking awhile with this chapter. Can't really give you an excuse besides, games, other stories and such, as well as different bouts of writing inspiration that made me want to not write as much, or write even more than I usually do. It varys so sorry for the long time it took me to write this.
As for the chapter itself, their really isn't whole lot to say about this. Alex just did what he could to be included and help out the others with their Sissy blackmailing problem. Besides a few comments here and there he really didn't do a whole lot and I apologize to that. Although of course this does give a bit more insight to his relationship with the others and his standing with them. Obviously he's still got some work to do in order to convince Yumi he'll be a valuable asset to the team. Afterall, later on in the show she always was wary of certain people when it comes to Lyoko and being a part of their group. Alex having pretty much thrown himself in with them when they're still relatively new to the whole Lyoko scenario as well just makes her wary of him. He's got Ulrich on his side now considering his help and now he needs to do something to convince Yumi. Easier said than done.
Here are the reviews:
Spades231: Glad you liked his equipment appearance. For some reason when I was thinking of what gear and outfit that he could use to make him look badass I was also thinking of a pretty old game called 'Darkwatch' and Jericho's black attire was something that came to mind, then Fallout New Vegas's NCR Rangers uniforms, and for his weapons a bit of star wars mixed in. Glad you liked it.
He's pretty new to the group so yeah at least some of them will be pretty war of someone just suddenly thrown into the middle of their group, and out of all of the Lyoko warriors Yumi always was the most suspicious and cautious of the group, especially when it comes to new members.
ItsNotMe: Glad I got your attention. Hope I can keep it.
Yeah when it comes to including the OC into the group most stories I've read draw it out for quite a bunch of chapters and in reality I just wanted to get him into the heart of the action as soon as I can.
That is just one of those mysteries that I already have planned out, but you my fellow reader and readers will have to wait for me to reveal exactly what's going on with him. Patience is what I ask, but it will be worth it I can assure you.
Pokemonking0924: Yeah he's not an overtly outgoing type of person. Heavily introverted and just prefers to keep to himself whenever he can. However that doesn't mean he's heartless and will abandon someone in need so as you said, with his time being a part of the group, which he has to help as XANA poses a threat to pretty much everyone and himself if he doesn't do something, he'll slowly start to come out of his shell and gain the trust of the others.
Those are some nice ability ideas. Not going to spoil exactly what he's got going on but those are pretty good, and a little close in some cases.
Draconos13: Happy you liked it all. I did what I could in making sure the stuff I chose such as his attire and weapons would fit and it sounds like I did a good job. As for his powers, they'll be shown soon.
I'll do what I can to keep the dialogue much the same as in show but that will require me to rewind moments here and there when I'm rewatching the episodes but it's nothing too bad. Still, thank you and I hope you continue to like it.
Guest: Thanks.
SilverWolf1130: Oh I will. Rest assured. It just… takes me some time.
Guest: Awesome to hear. That's something I'm happy to have done for you. I've had those moments myself where I find a new cartoon, anime, tv show or whatever and just have to find a fanfiction story go along with it. Happy to hear mine is what caught your attention.
Glad you like his look. Unfortunately, I'm not a good drawer and I don't really know any artists or the right ones I can contact to commission a drawing. Still for the vest and coat the NCR ranger armor from Fallout New Vegas is what I was thinking of when I was thinking of his design so that's something you can look at for a general idea.
It may be a bit blank yes but that's to add to the mystery of him and who he is and why out of all the people, he still remembers certain events. All I ask is patience till all will be revealed for his past.
Okguy167: That is quite an assumption to make and unfortunately, I have never heard of that character so I'm sorry to say your wrong on that assumption. The connection I can see you thinking that but its not. Good try though.
Thank you all for being here and reading my work. Sorry again for how long this took and hopefully I can get to the next chapter sooner than I did this one. Go ahead and fave, follow, review, don't, whatever you wish, have fun reading, but most of all, have a great day everyone.