Note: The tower in Sector 5, for the purpose of this story, does not exist.
The turtles and Lyoko warriors stood at the edge of the platform that stretched out into the space surrounding Sector Five. "Hey, Einstein, we could use some vehicles right about now" said Odd as they stared into the blackness that stretched out in front of them.
"On it" replied Jeremie and Donny at the same time. Everyone's heads whipped to look at Don, who was already tapping away at the screen on his arm.
"Uhhh, Don" said Leo, tapping at his purple armored brother's shoulder, "I think that they meant their 'Einstein'."
Don's head shot up, and he looked embarrassed, but he quickly looked serious again and went back to work. "Yeah, but we need vehicles too, don't we?" he snapped tersely.
Leo took a step back, "Okay, okay. You… work on that."
Odd turned to Mikey and Raph, "Sheesh, what's eating him? Is he usually like this?" he asked them.
"No" answered Mikey in an uncharacteristically serious voice, "He's really usually only like this when he's super stressed about something. But he's been acting like this more and more since…" he trailed off, and Odd wondered if he should ask him "since what", but before he could decide, Mikey seemed to snap out of it, and continued. "Since Master Splinter got lost on the internet. He thinks that it's all his fault."
Raph scowled, "Yeah, but it ain't his fault. Brainiac should get his act together and stop-"
"Acting like you?" ended Mikey with a grin.
Raph's only response was to slap him on the head.
"Yeah, we've been there, too" said Odd, "Eienstien…er, Jeremie has blamed himself for a lot of stuff, too. Of course, it usually was all his fault"
"Odd, you know I can hear you, right?" came Jeremie's voice.
"Huh?" said Odd, looking up. Giving a nervous-sounding laugh, he replied "Oh, Ei-uh, Jeremie, we were just talking about you. By the way, I know how much you love it, but I don't know if I can keep calling you Einstein without confusing these guys, Einstein."
"I'm crushed" he said, rolling his eyes from his spot in front of the supercomputer. "Anyway, here are the vehicles, guys." After a flurry of typing, he had the Overboard and bike up and ready to go. "Hm, for some reason I can't seem to get the Overwing up right now, but you guys should be ok with the Overbike and the Overboard. Aelita, you're just going to have to ride with someone." Hitting the enter key, he added, "Do our friends have vehicles of any sort?"
"Don's getting them up and running right now" replied Leo from Lyoko. Jeremie did a double-take, not expecting the voice that responded, before replying.
"Good. Otherwise I don't know how we would have gotten you to a tower."
"What do you mean, Jeremie?" chimed a voice from behind where he sat, "What friends?" Taking off his headphones, Jeremie set them onto the keyboard and swiveled his chair, to see Yumi, leaning against where the map of Lyoko shone. "Oh, Yumi. How's everything back at the school? Do we need a return to the past?"
"Everything's fine, Jeremie, and nobody saw anything. Now what were you talking about when I got in here? What 'friends' do we have on Lyoko?"
"Ulrich, Aelita, and Odd ran into some…people in Sector 5. They're looking for someone who somehow got lost, apparently, on Lyoko."
"But how did they get there? Is that even possible?" she asked, surprised.
"I guess it is. I wish I knew how they got in there, and how they can travel through the virtual sea without any sort of vehicle."
"Wait, they came in from the virtual sea? Without a sub or anything?"
"Yes. I can't figure it out, either." He turned to the screen of the Supercomputer, looking at it thoughtfully.
Yumi looked back and forth between him and the screen, before bursting out, "So? What are these people like?"
Jeremie took a long pause, wondering how to describe them, when he had only seen them for a short while on a visual from Aelita. "They're…different."
"Well, that's descriptive" replied Yumi sarcastically. "Come on, Jeremie. With the stuff we see on a daily basis, how different can they be?"
He sighed and put his headphones back on, saying, "I really can't describe them. You should just see for yourself." He looked at the triangles that traced where his friends were, and saw that they were in the forest sector, probably heading for a tower. "They're in the forest sector right now" he told Yumi. "I could virtualize you right there, if you're not too tired, that is." He knew how tiring holding off Xana's forces could be, and virtualization wasn't exactly a picnic, either. But Yumi was tough, and by now her curiosity was killing her; so she turned around and headed back to the elevator to go to the scanner room. "Alright, then" he said to the empty room, but his voice could be heard in the scanner room below, "I'll try to put you right where everyone else is."
Yumi stood in a scanner with her arms crossed, waiting for the now-familiar virtualization process. "Scanner, Yumi" she heard the scanner booting up, and started to rise off of the ground, "Transfer, Yumi" eyes closed, she felt more than she saw the rings of light that scanned up and down her body, "Virtualization" There was a bright flash, and the next thing she knew, she was falling down through the air, landing gracefully on her feet in the forest sector. The fall felt much smoother than ones in the past, probably because she had gotten rid of those heels. She stood up, looking around at the "horizon", though her vision was blocked by the digital trees. "Ok, Jeremie. I'm on Lyoko. I don't see anyone, though."
"Hmm, look to your left, they should be coming in on you soon."
Yumi turned to her left, and peered into the distance. At first she didn't see anything, but she soon saw six shapes coming towards her. "Oh, I see them." As they got closer, the first thing she noticed was Ulirch on the Overbike, followed closely by Odd on the Overboard with an Aelita clenching onto him so she wouldn't fall off from his wild driving. It's what followed them that interested her. Four cars, half looked sort of like dune buggies, and the other resembled motorcycles. Those must be the new 'friends' they met. She thought. None of the drivers seemed to notice her yet, so she waved her arms and jumped up and down, "Hey, guys! Over here!" The Overbike turned towards her, and the rest of them followed. Coming to a short stop directly in front of her, Show off thought Yumi with an inward smile, Ulrich hopped off the one-wheeled bike. "Hey" he said.
"Hey. So, who are your friends?" Odd and Aelita had joined the two of them, and as Ulrich replied, Aelita butt in, "I think we should let them introduce themselves."
Yumi watched as the buggies that stood in front of her disappeared into thin air, but she wasn't surprised in the least, she'd seen the same thing happen thousands of times, it was the people that stood in their place that got a gasp from her. Although they were covered head-to-toe in armor of varying colors, she could see a shape on their backs that looked like a shell, and where the armor did not cover she could see that their skin was green. The turtles stood still as she took in their appearance, they were pretty used to people being surprised by now. Recovering quickly, she'd had definitely seen way worse than the turtles, she said to them, "So, I hear that you're looking for someone." The turtles visibly relaxed, glad that for the second time that day they had met people without them freaking out.
"Yes, we are. And we'd like to find him as quickly as possible" said Don as Leo stood there with mouth open, about to introduce themselves.
"Alright, but first, I'm Yumi. And you are?"
Leo stepped forward, and introduced himself before Don could interrupt again. "I'm Leonardo, and these are my brothers Michelangelo, Raphael, and Donatello. We're hoping to get a tower- I think Aelita called it- to locate someone we lost."
"Right" said Aelita, "And the one we're heading to isn't far off. Right, Jeremie?"
Looking at the blips on his screen, three white, one yellow, and now four green, he looked at where they were. "Yup. Just straight down the path on the right and you should be there soon."
"And you're sure we can track Master Splinter from there" questioned Donny skeptically
"I'm sure we can. If Xana can use them to destroy whole sectors or bring monsters to the real world, I'm pretty sure we can find a few data bits" said Aelita.
"Xana?" asked Leo.
"M-monsters?!" exclaimed Mikey with his hands on his head and a panicked look on his face. His brothers didn't think he was actually that scared, but with Mikey it was sometimes hard to tell.
The Lyoko Warriors all shared a look with each other that said, "that's right, these guys don't know about that". Ulrich shrugged, and waved for Aelita to say something. She looked to Odd for help but he just smiled and shrugged. Shooting one final glare at Ulrich for putting her on the spot, Aelita attempted to explain the story of the past year. "Right, well…remember when I said that we usually don't get nice visitors in Lyoko?" The turtles nodded. "That's because we usually get monsters instead. And, recently, Xana himself." She glanced at Yumi, before adding, "Well, sort of."
"Ok, but who's Xana?" asked Leo
"Yeah, and more importantly, why should we care? What does this Xana matta to us?" asked Raph.
Tactfully ignoring Raph, Aelita explained, "Xana is and AI computer program. He uses towers to power himself and wrecks havoc on the real world."
"But why, what's he after?" asked Leo, his interested piqued.
"He wants to take over the world" said Ulrich soberly. "And we're the only things standing in his way."
"Sounds kinda familiar, doesn't it?" remarked Mikey to his brothers.
Now it was the Lyoko Warriors' turn to be confused.
Noticing their confusion, Leo clarified. "You're not the only ones with a cyber villain who wants to take over the real world. Lately the Cyber Shredder's been a real pain in our shells. Lucky for us and the rest of the world, though, he can't get out of the internet."
"And we're sure as shell going to keep it that way" added Raph.
A silence settled over the group as they both digested the information they had been told. Aelita broke the silence, saying, "Come on, we can get to the tower soon and then find Splinter."
Without replying, Don started down the right side of the forked path in front of them.
R&R! Until next chapter!