Chapter Four: Missing

The cafeteria today wasn't nearly as active as Rosa suspected. Leftovers were served first, and she only brought out new foods when those were cleared out. From across the area, Zachary Combes could see a group of now only four people. He had wondered where the other two were at, particularly the ones with streaked hair. He couldn't help but shift his attention from the group size to Aelita Stones. To say that he was curious about her would be an understatement. Something about her, perhaps her intellect or moments of unabashed sarcasm, sparked a personal interest from within. Zachary knew that he had to say something to her. Well, he figured that now would be as good a time as any to try and break the ice. He bid farewell to the two girls who were in line with him before headed toward the group's table.

"Hey," Zachary made himself know. "Is it okay if I sat here?"

The four looked at each other doubtfully before looking to Zachary.

"Sure." Aelita gave off a friendly, yet modest, smile.

"Thanks." Zachary set his plate down and took a seat next to Aelita. He had grown slightly more comfortable now that the ice had been broken, but he suspected that his presence wasn't to be expected.

"I'm not sure if I've formally introduced myself." Zachary set a napkin down on his lap. "I'm Zachary Combes."

"I'm Aelita Stones," The pinkette proceeded with the introductions. "And this is Yumi Ishiyama, Ulrich Stern, and Jeremy Belpois."

"How do you do?" Ulrich greeted.

"Not too bad. What about the rest of you?" Zachary asked.

"Decent enough. Just talking about the test coming up in Gilles' class." Aelita replied.

"I heard his test can be pretty tough, so I wrote down as many notes as I could." Zachary wasn't a history buff by any means, but the subject intrigued him nonetheless. "I can share mine with the rest of you, if you want to that is."

"So, Zachary, where are you from?" Jeremy figured that he might as well try to be somewhat friendly to him. It would be his way of making up for the not-so-great impression the gang left during the destruction of Lyoko. That, and it was awkward having another brainiac in the conversation, so he wanted to change it to something else.

"The Netherlands. I was born here in France, though." Zachary had suspected that Jeremy wasn't in the mood to talk school at the moment.

"How does it feel to be back?" Yumi asked.

Zachary took a sip of water. "To be honest, it's kind of weird. It still feels like I just stepped into a whole new world."

"I know the feeling all too well." Aelita was able to empathize with him. Zachary returned the smile she gave earlier. Meanwhile, Yumi couldn't help but feel like this redhead had a strange aura around him.

"You foreign, too?" Zachary grew curious.

Aelita nodded. "I'm from Canada."

"That's quite a ways away from here." Zachary whistled.

"You're telling me..." Aelita took another bite of her lunch.

"There's going to be tryouts for the boy's football team later this week. You gonna show up?" Ulrich inquired, attempting in his own way to feel Zachary more welcome.

In all honesty, soccer wasn't exactly the redhead's forte. But for the sake of keeping up appearances, he nodded. "Sure. I could use a little more action here."

The sound of a 16 bit song alarm went off softly. Zachary immediately picked it from out of his pocket to see who was trying to contact him. He took his bag and his tray with him. "Really sorry guys, but I gotta take this call. I'll see you later in class, okay?"

Aelita and the others waved goodbye to him. Although relieved that he never stumbled upon any secretive information, Aelita hoped that she would be able to witness his intellectual prowess again. Part of her was hoping that him and Jeremy would duke it out in a Battle of The Brains of sorts. But still, another feeling arose: One of familiarity. The two hadn't even been aware of each other's existence until now, but Zachary felt familiar to her somehow. It could be nice to be around an outsider and not have to worry about Lyoko or XANA for a change. The group continued on with their previous conversation, all as if Zachary hadn't even been there.

The group of four had now huddled themselves inside of Jeremy's room. They at least wanted to see (or more likely hear) their friends before taking off for the rest of the day. It would help take the edge off of all of them given the current state of events. At this point in time, however, the three had a different conversation, which somehow went back to the topic of Zachary Combes.

"I'm not sure about him..." Yumi confessed.

"But why?" Ulrich wondered. "We literally just met the guy."

"I know, but... I think we should still be on our guard around him." Yumi turned to the pinkette, who was writing something down in a notebook. "Right, Aelita?"

"Hm?" Aelita lifted her head. "Well, he seems harmless enough. But Yumi does have a point. You never know what XANA might be planning next."

Jeremy was listening in on what his friends were saying, but was mostly focused on his actions with scanning Lyoko. He was planning on telling Odd and Solana that they would have to stay there for a while longer, at least until an antivirus is made for them. But as Jeremy continued to scan Lyoko's sectors, he began to realize that something had gone wrong.

"Houston... we have a problem."

"Jeremy, what's wrong?"

"Odd and Solana are gone." Jeremy said bewilderingly.

"Gone? What do you mean gone?!" Ulrich immediately sat up and looked at the main computer screen.

"I mean I can't detect their virtual signals anywhere on Lyoko." Jeremy was in just as much disbelief as his brunet friend. "It looks as if they just disappeared into thin air."

"Does this mean they could have... you know..." Yumi tried to hint at the most likely scenario.

"I'm not ruling it out, but at the same time I don't buy it. If XANA really wanted to do away with them, he wouldn't have wasted any time on Lyoko last time."

"Jeremy's right." Aelita agreed. "This all feels way too suspicious. We don't even know what he's planning to do with them."

"Or if he's doing something to them right now. XANA can't get away with this!" Ulrich stood up and headed towards the door. "Which is why we should get to Lyoko ASAP-!"

"Wait a second!" Yumi stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder. "We don't even know where Odd and Solana are. We could be walking into a deathtrap for all we know. Besides, we can't risk anyone else becoming a victim of XANA."

Ulrich remained silent as Yumi released her grip. He didn't look at either one of the other group members, despite all their eyes being on him. It was still an otherworldly feeling, knowing this news. First William, then his best friend and cousin. He didn't know why XANA would choose the latter two in particular, but all the possible ideas made his stomach churn. What made him more upset was the fact he couldn't do anything about it. His hands were still balled into fists.

"Look, I know you're upset right now. I don't even want to think about what's happened to them either, but we need to be smart about this."

Ulrich's hands loosened and he finally turned to the tall Japanese girl. He sighed and nodded solemnly. "You're right, Yumi."

"So what do we do now?" Aelita inquired to Jeremy.

"I'll run a DeepScan to see if anything comes up on the network. Hopefully the Supercomputer should be able to find something, anything." Jeremy resumed typing at his computer. "I'll also be getting to work on the Odd and Solana clones. In the meantime, you guys should be getting to class."

"But Jeremy, what about you?"

"I'll be fine. I promise. Besides, I don't really feel like sitting through another one of Mrs. Meyer's lectures."

Ulrich and Yumi looked at each other before leaving in silence with the pinkette following close behind. Just as Aelita grabbed the door handle, she looked back to the blonde boy once more.

"Jeremy?"

"Yes?"

"Please find them."

Jeremy nodded, exchanging the same look of concern Aelita had. "I'll try my best."

Aelita nodded as she exited his room. She knew Jeremy had gotten the gang out of many situations in the past, and she desperately wanted to believe that he would have all the answers in time. But at the same time, something felt out of place.

"You thinking about them, too?" Yumi took Aelita out of her thoughts.

"Yeah..." Aelita looked down before looking to the upperclassman again. "But I know we'll see them again, one way or another."