"Clara?" Emily gasped as the elevator opened to the computer.
"Welcome to the land of sci-fi," Clara greeted. "Would you like to fight off a girl who can shoot electricity out of her hands of her hands or would you rather enter a virtual world to de-activate a tower while a bunch of mutant animals try to murder you?"
Emily and Todd gaped at Clara. "How long have you been saving that one for?" Kinji asked.
"Only ten minutes," Clara snickered. "I did have time to hack into some encrypted notes and found out how to virtualize people to the virtual world. It's crazy, but before you scream at me to shut it off, meet Devin." Devin popped onto the screen on cue.
"Hola!" He waved. "I'm an artificial intelligence living here."
"So that's the boy you met? He's cute," Emily smiled at him.
"Hello, we're in the land of fantasy and that's what you're thinking about?" Todd asked.
"Hey, it's insane, but true." Clara corrected. "I would explain, but there's a manic girl trying to kill us. I need to know who'll stay here and who'll fight her off."
Emily, Todd, and Kinji stared at the computer genius. "Do you know what you're doing?" Emily asked.
"As much as I know you," Clara claimed.
"That's not reassuring," Emily smiled. "But what the heck. I'll go."
"Me too," Kinji agreed.
"I'll hold off the girl," Todd declared.
"Okay, head downstairs. You'll see some chambers, so enter them, and I'll take care of everything else." Clara commanded.
-line break-
Jeremy was typing on his laptop, and Aelita was biting her nails. "Why is XANA back? We turned off the supercomputer twenty-five years ago! You sent that multi-agent system out! You gave him the virus! How many times can he come back?" Aelita screamed at Jeremy.
"Do you think I know!?" Jeremy shouted at Aelita. "All I know is that XANA is back, my daughter is within his attacking range with no idea what he could do, and I can't even go back to the factory without being noticed!"
Aelita began to cry. "This is crazy! My poor little Clara! She in life threatening danger and she doesn't even know it!"
-line break-
"I'm so dead!" Clara yelled. "This thing is way more complicated than I could even imagine."
"Just do the procedure without killing us!" Emily screeched.
"Okay, um…" Clara glanced back at the instructions. "Transfer… Uh… I have no idea how this works!"
"You're the genius here," Kinji reminded her. "C'mon, how hard can it be?"
"Really? Would you like to transfer yourself into a virtual world? Be my guest!" Clara hissed.
"Sorry! Continue!" Kinji apologized.
"Okay, transfer… Kinji. Transfer, Emily. Scanner, Kinji. Scanner, Emily. Virtualization!" With a shaking hand, Clara pressed the key, and they disappeared from the chambers.
-line break-
"Ow!" Emily exclaimed, landing on her face onto the virtual world. Kinji sat three feet away, already standing up.
"I'm a knight! Awesome!" Kinji said, pulling out a sword. His outfit wasn't too heavy looking, and his helmet still revealed his big brown eyes and dark brown hair.
"Why in the world am I a fairy princess!?" Emily screamed. Her outfit was made up of a short pink glittery dress with white tights, dark purple flats, and her long black hair was shorter and in a pixie style. Large fairy wings were on her back.
"I didn't design it," Clara said from above. "I think it just creates your avatar from personal desires and dreams."
"It does suit you," Kinji nodded.
"Well, I wouldn't mind so much if I could find some weapon…" Emily started to search her outfit.
"Never mind that. Devin is going to find you guys in a few seconds." Clara explained. "Whatever you find there, it might stop that girl."
"Okay," Kinji said, and he stopped three creatures that looked somewhat like balls. "Hey, I think animals live here."
"Really? Do you think they're friendly?" Clara asked.
"Oh my gosh!" Emily screamed as one shot at her.
"Nope!" Kinji replied, pulling out his sword.
"Eek!" Emily ducked behind Kinji.
"Devin's coming up behind you." Clara said. Sure enough, Devin ran up behind them.
"Hi, I'm Devin." He waved. He had salt-and-pepper colored hair, and was in a robotic-ish (think 'Tron') outfit.
"My name's Kinji. That's Emily," Kinji introduced, before running to attack the monsters. Devin nodded, before he suddenly jerked his head the other way.
"Did you hear that?" Devin asked.
"No," Emily replied. "Why?"
"I heard pulsations." Devin replied. "Follow me."
"Oh, fine, leave me here!" Kinji yelled.
"Sure, why not?" Devin shouted, and he dragged Emily off.
-line break-
At Yumi and Ulrich's House…
"Kinji isn't picking up his phone," Yumi told Ulrich worriedly, sitting down on their couch. "Do you think he's in trouble?"
"Yumi," Ulrich patted her on the back. "I'm sure Kinji's fine, even though he is a bit more trouble than Annette. He can't be getting into too much hassle at Kadic. Remember those times? It was easy."
"Up until XANA," Yumi muttered. "XANA, detention, grades, attacks, near death, Franz Hopper…"
"Those days are gone." Ulrich reminded.
"But remember what happened after that? Our colossal fight with Odd, Aelita, and Jeremy, and it tore us apart. We haven't talked to them in ages." Yumi commented.
"Yeah, well, I don't think even the return of XANA will fix that," Ulrich chuckled. "Even the return of XANA…"
"Don't even think about it," Yumi shouted loudly. "If XANA returned, Annette and Kinji would be in big trouble. I mean HUGE trouble."
"How's our girl anyways?" Ulrich asked.
"She's fine. You our perfect little princess," Yumi smiled.
-line break-
"Where are we going?" Emily asked, following Devin.
"Look!" He pointed to a red tower.
"Why is that red? All the other towers I saw were blue," Emily commented.
"Exactly," Devin pointed out. "What if that's the cause of the girl's attacks?"
"That would make sense. But look," Emily pointed to the tower's guards. Two monsters that look like crabs were guarding it fiercely. "Do you have weapons?"
"I wasn't programmed with any," Devin responded. "What now?"
-line break-
"Huh," Todd walked through campus. "I can't find any girl with purple electricity coming out of her hands. What luck!"
A flash of purple lightning shot past him, and he whipped around. Instead of seeing a girl, it was tall burly man. "The luck has ended. How did you change?"
The man growled, eyes flashing with the strange symbol. In a slow and lisp voice, he answered. "You are a very unfortunate child. Why fight against me? Other children tried, and they nearly were killed… Huh, Odd?"
"I'm not Odd. My name is Todd, but I don't need to tell you that," Todd stood in fighting position.
"The child Jeremy used to called this form of me a polymorphic specter," the specter said. "Let's get rid of your friends."
A flash of purple appeared, and the specter smirked at the fallen boy. The specter shrank into the black haired boy, and ragged him off into the forest.
-line break-
"Two crabs, no weapons. What now?" Emily asked. "Curse my avatar."
"Okay," Clara said from above. "One of you should create a diversion. Making noise, grabbing attention, that sort of thing."
"I know you mean me," Emily sighed. "Devin, stay here."
"But-"
"Do you want to be killed!?" Emily hissed. "Todd is who knows where, so I need you to get to that tower and do whatever!"
Devin shrunk at her sudden outburst, and Emily's dark eyes sparkled at him. Emily flew out straight at them, and Devin ran behind the action.
"Emily! Watch out!" Clara warned as she flew underneath the crab. Emily shrieked as the crab looked underneath itself, and a laser shot at her. Emily twisted in some unusual way before being hit to the ground. The large monster hovered over her, so she threw her hands in front of her in defense.
Devin slipped behind the Krabs, racing towards the red tower. Suddenly, a laser shot at his back causing him to be hit to the side.
"Devin! You have ninety life points," Clara cautioned. "I should also mention Kinji is quite a bit of a jam. He only has about twenty, twenty-five life points left, and I can't get a hold of Todd. If Kinji can't destroy those monsters, they'll go after you!"
"How many are left with him?" Emily asked, dodging the Krab's legs.
"One more. But that thing is already dangerous alone; it's called a 'MegaTank' according to this journal. Too bad I don't know who wrote this, it is way too complicated to see the actual video diary and name itself." Clara explained.
Emily screamed before she could respond. The Krab finally pierced its leg into her chest so she de-virtualized.
"Emily!" Clara typed frantically on her keyboard. "Devin, Emily has been de-virtualized, and Kinji has only five life points left. You're on your own."
-line break-
Don't question Kinji's life points!