Jeremie's mind raced, "What are you talking about?!"
"There's no time to explain, just go!"
He tried to get a hold of himself, but Aelita's words echoed disorientingly in his head. 'Get out. GET OUT!'
"What is it Jeremie?" Ulrich asked.
He didn't waste time by answering. Jumping to his feet he grabbed Ulrich by the wrist, clutching the phone tightly with his other hand.
"What? What are you—" Ulrich was cut off as Jeremie swung open the door, but before he could race them out he saw a gigantic and thick cloud that filled the hallway.
"What is that!?" Ulrich gasped, soon covering his face with a sleeve.
Jeremie instantly held his breath, but as he inhaled, he began to choke. It was only a second until Ulrich was coughing too. Neither had any idea what they had just stepped into, and at that very moment all they knew is that it was hazardous, and they needed to get out.
Deciding not to waste more time, and precious oxygen, the two made a break for the end of the hall but their sprint turned into a stagger long before.
Jeremie was cursing how long the hallway was, and wishing his room wasn't right at the end of it opposite the staircase. Beside him, Ulrich was trying to breathe as little of the dense gas as possible, and not being very successful. Both of them were slowly getting more and more dazed, and their vision clouded (though they could barely differentiate between the clouds in their eyes and the clouds in the hallway).
Without warning, they were swiftly pulled into a dorm by someone, where they began to regain consciousness.
They coughed, Jeremie finally rubbing his eyes and looking up to identify their hero. "Odd," Speak of the devil, Jeremie thought it ironic
Ulrich didn't say a word as he straightened up, avoiding looking anywhere near Odd.
"You guys ok?" Odd asked, concerned for both of them.
"Yeah," Ulrich scoffed moodily, arms crossed.
"Nice save, thanks," Jeremie had to appreciate that at least.
"Don't thank me yet," Odd glanced at the bottom of the door where a small amount of the gas still snuck in. It wouldn't be long until the room was full of it too.
Odd unhitched the window, pushing it open as far as it would go. He turned to the others before swinging his feet out the ledge. "Come on. It's the only way."
Jeremie, even Ulrich, looked at Odd like he was crazy, but it quickly dawned on them that there was a lot more method to this madness than first met the eye.
"Let's go!" Odd urged, slipping entirely out the window, but stopping on the roof to make sure the others followed.
Jeremie may not have been a fan of danger, or scaling the side of the school, but he valued his life more than his fears. He approached the window too, although was stopped just before he reached it by Ulrich.
"What are you doing? Stop wasting time and come on," he told his friend, brushing Ulrich's hand off his shoulder.
"Jeremie, I have vertigo," Ulrich reminded, glancing apprehensively at the window. "I can't do it."
This was idiotic. Jeremie replied quickly and sternly. "Which are you more afraid of, heights or choking to death?"
Uneasily but surely, Ulrich followed Jeremie and came to the sill.
The two of them met Odd outside on the roof, the wind whipping their hair around like mad. Clinging to the wall, the whole school watched as the trio of boys climbed down and across a ledge, and down again, until they finally reached the ground. To their surprise they found themselves at the center of applause.
• • •
Gently humming, Yumi was sitting with her sketchbook on the bed when she got the call from Aelita.
"Oh hey." She said casually. Aelita didn't waste time and soon informed Yumi about the new development, and explained that she had just been speaking to Jeremie who was still in the building.
"What!?" Yumi exclaimed. "Where are Ulrich and Odd?"
There was a slight pause. "I-I don't know."
Yumi tossed her book aside, feeling absolutely distressed.
"Oh wait! Who's that coming out the..." Aelita gasped on the other end. "Yumi, you have to come see this."
Within literally an instant, Yumi had tossed her pencil down and was off the phone, out the door, and on her bicycle, taking off down the street.
Panting by the time she pulled up, she was right on time to watch the boys climb their last ledge and make it down near the crowd safely.
• • •
"Excuse me, pardon me," Aelita pushed through the crowd, being one of the first to congratulate the boys. "That was amazing! Are you ok?"
"A little shaken up I think," Jeremie glanced at his pals.
Odd finished the thought. "But we're all in one piece."
Jim soon bounded over, jolly grin across his face. "Oh wow! Stern, Della Robia, I'm not surprised, but Belpois, wow. Way to show some skill," he clapped a hand down on the boy's shoulder. You could tell just by looking at his face that Jim wanted to add something about Jeremie's muscles, or lack thereof, but he decided against it.
"Thanks Jim," Jeremie replied, not seeming to notice.
"You know, this reminds me of when I was—"
Ulrich cut Jim off, "Shouldn't we be heading to the meeting spot?"
A confused expression crossed Jim's face.
"That's right, it might still be dangerous around here because of the fumes," Aelita added smartly.
"Excellent point Stones! Let's go," Jim led the way towards where the majority of the kids were standing, and herded the rest over. The gang followed, in the rear, but Ulrich stopped Odd.
"Listen, I'm sorry, I lost my head earlier, and you probably just saved our lives, so thanks," he never had been great at wording things.
"No problem bud," Odd smiled back. "I'm sorry too."
Trying to keep a calm demeanor, Ulrich continued, him and Odd slowly ambling towards the pack also. "It's just that—" Ulrich stopped at the sight of Yumi who appeared infront of them.
A little out of breath (from biking, then darting over) she asked what everyone had asked. "Hey are you guys.." she could sense something was up, but she couldn't tell what, so the question ended with a hint of uncertainty, "..ok?"
"Yeah," Odd replied a little lifelessly.
"Fine," Ulrich mumbled under his breath, not looking directly at her.
Yumi was confused and wished at that minute that she could read minds. There was something different, the mood was denser. "Is there something wrong?"
"No," they replied almost in unison, giving Yumi the feeling that she was missing something. And they weren't about to fill her in either.
An unresolved silence hung for a moment, until they heard Jeremie call to them to hurry up. The trio followed, without another word.
It was lucky for the students that they had all gone to dinner in the cafeteria when the gas leak started. Except of course Jeremie, Odd and Ulrich, the first of which usually forgot about dinner anyways and the latter two having other things on their minds.
Once they got a safe distance from the building, Jeremie immediately addressed an important issue that was on his mind since who knows when.
Turning to the silent others he started, "Mysterious leak? Dangerous gas?"
"You think it's XANA?" Yumi's question was rhetorical.
"What else could it be?" Jeremie asked.
'How about just a gas leak?' Odd wanted to offer, but he thought better of it. Better safe than sorry probably.
Because Jeremie left his laptop in his room, they had to go to the factory to double check anyways, so they made themselves scarce.
• • •
Later, in the factory they all surrounded Jeremie and the super computer, just waiting for the 'ok' to hit the scanners. But instead of a 'yup' of agreement, what they heard from Jeremie was better described as a gasp of shock. "I don't believe it," his jaw dropped.
"What?" Aelita pushed Odd out of the way and took a gander at the supercomputer's screen. "What?"
"Could somebody please tell us what's going on?" Ulrich sounded a bit frustrated.
"I-it's not XANA," their kid-genius sounded like he was trying to convince himself, as well as them.
"What?" He and Aelita were met with three gazes of confusion.
"So you're saying it was just a casual leak of lethal gas?" Odd asked.
Jeremie pushed up his glasses and re-checked the super scan for the umpteenth time. "For once, seems like."
"That's too much of a coincidence," Ulrich wasn't convinced.
Yumi nodded. "I agree. Are you sure the scan's working?"
"I just updated it a couple days ago. It's working alright."
"This time it really is just a coincidence," Aelita clarified.
There was some silence as they stood there awkwardly, for once discovering that they DIDN'T need to save the word.
"There's a first for everything I guess," Odd mumbled.
Jeremie nodded, getting off of the large chair. "We should probably get back to school.
• • •
By the time they got back, the school was surrounded by tall men wearing all types of gear including gas masks, and things. Little did the gang know there was twice as many geared up men inside the school as outside, opening all the windows and doors, letting the gas diffuse into the late afternoon air.
"Alright kids, just pretend it's lunch break," Jim loud-speakered to the school audience.
"Lunch break that never ends, alright!" Odd cheered to his friends.
"And like a lunch break, all buildings are out of bounds," He continued, turning and shifting to address a plethora of crowded kids.
Odd frowned, mumbling to himself, "Aww."
"In this weather? Won't we all freeze?" Yumi piped up.
Jim raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't finished. All buildings are out of bounds EXCEPT, the rec room, and the library."
The crowd cheered before swiftly dispersing, despite Jim's best efforts to yell more demands at them. "Whatever you do, stay on the school grounds!"
"Pfft, like that's gonna happen," Ulrich scoffed as everyone broke away. Since the rec room was quickly flooded with people, and the library after it, the gang lingered around in the woods for a bit until deciding they weren't fans of the chilling wind and booked it back into the sewers.
"Sorry guys, I have something else I need to take care of," Ulrich waved to them quickly before running off, a hint of adventurousness in his eye.
Jeremie shrugged it off. "While he does that, we may as well make some more tweaks on that new program," he was speaking mostly to Aelita.
She nodded.
With Yumi and Odd silently in tow, they climbed down the ladder and hopped on their boards—and scooters.
A/N:
Sorry for the delay, I was starting to get behind on stuff (like this fic) and posting more than I was writing, but now I'm relatively caught up. Updates will (hopefully!) be more regular now, but there's just one more thing. I was thinking of making a fourth Little Vampire, since you guys like it so much and it's so awesome to write for me. The only problem is, it'd probably have a Christmassy theme, but by the time I post it it will likely be a week or two after Christmas. What I'm trying to ask is if it would be better for me to just skip the Christmassy time (because by new years everyone might be sick of it) or not. What do you all think?
Any and all ideas are appreciated.
