Just before you read this and give me the old "No one can feel anything in Lyoko" speech I'd like to prove you wrong. In the Cold War, when Odd was virtualized he shivered and said oh no more cold. I believe on another episode in the same sector her had to swim in the icy water and said something about that being cold too. Besides, if any of them couldn't feel anything on Lyoko why would they cry out anytime they got hit? It makes no sense. So bare with me here. I believe that they CAN feel on Lyoko. The pain is just lessened when they're there. With that I expect no complaints about farther chapters, okay? Read and review!
Chapter 8: Out of Control
Chelsea cried out as she was thrown backwards onto the ground. She backed away scooted backwards, away from William, grasping her bleeding nose.
William stepped towards her swiftly, wasting not to grab her arm and forcefully begin to drag her.
"William, stop! Stop! Get off me!" Chelsea screamed, digging her nails into his hand as she tried to pry herself free. She couldn't get up and was being dragged along like a rag doll.
Sissy walked out of the cafeteria just that moment. Her eyes widened at the sight and she raced towards William, stopping in front of him.
"Hey, Dunbar! What's the big idea? Can't you see you're hurting her?" Sissy demanded, pointing fiercely at Chelsea.
William just grinned. Chelsea suddenly got a strange feeling. She looked up at William and watched as his eyes flickered and flashed. Xana.
"Sissy! Leave! He'll hurt you too! You got to move!" Chelsea said urgently, struggling to her feet. Her wrist was throbbing in William's iron grasp.
Everything she said went through one ear and out the other. Sissy cocked her hip and wagged a finger. "Drop her now, William and I won't tell my daddy about this little inci-Ah!"
Sissy screamed louder than Chelsea ever thought possible as she was tossed easily aside and went skidding to a stop on the pavement nearby. With that done William yanked Chelsea up on her feet and tore ahead at a run, forcing Chelsea to run or stumble behind him.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
"Okay, here we go!" Jeremy said to his friends as their transporter brought them to the circular room in Sector 5.
"Ugh…" Odd muttered, rubbing his stomach. "I shouldn't have eaten breakfast this morning."
"You didn't eat any," Yumi said, waving an arm. "We skipped, remember?"
"Yeah…then I should've eaten breakfast. It's the only way I could feel this bad," Odd said.
"Well, you'll lose the feeling when we're kicking some creeper butt," Ulrich said.
"You know, something feels wrong…" Aelita said, having been quiet most of the trip. Something was definitely wrong. She could feel it in her Lyoko senses.
"What is it, Aelita?" Jeremy asked, suddenly worried.
"I don't know…I just feel like something is going wrong," Aelita replied.
"Want me to run a quick scan?" Jeremy asked.
"No can do, Einstein," Ulrich said. "We need you to be our bird's eye in Sector 5."
"Alright…" Jeremy replied.
The transporter stopped and the door opened. After the large blocks moved out of the way the gang raced into the sector.
"The countdown has begun," Jeremy said, following them on the holomap.
"Let's go," Ulrich said.
The doors opened up to a large room. On the ground there were curious circular plates and on the other side there was the trigger, ground level and all.
"Okay…this is new," Yumi said, viewing the terrain.
"Well, we won't know the trap unless we go out there," Ulrich said. He leapt forward toward the trigger when all of the sudden a plate on the ground uncovered and out shot a large spike. Ulrich didn't even get to cry out as he was devirtualized.
"Oh no! Ulrich!" Yumi cried.
"He's fine," Jeremy said. "I got the Sector 5 devirtualization program down last night and uploaded it before we came. He just might be bruised, that's all."
Sure enough the scanners opened and Ulrich stumbled out, grasping his head. He called up to Jeremy, "Never let me do that again. That's going to haunt me forever…"
"Just don't go running into traps anymore and you should be fine," Jeremy said back.
Back on Lyoko Yumi took a step. Aelita yanked her back just in time. A spike shot up heavily in front of her.
"How did you do that?" Yumi asked.
"I can sense when they come up. It's just another Lyoko sense, I guess," Aelita replied.
"Okay then. You lead the way," Yumi said with a smile.
"Right," Aelita said. She stared hard at the ground.
"Any day now?" Odd asked.
"Don't pester her," Yumi said.
Odd sighed and sat down impatiently. He looked at the rising and falling spikes before him boredly before he suddenly noticed something. The walls. The walls had no plates.
He sprung to his feet. "I'll see you ladies. I'm taking the express."
And with that he leapt onto the left wall and began to climb, just as a creeper came out from behind Aelita and Yumi.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
"Ugh! Let me go, Xana!" Chelsea yelled. William stopped at the sewer entrance. Chelsea remembered it as the way they took to get to the factory. He was going to the factory. Why?
Chelsea began climbing down. William had let her go so she could but he was watching her from the top so she couldn't go back up. Chelsea began her descent slowly trying to think of a plan. Her brain began to work and she figured one out.
She glanced up as William watched her. She was halfway down now. Then he began his descent.
"Hah!" Chelsea yelled and she leaped out the ladder and onto the ground, taking off at a hard sprint. It was then that she was grateful for her acute memory and speed at running. She pulled out her cell phone and pressed in Ulrich's number.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Ulrich sighed as he watched the screen behind Jeremy's chair. He had figured his trip to Lyoko would make him forget the problems he was having now and it did. He just hadn't expected to be devirtualized so quickly.
Ulrich cursed himself for being so careless. He usually wasn't like that. But he knew that the more stressed he got the more reckless he became. It was just the way he was. He didn't think when his problems got to him. Usually there was time for thinking when he sat in his favorite tree in the park or just lay in his room. Not when he was fighting Xana.
An annoying sound reached his and Jeremy's ears and Ulrich tried to ignore it. When he finally realized it was his phone he started in surprise and yanked it out. Looking at the caller ID a name flashed he hadn't expected to see. Chelsea.
"Hello?" Ulrich asked, pressing the button.
"Ulrich! I need help," Chelsea said. Ulrich raised his brows at her panicked voice and labored breath. What was going on?
"Are you all right?" Ulrich asked. Once again he was surprised but not at the stress in her voice but the worry in his.
"No! I think William is possessed by Lyoko!" Chelsea said. "I was playing soccer with him at the field and he was just fine when got up and punched me and started dragging me to the factory!"
"Another possession?" Ulrich asked in surprise.
Jeremy looked at Ulrich's clenched fist in wonder. "What's going on?"
Ulrich held up a finger and continued to talk to Chelsea. "Try and hide. Don't bring him here though. I'll come help you out."
And with that he hung up. He looked fast at Jeremy. "Check for an activated tower. Aelita was right. Something is wrong. William's been possessed by Xana and is chasing Chelsea."
Jeremy leapt into action and relayed this new info to his comrades on Lyoko as Ulrich left to the elevator.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Chelsea hung her phone up and turned a corner opposite the way of the factory. She was ahead of William but for how long? She skidded to a stop to catch her breath and grasp her knees.
When she looked behind her after a few moments, no one came. Had she really lost him? Was it possible?
She stood and turned around.
"Going somewhere?"
Her phone crashed onto the ground and into the sewers.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
"Hah!" Yumi cried, giving a talented flick of her wrist to send her metal fan flying. It slammed into one of the opposing creepers and sent it into explosions. Three others continued to pursue her and Aelita halfway across though.
"Jeremy," Odd began sniping the creepers that had tracked the girls to the middle of the spike floor. "How much time do we have left?"
"Only a minute! Hurry up!" Jeremy pleaded.
"Aye, aye, Captain!" Odd turned and raced across the wall. The creepers seemed to realize what he was doing so they forced their laser attention on him, blasting away at his back.
Yumi stopped and watched as Odd struggled out of the creepers' range. She yanked out her fans and twisted around in an expert throw. The fans hit two creepers giving Odd enough leeway to bound across the room and press the button
In a second the spikes dropped and sunk into the ground, the tiny platforms covering their dangerous holes again. With that, the door opposite them opened and they raced through it into another large room.
"Good work," Jeremy said. "We need to get the information at the end of the Sector fast though. Chelsea's being pursued by William. Another possession and judging by Ulrich's outcome with a possessed Sissy this does not look good."
Odd and Yumi nodded as they stopped in the middle of the room. At the end the large sliding door opened and let in five creepers with a large squid-like creature following, making raspy growls and waving its tentacles.
"Jeremy, what is that?" Odd demanded bounded off to rest behind Aelita and guard her from the coming creepers.
Yumi looked up to be face to face with a large squid-like creature. She gasped as its tentacles spread and bounced.
Jeremy answered. "I think it's the Scyphozoa. It's another one of Xana's monsters but…I have no idea what it does!"
"Well, let's not wait and find out!" Odd said. He aimed to fire at it but was caught in a barrage of fire by the creepers.
Yumi moved forward. "Aelita! Hide behind the wall!"
Aelita nodded her green eyes tight with worry and she raced to the wall and ducked down beneath it.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Ulrich raced up the stairway and climbed up the ropes out of the factory. As he tore swiftly across the bridge a noise behind him made him stop suddenly the second he was across. He spun around and set his jaw as he saw the sewer main being open. William tossed a struggling Chelsea up onto the top, still holding onto her legs as she growled and tried to break free.
"Let me go, you hear? No one cares about your stupid plot to take over the world! You're just a useless hunk of-of-DATA! That's why your biggest threat is a bunch of 14 year olds at a bloody boarding school!"
Ulrich had trouble suppressing laughter at that point. He and his friends had always insulted Xana but somehow, the fact that Xana's only problem WAS a bunch of teenagers seemed to cut deep.
Xana thought so too. Chelsea shrieked as William got of and by her legs dangled her over the bridge.
"Silence, now, you pathetic worm or I will kill you right now!" Xana yelled.
Ulrich increased his speed back onto the bridge at that threat and still Chelsea kept talking.
"Then why don't you? If I'm so pathetic what's holding you back?" Chelsea hollered from her upside-down position. Her face had now turned bright red and she still tried kicking and clawing her way out, even though she'd end up in the sewer main.
"Chelsea, shut up! He will drop you!" Ulrich finally yelled stepping a few yards away and stopping. It was too dangerous to get any closer.
Chelsea immediately silence herself and instead tried grabbing on to William's arm for dear life, a sheepish grin on her face.
William turned and looked at Ulrich. Ulrich saw knowingly the same flashing look in his eyes that had been there when Sissy had pushed him down the stairs. He still cringed at the memory.
William smiled at him. "You."
"Me," Ulrich said flatly.
Xana pulled a struggling Chelsea back onto the bridge and dropped her.
She leapt to her feet and raced towards Ulrich's side. She stopped and glared at him. Before Ulrich realized it his left cheek was burning with pain and she was turning back around to face Xana.
He touched his cheek lightly and looked up at her in confusion. She glared more. "That's for telling them."
Ulrich sighed, suddenly recalling his big mistake. No time to think about it now. Maybe at least now she could forgive him since he got his share of the pain.
"What do you want this time, Xana?" Ulrich demanded. He had a haunch Xana was just trying to distract them to coax Aelita out of the fifth sector but somehow he knew it went deeper.
"To kill, of course," Xana snarled back, taking a step toward the two brunettes.
"Chels," Ulrich whispered out of the corner of his mouth. "Go help the others in the Lyoko."
Chelsea looked at him quickly and he was taken aback by her startled green eyes. "Are you mad?"
Ulrich twitched his head as William took another daring step towards them. "No. I know you can help. Go, please?"
She looked down. "They wouldn't want me."
"Yes they would. Go. I'll distract him."
She was silent for a moment and as Ulrich studied her more, William's pace quickened. She finally looked up at him a loyal look in her eyes. "I'm only doing this for you."
That line surprised Ulrich. Only for him? What did that mean? Did she…like him, maybe? Ulrich pushed the new excited feeling out of his stomach. As she took off running he suddenly noticed she looked really pretty.
When William moved fast towards her Ulrich jumped back to reality, cursing himself. How could he let one stupid line get to him like that? He liked Yumi and that was final. With that he was on Xana's tail and he leaped, tackling the possessed teenager to the ground, giving Chelsea perfect leeway to escape.
And beneath Ulrich's weight, William smiled.
AAAAAAAAAA
Yumi and Odd were now on either half of the room as more creepers flooded in. They had never been so barraged with monsters before and it was beginning to frighten them.
The Scyphozoa appeared to not really be doing anything at all and though they glanced at it every now and then to make sure it didn't pull anything, they mainly kept their attention on killing the onslaught of creepers.
Odd, though was a bit afraid and tiring was having the time of his life. Lyoko was his passion and helped keep him in shape. Spending what felt like every waking hour he had inside of it was just too much fun.
At the moment, he faced three creepers at once. Grinning he raced forward and front-flipped, pushing off the ground hard. He soared easily through the air and landed on the middle creeper's head. To his delight the other two followed his movements and ended up slaughtering their middle comrade as Odd bounced off it and landed on the wall.
The creepers seemed infuriated at Odd's devious trick and they began firing at once. Odd raced across the wall and climbed onto an overhang wall. Flailing himself onto is stomach he rolled across the block to dodge lasers, stopping at the edge to snipe the left creeper to pieces.
That particular creeper was replaced by another one and those two continued to fire, forcing Odd off the block to continue pouncing along the wall.
Yumi was having a rougher time. She stood in the middle of four creepers a number she'd usually never have to fight off alone but right now she had no choice.
She dropped to her stomach as the creepers began to fire and smiled with glee as two exploded, meaning to hit her but hitting the others when she dodged.
Like the creepers Odd fought the remaining two seemed to get angry. They blasted immediately at her as she leapt to her feet and broke into a cartwheel, flipping easily out of their little circle. She twirled around in air and landed, facing them with a leg stretched out.
Not wasting anytime, she balanced herself easily and flipped out her fans, spinning fast around and flicking her wrists to launch. The fans seemed to confuse her enemies as they zoomed out in a wide range, not going anywhere near the monsters. They ignored the zooming weapons and turned away to continue firing upon Yumi. Yumi grinned as just in time the fans spun around and sliced back to her hands, exploding the opposing creepers on the way.
Just as a shriek broke out.
Yumi and Odd spun around in time to see Aelita being lifted up by the Scyphozoa. Its tentacles had wrapped around her waist and arms while two seemed to be plugged into her head, draining something.
"Jeremy! What's it doing to her!" Yumi cried, holding her fans ready.
"Ugh, I don't know!" Jeremy said trying furiously, trying to search for any data he might've had on this new creature.
As suddenly as he had begun a screen appeared showing Aelita's head and a bunch of numbers. Jeremy gasped. "Kill it! It's stealing Aelita's memory!"
"Right, Einstein!" Odd called and he charged forward, skidding to a stop to fire at the head of the creature. It only began to move backwards, holding Aelita still.
"Yumi, get in there!" Jeremy called, panicked as the number of Aelita's memory began dropping fiercely.
"Right," Yumi mumbled as she twirled fast again and released her fans. This time she aimed for the tentacles instead of the head. Quick as a wink, the tentacles were sliced into pieces by Yumi's metal fans. The geisha warrior raced towards Aelita as Odd forced the Scyphozoa back.
"Are you alright, Aelita?" Yumi asked, bending at the elf's side.
Aelita sat up, grasping her head. "Yes…I just feel weird that's all."
"Guys, head for the end of the sector" Jeremy said. "We need to get that tower deactivated before Ulrich gets killed again. I'll upload the vehicles for you at the end. This trip will have to be rescheduled."
Aelita nodded though she could sense the disappointment in Jeremy's voice. She, just as much as he, wanted to be rid of that lousy virus. And with that she, Odd and Yumi took off down the hall, preparing to go to the end of the sector and to the forest sector.
AAAAAAAAAA
Chelsea charged down the road and swung down on the ropes. As she flew a scream of delight escaped her lips and she toppled to the ground, rolling by the elevator, laughing. If it hadn't been for Ulrich and her other friends Chelsea wouldn't have moved.
She leapt into the elevator and lucky for her she still remembered Jeremy's code. She pressed it quickly and it opened to reveal the gorgeous supercomputer with Jeremy on it.
She was surprised when he didn't look surprised to see her. His eyes were covered by the glare of the computer screen as he spoke in a monotone. "Ulrich sent you?"
"Yes."
"Head for the scanners. I'm sending you to the same sector you went to before. There's an activated tower and the others will meet you there soon."
"Right."
Chelsea turned into the elevator.
"Chelsea?"
"Yes?"
"Don't disappoint me this time."
The elevator closed and she traveled downward, a sinking feeling rising in the pit of her stomach. As Chelsea thought that she suddenly laughed. A sinking feeling rising in the pit of her stomach. It was kind of funny.
And it helped keep her mind off of the constant worry that had been with her since Ulrich had told her to go to the factory. What if she did let them down? What if she lost control again? Whatever that was that had controlled her might do it again.
No. Chelsea decided she wouldn't let that happen again. She couldn't endanger her friends anymore. She had to prove to them that she was worthy of being a Lyoko guardian.
"Transfer, Chelsea!"
She stepped into the scanners, closing her eyes in remembrance of the first time and holding still.
"Scanner, Chelsea!"
What would happen when she got there?
"Virtualization!"
Chelsea dropped into the sector just as Odd, Yumi and Aelita came out of the whole from Sector 5.
Yumi gasped when she hopped of the Overwing. "What are you doing here?"
"I was sent to help," Chelsea said, restraining herself from cutting words. Prove yourself, prove yourself.
"Wow, Jeremy must be getting desperate," Yumi growled.
Odd stepped up. "Hey, Yumi, lay off. If Jeremy sent her then we can trust her."
"Yeah right," Yumi growled.
"Chelsea are you alright?" Jeremy called suddenly.
Chelsea looked up at the sky. "Yeah, why?"
"Because there was a problem with the transfer again. I have no idea what it could be this time," Jeremy said, his voice filled with confusion.
"It's because even Lyoko itself doesn't want a traitor here," Yumi snapped.
"Lay off," Chelsea said fast. "I haven't done anything to you so just stop pestering me!"
"Not to me, of course but to Odd and Aelita!" Yumi said.
"That wasn't my fault!"
"Of course it was! You shot them out of your own will!"
"No I didn't!"
"Just leave! We don't need your trashy help."
"Don't need my help? Yumi why-Oh."
"Oh…what?"
"Nothing."
"Say it, freak!"
"You're just jealous!"
"Jealous of what?"
"That another girl is hanging out with your precious Ulrich!"
"What? Your mad."
"Am I? I think you're just as bad as Sissy. The second a girl warms up to him you get pissed and jealous thinking he's going to ditch you for some other girl, right?"
"…"
"Well, you don't have to worry."
"…why?"
"Anytime I'm around him all I hear is about how much he cares for you."
Yumi, Odd, and Aelita stood there looking at Chelsea. Her voice had been pained, wavering for just a second. Yumi was more surprised on the fact that Ulrich did care for her. She knew it was obvious but hearing it straight from her newest rival had to mean it was true!
Chelsea bit her lip. Saying it out of her mouth had made her believe it. Ulrich still liked Yumi. She had figured she could do nothing to break him free of the girl he's liked for so long just to be with someone he just met but…girls hope.
Chelsea suddenly cried out and dropped to her knees in pain, grasping her head. She screamed as pain tore through her mind and took over, just like the time before. She broke into a sweat and groped the ground, searching for something to hold onto. She felt like she needed to restrain herself as something began to take over.
"Jer-e…my!" Chelsea managed to cry, her face turning red.
"Chelsea, what's going on?" Jeremy demanded.
"I-c-can…t con…tro-ol my-self!" Chelsea choked.
"Everyone back up! Something's happened! Chelsea isn't safe!" Jeremy cried.
Suddenly Chelsea stopped shaking. She stood and opened her eyes and at that moment, they knew Chelsea wasn't Chelsea anymore.
