Dear Claire- I didn't write Killer Music because the episodes I chose are a combination between my favorite episodes and the requester's favorite episodes. Killer music wasn't really one we thought of. If you really would like to see me write it, please message me and we can discuss it.
Excluding this chapter, four more chapters will be written for this story. I've gotten a few people asking how many chapters I plan to write, and this is a public update. Thanks for reading!
"Wow, that's a tough break," Jeremy groaned, removing his glasses and squeezing the bridge of his nose.
"You've gotta' be kidding," Jade moaned, grabbing onto Yumi's arm, trying to hold her in place, beside Jade, so she couldn't float away.
"Unfortunately…I'm not," Yumi sighed, putting her arm around Jade a giving her a reassuring hug. This was the scene Ulrich Stern stumbled upon when he showed up later than all his other friends before his Spanish class.
"Hey, what's going on here?" Ulrich asked, his eyebrows raised at the somber expressions.
"I really wish I could do something, Yumi," Aelita whimpered, wrapping her arm around Yumi's other side and hugging her as well.
"That's really nice of you, Aelita," Yumi sighed. The three girls squeezed each other, their eyes tightly shut against reality.
"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" Ulrich snapped, disliking being in the dark while it seemed something truly dark was at hand. The bell rang, and Jeremy gave Ulrich a sad side glance.
"Look…we'll talk about it after class, okay?" Jeremy offered. The others began to walk towards their respective classes. As Odd and Jade walked by, Odd glanced up at him; his face was streaked with tears. Ulrich blinked in surprise; when was the last time he'd seen him cry?
During lecture, Ulrich continued to whisper quietly to his friends who sat in front of him, bugging them to spill the beans. "Yumi's father lost his job," Odd finally sighed, staring blankly at the paper before him.
"They're thinking about going back to Japan so he can find work," Jade grumbled, drawing a circle in the top right corner of her paper absentmindedly over and over again. Ulrich's jaw hung loosely open as he turned to Jeremy, who sat beside him, for confirmation.
"It's not for sure yet," Jeremy said, trying not to meet his friend's eye, "so don't panic."
"What!" Ulrich said, a little louder. A nearby student taking diligent notes shushed the group, and after a hastily whisper apology, continued. "Yumi's leaving, we may never see her again, and I shouldn't panic?"
"You know, there is an easy solution," Odd mused, turning around in his chair with a smirk at Ulrich. Ulrich raised an eyebrow, and Odd sang, "If you marry Yumi, then she can get green card."
Jade's stomach dropped to the floor. She sank the thick heel of her combat boot into Odd's toe, and he yelped in pain. After a quick chastisement from the professor, he turned back to his lecture, and Jade leveled her twin brother with a glare that would make plants wilt. Odd felt guilty; he knew how his sister felt about his roommate. As he turned back around and began taking sulky notes, he silently lectured himself about trying to keep his big mouth shut. Jade's pen continued to draw the circle, pressing her pen's point harder against the paper now, faster and faster.
"Por Favor, Senor Katchya," Ulrich spluttered suddenly as he leapt to his feet with a raised hand, his Spanish accent simply terrible. "Can I go to the infirmary, I'm not feeling so well." The professor granted his request, and as Ulrich slipped around the desk, Jeremy asked where he was going. "I'm going to talk to Yumi," Ulrich whispered as he passed by his friends. Jade's pen sank its sharp tip into the paper, already wet with ink, and it ripped loudly.
She hated herself for feeling this way. As she watched Ulrich's quick retreat from the classroom doorway, she felt both self-disgust and frustration. She was desperately saddened by the possibility that Yumi was leaving; happy emotions were hard for her to endure and feel, but melancholy, well she did those feelings best. And with the news that one of her closest friend's might be leaving half way across the globe, she felt close to tears. But the knowledge that Ulrich felt more romantically towards the Japanese girl than her, that he desired Yumi more than her…she hated herself for it, but jealousy was coursing through her veins, along with the apprehension of Yumi's possible departure. The fact that she could even feel jealousy at a time like this, when there were bigger things at stake than Jade's petty crush, made her more irritated with herself.
"Why can't you stay at the school as a boarder?" Ulrich asked angrily, kicking a small stone as he and Yumi paced the school grounds, both using the classic "I need to go to the infirmary" rouse. "You could go to Japan on summer vacation!"
"Are you kidding me?" Yumi sighed, shaking her head. "My parents would never go for that." She stared at the ground, and her chin length black hair fell in front of her face, a midnight curtain hiding her expression from him; he hated the way it kept her from him, as if she were already leaving. "What's more, my parents need me."
"Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?" Ulrich hissed angrily. "What if-"
"Ulrich,"Yumi said, holding up her hand, halting his words, "it's nice of you to try to find a solution, but nothing has been decided. It might not be anything to worry about."
"I know!" Ulrich gasped, his mind running through a hundred different solutions at once and finally settling on one. "Why don't we write to our congressman and ask for help?"
"Sure, why not the president while you're at it?" Yumi snorted sarcastically before she returned to her class. Little did she know, the sarcasm wasn't sensed by Ulrich, and he had taken her comment very literally. That evening, when classes ended, Ulrich dashed to his room and flicked on the desk lamp, before writing draft after draft of a letter to congressman, a president, anyone who he believed could sway the Ishiyama's decision. However, each draft sounded worse than the last, and an hour later, Ulrich's trashcan was overflowing with crumpled up, half written letters.
Remember, folks, this week's Super Jackpot is 30 million big ones! The winning numbers are… 6, 22, 10, 47, 13, 37, and now that big bonus number, 14! If you have the lotto ticket with these numbers, run on down to the City Hall, located west on… Ulrich's hand scratched down the numbers listed by the blaring radio, and he stared at the sequence with a shaky grip. Should he…if it was for Yumi, not him…
"No, I couldn't do that," Ulrich sighed in resignation. He put the numbers in his messy desk drawer and began walking to the mess hall to join the rest of his friends. However, half way to the mess hall, his feet changed his course without his permission, and soon, he was running to the factory. "That wouldn't be right." Even as he said it, his mind was already settled. That evening, at the Ishiyama residence, the dinner table was tense with options and possibilities.
"Did you visit the temp offices today?" Yumi's mother asked as Hiroki slurped his noodles form his chopstick loudly.
"No. I haven't had time," Yumi's father replied curtly.
"That's too bad," Mrs. Ishiyama growled. "They could've had something for you, I mean, just to tie us over until we return to Kyoto." Yumi's father set down his small bowl of rice slowly, trying to keep his frustration in check.
"There is nothing out there for me, there are too many people working in my field!" he said, his voice a little louder than before. "You know that very well."
"Anyway, if you don't look, you certainly won't find anything," Yumi's mother said, acting as if her husband hadn't spoken. The cadence and tone of Mrs. Ishiyama's voice was that of superiority and condescending.
Mr. Ishiyama slammed his fist on the table, and his small bowl of rice tipped over, spilling across the tabletop. Hiroki cried out in surprise, and Yumi slipped her hand under the table to grab his knee and reassure him, unseen by her parents. "Would you stop it now?" Her father demanded loudly, glaring at his wife. "Did you go to the temp agencies today?" Mrs. Ishiyama, unimpressed by his show of force, stared back at him coldly. Slowly, she pushed back her chair, rose from the table, and left the kitchen wordlessly. As their father glared at his spilt bowl and muttered to himself angrily, Yumi and Hiroki froze, unsure as to whether leaving or staying would turn his wrath on them.
"Daddy…" Hiroki's voice was cut off as a blinding flash of brilliant white light ripped through the wall, the windows, through Yumi's sight. She felt her worries fall away, piece by piece, and she was wiped clean and pure and suddenly, she was standing around with Jeremy, Jade, Odd, and Aelita, the first bell yet to ring, the sun still low in the eastern horizon.
"Wait…" Aelita said slowly, as if she was intoxicated, and slowly coming to through a haze of confusion, "what just happened?" Odd and Jade blinked in confusion at each other and looked around; about them, students laughed and gossiped and wrestling as if time hadn't just reversed itself to that morning.
Jeremy yanked out his laptop and set it on a nearby bench, a makeshift desk. "Why did we Return to the Past?" Jade asked quietly.
"Is it possible that X.A.N.A has regained control of the Return in Time function on the Supercomputer?" Yumi asked anxiously.
"No way," Jeremy said, shaking his head as his fingers danced upon the keyboard. "I made a special program just so he wouldn't be able to do that ever again." Furthermore, my Super Scan doesn't show any activated towers." He stared at the screen a little longer, then murmured, "that's really weird…." He shoved his laptop back into his bag with a grunt, shaking his head in confusion. "I'll go to the factory after class and check it out."
During Spanish, Ulrich acted oddly; his gestures and movements were stiff and forced. When asked to join them in the investigation after class, he declined immediately, giving a stuttered excuse as to why he wouldn't join them. Not thinking twice about it, the five other Warriors ran to the factory during lunch.
When Mr. Ishiyama heard a knock on the door around noon, he felt confused; perhaps Yumi had forgotten her house, but when was the last time his daughter had come home for lunch? When he opened the front door, however, it wasn't Yumi on the doorstep. "Ah, Ulrich," Yumi's father said with distaste, "how can I help you?" Hearing the name, Yumi's mother exited the living room and came to stand behind her husband, a suspicious eyebrow raised at the young man.
"Well, I know that you're going to think this sounds ridiculous," Ulrich stuttered, his tongue dry with nervousness, "but I heard you were having some trouble with work, and, well…." His foot circled on the doormat, hesitant to meet Yumi's Father's eye. "Well, I bought you a lotto ticket. You never know; maybe you'll be lucky! Then you could stay here with Yumi." Ulrich yanked the thin slip of paper out from his cargo pant pocket and held it out the Yumi's parents.
Mr. Ishiyama took the ticket and laughed at his optimism cruelly. "I'm sorry, son," he said, not sounding too apologetic, "but you have to admit, it does sound pretty funny. Do you know the odds of winning the lotto?" He stuffed the ticket in his breast pocket, shaking his head. "Well, at least you made me laugh, it's something I could use right now." Mr. Ishiyama shot his wife a passive aggressive glance as he said this, but she ignored it dutifully.
"Anyway," Mrs. Ishiyama said, bulldozing over her husband's jab, "thank you for the thought, Ulrich, we are really quite touched."
"Just don't forget to listen to the numbers," Ulrich insisted as he turned to leave. After taking a couple steps away, he turned back to the Japanese couple with a furrowed brow. "Oh, and don't tell Yumi I gave that to you; she might take it the wrong way." With that, Stern left the porch, and the Ishiyama's closed the front door.
In the following hour, the Ishiyama parents joked and chuckled about how silly the young man's hope was; the distraction gave them something to make fun of other than each other. However, later that evening, both were struck dumbfounded when the announcer on the radio called out the exact sequence of numbers their ticket had stamped on it.
"The winning ticket! The jackpot, the jackpot!" Yumi's father cried, hopping around the kitchen, waving the frail ticket above his head. Yumi, who was home on her off hour, dashed from her room to see what the commotion was, and was shocked, and for more reason than just because her family had won.
"You…you played in to lotto?" she sputtered. "But you- you hate gambling!"
"Actually, it was your friend Ulrich," Mrs. Ishiyama said absent mindedly. A moment of silence followed, then her eyes widened as she realized she had broken confidentiality.
"He didn't want you to know," Yumi's father told her, glaring at his wife. Yumi's face grew inexplicably red as she ran from the room, leaving the rest of her family rather perplexed. As Yumi ran from the house, her family continued to celebrate obliviously.
Back at the factory, Odd, Jade, Aelita and Jeremy all stood in the factory's master chair room, bathed in blue light as Jeremy typed frantically at the keyboard. "I don't get it," Jeremy growled, slamming his fist down on the armrest when his probing didn't turn anything up. "X.A.N.A had nothing to do with it. It's as if someone set off a Return to the Past from here!"
"Well, gang, it looks like we've got another mystery on our hands! To the Mystery Machine!" Odd said playfully, nudging his sister.
"But you're the only one who knows how to do it," Jade said to Jeremy as she swatted her brother's elbow away.
"Unless…someone read your manual," Aelita said quietly. An implicit silence filled the room as Odd's playful face and Jade's confused face darkened to defensive; surely she wouldn't be implying the twins?
"What makes you say that?" Jeremy finally asked, looking strictly at his crush and avoiding eye contact with the others. Aelita's gaze narrowed angrily as pieces started to fall together. As the four of them left the factory and headed back to school to finish the school day, she filled in the other's on her hunch, and as she spoke, Jade's stomach fell from its rightful place in her abdomen down into the soles of her shoes.
They arrived as Yumi arrived from her own home, and what she said to the group only furthered to confirm Aelita's suspicion. When Ulrich approached the others, finishing off an apple core from the cafeteria, the conversation came to a grinding halt. "Hey guys," Ulrich said, too elated with solving the Ishiyama issue to notice the hostile glares.
"Heyyyy, Ulrich," Jeremy hissed, his spectacles sliding down his nose. "You know, I'm really impressed with your computer skills."
"Who, me?" Ulrich spat in surprise.
"Well, you did enter the code for the Return to the Past into the Master Computer without making a single mistake," Aelita growled, unfolding her arms and placing them on her hips.
"Yeah, well done," Odd snapped.
"Wh-What are you talking about?" Ulrich asked, putting on his most convincing confused mask.
"Oh, don't waste your breath!" Yumi shouted, standing up straight from where she had been leaning against the trunk of a tree. She shoved her way through Jeremy and Aelita so she stood in front of Ulrich, her hurt pride and anger causing an awesome aura of power to seep from her form. "We know it was you who triggered the Return to the Past." Around them, several nearby students glanced their way with curiosity, though Yumi didn't care.
"You broke rule number one, Ulrich! I can't believe it!" Odd hissed. Jade bit her tongue; she hated this. She hated being at ends with her pals. She hated what Ulrich had did, how he had betrayed them all, but more importantly, she hated that he'd done something so tremendous…for someone else.
"I only did it for Yumi," Ulrich said, holding his palms up for a cease fire. He offered Yumi a pleading smile, saying, "So you can stay."
"I didn't ask for your help!" She shouted, in stark contrast to his quiet plea. Ulrich's eyes widened in shock.
"Do you realize what you've done, Ulrich?" Jeremy snapped, taking another aggressive step towards his friend. Jade flinched; she'd seen this all before on the nature channel. The pack of wolves dove in one by one on a defenseless deer, taking turns sinking their fangs into its skin as it screamed for them to stop.
"You know that going back in time makes X.A.N.A stronger," Aelita snapped.
"Why didn't you talk to us first, huh?" Odd jumped in, his face red with anger. "Why did you have to go sneaking around behind our backs?"
"I'm…I'm sorry," Ulrich said, his voice cracking weakly. Yumi dug into her pocket with disgust and yanked out a wadded piece of paper.
"It's too late for sorry," Aelita laughed humorlessly. Ulrich turned and looked at Jade, the only one to remain silent up until this point, silently begging for her help. She felt like she was drowning, but she knew what he had done was wrong.
"You've betrayed our trust," Jade whispered. Ulrich's face fell, and Jade's stomach twisted.
"Here," Yumi said, throwing the crumpled paper at Ulrich's chest. It felt like a brick slammed into his sternum as the little white ball booped against his chest and rolled harmlessly away. "You can take back your dumb ticket. My parent's think you should keep the money." The bell rang for the next class to start, and Yumi stormed away, not even bothering to look Ulrich in the eye as she shoved past him.
"As of now, until you hear otherwise," Jeremy said, finality ringing in his tone, "you are out of the group." He strode away, his nose high in the air, leaving Ulrich blinking in shock behind him. Aelita followed after him, her eyes trained on the ground.
"Ulrich, I…" Jade tried to comfort him, her brain screeching for her to say something, anything, to ease this blow. Her hand reached out to rub his shoulder, but her brother shifted the weight of his body onto one foot, effectively blocking her from his best friend.
"Come on, Jade," Odd snipped, glaring at Ulrich heatedly. "We'd better get to history class." He herded his sister away, and Jade obeyed slowly, knowing that he was right, but hating it.
"He only did it to keep us all together!" Jade hissed under her breath as they walked away, glancing back sadly at Ulrich's frozen figure.
"Yeah, and look where it got us," Odd snapped back. "Torn apart." In history, Ulrich sat alone, in the far corner of the room, sulking. Jade pouted beside her brother as the teacher's lecture droned on endlessly, a soundtrack to her misery.
"X.A.N.A has launched an attack," Jeremy whispered from behind her. Jade stiffened in her chair as Aelita gasped in shock. "We have less than a minute left in class. We'll go to the factory as soon as the bell rings." When the shrill call signaled the end of the period, the four Warriors leapt to their feet and ran out of the room. Jade skidded to a halt outside the classroom door, looking back at Ulrich, who's knowing eyes were locked with hers.
Odd snatched her elbow and pulled his sister along. "But Ulrich—" she argued.
"Isn't one of us anymore," Aelita said as she ran along with the two blonde siblings. Ahead, Jeremy yapped into his cellular, telling Yumi to head to the factory. She fell in step with the others, and the five of them ran to the sheltering shadows of the forest park's tree line. As Jade clamored down the ladder into the sewer, she felt her heart ripping in two at leaving Ulrich behind. As each Warrior grabbed their wheels in turn before zipping off down the concrete, Jade stood frozen, staring at Ulrich's unclaimed skateboard.
"Jade, let's go," Yumi called back impatiently as she rolled away quickly. Jade and Aelita virtualized first, quickly followed by Yumi and Odd. By the time that her brother's boots landed on the desert region floor, their vehicles were floating beside them.
"Aelita," Odd said graciously, bowing dramatically, "would you do me the great honor of climbing aboard my humble…uh…board?" Aelita giggled and hopped onto the back of the Overboard before Odd.
"The activated tower is located two platforms north," Jeremy stated from his master chair on Earth.
"Alright, let's go," Yumi said. The four blasted away, leaving a trail of desert dust behind them. A few minutes passed by uneventfully. "Jeremy, can I get a status update?" Yumi requested.
"No monsters for the time being," Jeremy obliged.
"It's not monsters I'm worried about," Jade said, pulling up beside her leader and glancing over at Yumi as she spoke to Jeremy. "It's X.A.N.A attacking on Earth." She gave her Draftboard a little tug and hopped over a rock in the way as she continued, "we still don't know what he's got in store for us this time!"
"Yeah," Jeremy agreed nervously. "I'd rather we deactivated the tower before we find out." A loud clanging of metallic stress caused Jeremy to look up in his chair; above him, hanging upside down like a vampiric bat, Nicolas stared at him, his outline grey and fuzzy. With a battle cry, he fell from above and pounced on Jeremy.
"Jeremy, are we close to the tower yet? We can't see it," Odd asked, his eyes scanning the horizon. They waited for a response, but nothing came from above. "Jeremy?"
"Look! Over there, a Krab!" The three Warriors followed Aelita's finger, and their eyes locked on the singular target until suddenly more and more Krabs came lopping behind the first. A battalion unprecedented of Krabs skittered a hundred yards to their right, racing them.
"Are my eyes playing tricks on me," Yumi groaned, "but are there at least twenty of them?"
"Jeremy, why didn't you warn us?" Jade shouted. "Jeremy, answer me!" Back on Earth, Jeremy rested on his side on the ground, groaning unconsciously, where X.A.N.A's Nicolas had left his incapacitated body. A evil cackle surrounded the four Lyoko Warriors as the wearily watched the Krabs as the flanked their right side.
"Jeremy, was that you?" Yumi asked in surprise.
"No, that isn't Jeremy," Odd growled as his eyes narrowed. "I'd recognize that laugh anywhere. It's Nicolas." Suddenly, from their right, several Krabs changed their direction from lopping beside the Warriors to dashing straight for them.
"Look out!" Aelita shouted fearfully. Odd weaved his Overboard away from the volley of lasers before suggesting they pick up the pace a little. The three vehicles sped up, reaching their maximum speed in an attempt to outrun the monsters. From behind, the Krabs continued their onslaught.
Yumi screamed in pain as a laser shoved itself into her shoulder. Her arm jerked away in reaction, and the handle on her Overwing followed. With the sharp twist, Yumi was flung off her vehicle, and she rolled to a stop several yards away from where the Overwing slammed into a boulder and exploded.
"Yumi!" Jade screeched, yanking her green and purple Draftboard about face. Odd followed suit, and the three raced back to their leader's side.
"I don't…understand," Yumi panted between difficult breaths. "Why does…it…hurt so much? Shouldn't I just loose some life points?" Aelita helped Yumi onto Odd's Overboard as they hopped off.
"Something's wrong at the factory," Odd said, watching the Krabs, which had been far behind, quickly gain ground.
"We're going to have to take cover," Jade sighed, seeing how close they were coming. They ran behind a small crest in the sand, and Jade and Odd climbed it slowly to see how close the Krabs were while Aelita comforted a pained Yumi. As Jade and Odd stealthily peered over the cusp, the battalion rounded the final corner, catching up to them.
"We'd better move," Odd called back down to the two girls. "Otherwise-"
"Odd!" Jade shouted. Odd turned to see a laser inches from his face before it slammed into his eyebrow. He was thrown back with a scream, and he rolled down the small hill, resting beside Aelita's feet. Jade dashed after her brother, calling his name in a panicky fashion.
"Wow," he groaned when his head stopped spinning. "That really does hurt!" Jade pulled her brother's head into her lap as Aelita scaled the incline slowly herself. "Aelita, what are you doing?" Odd moaned.
"My turn," Aelita whispered quietly to herself as she peered over the rim of the dune. Taking one more moment to assess the enemy's position, she folded her hands, closed her eyes, and turned her face to the Lyoko sky. Her pure voice rang out, and as her Creativity took effect, a great wall of ever falling sand rose in front of the Krabs. As the monsters tried their best to climb the vertical wall, they flipped over and rolled back down, their metallic legs screeching in frustration.
Aelita jogged back down the dune to her friends, saying, "It won't take them long to find a way around." Back on Earth, Ulrich trapped a possessed Nicolas in the elevator and pulled out the power lines, encaging him.
"Jeremy, Jeremy wake up, will you?" Ulrich shook Jeremy viciously, a grimace on his face. "Oh…Hi…Ulllrich..." Jeremy said drowsily. "How…how are you?"
"Jeremy, pull yourself together," Ulrich commanded, shaking a little more gently. "I need your help."
" 'Cause ya' know," Jeremy slurred, his eyes rolling about in his skull, "I'mma… I'mma not feelin' so great." His head lolled back as consciousness slipped through his fingers again. With a frustrated groan, Ulrich lowered Jeremy back onto the ground before hopping into the master chair. "Guys?" he asked nervously as he pushed the ear piece in. "Guys, can you hear me?"
"Ulrich!" Aelita gasped in surprise.
"Is that you?" Jade asked hopefully.
"Oh, great," Ulrich sighed with relief. "You're alive!"
"Yeah, but not in great shape," Odd agreed.
"What about Jeremy?" Yumi inquired.
"He's also in pretty bad shape," Ulrich said, shaking his head. "I don't get it, there's nothing on these screens! These monitors are blank!"
"That must be why the lasers are hurting us for real," Aelita groaned. "X.A.N.A used Nicolas to corrupt the sector!"
"Wait, what's that noise?" Jade asked, her feline ears flicking backward. The four of them ran back up the bluff and gasped in horror. A Krab was effectively shoving its way straight through the wall of falling sand. As the first one forced its way through, the rest of the wall devirtualized, its structure compromised.
"OUCH!" Jeremy shouted, rousing suddenly as Ulrich's slap brought him to. "What's going on?" Ulrich handed his friend his glasses, a relieved grin on Ulrich's face. Quickly, Jeremy asked Ulrich for an update then reclaimed his place in the master chair. "Nicolas deactivated the scanner, but I should be able to fix it pretty fast." Ulrich tried to start a conversation and apology for his actions, but Jeremy cut him off quickly, saying it wasn't the time. "Head for the scanner and get ready!"
On Lyoko, Jade screamed as the first laser buried itself into her calf as she sprinted away from the fire. When the Krabs had crested the dune, the first thing they destroyed were Odd's and Jade's Overboard and Draftboard, and now the four were booking it on foot.
Yumi cried out in pain as a laser buried itself into her shoulder, throwing her forward. "Yumi!" Odd shouted as she fell forward.
"Got it!" Jeremy said from above. Yumi's hands planted themselves firmly into the sand and she sprung back onto her feet without missing a step, the pain instantly gone.
"Woo hoo! We're invincible again!" Odd cheered, pumping a fist into the air as he ran.
"Everyone, just hold on!" Jeremy reassured them from the sky. "I'm sending in Ulrich." The Krabs flanked the Warrior's side, and they were surrounded in a red seething sea of aggression. Jade and Odd crisscrossed and rolled, they ducked and dodged, drawing the focus of the lasers to them as Yumi lead Aelita behind a cluster of boulders to cower behind. A Krab exploded to the right, another to the left, just over there, and yet another further back, but the sheer mass numbers were overwhelming.
"We need a miracle!" Yumi gasped as one of her fans returned loyally to her palm after slicing through a monster.
"No," Odd said, shaking his head as he head the whirring of materialization behind him. "We need a friend." Ulrich dropped from above and landed heavily on all fours. A laser slammed into his chest, and he was immediately knocked onto his back.
"Looks like I came at the right time," Ulrich grunted, bouncing back onto his feet and dashing into the fray.
"It's good to have you back on board," Jade said, offering a warm smile, before summersaulting away from a laser. Ulrich used the width of his blade to block laser after laser when the assault halted suddenly. The Krabs lopped around the Warriors and formed a wall of red, spindly legs, blocking the access to the tower.
"You're vehicles are being reprogrammed, and are on their way," Jeremy chimed from above. "They could be handy." The air filled with a deep whirring, and the vehicles materialized before each of their respective owners.
"Great," Jade sighed sarcastically. "Maybe five down, another twenty to go!"
"You and Yumi might as well go over the top," Odd said, flipping onto his Overboard.
"What about you two?" Yumi asked, her penciled eyebrow raised. Jade smirked and cartwheeled onto her Draftboard, pulling Aelita gently on after her.
"Don't worry about us," Jade winked. "We like to take the fun way." With a holler of excitement, the twins and their digital princess whizzed towards the wall of red. Each of the Della Robbia's snuck beneath the Krabs, swerving free of the white columns of laser light that tried to fry them.
"They've really lost it this time!" Ulrich groaned, watching the dangerous, but rather effective, method.
"No more than you have," Yumi argued with a grin. As Odd, Jade, and Aelita slipped through the primary wall of Krab legs, Ulrich and Yumi made their own charge. Taking a natural ramp in the sand, Ulrich skittered onto the hoods of the Krabs, and digging his saber into their eyes behind him, they exploded beautifully, a trail of flame and spark behind his Overbike. Yumi looped and spun through the air on her Overwing, throwing her fans constantly, never allowing them to rest in her palm for more than a moment.
Jade and her charge finally broke through the second line of Krabs, with Odd hot on their heels, when Odd groaned in anger. "Come on, not another row!" A third row of Krabs blocked their advance, although this one stood a single layer deep, instead of nearly five or six.
Odd kicked the back of his Overboard downward, and it bucked up high in response. He soared over the single line of enemy units, and shot a deft Laser Arrow in to the center of the Eye of a single Krab, creating an opening. "Jade, now!"
With Aelita's hands wrapped firmly around her waist, Jade pulled savagely on the balance bar on her Draftboard and sliced through the break of enemy lines and zipped towards the tower. "Jeremy, I think we've done it!" Jade cheered happily, the home stretch sweet and calm. Aelita charged into the tower, and the four Warriors outside sighed with relief. They began to battle childishly, dancing around the attacks and laughing then actually trying to destroy the monsters.
"Code: Lyoko," Aelita smiled, pressing her hand against the interface. "Tower: Deactivated." The digital information and memory fell from the inner walls of the tower quickly. Outside, the Krabs devirtualized.
Jeremy called his friends home, and with quite a bit of shuffling and shouting, the six of them lugged Nicolas' unconscious body back to the academy. They quickly dropped him off at the infirmary, then slipped from the building.
Outside, in the late afternoon sunshine, Ulrich bit the inside of his cheek nervously; he still didn't know where he stood with his pals. "I know you did it for me, Ulrich," Yumi finally smiled. Ulrich sighed in relief before turning with a giant grin to his buddy.
"But I should've asked you first," he argued. "I'm sorry."
"Guess your back in the group," Aelita sang happily.
"So, what'd you do with that lotto ticket?" Odd smirked.
"Thought about it," Ulrich mused, "I gave the money to an association that builds fresh water wells in Africa."
"Wow," Jade sighed dreamily, "what a great idea." Jeremy raised an eyebrow at Jade's tone. Jade quickly remembered herself, glared at her friend, and pulled her blonde, green, and purple bangs back in front of her face, trying to shield her adoring expression. Jeremy's face broke into a knowing smirk, but he turned away with saying anything.
Yumi's phone rang, and she answered it immediately. When she hung up, not even all the clouds in the world could cover the sunshine of her smile. "My dad found a job, right here in France!" The group cheered happily, and Jade felt a peace settle over her that she hadn't known for what felt like years. Her best friend was staying right where she belonged. Her other best friend, and also secret crush, was back in their circle. The tower was deactivated, the school was saved, and everything was just as it should be.
