I'd like to say I intentionally held back this chapter so I could release it on Halloween. The truth is, I (Rai, it's my week) sort of hit a block with this one, because this was the first chapter we had to rework most of the material. But, that's what I have Sky for! Couldn't do this without him!
Anyway, happy Halloween!
"You can't!" The words tore from Ivy's lips before she could stop them. She was not sure when she had started to shake, but could not stop. It was all she could do to hold the phone steadily to her ear. The girl closed her eyes and took great gulps of air to try to focus.
"I have to. Ivy, I'm sorry." To Jeremie's credit, he did seem honestly regretful. However, this was of little comfort to Ivy. The feeling of unreality had returned. Yumi and Odd's lives for Michael's safety. An impossible choice.
"I… can't, Jeremie…" Ivy recognized that she was speaking, but her voice seemed to come from far away.
"You have to," he replied at once.
"No, I mean, I can't." Ivy shook her head, trying to clear it. "I physically can't. He's too heavy for me to carry. Besides, Lucas is… asking questions. He's not going to just let me take Michael." At the thought of Lucas, Ivy remembered that she had left Michael in the bathroom with him. She paused, torn between the accident and her task to bring Michael to the factory. Ultimately, Jeremie's order won out. The girl turned and started to jog back toward the school.
"Bring him too, if you have to," instructed Jeremie.
"But -" Ivy began to protest.
Jeremie cut her off again. "He'll forget," he said simply. "When we do a return to the past, this will all be erased."
Ivy sighed. Any last hopes she had of avoiding a return trip were dashed. She took the stairs two at a time. "Fine," the girl told Jeremie. "We'll be there as soon as we can be."
She was half-surprised to find that Lucas had waited for her. He had taken the time in her absence to pull Michael's sweatshirt back over him, which struck Ivy as an odd thing to do until she realized that Michael was shivering as he slept. Lucas looked around as Ivy returned, his expression guarded. "Welcome back," he said in that same deceptively light tone that he had used with Odd and Yumi. "You're just in time for the part where I call the hospital."
Ivy bit her lip. "Lucas, you can't."
"I can, actually. Got a phone, got an unconscious friend, put them together and you get the logical thing to do." He pulled out his phone as though to demonstrate.
She wanted to come up with some clever lie to make him believe her. But Ivy had never been a very good liar when put on the spot. "They won't be able to help him," she said firmly. "The only way to help him is for him to come with me."
Lucas raised his pale eyebrows at her. "Oh? What makes you so sure?"
"Because… Because I know what's wrong with him." The words fell from her mouth before she could stop them. This comment seemed to surprise Lucas enough for his falsely-light demeanor to falter for a moment. He opened his mouth. "It's not drugs," Ivy added, correctly predicting his next question and casting him an exasperated look despite her anxiety. "But it is serious. He could die if you don't help me. And.. and other people could, too."
"It seems rather far-fetched," Lucas pointed out.
"It is," she agreed. "But if you come with me, I'll tell you everything. I promise."
Lucas stood and took a few steps toward her, his brows knitted together in a frown as he studied her expression to the point where Ivy started to feel uncomfortable. "Why should I trust you?" he asked at last. It was not an accusation, but a honest question.
Ivy took a deep breath, meeting Lucas' dark brown gaze. "I want to keep him safe, too, Lucas…" she replied quietly. "I wouldn't do anything to hurt him. I just know this is the only way to help."
He stared at her for a moment more, then closed his eyes and gave a curt nod. "Give me a hand," Lucas said, turning his back on her quite abruptly. "I think I can probably carry him on my back, but I'll need your help to pick him up."
Negotiating their way into the sewers without dropping him was more challenging than Ivy had anticipated. Three aborted attempts later, Ivy had been forced to call Jeremie and ask him for an alternative route. Their redirection through the tunnel in the boiler room proved much more fruitful, though Ivy was painfully aware of every passing moment. The girl kept picturing the car accident over and over, and it took a lot of effort to keep herself moving forward rather than dwelling on it.
Lucas proved, as usual, to be challenging. In spite of her promise to tell him everything, Ivy found herself walking a fine line between giving Lucas enough information to keep him from stopping and withholding enough so that he did not decide she was totally nuts. Lucas' questions were uncomfortably shrewd, and by the time that they reached the factory she had already been forced to divulge more information than she was entirely comfortable with. To give Lucas credit, he did not slow or stop as she gave him some of her stranger or more evasive answers, merely listened and waited. Soon enough they were too preoccupied with trying to haul Michael's unconscious form out of the sewers to discuss much of anything beyond labored instructions to one another.
But aside from the fear for her mentors and Lucas' questions, another suspicion was growing slowly and steadily inside of her. Ivy could not quite place her finger on it, no matter how hard she tried. It was not until Lucas stumbled on the stairs, half dropping Michael and banging him against the wall in a manner which would surely leave a nasty bruise that Ivy realized what it was. Michael had stopped moving. Fighting the urge to panic, she instead admonished Lucas for his carelessness.
"Sorry, I'm sorry," Lucas muttered. "I… I think you're going to have to help me carry him the rest of the way down. My head's gone a bit fuzzy."
Ivy agreed at once, and while this proved somewhat slower than Lucas carrying him by himself, the two of them communicated well together and made good progress. The fact that the two of them made it to the lab in a little over twenty minutes was nothing short of miraculous.
Aelita turned to them as they entered, clearly emerging from a discussion. Jeremie gave them a tight sort of smile. Aelita did not smile at all. "Ivy. We were just discussing if I should go without you or wait."
"I'm glad you waited," Ivy said, which was the truth. She wanted Michael to have the best chance to come home as possible, and she was not sure if Odd and Yumi had a few hours to spare if Aelita was devirtualized.
"And you must be Lucas," Aelita added, looking over to the boy holding Michael's shoulders.
"Yes, I must be," Lucas agreed. "Can I please put him down now?" Jeremie nodded, and Lucas set Michael down heavily. Aelita moved over to examine Michael. "So, how exactly is our math teacher involved in all of this?" Lucas asked Ivy. Jeremie was the one who responded.
"Lucas," he said seriously. "A lot of this isn't going to make sense to you right now. We don't have a lot of time, but I want to make sure Ivy knows what's going on. Once she's gone, I'll be glad to answer your questions."
"But… where is she going?" Lucas bleated. 'Wow, he certainly missed the point of that one,' Ivy thought, shaking her head and turning her attention to Jeremie.
"Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich are all in the hospital," the man began bluntly. "Last I heard, Odd and Yumi were in surgery. They're both in critical condition. Ulrich is stable, but he's on a ventilator because his breathing was becoming weaker all the time. And we don't know if there will be a second stage."
"What? Why is this happening?" Ivy asked, bewildered.
"Michael," Jeremie said simply. " He was our Trojan Horse. A trap. XANA infected him with a virus to make us sleep."
The chill that went down Ivy's spine was helped not at all when Aelita turned around and reported, "It's okay, Jeremie. He's breathing."
Jeremie let out a huge sigh of relief. "I'm going to say this as quickly as possible, because you need to go. When we were looking for Michael, we had to turn all the background programs off to dredge the digital void. We have two kinds of scans, one that goes through and checks each tower to see if it's active, and the SuperScan that goes off the moment a tower is activated on Lyoko. We turned the SuperScan back on, but there was already an active tower. We've found it now. We need you go get it. But that means that every moment that Michael was with us, he was spreading the virus. We need to go back to before we found him."
'If time is so of the essence, why are they stopping to explain?' Ivy wondered faintly. She almost asked this, but then answered her own question, and found she did not like the answer. They were preparing her in case one of the others died before she and Aelita could save them. They wanted her to understand. The knowledge settled like a weight upon her.
"This is the important question. Have either of you touched him?" Jeremie pointed to Michael. Ivy stared at him, nonplussed, because he had seen them carry Michael in. "Skin to skin contact," Jeremie added quickly. "As far as I can tell, that's how the virus is spread."
Ivy tried to remember. "A little bit, perhaps? I don't remember."
"Well, if you're not exhibiting symptoms, you should probably be okay when you go to Lyoko." The teacher gave a sigh of relief.
Lucas raised his hand slightly. "Uh, not to interrupt, but I touched him."
Jeremie gave a grimace. "When?"
"When we were getting him out of the shower, for one. We were trying to wake him up," Lucas added hastily, seeing the confused look on Jeremie and Aelita's faces. "And I carried him on my back most of the way here." He indicated the back of his neck, where Michael's head had been resting all the way over.
"When you start exhibiting symptoms, they'll come on fast. They did with Yumi," Jeremie cautioned.
"Well, I…" Lucas was saved the need to answer because he chose that moment to sway slightly and stumble, just as he had on the stairs.
"I see," Jeremie said seriously, nodding. "It's time to get moving, then. Do you think you can carry Michael a little bit further? I don't want to have Aelita or myself touch him… Just in case."
"That's fine," Lucas said. "Let's go."
Ivy picked up Michael's feet, murmuring to herself, "This is all my fault… If Michael and I hadn't fought, none of this would ever have happened…" Tears burned in her eyes again, blurring her vision.
"Ivy." Ivy looked up to find Lucas' dark eyes locked on her face. He was already holding Michael's shoulders, and he raised the boy slightly more to indicate that they should get moving. Ivy obeyed. She expected that that was the end of it, but as the elevator doors closed he continued to her in an undertone which she was certain Aelita could hear but had the grace to ignore. "I've lived with this guy for two years. I'm more than certain he wouldn't blame you for everything that's happening. And right now is not the time to lay blame, anyway. I don't understand much of this… but I am guessing from the way you're talking you can save us." He gave her a little smile. "I don't want to die." His voice wavered slightly on the last word, then came back strong as the elevator opened on the scanner room. "So come on. Let's get you where you need to go." A tiny bit of the pressure in Ivy's chest eased. She nodded gratefully.
Aelita helped guide the two students carrying Michael into the scanner room and directed them to prop him up inside one of the scanners. Relieved of his burden, Lucas gazed around the scanner room with a sense of awe and wonder and Ivy could tell that he wanted to ask a million questions. She actually wished for a moment that she could answer them, but even as he looked around his legs buckled slightly and he had to lean against a scanner for support. She took a deep breath to calm herself down and turned quickly away, not wanting to witness the boy collapse. "Hang in there. Lucas," she said, turning to face him at the last moment and giving him a smile. "We'll fix this as quick as we can. Thank you for all of your help."
A few moments later, Ivy fell to the Forest sector on her feet. "Good. Finally getting the hang of that," she muttered to herself, seeing Aelita land next to her and heard a thud on her left. She turned to see Michael's body laying on the ground facedown. This was unsurprising. What was surprising is that a moment later, the boy got to his feet. "Michael?!" Ivy rushed over.
He looked at her and his eyes were blank and devoid of emotion. "Sorry, I probably should have warned you," Jeremie told her. "That isn't Michael. He's still sleeping. I'm just manipulating his avatar's movements so that you don't have to carry him around."
"...Oh…" The disappointment that flooded through her quickly turned to frustration. "That's for the heads up," she said to Jeremie sarcastically.
"Sorry, Ivy. I'm a little bit busy," Jeremie responded distantly, though Ivy did believe that he was probably sorry for not warning her. "Here comes some vehicles to help speed things along," he added, the Overbike and the Overboard materializing before them. "It's easier for me to pilot the Overboard than Michael's movements, so I'm just going to have him lay down on it and move it around. Try not to lose it. My control over him is very limited, and he definitely will not be able to fight.
"Alright then, hopefully we won't encounter any monsters then," Ivy commented, pointing to Michael to get on the Overboard only to find that the boy's avatar had already fallen back on it with far more willingness than the waking one would have exhibited. "This is pretty weird, you know that Jeremie?" Ivy muttered under her breath as she snapped her staff into the attachment on the Overbike that Jeremie had made for her, and they sped away.
"I know it is, but we don't have time for you to have to carry his body all over the place," Jeremie explained sounding somewhat distracted. "By the way, you might want to hurry up. Lucas just passed out."
"Thanks for the update, Jeremie. Just keep an eye out for any monsters," Aelita responded. getting a running start before jumping into the air and spreading her wings taking off.
The way to the tower was oddly quiet. Jeremie gave the occasional update on Lucas, but no sign of monsters. As the red tower loomed into view, Ivy started wondering if this was too easy. This was clearly a thought that was shared by her companion. "Okay, XANA has to have some trick up his sleeve. There is no way that he wouldn't try to stop us deactivating the tower…" Aelita commented worriedly.
"Unless this tower is a trap, we just have to hope that XANA is still rusty and put all his focus on the attack and not the defens-Nevermind. Head's up, you two. XANA's sending four monsters your way from the north." Ivy groaned while she slowed down the Overbike and turned to see what XANA was throwing their way.
Ivy saw three little mosquito-like creatures fly towards them. And unlike the pale green pattern that she and Michael had been practicing with in previous sessions, these Hornets were the real deal. They sped towards her in a V shaped formation. Trailing behind them was a shiny four-legged creature with an elongated white head. Ivy had never seen one of these before, but she recognized it as a Tarantula based on the description Odd had given.
"Go on ahead and deactivate the tower. I'll deal with these insects," Ivy called to Aelita. Aelita hesitated, visibly torn as to whether she felt comfortable leaving Ivy alone to fight the monsters. At last, she nodded and winged away toward the tower. "Jeremie, you should hide Michael. If one of those Wasps gets away, I don't want it finding him." In answer, the Overboard sped away, carrying Michael's empty shell with it.
Satisfied that all distractions had been sufficiently eliminated, Ivy turned to face the oncoming swarm, gripping her staff and waiting for the right moment. 'There,' she thought to herself as the nearest Hornet moved just where she wanted it. Ivy swung the staff against the ground as hard as she could, sending vines climbing towards the middle hornet. It needed to be timed precisely, for as soon as the vines stopped growing their weight would bring them crashing to the ground. As it was, the thorns just clipped the wings on its left side, but it was enough. Unbalanced, the monster went spiraling crazily off and hit the ground with an explosion. The vines teetered, and fell, blocking the advance of the Tarantula by effectively sealing off the path. They wouldn't last forever, but for now - two birds, one stone.
The other two Hornets rose with ease out of the range of the vines and flew overhead, squirting at her with burning acid. Ivy leaped out of the way dodging the acid, but stumbled slightly on an uneven part of the platform and fell to her knees. She sent more vines at them blindly, trying to buy herself some more time to recover. If they had been Jeremie's Hornets, they might have been tangled in the vines. As it was, they were far too low, and the monsters dodged them with ease, then circled around her to spray a wide arc of acid around her. Ivy cursed, realizing how limited her movements would be with her own now-fallen thorns before her and the acid behind her and on either side. The Hornets had disappeared, and Ivy realized how much trouble she was in. In this sector, they had the advantage of being able to conceal themselves behind trees, while the ground offered her very little cover. And the Tarantula was leveling its cannons…
The girl did the only thing she could think of. She made a mad dash for the Overbike. The good news was that at this distance, impeded by the vines, the Tarantula was not a particularly good shot. The bad news was that the Overbike was stationary and if the Tarantula switched targets, Ivy was out of luck. All at once, Ivy was knocked off her feet again by a laser. A moment of confusion gave way to desperate scrambling. She was halfway to her feet when a second, more powerful laser from the Tarantula caught her in the side, sending her tumbling all over. Dazed, Ivy tried to put together. One of the Wasps must have shot her in the back to get her down. Where had it even come from? Desperately, Ivy lurched toward the Overbike, and managed to grab hold of it. The girl looked around for the Wasp, but it had gone.
Ivy's mind was still racing, trying desperately to put together a plan, but in that moment she found herself instead thinking of the very first training session she'd had with Michael, where the Krab had shot her in the back after she had rescued Michael, and he had returned the favor. What she wouldn't do to have him with her now. He would never have this problem with the Hornets. Dimly, Ivy recalled Yumi's admonishment to her that day, that she had lost track of her enemy, whereas Michael was simply too reckless…
Reckless. A sudden spark of an idea. Ivy looked out at the vines that were blocking the path of the Tarantula and tried to remember. She could not recall off the top of her head if she had ever had contact with her own vines, but she thought that she was immune to their poison… It would make sense, at any rate… These were not the circumstances under which she would have liked to test it. But if she waited too much longer, they would disappear and the Tarantula would be free to find and devirtualize Michael. Jeremie was quiet, probably programming the tracking program for Michael, but Ivy guessed that she was running very low on lifepoints. One more good hit would probably do it.
All of this took place in her head in the span of about five seconds, and she knew she could not waste a moment more. She swung her leg over the Overbike, snapping her staff in at lighting speed, and gunned the engine. Before the monsters could react, Ivy was off like a shot, barreling toward the vines - and the monster on the other side.
The Tarantula opened fire. Ivy swung the Overbike back and forth, wearing a zig-zag motion to make herself a more difficult target to hit. She bit her lip as the Overbike hit the patch of vines. As she had anticipated, the vehicle started to dissolve immediately under her. Ivy centered the Overbike on the Tarantula and unsnapped her staff, leaning down to keep her body close to the rapidly-disappearing vehicle. "Breathe," Ulrich's voice in her memory spoke from their training session. Ivy breathed deep, her mind narrowing to a pinpoint of focus.
Thinking that Ivy meant to ram it with the Overbike, the Tarantula stopped its lasers and stood up, backing a pace or two away. "Too late," Ivy muttered, and the Overbike vanished completely. Ivy was ready when she hit the ground, crossing her arms and allowing herself to slide on the ground toward the Tarantula… under the Tarantula… She used her staff to stop herself just behind it. Figuring she had a few seconds at most before the Tarantula realized what had happened, Ivy hit the ground as hard as she could with her weapon, causing vines to bind the Tarantulas back legs tightly. Taking another deep breath to steady herself, Ivy reached out and grabbed a handful of the vines. What had been writhing like wild snakes a millisecond before went limp in her hands. Ivy took this as a good sign that she was not about to be poisoned. Now for the riskiest part of all.
Using her staff as a sort of pole-vault, Ivy launched herself up onto the back of the monster, leaving her weapon lying on the ground beside them. The back of the Tarantula was smoother than she had anticipated, and the girl slid slightly before she was able to loop the vines around the Tarantula's left leg/cannon. Tugging the vines hard to bring more of them with her, she quickly looped another around its neck. The Tarantula screeched its protest, but the vines were still growing. The Tarantula was hers. Taking another deep breath, Ivy hauled its left leg up, up, up to point at an angle toward the sky. The strain was monumental, and Ivy knew that she could not hold out for long.
Fortunately, the Wasp chose that moment to make its appearance. Ivy held her breath, tugging harder on the leg of the trapped and unsteady Tarantula, trying to goad the Tarantula. The beast beneath her shrieked again, and it began to fire wildly. And Ivy was a considerably better shot than the Tarantula. The Hornet that had been barrelling toward them exploded. It was all Ivy could do not to cheer out loud.
"Great work, Ivy," Jeremie's voice suddenly rang out. "I'm sorry that I haven't been much help, but everything is set up for Michael just as soon as Aelita reaches the tower."
"Okay," Ivy said distractedly, looking around wildly for her last remaining enemy. "Where's the -" The Tarantula had reached the end of its lifepoints. Ivy felt it go limp under her, and then the explosion knocked the girl all the way back to Earth.
The familiar wave of nausea and shakiness that Ivy had begun to associate with devirtualization hit her, and she stumbled slightly as she got out of the scanner. As Jeremie had told them, Lucas was slumped unconscious beside one of the scanners. Ivy moved over to him, speaking aloud as she did. "Jeremie, can you hear me? There's still one more Hornet out there. It could devirtualize Michael."
There was a very brief pause, then Jeremie's voice spoke from speakers above her. "It's okay, Ivy. Aelita took care of it. Tower deactivated."
Even as Jeremie spoke, Lucas stirred and took a deep breath, and coughed a few times. "Ugh," he muttered, putting a hand to his head as he sat up. "God, that… That is an experience I could do without repeating." He noticed Ivy and looked up at her seriously, still trying to catch his breath. "So that's it? Michael's okay? You're okay? I'm okay?"
Ivy could not help but laugh a little bit. "Everyone's okay," she assured him, sitting down across from him.
"What happens now?" Lucas inquired.
Ivy hesitated, but there was no point in being anything but completely truthful with Lucas at this point. "You forget," she replied simply. "At least, so I've been told."
"I somehow seriously doubt that I'm going to be forgetting this anytime soon," Lucas said, rubbing his chest.
"It's a bit more complicated than that. You will, though, I promise you that."
Lucas looked away from her, his expression thoughtful. "But you'll remember, right?" he asked at last.
She blinked, somewhat taken by surprise. "Yes, I will," she confirmed.
"Good." Lucas gave a firm nod. "I didn't lug Michael through the sewers just for everyone to forget about it."
Ivy laughed again, then quieted as she remembered that Michael would disappear again after this. She almost thought to tell Lucas about it, to ask him what she was supposed to do, but before she could seriously consider this, the world was enveloped in white...
… All of them stood in the lab, with the exception of Jeremie who sat in the chair. He had a blanket wrapped around him, and his eyes were bright with fever. Every so often the chills going through him would be enough that he had to stop typing for a moment, but as soon as they passed he would resume his work with a single-minded determination. It fell to everyone else to comfort the girl who had just lost her friend to the virtual sea.
Again.
The elevator doors closed to take the little group away. Jeremie stared at his computer screen once again. He had never until this moment realized how bad it would feel to be taken out of a body that had already healed and being placed back into the middle of a fever. It was going to be a long night. Again.
"You didn't tell Ivy the truth." Aelita's voice was not accusing, per se, but it was not gentle either.
"Not the whole truth," agreed Jeremie. "But you didn't either, Aelita, and I think for the same reasons. We have no evidence that our hunch is true, and I don't see a reason to crush her hopes on a hunch."
"Aside from what gave us the hunch in the first place," Aelita pointed out. "If a tower had been activated after we had located Michael to give him the virus, the SuperScan would have picked it up. That means that XANA got to him before we found him. That means XANA probably let us find him."
"And XANA might find him again before we do. I know, Aelita. I know." The man pushed up his glasses and rubbed at his burning eyes. "I just don't know what I'm supposed to do." A moment of silence fell. "I want to bring William back," he added.
Aelita stared at him with wide eyes. "What! We can't! William made it clear that he never wanted anything to do with Lyoko ever again. He's moved on with his life."
"He knows more about XANA possessions than any of us," Jeremie replied simply. "If Michael really has been taken, he might be able to offer valuable insight. It's not just that. Something about this last attack doesn't sit well with me. It was too… sophisticated." His girlfriend made a small noise of disagreement. "No, really," he said, shaking his head. "Think about it. This wasn't some huge attack meant to take out as many people as possible. This was meant for just us. It exploits the human need for comfort. If I had not been ill, there's a good chance that you and I would have gone with them too. It wouldn't take much, just a hug or passing a cup of coffee. We could all be dead."
Aelita was silent. "I see your logic," she agreed after a pause. "I do. But that doesn't sound like XANA."
"No, I guess you're right," Jeremie agreed with a sigh. "I'm tired and I'm sick, so maybe I'm not thinking clearly. I don't know. But I'm still messaging William in the morning if Michael is not found."