Episode 11: That's not Cheese!
Deep in the computer in the virtual world of Kadic, a forest with thin paths zoomed by, passing trees, stumps and massive gaps before ending at a tower, which turned from friendly blue to a gut wrenching red.
On earth at Lyoko Academy, a single rat came in to the science room through a sewer entrance. It turned around, its eyes looking around as it twitched. It saw something that it wanted: A large wad of gum stuck to the bottom of a desk belonging to Sam. It started climbing up the chair and biting at the gum, but then a black smoke started coming out, and it attacked the poor little rat. It shook as the blackness entered it, but then it got up, its eyes red as it walked down through the entrance to infect more rats.
All the students were sitting in science class, working on an intelligence quiz. Aelita filled in answer after answer, Sissi thought for a few moments before answering and Sam just seemed stumped. She filled in a few answers, but the others were like rocket science to a two day old. After the test was finished, Mr. Morales spent nearly an entire hour checking each test. When he was done, he handed the tests back, the incorrect answers marked red, the correct blue and the unanswered with black.
The way it worked was blue was a point, red was nothing but black was a negative point. The scores for the three female Kadic Warriors were: Aelita, 97%, Sissi, 67% and Sam with 32%. Everyone got their scores and looked them over, some smiling, some traumatized and others looking like they just murdered someone on live television.
When class was over, Sissi, Sam and Aelita walked to Gym class, where surely Suzanne was waiting for class to begin.
They walked to the dorms first to grab their gym clothes, but Aelita was stopped by a man with a slightly bald head and brown hair. "Are you Ms. Aelita Schaeffer?" the man asked. Aelita nodded, and the man added, "Can I talk to you?"
"Sure. What about?" Aelita asked as the two roommates left.
"I would like to talk to you about your possibility of going to a school for the gifted child," the man said, and Aelita knew what that meant. New school, she would leave and would be unable to help fight JEREMIE.
The three girls went into the locker rooms and got dressed then headed out to the main gym, where Suzanne was definitely waiting for everyone.
In the middle of the game, though, Aelita was asked to go with a man who would give her the entry test for the smart school. After a rousing game of 3D Tetris, the three girls started walking over towards the lockers.
After that last class the four Kadic Warriors were sitting at their usual table, Aelita telling them about the prodigy school. "My parents would probably be overjoyed to have me go to this place," Aelita said, clear unhappiness on her face.
"But if you go you wouldn't be able to work the computer," Sam said. Without Aelita they would be doomed, since none knew how to use the transfer program, nor could any of them work on the materialization program. In other words: They were screwed.
"Maybe you could flunk the test," William said. "If you flunk then they wouldn't send you." They contemplated this, but then William had to go home.
William lay down on his bed after school. There may have been an attack a little under a week ago, but he was determined to enjoy himself today. He walked over personal computer and saw that he had an email from Sissi. It said to call her the instant he got home, and he started looking for his phone.
Last time they tried to go on a 'date' JEREMIE had decided to ruin it with a giant wrecking ball moving like a Megatank. It had nearly squashed him and broke her arm before Xana deactivated the tower. The time before JEREMIE had possessed an army of oxen, and tired to run Sam over, and before that there was a living army of toasters that shot flaming toast. May not have seemed intimidating, but the freaking toast hurt!
But this time he was determined to have a regular date. He ran down the stairs and started looking. Everything was dark when a rectangle was pulled away, and William looked in. "Darn," he said. It was moving and watery when a circle was moved upwards to reveal the same boy. "Darn!" he said, then left. It was dark with only a thin line of light. The line grew, and William's face came in. "Darn," he hissed.
He started walking into the laundry room, he started pulling out pants after pants, checking the pockets and his mom asked, "Lost your phone?"
"Well, not so much as I lost it as… well, yeah I lost it," William said, having no other way to say it. His mom laughed and pulled his phone from her pocket and handed it to him. "Thanks Mom!" William said a little after leaving and poking his head in.
William ran up to his room and dialed Sissi's number, and when she answered, he was about to say 'I got your email' but was cut off when she screamed, "William, get to the factory now! Aelita is still at that quiz thing for the smart people, but Sam and I are stuck with a bunch of other students in the boiler room."
"Can you go through the Boiler Entrance?" William asked, realizing that JEREMIE had screwed up another possible date.
"No, there are rats on both sides. We tried to use the vents but only Hiroki and Johnny fit so we had them get out of here," Sissi replied, sounding more worried.
"All right, Xana and I will deactivate this tower fast," William said, and hung up and pulled on his boots, not even bothering to tie them all the way and ran outside, dashing to the factory like the world was ending and he was trying to run away from the burning sun.
Aelita was halfway through the quiz in the library when the lights died. The man looked around and said, "Good thing I brought some lights." He pulled out two large flashlights. He shined the lights on her test and she continued.
Suddenly she heard a scratching sound on the door. She looked over, and then looked at the window. There were dozens of rats crowded around the window, scratching it. When Aelita saw it, she looked at the door and saw a little saw dust at poking under the door.
"Help me barricade the door," Aelita said, trying to slide a book case over the door.
"Okay," the man said, and helped her push the book case over the door, only really getting them more time.
"I need to get out of here," Aelita said after a few moments.
"What? I am an adult, I can't just let you-" He was cut off when a rat poked up in the window and he screamed, but Aelita pulled out her small flashlight and shined it at the little thing. "Can I come too?" the man asked as Aelita grabbed two large lanterns and shined them down, scurrying the rats.
"Nope," Aelita stated and jumped down and ran to the sewer entrance. When she got there she duct taped the lanterns to the bar of her scooter. She kicked off and cruised along through the sewers.
"We have to get out of here," Sam said, looking at the doors and the vents.
"How? Wait… Ulrich, do you still carry a flashlight around just in case?" Sissi asked, looking at the green garbed boy.
"Yeah," Ulrich replied, pulling a small flashlight out of his pocket. Sissi took it from him and turned it on, illuminating the small room. She looked in a small compartment and pulled out two heavy duty flashlights.
"Sissi, you rock," Sam said, taking one of the heavy duty lights. "Now then, everyone else, keep one heavy duty and shine it at the rats when they come." Sam looked down at an injured student, his wrist covered in ripped cloth as blood soaked through.
"We have to hurry, or all of them will get hurt," Sissi said, and the two girls ran out through the red door and shined the light and the rats, keeping them away.
William saw Aelita running across the factory bridge through the cameras. "Good news, Xana. Aelita's here," William said, getting up and walking over to the now opening elevator. "I'll go down to the scanners and you send me," he said, and then slid down the ladder.
"Transfer: William." William's profile was chosen. "Scanner: William." His virtual from filled with green. "Virtualization!" Light and air blasted up, blasting up his hair.
William's figure appeared over the forest path way, then landed. He looked around and saw the Way Tower a few meters away. He ran over, his blade propped on his shoulder.
Sam and Sissi ran towards the factory ladder, which the ladder was swarmed. "Bye bye," Sam said, and shined the light at the little creatures, making them scurry. The two girls climbed up the ladder and swung across on the chains to the elevator.
William and Xana ran across the pathways. Above them appeared a trio of red wireframe monsters appeared around them, two in front and one behind. William brought his sword forward and said, "You can take out the one behind us with your Creativity, right?" Xana nodded, and William smiled, and said, "Back to back!"
The two stood back to back and then started fighting. Xana expertly moved away from a laser, then another, but then breathed in deeply and hummed a tune, and a large glove of green rock formed over his hand. He jumped up at the Krab and punched it in the lower leg joint, making it collapse. He landed on the shell and jumped away.
William ducked under a shot and started spinning with his sword. He cut one Krabes legs, then clipped it away as it fell. He slowed to a stop. He looked at the last Krab but was shot in the chest, knocking him over. He started getting up, then grabbed and swung his blade, firing off an energy disk that shattered on impact, only doing half as much damage. William got up and then jumped and brought the sword down, right into the Krab's shell, destroying it.
Xana smashed a fist into the shell of the Krab, and when it blew he just stood there, taking the 5 life point hit. He walked over to William and the dark haired boy smiled, then the two ran along the pathway again.
Sissi and Sam were soon virtualized, landing right on top of a stump. Sissi looked around and realized they were floating above a massive area of the open digital sea. Sam plopped onto the ground and put her chin in her hands.
Aelita looked at the screen after sending Sissi and Sam. The screen was fizzling in their area. Clear map, clear map, clear map, fizzy map circle. She started clicking some more keys, watching as the fizzle got smaller and the small bullets showing her two friends appeared. She continued, but was cut off when she saw the entire screen start fizzling away.
Suddenly Aelita heard a harsh series of hisses as the holographic map dissipated. She looked around, seeing the thousands of little red eyes staring back in the dark. Her green eyes widened and she stood up on the chair and looked around, fear growing. She had put her lanterns next to the chair, but the rats were crawling all over them.
William and Xana had run until they arrived at a bridge that ended, but a bunch of floating stumps seemed to move up and down randomly in front of them. William put a hand out to tell Xana to stop, and then William started going across them, stepping on one, then another, but one of the ones he stepped on shot down and he fell, but caught onto another as it started going up.
"William!" Xana yelled, worried for his comrade. William got up and put a hand up, showing that he was okay. William got up and started walking again, and after he got over half way, which was about 5 meters, he waved to Xana to come over. Xana stepped on a few, but then all the ones around him rose.
Xana looked around and sighed. He put forward his Creativity gauntlet and then drew it back and punched the stump to pieces and started to jump across, knowing that his gauntlet would be gone any moment. He punched again and the gauntlet shattered, and he rocked back as another log shot up.
William turned and saw that Xana was trapped again. He walked over and swung his blade, saying, "Energy Disk," sending a disk of orange energy smashing into the wood. It shattered and William was knocked over onto his back by a stump, and Xana ran forward and jumped on William's sky facing feet and then was propelled by William kicking up and then both landed on their feet, Xana right in front of a tower.
Xana sprinted in to the tower and levitated up to the second level and put his hand on the panel, mentally wishing it would go faster. It asked for a code and he entered the code 'Kadic' and the panels fell. "Thank god, Tower Deactivated," Xana said, putting a hand to his forehead.
"Return to the past, Now!" Aelita screamed falling over and pressing enter as the rats it into her arms and sides until the white blasted forward.
They were all sitting back in class, and Sam let out a sigh. "It was so more boring on that stump," she said. They listened as well as they could, but Sissi and Sam still wound up doing something else by the end of class.
Review or this might end. All my hard work... :(