Episode 5: Catfight!

15th of Parvulis

He felt pain; pain unlike anything he'd ever felt before, even when fighting Xana's constructs. He felt a whip being cracked against his back, and he felt himself being stretched on a rack. He felt hot iron burning his flesh, and chains pulling him back as he tried to reach the door. His vision blurred and it raced through a house that appeared to have been built inside of a cave, but not a cave—he could see the moon shining in the blue-black sky. Perhaps he was inside of an abandoned quarry? But there, resting on the edge was a woman. She had skin like the snow, and fingers that were clawed, like a monster's. Her hair was fair, and when she turned, her eyes were on fire with an orange glow.

Jeremie sat up with a jolt, his breathing heavy and his body covered in sweat. What had he seen? His back stung and his joints held traces of phantom pain. This wasn't an ordinary dream—no, this was a vision, like the one about Capital Lyoko. He held his head in his hand, trying to imagine where the vision had brought him. An abandoned quarry? That could only be in the mountain sector of Lyoko, and while they were getting closer to that part of Lyoko, they wouldn't reach it for several weeks.

He crawled out of his tent and noticed Aelita poking at the fire. The sun hadn't yet dawned, and while the sky had taken on a pearly blue color, he could still see the stars. He watched her face, expecting to see the happy-go-lucky girl he'd sat with under the vhenadahl, but her face remained stoic. She seemed to notice his presence, as she looked at him briefly. "Trouble sleeping?" She asked.

Jeremie sat adjacent from her, though he would not sit too close. The others would wake soon, and he didn't want Laura to get the wrong idea. "I had a vision. I'm not certain what it means, but whatever it is, it wasn't pleasant."

Aelita nodded. "I'm plagued by nightmares too. Curse of the blood, I guess." The second part of her statement was quiet so as not to upset him or cause an argument. She and Laura argued enough for all of them. "Do you want to talk about it?"

The Wise Man considered it, but he shook his head. "No, not really; I'm sure it was nothing." He was lying, and he knew that she could tell. Regardless, she did not press the issue. Jeremie opened up the book written in elven runes, and after taking to heart the words Aelita had used, he was able to hear them on the pages, and they spoke to him. He transcribed them phonetically to learn the runes, and thus on his own had begun to translate the book. As he turned the page, he came across the dried hyacinth that Aelita had given to him. He picked it up, but it deteriorated at his touch.

He sighed, and she glanced at him briefly before turning her eyes to the sky. She was still certain in their prophecy, but she was no longer confident in herself. She had come to terms with Jeremie's engagement, finally, though she still resented both of them for it. But she knew that the Wise Man would come to his senses eventually, though she feared it would be too late when he did. She would wait for him, of course, but what if it was too late? Could she split up a marriage, likely with children? Or could she resign herself to being his mistress? It sounded so degrading—she'd rather be a wife than a mistress. She noticed that Jeremie was watching her.

Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Had he heard that? Aelita had forgotten he was telepathic! She hadn't felt him enter her mind. What if he had gotten better at it, or what if she had been too absorbed in her own thoughts to notice? She stared at him with wide eyes. He furrowed his brows and asked, "Why are you staring at me? Do I have something on my face?"

"Oh! I… was just…" She couldn't think of anything, so she looked back into the fire and tried to hide her embarrassment.

An hour later, the sun had risen, the others woke up, and Aelita started breakfast. Laura criticized her for not starting it earlier, and Aelita told her to go to a place that wasn't so nice. Yumi stepped between the two before they could argue, and the teens ate in silence. Then, they packed up the aravel and started down the road, though it wasn't long before things got stirred up again.

"Now, Aelita," Laura said in a voice so sickly sweet it made Aelita's teeth hurt, "when we reach this next city, you can't go around using your little witch tricks. We're in enough trouble as it is."

Aelita huffed, as if she was severely put out. "Oh, darn! And here I was thinking I'd sacrifice the first virgin I came across! I had heard that Odd could help me find one!"

Odd scoffed. "Of course I could! Don't ask me to find the cheese market, though."

The Outcast laughed, and she added sarcastically, "Oh, but since you have forbidden it, my beautiful princess, I cannot proceed with my evil deeds!" She feigned enlightenment. "Why, I have seen the error of my ways though your wise and foresighted policy! Forgive me, dear lady, for I have sinned!"

Laura sighed loudly. "Don't you have something unholy to do?"

Aelita crossed her arms and glared at her. "Not until four,"

Ulrich could barely walk for laughing. He had, in these past few days, stopped calling Laura by her title. This, while it bothered Jeremie, didn't seem to bother the princess. What bothered her was the rudeness with which he used her given name. It was as if Ulrich had forgotten he was a citizen of Lyoko and believed that he could address her any way that he pleased. Ulrich had not given any reason for his sudden change in behavior, but they all believed it was in protest to her treatment of Aelita.

Yumi looked at Jeremie, who only shook his head. She motioned to the other girls, but he looked at her in confusion. What did she expect him to do? As far as half of the group was convinced, including to a small extent himself, the increased tension was his fault, and his intervention would only make things worse.

As the sun began to set in the distance, Laura and Aelita were arguing. Again. The others tried their best to set up camp, though it was difficult to work with their voices almost causing the very earth to quake in fear. "You're a liar and a witch! How do you live with yourself?" Laura shouted as the magician girls closed the distance between them.

Aelita scrunched up her nose. "Rather a liar and a witch than a whore!" She shouted, and that was the last of understandable conversation for a long time. Eventually, Laura threw up her hands and removed herself from the conversation, as her arms were shaking and it was clear that she was a moment away from losing her temper. Aelita cast a burning glare into her back for a moment then looked briefly around camp and turned to walk off in the opposite direction.

With camp set up and supper on the fire, Odd dared to ask a question of Aelita that no one else had the guts to. "Aelita, why haven't you spoken of your time at Arak-Muna?"

She glared at him, but she took a deep breath in an attempt to handle the situation diplomatically. "It isn't a time of my life that I look on fondly."

Odd seemed to agree with that. "I understand, but don't you think that it's important that we know? What if it comes up?"

"If it comes up, then I will tell you." She replied sharply. In a softer tone, she added, "I appreciate your concern but I'm not ready to speak about it."

Laura shook her head. "Meaning that you need more time to come up with a good lie."

Aelita suddenly sat up straighter and spun her head around to glare at Laura. "Excuse me?" She asked, her voice dripping with deadly poison.

The Fair crossed her legs. "Well, it's just that you haven't been entirely honest with us. We have no way of knowing that you really spent time in Arak-Muna or if you were just lying to get attention."

She scrunched her fingers into fists. "Who would lie about something like that? That's… despicable!" She shouted.

"But there is no proof that you spent any time in Arak-Muna, or any slave port for that matter. We don't know that you aren't lying." Jeremie looked to his fiancée and prepared to say something, but Aelita's sudden action called his attention.

The Outcast stood up, and for a moment, she looked like she was going to strike the Fair. "I cannot believe you would sit there and accuse me of lying about something this crucial!" She shouted. Laura had no time to respond, for Aelita had already run off into the darkness.

Laura rolled her eyes. "She runs because she knows that she is cornered."

Jeremie shook his head. "No, she wasn't lying about Arak-Muna. I've seen the scars from where she was whipped."

She eyed him suspiciously. "I hesitate to ask why you've seen any scars on her at all." She flipped her hair back. "Regardless, do you know if those where scars from whipping and not from where she called her staff? She has been known to… yank it out of her chest so I can't imagine that it doesn't leave some form of physical scar."

Yumi raised an eyebrow. "I don't know. Aelita doesn't really seem to experience pain when she does that. Maybe it isn't physically inside her so no physical mark can be left?"

Ulrich furrowed his brows. "I can't believe you would do something like that!" After a very loud and long argument, he demanded that Laura find Aelita and apologize. At first she refused, but after being called many names and a threat to sell her into slavery, she agreed.

Laura found Aelita sitting in a tree in the middle of a pond. When the Outcast spotted the Fair, she slammed her heel down on the branch, causing the branches below to fall into the water. "Can you come down so we can speak?" Laura shouted up at her.

"No," She shouted down.

"Then can I come up?"

"No,"

"I want to apologize!"

"No you don't!"

Laura threw her hands up and started to walk away. "I don't understand why I keep trying to talk to you! You're a dirty knife ear and that's all you'll ever be!"

She jumped when an ice shard shattered next to her feet, and she turned to face Aelita. She was standing on the branch now, and she had her fingers clawed out. She closed them on her palms, and sharp thorns obscured her from view. She reappeared in front of Laura, startling the princess and sending her back. "You think you're so high and mighty, don't you?" Aelita asked in a low, ominous voice, her face covered in dirt and blood, stained by tears. "Well, you know what, Miss Thing? Jeremie doesn't love you. He never has and he never will! Do you know why he accepted your proposal? Because he thought I had betrayed him and marrying you was an easy way of avoiding the pain!"

Laura curled up her fists. "That isn't true!"

"It is true!" Aelita shouted. "No one likes you! You're a class A bitch that we tolerate because you're a princess and apparently you're a Hero! You know, I'm beginning to wonder about the qualification of Heroism in Lyoko. I thought that you actually had to be heroic!"

"Like you know anything about being heroic, you whining coward! You risked the lives of everyone you knew to live in a fantasy world, and what did it get you? A broken family, a dead clan and the blood of your best friend to soil your hands, that's what!"

"You know nothing about what I went through to earn my freedom!"

"You didn't earn it; you stole it using the blood of others!"

Laura was forced back, falling into the water. Aelita grabbed her dagger and slit open her palm, cloaking herself in an aura of fire and summoning Erahalam from her chest. Laura jumped up and summoned a whip of fire, snapping it as she readied herself in the water.

They charged, Aelita raising the earth around Laura's feet to attempt to make her fall. Laura stumbled around them, and she snapped her whip. It ensnared Aelita's ankle, burning her skin through the chainmail. The Outcast stumbled back and stood despite the pain. She summoned the water from the pond and used it to knock Laura off of her feet again, and then she lifted the Fair up with the water and froze it.

Laura began to melt the ice and once her limbs were free enough, she spun around and melted the rest of the ice. She jumped from her high place and landed shakily on the ground, her feet pounding in pain. Aelita threw back her head and laughed. "Have you gone mad? You could never beat me!" Laura charged her, though Aelita burst into butterflies and dodged her attack. The Fair grabbed her wand and charged her again, intending to use the steel thing as a mace. Aelita dodged it in the same way, and she laughed again. "But I suppose you are welcome to try!"

Laura sent a fireball at the Outcast, which she sank into the earth to avoid. She reappeared behind Laura and stabbed her in the shoulder. The princess screamed and kicked the Outcast then limped away before healing the wound. "You little bitch!" Laura shouted.

There was a burst of white light, and Aelita screeched as if it had hurt her, even leaning against a tree to endure the pain. But as they tried to continue their magic duel, they learned their magic had been silenced. This didn't deter them; they used their magic focusers as melee weapons, Aelita's as a bo staff—which Yumi had been kind enough to give lessons on—and Laura's as a mace. The elf struck Laura's head with Murray the Skull, and Laura slammed her wand down on Aelita's shoulder. Aelita spun her staff around, as if she intended to stab Laura again, but Ulrich pulled her back. Laura attempted to use this opportunity to attack the Outcast, but Jeremie grabbed her. The two magician girls fought against the boys that held them.

"Enough of this!" Jeremie shouted as he pulled Laura back. "We're trying to defeat Xana, not kill each other!"

"But she—" Both girls began.

"ENOUGH!" Jeremie shouted again, now angrier than before. "I don't care who started it, I'm finishing it! Don't ever let me catch you two fighting again! This is not what we should be doing!"

The two girls glared at each other, and Aelita's glare intensified as Laura took Jeremie's hand, but neither of them moved to disobey the Wise Man. Odd ran up, and he sighed when he saw the fight was over. "Dammit, I missed the fight?" He asked.

Ulrich nodded and said sharply, "Yes, and you were no help at all in stopping it."

"Stop it? Who said anything about stopping it? I was going to watch. With snacks!" Ulrich rubbed his temples, walked over to his friend and proceeded to slap him. "OW!"

They headed back to camp, where Yumi paced nervously around the fire. She seemed relieved to see the girls back in one piece, though admittedly she was displeased they had fought.

Laura had first watch, so the others went to bed. She grabbed Jeremie's hand as he started to leave. "Please, can you stay with me for a while?"

"What's the matter? Are you afraid something will happen?" He asked. He paid far closer attention to Laura's prophecies now.

She shook her head, thinking back to what Aelita had said. "No, I just… don't want to be alone right now." She looked to the fire, watching the embers as they floated up and disappeared. Quietly, she said, "I don't want to hear the silence. It scares me because it screams the truth."

Jeremie studied her face, and he sat next to her. He stayed with her until it was time for Yumi to take the next sentry shift.