When we went back to Kadic I accompanied Odd to the principal's office to help him set up everything for the art program. We called his parents and they wholeheartedly gave their blessing and accepted the fee.
"This is quite last minute though, Odd. You're not going just to skip classes here, are you?" Principal Delmas asked skeptically when he hung up the phone.
"No sir, it's an art program and I'm interested to see what I can learn at this school." He signed all of the papers and handed them back to the principal with a smile. It's not often such a fabulous program comes around," Odd said enthusiastically.
When we left the office we went to the cafeteria and he ate. After that we went to his room and took a nap. I woke up at 3:43 A.M., not remembering any dreams. I rolled out of Odd's arms and looked across the room at Ulrich; even in his sleep he seemed stressed out. I turned back around to face Odd and saw he looked a bit stressed as well. I gave him a light kiss on the forehead and got out of the bed. I crept out of the room and went up to my room. Aelita was sleeping so I tried to remain quiet as I gathered up my laptop and headphones. I was still wearing the clothes I had on the previous day, because I hadn't bothered to change before taking a nap. I pulled out all of the memory cards and watched all of the footage from the project and when I got to Odd's I could definitely see that it had been a Spectre; The way he walked, his body language and attitude was just… wrong. How did I not notice the difference?
Of course he and I were the last two to come to the end so I had to use them for the film. I did get some nice footage from the others though so I picked out different clips from all of them. I put all of my files into the flash drive and went to work on the film. I was startled by a sudden tap on my shoulder. I looked up to see Aelita was holding up a clock, it was breakfast time.
"How long have you been up?" she asked me when I pulled my headphones off.
"I woke up around 3:45 this morning and decided to stay up since I slept for so long. I figured it would be best to come back to our room so Ulrich and Odd could sleep. I'm working on the film. I want to submit it to Mr. Chardin tomorrow or Tuesday before I leave for the States," I told her and set my laptop down on my bed.
"Guess you didn't tell Odd you were leaving his room, he texted me earlier," she replied. "Come on, let's go down to breakfast. I'll help you edit your film later. For now we should relax for a while."
I agreed and freshened up in the bathroom and changed into fresh clothes. Then I walked with her downstairs to breakfast. Breakfast on Sunday morning was always the best breakfast; it was always the most relaxed because there was no classes to worry about. Aelita and I walked into the cafeteria and I stopped dead in my tracks, sitting in my usual seat was another girl I didn't recognize. She was also sitting awfully close to Odd. Jeremie, the only person facing the cafeteria entrence, was the first to see me.
"Good morning, Emma," he said pointedly. Odd turned around in his seat, pleading with his eyes. The girl turned around as well, scowling at me.
"Good morning, Jeremie," I said with a smile and then turned my attention to the girl. "Hello, I don't think we've met," I said to her.
"I'm Sam," she replied. "And you're Emma? The girl Odd's dating now?"
"Sure am," I said cheerfully. I could see everyone at the table, and a few outsiders looking in, watching us carefully. "Do you want to go talk outside?" I asked her, "It's a bit crowded in here for introductions."
She stood up, "let's go talk."
"Don't kill each other. Murder is frowned upon," Ulrich advised us, prompting Odd to elbow him in the ribs. He snickered in response.
"So I hear you and Odd dated on and off for a while…" I said, trying to sound casual. I didn't want her to think I was angry that she was here.
She looked sadly at me. "Yeah, but I guess I was too much of a screw up for him."
"How do you figure?" I asked her.
"I don't really know but when he ended things he just said I was too much trouble and he wanted to stop dating."
I thought about that, he said she'd stolen a computer and almost got him expelled, and another time she withheld a message from Ulrich. She probably didn't remember those things because of returns to the past… I felt kind of bad for her, she seemed nice enough to me right now. "Maybe you two were just never meant to continue dating? Breaking up with him gives you a great opportunity to find someone new. There are a lot of guys around, you just need to keep looking for the right one for you," I told her.
"Odd seemed so perfect for me though; we're both into music and sports and we understood each other… So how long have you two been dating?" she asked me.
"Since last winter," I told her, I smiled, thinking of what a nervous mess I was back then. "I was new to Kadic and he and Ulrich showed me to the admin building. Things kind of fell into place from there."
"Oh, can I ask where you're from?" she asked. "You have a Slavic accent but I can't place it."
"I'm from Russia. I speak Russian and Slovak, that's probably why I don't have a definitive accent from either place… I also speak Italian, but that was just a language to learn for fun, I'm not that good at it yet."
She nodded and then a bitter smile graced her lips and the laugh that followed matched. "Well… it sounds like Odd found what he was looking for, I guess I should do the same for myself," she said resolutely. "I just want to apologize for kissing him before, it was a moment of desperation and I feel badly about it now."
I shrugged, "it's alright. I think if I was in your position, I might have done the same thing."
"Hopefully you never will be in my position. Anyway, I need to get back to my parents, we're only here for a few more hours and we're supposed to be visiting family… Ciao!" And she ran off, seeming to be in higher spirits than she was before. I smiled, hoping she found what she needed. Also, I was just glad she agreed to leave Odd alone.
"Hey," Someone called out. I turned to see Yumi running toward me. "Hey, was that Sam?" she panted. "What did she want?"
"We just talked," I told her. "Where's the fire?" I asked.
"If by fire you mean an activated tower , I don't know Ulrich, Aelita, and Jeremie are going to find it." she told me. "We tried calling you. Now I see what was keeping your attention."
"Where's Odd? Is X.A.N.A. going to keep trying this bullshit?" I asked, taking off for the man hole. Yumi ran alongside me. "I thought Odd was with the others in the cafeteria?"
"He left right after you, apparently. We can't reach him either," Yumi stated as we climbed down into the sewers. "Guess he wanted to go work on something for the cinema club before your trip."
We both skated through the elaborate sewer system until we reached the warehouse. Aelita was sitting at the computer and she waved Yumi into a scanner.
"Emma, Odd's in Lyoko. X.A.N.A. activated the tower to send a spectre to bring him into a scanner. The tower is inactive now but we can't find Odd. They will handle it," Aelita assured me. "Jeremie told me I'm not allowed to virtualize you. He, Ulrich, and Yumi will find and rescue Odd."
"Jeremie's in there?" I asked, forgetting for a moment that Jeremie wasn't afraid to be virtualized anymore.
"He is," Aelita said just as Jeremie's voice called out to us.
"We found him! Ulrich, you're faster, get rid of the Scyphozoa!" Jeremie called out.
"I'm on it, Einstein. You take care of the krab, Yumi, you get the megatank, and I'll take care of the hornets when I take care of our gelatinous friend," Ulrich commanded.
"Scyphozoa?" I asked anxiously, watching the screen closely. I didn't realize it but I was holding onto Aelita's shoulder as I leaned over it to watch.
"Emma, he'll be fine, stop squeezing my shoulder. There, see? Ulrich just got rid of it. I'll bring Odd back right now," she assured me soothingly. She typed in the rematerializations code and an error screen popped up. "Oh, mother of god," she muttered and glanced back at me.
"Aelita, those bird monsters are coming in and Odd's not waking up," Yumi announced frantically. "What did that Scyphozoa do?!"
"I'm looking into that now… I can't figure it out, I'm no Jeremie when it comes to reading this stuff," Aelita said, sounding hysteric.
I tried reading over her shoulder. It was no use, if she couldn't even read it, I had no chance. "Aelita, send me in. The others can fight and I can take Odd into a tower so he's off the battle grounds, at least," I said to her and walked over to the scanner. "Screw Jeremie, if it was me in there, Odd would do the same."
"Go ahead, Aelita," Jeremie said. "She can take Odd to a tower to be scanned; we'll be able to see what X.A.N.A. did. We don't have a choice."
Aelita virtualized me and I arrived in Lyoko, in X.A.N.A.'s sector, right in front of the battle field. Three of the bird monsters circled wide over the battle while two were lower to the ground fighting with the hornets. Jeremie was battling against a Krab, Yumi was face to face with a Megatank, and Ulrich was fighting off hornets and birds near Odd. He was trying to protect his friend. I called my Overmorph and jumped on, raising my arms to shoot at the threatening monsters.
As I got closer to my boyfriend, the three birds overhead came closer to me. One of them dove down and scratched at my back with it's talons. I activated my shield at the same time as firing laser bullets at the beast. The bird burst into red and black pixels and I continued on to reach Odd and Ulrich. The megatank faced it's laser in my direction and fired, trying to throw me off course but I avoided the beam. Nothing was going to stop me.
Another bird went for Odd but I wasn't having any of that. I fired a laser bullet to stop it. "Get out, X.A.N.A.!" I shouted at them and fired a stream of bullets at the airbourne beasts to get them away from Odd and Ulrich.
"Emma! There is a tower just west of here," Ulrich told me as I approached him and picked Odd up in my arms. I changed the Overmorph into the Overboard for more stability and took off, following Ulrich's directions.
"Emma, when you get there set Odd down in the tower and step back so I can scan him," Aelita told me just as the tower came into view. I noticed the monsters were all following me, despite the efforts of my friends. Ulrich was directly flanking me, holding off attacks from hornets and birds. Jeremie and Yumi were further behind, battling the megatank and krab.
I reached the tower and jumped off the Overmorph and ran inside. I set my boyfriend down on the center circle of the platform and stepped back while Aelita did her thing. I waited a few minutes, suppressing my urge to go back outside and fight off monsters.
"It looks like X.A.N.A. just… jumbled things up? I think we can fix this. Jeremie, I'm going to need you to come back to help me with this," Aelita said finally and I sighed, finally we were on track to bring him home.
"Is that why he's passed out?" I asked.
"He lost all of his life points, but because X.A.N.A. wants those codes he made it so Odd couldn't be devirtualized at all, and also made it so he couldn't fight back," Aelita explained to me. "Jeremie? You and Yumi got rid of the Krab and Megatank, I think Yumi and Ulrich will be able to protect Odd while We fix him up. I'm bringing you in."
"Alright," I heard Jeremie reply from just outside the tower. "Bring Emma in too. The longer she's here, the more codes X.A.N.A. obtains."
I wanted to protest but I knew it was for the best. I looked down at Odd and scowled. "I seriously hate that X.A.N.A. does this to us…" I said just as I began to pixelate and rematerialize back into the lab. I returned sitting, feeling the scratch in my back dampen my hoodie. Jeremie stepped over to me, looking drained and wounded himself. He pulled me onto my feet and helped me over to the other room to clean up the wound. "I'm just so done with this," I finished as he worked on my cut. I looked him over and bandaged him up in return.
"It will be over soon," Jeremie assured me as he finished up. "It gets really hard. You have to think about it this way though; X.A.N.A. knows we're on our way to defeating him for good. That's why he's trying so desperately and constantly to get his power back to stop us from stopping him."
Jeremie, come on!" Aelita urged. "Yumi and Ulrich aren't going to be able to hold the monsters off forever."
"Go," I told him and he ran back into the other room and took control of the computer. I walked back into the room and waited by the scanners. Jeremie unscrambled Odd's avatar and retried the rematerialization.