William woke up, lively and without a hint of the bad feeling that had bothered him last night. The sleep had done its job well as the nightmares had stayed away.

It appeared that the rain had stopped and retreated out of the sunshine's way as well, leaving puddles to the yard. William opened his room's window and breathed the clean air deep in, enjoying it greatly. It was very easy to breathe the fresh air after the rain, and even though William had always liked it, the imprisonment on Lyoko had raised its value unexpectedly high. Things taken for granted were no longer granted for him but things that they all should enjoy as long as they had just them.

The imprisonment on Lyoko had made William understand that everything that was taken for granted could be taken away from them at any given moment.

And as Serafina was still at large, ready to imprison him, William planned to truly enjoy the small things in life. He did not know when he would be imprisoned again, so he had better enjoy it as much as he could.
"Which one goes?" Ulrich asked. "You or me?"
"I don't know," Odd remarked. "Why not both of us? I doubt he'd be startled by us."

William heard a knock at the door and turned to see who would come. Preparing for Alex coming in through the door, he called out, "Come in!" To his joy, Odd and Ulrich appeared instead.
"Good morning!" he greeted, cheerful.
"Good morning, William!" Ulrich greeted, delighted of the cheerful greeting. William seemed to feel better now.
"We came to see how you were doing," Odd told. "We're all worried about you."
"You didn't need to. I'm already feeling much better," William stated, smiling effortlessly.
"That's a good thing," Ulrich said. "Watch out for Alex, he's on a bad mood."
"He should be ashamed," Odd scoffed. He was relieved of William's improved state, so he could now direct his attention to resenting Alex's actions. "He wasn't supposed to risk you like that at least according to the original script. Has the writer changed her mind?"
"Yeah," William said. "He can't be trusted. We have to think about what we do about him with the whole group."
"True. We'll agree on a meeting when we can, so that we can discuss," Ulrich told. "Jeremy's still sleeping, so we haven't managed to get the schedule even started."

After a brief conversation, Odd and Ulrich left on their separate ways and William went to take a shower quickly. When he was returning to his room, he felt a prickly gaze on his neck and at the door he turned to see who stared at him. It was Alex. His gaze was strange, and William rose to the defensive immediately.
"What're you staring at?" William asked sharply. Alex startled and shook his head.
"Sorry, I was lost in thought. How are you?" he replied.
"Better," William answered the question. Then he went to his room immediately to avoid the continuation of the conversation. Something in Alex's gaze had felt most uncomfortable, as if he had tried to drill into him. Serafina's warning about Alex returned to William's mind. Was the girl right after all? Did Alex have something bad planned for him?

And seriously, keep your eyes open near him even if you wouldn't believe me. That was what Serafina had said to him. William realized that this once he ought to heed an enemy's warning. The thought was very frightening, but the other options were only worse. Nevertheless, even without the previous days' events the advice was universal and decent anyway. Keeping his guard up would hurt no one.

Despite of cold looks, Alex squeezed himself into the same table as the other Lyoko Warriors at the cafeteria. No one spoke after he came.
"Hey, listen, I'm sorry about yesterday and the day before it," Alex said. "I… I lost my discretion completely. I just wanted to end this fight."
"Didn't you say that you didn't want to see even one more body of a comrade in this fight anymore?" William asked.
"Yes. What about it?" Alex replied.
"If I'd managed to finish Serafina off, Lyra would've killed me. Even if the battle would've ended there, one body of a comrade would have come," William said accusatively. He understood that he was retaliating to Alex's behavior on a subconscious manner, but he let it go. He had the right to say how things were.

Alex looked at the table in remorse. Without the look at the dormitory's corridor, William might have even relented a little, but now he knew not to trust it at all.

The awkward and even hostile silence was finally cut by the alert from the Superscanner. Jeremy opened his laptop.
"An active tower in the Forest Sector," he said. The group reacted to it immediately by leaving the table as if on a shared decision.

This time, no sword creature appeared, but they got to the factory safely. The television told about a wide outage that had no explanation.
"Can the supercomputer take these outages?" William asked, concerned.
"It can. It has a completely separate power supply. That's how it hasn't been found, as there is no power grid with which it could be tracked coming here," Jeremy told.
"Okay, good," William said while stepping into the scanner.

After virtualization, he saw strange trees. He had seen all the sectors while being under X.A.N.A.'s control, but it was a completely different thing than experiencing it all by himself; he had seen everything, but it was all new to him, fresh experiences. He was excited to see different sceneries.

Aelita, Odd and Alex appeared behind him, Ulrich and Yumi.
"The tower is north of your position. Here are the vehicles," Jeremy announced. The vehicles appeared and Odd took Alex aboard most reluctantly; risking William had angered Odd, who was on the best terms with William, the most.

Hornets appeared, unexpected, to fire at them en masse. Odd was devirtualized almost immediately in the ambush and Alex could not get the Overboard to his control – not that he could have – because it disappeared right after its owner had disappeared. Alex flew to the ground, pushed by lasers and was devirtualized as well. William moved to shield Aelita from lasers in the air and cleaved Hornets with all his might. He got hits but gritted his teeth and kept fighting more carefully; Aelita was the main thing now. Yumi and Ulrich did their best to destroy the bugs attacking them below, and finally they got rid of them before the tower.

Unfortunately, three Megatanks awaited at the tower. Ulrich met one laser with his swords to let Aelita through while William protected her. Yumi was devirtualized when a Megatank rolled on her, fortunately getting destroyed as well when fans hit its insides. William dodged a laser with Super Smoke and dashed at the Megatank holding Ulrich. The samurai managed to sigh in relief as the pressure from the laser ended, but the relief was short-lived when the last Megatank shot him. William destroyed it.
"The day's good job's done," he sighed. This fight had been tough; Serafina had truly put them to a test. But where was the girl herself?

Jeremy saw a new monster on the screen. Its icon had been gone for long, but it was familiar. Too familiar.
"Oh no! William, behind you!" Jeremy cried out.

William turned to see what kind of a monster was coming. He froze as the horror billowed, paralyzing and instantaneous, from his heart all the way to his feet. From the feet, the same horror climbed to his head. Everything became forgotten. Super Smoke, the heavy sword in the hand, the fact that the sector was green and not blue. Suddenly, he felt like he was in a nightmare. And he could not move.
"William, get out of there right now!" Jeremy ordered. It brought some life to the boy conquered by panic, and he went backwards when he did not come up with anything else to do.
"Escape with Super Smoke!" Yumi exclaimed to the microphone. William tried to say that he could not, but he did not manage to get the words out of his mouth. Fear and bad memories flooded over, strong and crippling, and broke each dam and structure that kept him together as a functioning person.
"No! William, Serafina's coming from behind! Watch out!" Jeremy cried out.

William turned his head, and instantly the girl's hands grabbed onto his shoulders strongly. William could not struggle free nor could he defend himself in any way when the girl was behind his back, out of his reach. Horror only deepened.
"Let me go," William managed to say by a miracle. "Leave me be."
"Sometimes it's good to face fears," Serafina told calmly. She tried not to waver even though William's fear did evoke compassion in her.
"Do you think this is really necessary?" William did not know how he managed to talk now. Maybe it was just the direct contact to a person that he had needed to get his voice back. Now, he could vent his horror as anger.
"Perhaps. Who knows if someday you'll have to face a Scyphozoa?" Serafina remarked. "It'd do you good to be able to fight against it. Better safe than sorry."

William turned his head to look at the Scyphozoa. It had managed to get too close. William tried to get further back but Serafina's body stopped him. He could not retreat anymore.
"It'll toss my sword away if I try," William remarked. He remembered what had happened in Sector Five."
"William, get out of there right now!" Jeremy shouted. William gritted his teeth, bitter, for that was exactly what the computer genius had told him when he had last faced the Scyphozoa.
"You can safely go close to it with Super Smoke and cut the tentacles quickly before it gets to attack," Serafina told. "Why don't you try it?"
"I... I can't do it," William said, panicking. "I can't use Super Smoke that well."

The grip on the shoulders softened, almost as if trying to calm him.
"Do you remember the shockwave you accidentally devirtualized Odd with?" Serafina asked.
"Yeah," William answered.
"Use it. That way you stay far from your enemy but can still fight," Serafina stated. "Concentrate energy on the blade of your word and release it by swinging your sword towards your target."
"William! Do you hear me?" Jeremy asked.
"I do, Jeremy," William answered.
"I'll materialize you now," Jeremy announced.
"Wait," William asked. "Let me try once."
"William, it's too dangerous!" Jeremy said.
"Get out of there! Don't let Serafina manipulate you!" Alex cried out.
"Just this once," William said. He concentrated energy to his sword. The Scyphozoa was close, but he believed that he could defeat it. He was strong enough, he knew it.

William swung his sword. A white wave flew straight at the Scyphozoa and pushed it backwards.
"Aim at the tentacles. Destroying a Scyphozoa is terribly difficult, but without its tentacles it can't do anything to anyone and thus becomes harmless," Serafina told.
"Tentacles, okay," William said.
"William! Listen now! Stop playing a hero before it's too late!" Ulrich exclaimed. William heard the distress in his voice; everyone feared for him.
"I can do this," William said, suddenly sure of himself. He gathered energy to his sword again. "Just watch." He swung the blade and the shockwave broke tentacles.
"And another one!" Serafina said, grinning in zest. "Then the Scyphozoa can't do anything to you!"

The zest caught William. Full of the feeling of success, he swung a shockwave at the tentacles. Now they were all cut. The Scyphozoa escaped. People shouted out of relief and joy at the lab.
"I did it," William breathed. His voice rose into a shout of joy, "I did it! What're you going to do now, Scyphozoa? You can't capture me anymore!"

Then he noticed that Serafina had let go of him. The girl smiled at him.
"Well done," the girl praised. "But still, don't let it get to your head. You never know what can happen and you still have to practice so that all combat skills come automatically, especially Super Smoke. It'll save you from many spots once you have learned it so well that you can use it even in panic."

Alicia approached them in a horse's form. Serafina did not seem to have weapons with herself. Had she just come to talk?
"Was this a test?" William asked, suspicious.
"More like a lesson," Serafina answered, smiling charmingly. "I believe that you gained even a lot from this as long as you don't forget or ignore it." The girl jumped on Alicia's back and sped away. William would have wanted to follow, ask more, even ask whether the girl was a friend and on their side or not. However, he did not follow; it would have only been risky.
"Materialize William!" Jeremy executed the command. William was materialized and expected to get scolded from his actions now.

A while later at the lab:

"Admittedly, you could come up with a name for that shockwave," Odd remarked. "How about Laser Air?"
"Sounds good," William said.
"Regardless of names, what you did was dangerous," Yumi said, serious. However, William noticed that instead of anger, there was worry behind the words. "It could've ended up badly for you."
"I know," William said. "Sorry."
"Serafina is manipulating you. Can't you see it?" Alex said, anxious. "You trusted her when she instructed you, didn't you?"
"I wouldn't say that I trusted," William defended himself, trying not to get angry. They did not mean anything bad by it, he did know that. "I couldn't help her being there. I was in a total panic, I couldn't think clearly. It just was the easiest to do what she said when she was physically near me, not just a voice. Somehow, that presence just made it easier."
"She's trying to get you into a trap! If you hadn't succeeded, the Scyphozoa and Serafina could've done anything to you! And now we know that Serafina has a Scyphozoa in her use. She can capture you with it!" Alex got flustered. He had to get the message across.
"If she plans to use the Scyphozoa against me, why did she teach me to face it and fight against it?" William asked. "It'd be far more practical if I couldn't and would just go into a panic, unable to do anything."
"Good point," Jeremy remarked.
"Exactly. What is Serafina planning, then?" Aelita asked. William would have wanted to voice his musings on Serafina's goodness but decided to leave it to a meeting where Alex would not be present.
"She is trying to cause confusion by acting better than she is," Alex remarked and chewed his nails unnaturally. "This isn't a good thing at all."
Not to you, William remarked in his mind. The more questionable the confrontation of this battle turned, the weaker Alex's grip on them got.

Jeremy opened the TV. The outage still continued; something had broken.
"Serafina did more permanent damage," Jeremy stated. "It's probably for the best to return to the past so that this won't cause problems to bystanders." He started to type a familiar command. When no protests came, he pressed Enter, starting the program, "Return to the past now."

A white wave ate everything once again.

/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Foes & Friends Remastered duology and its OCs (c) Me/