Katrina wasn't happy with the fact that Xana was back. She thought she had finally moved on after a year of peace but maybe it was something too good to be true. After leaving the factory she went back to Liam's dorm throwing her bag onto his bed as she walked over to him sitting at his desk. He turned around in his chair to face her.
"So how did it go?" He asked her. Katrina groaned in response. "Not good?"
"I thought I was done with this, but I guess I was wrong" She said as she walked back over to the bed plopping down on it with her arms folded over her eyes.
"What are you talking about?"
"I really don't want to talk about it" She mumbled. Liam sighed as he got up from his chair walking over to Katrina sitting down on the edge of the bed.
"Trina, you and I have known each other for a few years now. If you want me to keep it a secret I will, but at least tell me what's going on" He bargained with her. Katrina lifted her arm a little so she could peak at Liam who looked at her with a worried expression on his face.
"I know, it's not that I don't trust you. I trust you as much as my own brother. That's not the issue though"
"So then what is it? I'm not going to judge you"
"Uh huh sure"
"Trina, in this case I'm serious" He said as he gently rubbed her leg trying to coax her into talking to him. She let out a hefty sigh before propping herself up on her elbows.
"This thing has stolen almost six years of my life and I feel like it's never going to stop. I thought last year was the last time I was going to have to confront this thing but apparently I was wrong. The whole situation with the computers just had to prove me wrong"
"Maybe this was just a one-time thing"
"I highly doubt that. It won't stop until it has complete control of the world"
"Okay now I think you're just exaggerating(?)"
"I wish I was, but I'm not"
"Okay, let's say you're not. What do we do to stop it?"
"I'm not sure how to stop it exactly, but I know how to slow it down"
"Okay, so how do we do that?"
"It's hard to explain, but remember that virtual world I mentioned before?" Liam nodded his head. "I have to go there and deactivate the towers that are activated by the virus" She explained.
'That doesn't sound hard to do"
"Oh trust me, it's one of those things that's easier said than done"
"How so?"
"Well think of it like a video game. You have a mission and there's going to be things trying to stop you from completing your mission"
"Ah that's fair I guess"
"Yeah I hate it. I'm one of the two people that have access to the codes that can deactivate the towers, so I'm heavily relied on for missions like that"
"Well can't you just give the codes to someone else?" Katrina shook her head.
"If I could, I would've done that by now"
"I feel like it's not that hard to do. You can't just have someone copy your codes then paste it in someone else's program? That's what I do with all of my programs whenever I need a specific code for a project"
"I thought about doing that but apparently it's not that simple. Sometimes the codes get bugged when they're copied, but I think that was done purposely for security reasons and it's a pain to debug them and I would know cause I've actually tried it"
"okay so basically what you're telling me is that you have no choice but to suffer until this thing is disposed of?"
"unfortunately"
'That sucks" Liam commented. Katrina groaned as she flopped back down on the bed. Meanwhile Jeremie and the others were at the factory after classes had let out for the day. Jeremie sat at the supercomputer while Aelita was on the laptop.
"Have you figured out yet how Xana got out?" Yumi questioned.
"Nope, not yet" Jeremie responded as he typed away. Yumi turned to Ulrich.
"How's Katrina holding up? Have you talked to her since she left?" She asked. Ulrich shook his head.
"Do you think she'll come back?" Odd questioned. Ulrich shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't think she wants to, and I don't blame her. This place didn't exactly bring her happy memories" Ulrich stated.
"That's not true. She finally got to see you again after being gone for five years. I consider that a happy memory" Odd noted.
"That's probably the only thing"
"I don't think we should force her to come back if she doesn't want to. It's only going to make her resent us if we do" Aelita chimed.
"But we need her codes to access data in sector five" Jeremie noted.
"We'll just have to either work around it or just do without it. Besides, Katrina makes a valid point. We rely too much on her. She's not always going to be here especially when she doesn't want to be. She's worked hard for her freedom and we should let her have it" Aelita stated.
"Princess has a point" Odd commented.
"Yeah I agree with Aelita" Yumi chimed. Jeremie sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger.
"You guys realized that we need her. We're not going to be able to stop Xana without her and I'm pretty sure Katrina is already aware of that. If she sucked it up and battled it out for a year she can do it again" Jeremie stated with absolutely no sympathy which irritated Ulrich.
"Katrina's been tormented enough, why can't you just give her a break? We all know that we need her and I'm sure she's aware of that too, but we shouldn't rely on her to do everything for us. We're supposed to be a team, but we're letting her do all of the work while we just twiddle our thumbs hoping that she'll pull through" Ulrich barked. "Do what you have to do but leave my sister alone" He then said before taking off.
"Ulrich, where are you going?" Yumi inquired.
"Out for a walk" He responded just as the elevator's door close.
"Whelp, now both Sterns are upset" Odd commented.
"I mean, Ulrich does make a valid point. Katrina's the one doing all of the work other than Aelita of course who supplements Katrina" Yumi noted. As Ulrich left the factory, he pulled out his phone so he could call his sister. It only took two rings for her to pick up.
"What's up Ulrich? Everything okay?" She greeted on the other end.
"Funny, I was going to ask you that" He teased. Katrina let out a slight giggle.
"I'm fine. A little frustrated, but overall I'm fine. There's no need to worry if that's why you're calling" She told him.
"Listen, are you busy right now? Can we talk in person?" He asked.
"Sure, I'm on campus at the moment. I'll meet you at my place in a few minutes"
"Sounds Good" Ulrich said before hanging up. He headed straight for Katrina's apartment. Katrina was still at Liam's dorm.
"Alright, I gotta go. That was my brother, he wants to talk about something. I'm assuming it's something serious since he didn't just tell me over the phone"
"Do you want me to come with you?"
"Nah, I'm good. It's just Ulrich" She said confidently although she was worried what he had to say.
"Alright, well I plan on being up late tonight so if you need to talk, you know where to find me" He said with a smirk. Katrina let out a slight giggle as she grabbed her stuff and saying goodbye to her friend before leaving his room. She went back to her apartment and saw Ulrich standing at the entrance waiting for her.
"Wow, it must be important if you're already here waiting for me" She commented with a smirk. She pulled out her keys unlocking the door letting Ulrich in. "So what's up? What did you want to talk about?" She questioned as she set down her bag and tossed her keys on the coffee table.
"I just wanted to say that we understand if you don't want to help up defeat Xana again. We're not going to force you to help. You've already been through a lot and you deserve to live a normal life" He told her.
"That's it? Why couldn't you tell me that over the phone? You made me wonder if something happened to one of you"
"Sorry, I just thought it was better to talk in person" Katrina let out a sigh.
"Are you sure you guys can handle this without me?" She questioned.
"Jeremie doesn't seem to think so, but the rest of us are willing to try." He told her. It took a minute for her to process what Ulrich was trying to tell her. He wanted her to live a normal life knowing that's what made her happy. Katrina smiled at her little brother before giving him a hug.
"I have a tournament coming up in two weeks, if Xana doesn't try to destroy the world over the weekend would you be interested in a pencak silat training session with your big sister?" She offered. Ulrich pulled away from her.
"For real?" He questioned. Katrina nodded her head with smile. Maybe there was still hope for her to be able to live a normal life after all.