Chapter 15: Running
Location: Time Fluxuation, France
Yumi dove into the alley to avoid the shower of bullets. The helicopter flew pass and swooped around to try again. Yumi was out of breath, she couldn't keep this up much longer. She crawled behind a garbage dumpster and prayed that it was thick enough. The chopper flew by leaving the dumpster riddled with holes. But as soon as it was out of sight, Yumi jumped out and started running for the factory.
Ulrich and Odd waited impatiently in the control room of the factory. The elevator door opened, revealing an annoyed yet embarrassed Jeremy with an all too familiar David. "What's he doing here?!" Ulrich asked.
"No time. Yumi's getting gunned down by an experimental helicopter. You three, down to the scanner room now." Ulrich and Odd accompanied David in the elevator. It closed and descended one level where three pods waited for them. They each took one and stood in it. The doors closed.
"Here we go again." David said to himself.
"Transfer David, transfer Ulrich, transfer Odd, scanner David, scanner Ulrich, scanner Odd, Virtualization!
Yumi ran into the school grounds. Thankfully, no-one else was out at this hour. X.A.N.A began to fire again, this time one brushed past Yumi's leg. She fell over and the chopper flew over her. She struggled to get up before X.A.N.A could come at her again. She darted for the trees, hoping she'd be able to remember where the secret passage was.
David, Ulrich, and Odd dropped into the polar region, the area where X.A.N.A's worse plans were created (A/N: that's my opinion, from what I've seen, all of X.A.N.A's biggest threats were used in towers in the polar region. You wanna flame me cause of it, go ahead…it's still a review). David quickly spotted Aileta. Noting that he dropped the real Aileta in the desert and that this one didn't carry a disc…he had to make sure he didn't use any reference to their past, including his true feelings for her. Aileta ran up to them. "The tower is…this, way." She slowed her specking when she noticed David.
"Aileta that's David, the one I was telling you about." Without warning David drew his sword and pointed it right at Aileta.
"Don't, move." He said through his gritted teeth.
"I knew it…I knew I couldn't trust you!" Jeremy exclaimed. David grabbed Aileta's shoulder and threw her to the ground, just before a laser, fired from the nearby crab hit her. David easily blocked it and reflected it back toward the monster. The laser hit square in the stress point and it exploded.
"You were saying Jeremy…" David grunted. He helped Aileta off the ground. "Sorry, had to do that."
"Its okay, come on the towers over here." The four began running.
Yumi stumbled through the trees, the whirling noise fluttered ominously above her. She eventually reached the clearing where the opening to the path through the sewer was. She stopped to catch her breath. Without warning she heard a new sound, it sounded like, BOOM, a missile. Yumi fell to the ground from the explosion behind her. She slowly got to her feet. Yumi saw the chopper circling, waiting to fire once she was in view…or until it could get a clear shot.
"Come on guys" Jeremy said. "You need to get to the tower before X.A.N.A. gets to Yumi…or figures out how to use that napalm.
"Thanks for the heads up, but we're running our fastest here." Odd yelled. The four ran out into an open field, but the tower was no-where in sight. "Um…that's a problem…"
"Over there!" Aileta yelled. On another far away platform stood a tower surrounded by a red aura. "Maybe we took a wrong turn."
"ODD, crab at 10 o-clock!" David yelled. Odd barely dodged the laser as 2 crabs ran toward them.
"Laser arrow! Hey, we'll never manage to get over there in time!"
"I disagree." David said. "Look out." A swarm of hornets flew in toward them from the tower. "You two stay here and keep the crabs off us. I'll take Aileta to the tower and stop the hornets." David commanded.
"How are you going to do that?" Ulrich said as he blocked another laser.
"Like this…" David unfurled his wings and grabbed Aileta's hand. He flew off toward the hornets. As he flew the swarm, one exploded. The hornets turned around and flew toward David. They began to fire again. David flew as fast as he could and eventually reached the second plateau. "GO!" David yelled. Aileta ran for the tower as David prepared to hold off the last of the hornets. Aileta entered and slowly walked toward the center of the rings, lighting them up one by one.
Yumi timed her run just right. When the chopper was turned away she dashed out toward the grate. But to her demise she tripped and fell painfully to the ground.
When she reached the center she began to rise and eventually reached a higher platform. It lit up as her foot touched it.
The helicopter descended and leveled its guns on Yumi. She looked up staring into the barrel of its revolving turrets.
A few more steps and a screen appeared. Aileta placed her hand on this. The screen read: AILETA, then CODE …
X.A.N.A. fired the guns and Yumi watched as the bullets rushed for her face.
… LYOKO.
The bullets stopped in mid-air, just inches from Yumi's face.
The screens around her dropped and fell into darkness, only to have them return all at once in an instant. "Return to the past now." An ominous white light grew from the factory and covered everything in sight.
It was that very morning. David sat outside the school ready to register and enroll in Cadic Jr. High again. He pulled out a laptop computer and logged onto the LYOKO network. "Come in Aileta…"
"Hi David." The real Aileta said as her face appeared. "I felt time reverse, let me guess, X.A.N.A. gave you his formal greeting."
"Gee how'd you know?" David said sarcastically. "Well the good news is I got their trust. It won't be too hard to get them to help me get Sicron into a scanner. Although I still feel like we're treating them like animals." He complained.
"Me too, but it must be done. Well, Sicron shouldn't show up till tomorrow so you should have plenty of time to prepare." Aileta said.
"Okay, stay beautiful Aileta." She giggled.
"I will see you later." She logged off. But as David stood up and tucked his tail in his shirt, a large flaming fire ball entered the Time Fluxuation…a fireball with very dark intentions.