Death and the Swordsman
Chapter 3
By: Leelei
Author's Note: See? I told you it'd be here! ;D It's a long one, but I promise it's worth it!
The text within the book seemed to be moving closer and all the letters formed long, drawn out words as Ulrich's vision blurred from his continuous, unbroken span of reading. His head bobbed as he sat at the desk in the library nearly falling asleep, the science books scattered all around him. He had been searching for a topic to use for a project since that afternoon, and had finally come across directions for a simple volcano in an old textbook. It wasn't very original, but he knew he would be able to start and finish it in one night.
"This day blows," he groaned, rubbing his tired features and yawning.
"Attention," the speaker system in the quiet building suddenly announced. "The library will be closing in fifteen minutes."
Ulrich grabbed the book in front of him as he pulled himself up from the chair and stretched, searching around the study area for a copy machine. Once he found one, he fed it full of change and set it to make copies of the directions, not wanting to risk taking the book out with his current luck and having to pay all of the fines when he forgot to return it.
Finally, he thought as he stretched again while the machine lit up and began making copying noises. It wouldn't be long before he would be with his girlfriend and having a good time.
"Attention," the speaker system interrupted again. "It is now 8:45 P.M. The library will close at exactly 9 o'clock. Please bring any items that you would like to check out to the front desk now."
"Yeah, yeah." Ulrich waved off the announcement as he watched the copy machine finish up. He glanced over a the clock because of the mentioned time, then began pulling the warm copies out of the tray.
'Oh, wait a minute. Hold on,' he suddenly froze and thought frantically. 'Did she say that it's almost nine?' He looked to the clock again, but that time his eyes remained staring at it.
He had originally entered the library that afternoon with the intention that he would work on his project until the building closed, then would leave to meet Yumi right after. But, to his surprise, he had somehow managed to believe that the library closed at eight, and was relying on the announcements to warn him at 7:45. He was supposed to meet Yumi at exactly 8 o'clock.
"Son of a bitch!" he yelled, knowing that picking up swearing would never help the circumstance, but felt it was necessary to vent off his anger. He ignored the offended glares of the librarians as he shoved all of his papers into a folder and grabbed his notebook, leaving all the science references lying on the table as he dashed out of the building and ran directly to the movie theater.
He gasped for air as he grabbed onto the brick building while checking his cell phone. 9:05 P.M. He was supposed to meet Yumi in the same spot where he was standing over an hour earlier. After catching his breath, he let out a tired, frustrated sigh and turned around to make his way back to Kadic.
Without running, it took him nearly a half an hour to return to his dorm room, opening the door and finding it strange that it wasn't locked. He concluded that Odd must have forgotten to lock it and pushed it shut behind him after he had entered the room. Suddenly he jumped in place as a tall, dark figure caught his attention in the corner of his eye. His vision focused and he saw that it was Yumi, leaning against his wall with her arms folded across her chest.
"Yumi?" he asked. "How did you get in here?"
"I came to see what was taking you so long. Odd let me in when he stopped by to pick up his CD's before he went to go hang out with Sam." Yumi informed him coldly. "Are you happy? I wasn't late."
Ulrich walked by to his desk, still feeling her glare as he tried not to look in her direction. "Look, I'm sorry," he said as he tossed his schoolwork on top of his other books. "I'm really having a bad day."
"That worked the first time, Ulrich, but now it seems like you just don't care anymore." Yumi snapped at him.
"What?" Ulrich whirled around to face her. "Wait a minute, I never said that."
"What did you say, Ulrich?" Yumi asked him. "Nothing. You said next to nothing. What, am I supposed to know what you're feeling every second of the day?"
"Okay, I know you're pissed that I didn't say hi after school, or whatever, and that I messed up our date, but now you're just blowing things out of proportion," Ulrich could feel the tension rising between them. "I've had a lot to do today, and I'm having a hard time dealing with it for some reason."
"Yeah, well what's been so out-of-the-ordinary? Is you life all of a sudden just a big collection of burdens? Ulrich, this is our third date now that you've broken. You have to at least care a little about what's going on around you." Yumi asked, folding her arms again and narrowing her eyebrows as she waited for his response.
Ulrich sighed mentally. They had just started dating when his string of bad luck began and he realized that Yumi must have linked his disappointing behavior to their new relationship. "Look, this has nothing to do with us."
"You're right," she countered. "Because there isn't going to be an 'us' for very long."
"Yumi-"
"Stop it, Ulrich," Yumi nearly shouted. "I'm sick of this." She paused, not knowing what else to say and leaving Ulrich unwilling to add anything after her outburst. "I'm done," she concluded and shook her head, turning to leave. "Good-night."
Her words processed slowly in Ulrich's mind, and the reality of what was happening finally hit him as she was walking out the door. "Yumi, wait!" he called to her and rushed over, trying to catch the handle as it slammed shut. He kicked the wall and swore again, throwing his back against the hard surface as he slid to the floor, remaining in his slumped position as he rubbed his forehead. "What is going on today?" he yelled in frustration.
After several minutes of brooding, he was in no mood to start his school project. He decided he was too angry to confront Yumi, fearing another outburst if he said the wrong thing, so he got up and left his room to go and talk with Jeremie, hoping his young friend would forgive him and help cheer him up.
He found the blonde boy sitting in front of his computer, as was his routine every night when the boarding Kadic students were required to be in their dorms for the evening. Jeremie was typing without breaking eye contact from the screen when Ulrich walked in, shutting the door quietly behind him.
"Hey, Jeremie," he said with his eyes downcast, staring at the rug.
"Yes?" the young boy replied, still not moving from his position.
"I'm sorry for snapping at you and Odd earlier. I uh, I'm…just having a bad day, that's all."
Jeremie finally paused and turned his head slightly to show him a glance of a smile. "Don't worry about it, Ulrich. I understand. You can come sit down, if you want."
Ulrich managed to smile himself and continue into the room, plopping down on the end of Jeremie's bed and looking at the computer screen the blonde had returned his attention to. "Where's Aelita tonight?" he asked.
"She's…" Jeremie hesitated for a moment. "Just checking something she downloaded about Earth…it's nothing."
Ulrich just shrugged and climbed back onto the bed to sit up against the wall. "So what did I miss in Chemistry?"
"Nothing much," replied Jeremie. "Mrs. Hertz handed back our tests from last Friday. Did she give you yours?"
Ulrich let out a troubled snicker. "Yeah, but she might as well have used it for scrap paper," he mumbled the rest, "I bombed it so bad…"
Jeremie didn't respond, considering his own score was above one hundred percent along with the extra credit questions included. "Yumi stopped by to ask where you were. Did you talk to her tonight?"
"Oh, I talked to her…"
"That went bad too, huh?"
"Just your average nuclear explosion."
"So how long do you think it will take for this one to blow over?"
"To tell you the truth, Jeremie, I don't know if it will. I just-" Ulrich stopped and sighed as he fumbled his words. "It's just that I've been having these incredibly horrible days lately, and now they're starting to ruin my life!" He started to notice Jeremie's attention shift back and forth between the screen and the window above his computer. He continued anyway, "It's hard to explain…each day just keeps feeling like I'm falling further and further down into a hole, then when I think that things can't possibly get any lower, something else happens to knock me down again."
"Uh….Ulrich?"
"What?"
"I'd hate to break it to you, but your day is about to get much worse."
Ulrich opened his mouth to respond, but then looked out the window that Jeremie was then staring at. His jaw fell completely and his eyes widened at the large object speeding towards the window. He leapt off the bed and had just nearly pushed Jeremie out of his computer chair, the two boys toppling to the floor as a small wrecking ball smashed through the window and sent pieces of glass and the shattered computer flying throughout the room.
Ulrich pushed himself up from where he landed on top of Jeremie, lifting a piece of the broken plaster of the wall from his back as he did. "Aelita was checking for pulsations, wasn't she?" he asked bluntly, realizing what the virtual girl actually had been doing.
"Yeah, and she obviously found some, so let's go!" Jeremie replied in a frantic tone, ignoring his and Ulrich's cuts and bruises as they pulled themselves from the rubble and ran out of the room while the X.A.N.A. controlled wrecking ball crashed into the building again. They didn't bother with warning the other students in the dorm to evacuate, since they saw that they had already gotten the idea. The two made it out of the building and wasted no time running through the schoolyard to the covered manhole. Ulrich pulled out his cell phone.
"Odd?" he nearly yelled after his blonde friend picked up on a later ring. "Come to the factory, now!"
He could hear a girl's, most likely Sam's, laughter in the background. "Ulrich, what is it?" Odd asked.
"Odd, get over to the factory, now! This is serious! X.A.N.A just demolished Jeremie's room with a wrecking ball!"
He could hear Odd's gasp. "What?" was all he could respond.
"Hurry up, Jeremie and I will meet you there!" Ulrich paused as he looked around while Jeremie started down the manhole. "And call Yumi's cell phone. She's probably still walking back to her house, so she can't be far."
Odd wanted to ask why he wasn't with her, but decided not to. "Okay, I'll see you in a few minutes," he replied and ended the call. Ulrich shoved his phone into his pocket and started down the steps.
Once they had made their way through the sewers and past the elevator lift, Jeremie sat down at the Super Calculator and connected to Lyoko.
"Jeremie, do you want me to go now?" Ulrich asked.
"No, I don't want you to risk loosing any your life points just yet," answered Jeremie as he put on his headset. "Aelita?"
"Jeremie!" Ulrich heard the pink-haired girl cry. "I found the pulsations! They're here in the mountain region. No signs of any monsters yet."
"Let me know as soon as you see them, and I'll send Ulrich." Jeremie informed her and switched to another window on the screen in front of him. He typed for a few moments and read the information he had found. "X.A.N.A. was looking for us, all right. From this image of the school right now, it seems like he was specifically after my dorm room. The wrecking ball is heading towards your and Odd's room now, but it's not picking up your body heat on its sensors."
"How much time do you think we have before it locates us here?" Ulrich asked.
Jeremie didn't reply right away. "Not very much."
"Jeremie, I see three hornets!" Aelita called.
Jeremie immediately closed the window and returned to her. "Aelita, are you all right? I'm sending Ulrich now, hang on." He turned to his friend. "Go now, you're heading to the mountain region to fight three hornets. Yumi and Odd will follow you as soon as they get here."
"All right," agreed Ulrich, turning to the elevator lift. He rushed into the scanner room as soon as he arrived, standing in his scanner as the doors slid shut and the booth lit up.
"Transfer, Ulrich," he could hear Jeremie's voice as the scanner started up. "Scanner, Ulrich." Feeling the breeze-like power surge around him, he felt his feet lift from the ground. "Virtualization!"
Before he knew it, he opened his eyes again to land from his drop, pushing himself up from the ground and gazing around at the mountain region that surrounded him in the virtual world they called Lyoko. He put his hand on the hilt of his sword, narrowing his eyes as he searched.
"Ulrich!" he heard Aelita yell his name. She waved to him from a plateau as he noticed her. Running towards her, he noticed the three X.A.N.A controlled hornets flying straight ahead.
"Aelita, watch out!" he exclaimed as he jumped into the air, drawing his sword and slashing out at one of the monsters. After missing, he made a hard landing and looked back to see them flying around again, Aelita peeking out from behind a rock.
The virtual girl ran over to him once they were far enough away. "The tower is just behind that mountain to our right, but X.A.N.A is trying to trick us again. We'll see two towers when we arrive, both activated, but only one will actually accept the Lyoko code. If I deactivate the wrong tower, it may unlock more of my program to X.A.N.A."
"What are we going to do?" Ulrich asked frantically, his eyebrows furrowing together even in his virtual form.
"It's okay, I know which tower is real." Aelita said reassuringly.
"Good, then let's go." Ulrich said and led her around the mountain.
"Aelita," Jeremie's voice emitted from the sky. "The tower is straight ahead. Whoa, what is this? There are two towers?"
"It's okay, Jeremie, I know which tower to enter. I was just in this region last night, and the tower on the right wasn't here then," explained Aelita, having to repeat herself.
"Good job, Aelita," Jeremie replied proudly. "You're really doing your homework. Maybe you could teach Ulrich a lesson or two."
"No time for jokes now," Ulrich commented as he raised his sword again. The hornets returned, buzzing even louder than before. One shot at Ulrich, hitting him in the arm.
"That's ten life points, Ulrich." Jeremie called. "Good news; your reinforcements have just arrived. Transfer, Odd. Transfer, Yumi." Ulrich could hear him as his friends prepared to enter Lyoko. "Scanner, Odd. Scanner, Yumi. Virtualization!"
The hornets flew towards Aelita, starting to launch their lasers as they did. Ulrich managed to push her out of the way, tumbling to the ground himself as he got hit twice.
"It's time to face your burdens, Ulrich," a sarcastic voice chastised him as he pushed himself up to a sitting position, scowling at the pain in his arm.
"Shut up, Yumi," he growled under his breath as he saw the geisha warrior walk past him and launch her fan at a flying hornet, cutting it in half and making it explode.
"Come on, Ulrich! Same as always! Kick some X.A.N.A. butt, save the world, and you'll be back in no time!" Odd said to him in a cheerful tone as he ran past him, holding out his arm and yelling, "Laser arrow!" while a dart flew from his wrist and exploded another hornet.
"Great job so far you guys, but don't forget about that last hornet. Six more are on their way now," Jeremie's omniscient voice called again. Odd shot another arrow and easily defeated the last monster.
"So what's going on, Aelita?" Yumi asked her virtual friend. "Do I really see two towers over there?"
"Yes, but there's no need to worry; X.A.N.A. is using an old trick this time." Aelita replied with a smile. "The tower on the right is a duplicate. However, if I were to deactivate the wrong tower, my program would be open for X.A.N.A.'s infection."
"Don't worry yourself, Princess," commented Odd with a smirk as he approached the two. "We'll make sure you get to the real one."
They could hear a rumble that sounded as if it came from the sky. "Oh, no!" they heard Jeremie exclaim. "The wrecking ball has found the factory already! Hurry up, you guys. I'm not sure just how long this place can withstand a demolition!"
Ulrich jumped up from where he was, his pain finally subsiding as he noticed the new monsters arriving. "Hornets, 2 o'clock," he called to the others as he held his sword in a ready position. They began their attacks, the hornets appearing one after the other as the three fought while guarding Aelita at the same time.
While Ulrich sliced through a hornet, only his third for that trip, he noticed Odd holding his wrist out, launching arrow after arrow at the attacking monsters as he left his other arm open to cover Aelita, who had hid behind him.
"Ulrich, take Aelita to the tower." Jeremie ordered with another rumble behind his voice. "And be careful; you only have thirty life points left."
It was true, Ulrich had been taking the most hits out of the entire group. As his points diminished, he slashed another hornet in his way of Odd and Aelita, grabbing the virtual girl's hand and running with her away from the monsters.
"Ulrich! Ulrich!" Aelita yelled from behind him. "I can't run that fast!"
Ulrich slowed down from his supernatural speed, finally remembering how unique his powers were. "Sorry, Aelita. I must have forgot."
"It's all right. Look, we're almost there." Aelita pointed to the identical glowing towers.
Ulrich glanced back to the others, who still fought off the multiplying monsters. Looking back to the tower, he and Aelita raced on. "Aelita, are you sure you know which tower is the real one?"
"I'm positive," replied Aelita. "Oh, no!" she gasped. A Mega-tank rolled towards them from behind the tower. Skidding to a stop, the two both backed a few steps as it opened up.
"Stay back!" Ulrich pushed her behind him and tried to hold up his sword to defend himself. Taking another hit, he cried out as Aelita gasped again from behind him.
"Ten life points left, Ulrich." Jeremie announced through some static.
"Let's go, I can handle it," he cringed through his clenched teeth.
Moving forward, the Mega-tank rolled along with them. "Triplicate!" Ulrich yelled, his two forms appearing beside him. "Go," The two virtual beings rushed towards the tank at his command, but were easily picked off by the tank's blows as Ulrich led Aelita to the towers in the background. "Almost there!" He checked over his shoulder at the loading tank as they hurried on.
"Ulrich!" he could hear Odd and Yumi shout his name. He tried to turn his while he ran, but could only glimpse at them as they continued to attract and fight the hornets. "Ulrich! Ulrich!" they became more frantic.
Finally reaching the tower, he slid to a stop and turned around, holding his sword out. Finally, he could see the other two shouting at him.
"Ulrich!"
"What is it?" he yelled to them.
"That's the wrong tower!" the two seemed to be screaming at him in unison.
"What?" Ulrich cried as he dropped his guard and looked to his right, seeing Aelita enter the left tower (which was the actual tower), the Mega-tank's blow just missing her. 'I just led her to the wrong tower!' his mind raced as he realized what he had done. His head jerked back to see another attack from the tank hit him in the chest, then fell back after receiving the hard blow. He could feel his landing, but then his vision went blank as he de-virtualized.
The scanner lit up again back in the factory, the entire building shaking from the wrecking ball's wrath. The doors slid open to reveal Ulrich sitting, slumped against the back wall with his elbow leaning on his knee and resting his forehead in the palm of his hand.
"Damn it!" he shouted, slamming his fist against the wall. He leaned his head back against the cold surface and closed his eyes as he saw a white glow appear around him and engulf the room.
Lots of Lyoko in that one, huh? Chapter four coming soon! Please leave a review- I'd love to hear what you think of it so far! : )