Chapter 5

Meetings with Beasts and Forgetful Girls

Three Ulrichs slammed three swords into three Blocks, and three Blocks exploded. The fourth Block had an arrow implanted in its Eye, and the fifth one's arrow hit it and ricocheted off to impale the sixth one.

As the last crab blew up, the four joined Aelita next to her run-down bubble-thing. "You ready?" Ulrich asked Aelita.

"Yeah" her voice trailed off Adain said, "Hey, look everybody! A bird!"

"Adain, that ain't a bird, it's a plane." Odd joked.

"No, it's Superman!" Yumi finished as the three burst out laughing.

Ulrich was completely serious, "No guys, it a DUCK!" Everyone ducked but Adain, who thought he meant the bird kind of duck, was looking at him like he was an idiot, when she was swept up in the massive talons of a griffin. The 'bird' flew her up to one thousand feet and dropped her.

As Adain concentrated on floating herself gently back to the ground an ear-piercing scream ripped her focus from floating and she fell the last hundred feet as Aelita was flown off in the grip of the savage griffin. Her last thought before hitting the ground was 'AELITA?!?'. Her head bounced on the hard dirt and hit a nearby rock with a gross-sounding CRACKKKKKK!

Blinking quickly, Adain stood up. She looked amazingly confused. Staring around her, she lifted her hands and inspected them, moving the fingers, poking the sweaty palms. Again glancing around her, her eyes seeing at last the three figures staring at her.

"Who am I, Where am I," Looking down at her bare stomach, she added, "And why am I not wearing a shirt?!" Odd and Ulrich burst out laughing at this comment. Jeremy's mirth could be heard echoing around Lyoko.

"Do you want me to switch your card? You have one that's slightly better."

"Yes please, whoever-you-are!" she knew what that meant at least.

There was a pause as Jeremy pulled out her card, saying, "Uh, Adain? Go hide behind a rock." Her eyes opened even wide, but she did as the sky told her. When she came back she was wearing loose jeans with a hole in one knee like the ones she was wearing her first day in the past and something slightly resembling an apron that wrapped around her just below the armpits. Her back was completely bare, save the apron ties and the sword and sheath.

"That's the best you can do?" Her voice was worried.

"I guess fashions get less and less modest over time."

Adain remembered enough to register that the look on the cat-dude's face was something to avoid at all costs. The dude-in-the-sky's voice reverberated around the space the four were in. "So, has Aelita deactivated the tower yet?"

The cat-dude and the ninja-guy started to explain what had happened to the girl named Aelita as Adain, for no reason that she could comprehend, kicked off and flew slowly towards the tower, which was still glowing florescent red.

Still not understanding exactly what the hell she was doing, Adain entered the tower. The beeping platform startled her into looking around. The data on the walls intrigued her for long enough for her to not notice floating up to the next platform. Touching the clear screen in front of her, the word: ADAIN showed itself, soon to be replaced by: CODE. Adain poked the screen five times in confusion. Poke, poke, poke, poke, poke. The whirring noise was slightly agitating. Everything fell, rewound, and started over again.

You could faintly hear a depressed Jeremy say, "Return to the past. Now."