Introduction
"Transfer, Scan, Virtualization."
The usual release of air blasted from below, signaling that Jeremy had activated the virtualization process. Within a moment, Ulrich was filled with the strange sensation of having his molecules ripping apart from eachother, followed by traveling at light speed through the warp tunnel. This was all ended, by the reassembling of his matter, but this time in the Lyoko universe. It was an uncomfortable process that no matter how many times he experienced, was still something he never fully got used to.
The scene of a closed scanning maching was replaced by that of the sandy realm of the Desert Sector. After being fully matereialized, Ulrich dropped to the ground gracefully, with Aelita landing to his right a second later. "Okay guys, I see two Bloks ahead. Odd, you distract the Bloks, and I'll take them from behind. Yumi, you and Aelita can--"
Ulrich looked around the platform he and Aelita were standing on for his two other companions. Nobody. He glanced up at the ever-blue sky, deducing that they must still be materializing. To his relief, there the two were, though they were virtualizing pretty slowly. By the time Yumi and Odd's lower legs were visible, the materialization had slowed itself to tortoise-speed.
"Jeremy," Ulrich called out. "What's going on? There's something wrong with Yumi and Odd."
An echoey voice from nowhere in particular replied. "Yeah I see Ulrich. Seems the program's running a little slow today. It was bound to happen eventually, since it's common with any other computer."
"If you say so." After all, Jeremy was the computer whiz.
The slow materialization process went on for about five more seconds, before Ulrich noticed that Yumi's figure began to fizz at the edges. Odd began to flicker uncontrolably, and it wasn't long before the two were nothing but colorful static in the air.
"Jeremy! Yumi and Odd just turned into static, or something! There has to be something wrong."
The minute that followed seemed like an eternity for the troubled Ulrich, with the monotonous click of keys, the static gradually becoming more and more obsolete. Even though he was aching to ask Jeremy what he was finding out about the event, he didn't dare disturb. Aelita, silent for the whole time now spoke up.
"Jeremy, will they be okay? Please tell me it's just a slight glitch."
A sigh was heard from the other end, and Jeremy replied. "I'm afraid that I can't find out what exactly is going on. This doesn't show up to be one of your everyday computer lags. Whatever's going on is unordinary."
As soon as the explanation was finished, Ulrich looked back up to see his friends' progress, only to find that they weren't hovering in the air anymore. In fact, they weren't anywhere within his line of vision. "Jeremy!"
"You're right Ulrich! There is something wrong here!" A few more furious keyboard taps echoed through the air. "Yumi and Odd don't even seem to be in this sector anymore."
Ulrich turned to Aelita, hoping she'd know something about whatever was going on. The desperation in his eyes were amost painful enough to make her cry, though Aelita refused to make the situation seem worse than it already was.
"It's okay Ulrich. Everything will be fine, I'm sure of it." Aelita knew that her last statement may have very well been a lie. Though she wasn't one to be pessimistic.
"Ulrich. Aelita. Before I perform any larger searches, I'm going to need to devirtualize you. I have no idea how long this will take, and I can't risk leaving you in there longer than I have to."
Ulrich nodded weakly. It wasn't like he had much choice anyway.
Within moments, he and Aelita were back on Earth, in the factory's scanner room.
"Ulrich." Aelita said softly, once the yellowish mist had cleared out. "I just want you to--"
A pause. "Yes, Aelita? What is it?"
The distressed teenagr sighed, and continued slowly and cautiously. "Just--be prepared for anything that Jeremy might tell you. Whatever happened, I know we can fix it."
"You really think--" Ulrich's voice began to crack, and he tried again more calmly. "You really think that it's going to be that bad?"
Aelita looked down at her boots, so as not to face Ulrich. "It could very well be like that. I've been having strange dreams this past week. odd and Yumi were in them and--"
She didn't continue, but they both knew what she was trying to say. With a shuddering sigh, Aelita broke the moment of silence. "We're going to go into the computer room together. Side-by-side. Whatever Jeremy tells us, we're going to face together as friends."
Ulrich felt her warm hand close around his comfortingly, and they stepped forward where their blonde friend was glaring into the flashing monitor. He was mumbling idley to himself, as his fingers practically flew over the keys. He didn't notice Ulrich and Aelita until he was tapped on the shoulder. He found it a little odd that Ulrich was holding Aelita's hand, like a child might hold his mother's, but didn't say anything about it.
"Guys, I'm going to break you the news as simply as possible." Jeremy began, not at all moving his gaze from the computer screen. "Odd and Yumi aren't in the Desert Sector, and I have a feeling that they're not in any of the other original four. I was thinking that maybe XANA may've messed up the virtualization process and materialized them into Sector Five. But when I ran a tracking search, I came up with absolutely nothing. Even in Sector Five, I get some sort of signal, no matter how weak."
Ulrich piped up. "Well, couldn't we try and communicate with them? You're always able to talk to us when we're in Lyoko, so maybe Yumi and Odd could tell us where they are."
"Or, we could devirtualize them from wherever they are. It wouldn't matter as long as they got back here on Earth." Aelita offered.
"Or we could even go to Sector Five right now and--"
"Guys!" Jeremy raised his voice to be heard over the suggestions. "First, I can check communications, thanks for the idea Ulrich. Secondly, is devirtualization would have worked when I started the process a few seconds ago. Thirdly, I'm not letting anybody physically go into Lyoko until I figure out how and why XANA did what he did. Who knows? Maybe next time, we could only come back with one of us, or none at all!"
Ulrich was beginning to feel a little hopeless, and he sensed that Aelita was too. He sighed. "Well, let's check communications."
Aelita was struggling to contain her sobs as the computer read: No Signal.
Ulrich pounded the palm of his hand. "How? This is impossible! The only way there could not be a signal, is if they weren't in Lyoko anymore, or if they fell into the virtual void, and then--"
Died. Ulrich thought, not able to bear the fact that his friends may never see the face of the Earth again. Or anything else for that matter.
"Ulrich, where are you going?" Aelita asked the boy as he was rushing into the elevator.
"It doesn't matter." he replied just before the heavy metal doors slid closed.
"Leave him Aelita." Jeremy said, reading his friend's intentions. "I know you want to help, but he really needs to be alone. We'll check on how he's doing later."
Aelita nodded dumbly, and soon hot tears were running down her cheeks. Jeremy moved in front of her, and put an arm around her heaving shoulders.
"Oh, Jeremy. Why does it have to be like this?" Aelita asked, pressing her head against his chest.
Jeremy didn't have an answer, but simply kept his arms around her in a comforting embrace.
So, what do you think? Too cliche? I promise the next chapters will be better, this was just a basic outline of how the whole thing started. R&R. Please don't flame unless my fic's really that bad.