-: DISCLAIMER: As I said before, Code: LYOKO isn't mine, so let me go sulk in that corner. :-

Jeremy was suspicious.

Xana hadn't done anything for two weeks, not to rip off a cliché phrase, but 'It was quiet, too quiet.' The others, had been cautious at the start, but they decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and were currently taking a break from Xana attacks.

But still, Jeremy was suspicious.

"Your being paranoid, Einstein." Said the youth whose name matched his appereance, Odd as he leaned against the doorframe of Jeremy's room. "So what if Xana hasn't attacked? Maybe he ran out of ideas, unlike you."

"I'm not fooling around Odd, this is dangerous, and what if Xana is gathering energy in Lyoko?" Asked Jeremy rhetorically.

"Jeremy, I'm just as aware of Xana's danger as you, but wouldn't he have done something by now?" Asked the pink-haired girl, who was currently sitting on Jeremy's bed.

"I know Aelita, but what if he's found a way to control us? Or activate multiple towers? Or-"

"Jeremy, we both know Xana is bound by the rules of Lyoko, he can't break them without rewriting Lyoko's core data." Interrupted Aelita. "And we know from experience he cannot posses anyone who has been inside of Lyoko."

"Yeah, what Princess said!" Agreed Odd.

"But still-"

"Look Jeremy, if Xana messed with the superscan, he'd have to get through those layers of firewalls you added to it, and if he possessed one of us he'd have to activate a tower." Said Aelita tiredly. "Were going to breakfast, if you want to join, please leave your paranoid theories behind." Aelita stood up and walked out of the room, with Odd following her.

Jeremy sighed, maybe they were right, and he was being paranoid. He turned to his computer and begun debugging the superscan.

While Jeremy was feeling suspicious. Xana was feeling an emotion alien to him, the one known as fear.

Several of its monsters had broken away from his control and were now attacking anything that moved, even other rebels. Xana was afraid, but not for himself, for his world, Lyoko.

Those children had always assumed that Xana was a mindless homicidal virus, which wouldn't blink an eye if Lyoko were destroyed. They were wrong. Xana loved Lyoko, similar to how Environmentalist loved the Earth, but unlike them Xana was doing something to protect Lyoko. Isolate it from Earth, to protect it from chaos and decay.

But it seemed that its efforts were being thwarted by something, the order of Lyoko was ruined, and the harmony was shattered, when Aelita betrayed them.

Aelita.

His sibling, his equal, the one who let the disease into Lyoko, when she brought in those humans.

Aelita.

How it hated her. The one who sold Lyoko just to gain a human form, the untainted sinner. But now…

It felt the void claim the Scipizoa as a Creeper blew it apart, as two Megatanks destroyed each other, as a swarm of hornets pushed a Crab into the digital sea.

And it hurt.

While Aelita and the humans didn't experience pain on Lyoko, Xana did. Maybe it was because all monsters were its children; perhaps he was more closely bound to Lyoko, perhaps.

But despite all these distractions Xana remembered his mission. It remembered its target.

The Yin.

Xana found the records of it within the little memory the Scipizoa found in the girl, it found it ironic that such an important piece of imformation could come from such a worthless primate.

But humans were just as useless as ever.

The memory however didn't indicate where the Yin was; it could be in the air, a bird, even in that girl, herself! But Xana, in its hunt for Aelita's memory had learned patience, and it will wait until the path to Yin would become clear.

And when that day comes, the game shall end.

"I'm telling you Ulrich," Said Odd through a mouthful of pancakes. "Jeremy's gone insane, he doesn't look like he's gotten any sleep, and he kept nodding off while talking to us."

"I don't blame him." Said the brown haired adolescent. "He does have a point about Xana."

"Yeah, but if Xana was plotting something don't you think he would of attacked?" Asked Aelita, concerned for their local genius.

"Yeah, maybe he learned his lesson after getting his butt kicked?"

"That didn't stop him before," Said Ulrich, toying with his food distractedly.

"You going to eat that Ulrich?" Asked Odd hopefully.

"You really are a bottomless pit, you know that don't you Odd?" Said Ulrich pushing his plate over to his friend.

"And your really kind, Ulrich." Retorted Odd, before digging into the pancakes.

"So, what's wrong Ulrich?" Asked Aelita, possibly the only sane one sitting at the table.

"Yumi went with William on a field trip."

"Awww… and is Ulwich upset because he can't stalk his bewoved Yumi?" Asked Odd.

Ulrich glared at Odd before abruptly stand up. "I'm not hungry." He snapped. "I'm going back to my room."

"Oh! Could you feed Kiwi when you get there?" Asked Odd to Ulrich's retreating back.

"I think I'll go check on the factory." Said Aelita irritably, giving Odd a poisonous stare, before walking ot of the cafeteria.

"What did I do?" Odd asked the empty air.

Unseen by mortal eyes, a program drifted lazily through the air, hunting down it's progenitor's target, the smpolized eye on it's core glowed faintly, indicated it's connection to Xana.

It had spent the last fortnight, futiley searching for theYin. And it had nothing to show for it's efforts, other than countless false starts and dead ends.

It's vision was one of electrical currents, it recognized in the back of it's AI the pattern of Aelita, then something shifted.

What could be loosely called it's head looked up, it knew that pattern! It swam through the atmosphere, hunting down it's target.

The Yin had been found! Was what echoed thoughout Lyoko, causing all warring creatures to stare at the virtual sky, in cofusion and wonderment, beforeturning back to slaughtering eachother.

Xana reached out and stroked the hunter, giving it new orders.

It was not to bring the Yin to Lyoko, but stalk it and take control when the time was right.

Then Xana growled to itself.

Aelita.

She was meddling again! This time she would be punished for her disobedience.

Aelita sat in the chair that Jeremy had so often used when he aided them from Earth. She pulled up data on the left and right sides of the screen, but one caught her attention.

Aelita pulled moved the window into view, it displayed a log of the scanners, the last time she had seen this was when Jeremy was researching how the Yumi clone got onto Earth, in a futile attempt to find out how to materialize Aelita. The latest log caught her eye, while it would look like gibberesh to the causal observer, Aelita knew what it was.

It was Xana.

Aelita's eyes widened in sock as alarms went of throughout the room, Xana had activated a tower!

An electrical current shot out of the keyboard, Aelita shrieked in pain. Then everything went black.

The tower deactivated. No need to alert the 'heroes' about the problems on Lyoko.

Xana smiled to itself, the betrayer had been punished, and the Yin was found.

All in all it was a good day to be Xana.

bobbyneko: Thanks! I'm looking forward to getting these ideas out of me thought-meats too!

Starlight Child: I plan on keeping this up, unlike my other fanfics. Starts grumbling about how much I sucked back then.

codelyoko4ever: I hope not! I don't to bbe blamed for someone's death again! I alos liked some parts of how I got the Tarantula to Earth. But as you've seen in this chapter, that's not the only horrible thing happeing!

See You Space Cowboy!