Sorry Its so short, but it was hard to find a good chapter end later on that wasn't to far away.
--Hmm. That was weird.-- "Guys, I've got bad news. Jeremy isn't answering his phone." The others, having just taken care of the last creature, stood there gaping for a few moments. Then Aelita spoke up. "You don't think he's dead, do you?" "I find that highly unlikely. I know that Jeremy has been a target before, but I think X.A.N.A. has something more sinister in mind this time. He could be using Jeremy as bait, or something of that sort. He needs Jeremy to bring something out of Lyoko." Every one was silent for a second, letting Aelita think. "There is another possibility, you know." Everyone whipped around in surprise. It was Odd speaking and they wanted to know his idea. "There could be a third party in this. Someone who wants to see X.A.N.A. take over, but doesn't want him to stay in power. He could be using X.A.N.A.'s take over for his own purposes. Or her own purposes." This was such a good idea, they were stupefied once again. "Odd, where do you get these brainwaves?" Verdana said in a proud tone. "One of you has got to come out and take over for me. It's quite a way to the tower and I can't upload your vehicles. X.A.N.A. has put a lock on that section, or maybe it was the third faction. I'm going to find Jeremy." Ulrich volunteered to take over, while Yumi, Odd, Jordan and Aelita remained there to deactivate the tower. Once Ulrich was in position, Verdana sprinted off to the school.
At Kadic
Verdana raced down the hallways, careful to avoid unnecessary entanglements with students or teachers. Finally, she arrived slightly out of breath, but otherwise in perfect fighting shape. The room was exactly as Jeremy had left it that morning, with the exception of the crushed cell phone on the bed. Finding this odd, she approached the bed slowly. She fingered the pieces and, in the end, left them there. The laptop was gone off the desk, presumably the reason he had returned to the room. Something moved in the shadows and Verdana picked up the slight movement. Turning quickly around, she thought she could make out a humanoid shape in the darkness. Suddenly, The shadow leapt out at her and quickly subdued her. It injected a sleep inducing drug which made her weak and unable to resist as the shadow tied her hands and feet. She was tossed over its shoulder and before it went dark, she saw another person slung over the other shoulder. It was Jeremy. Then everything went black.
The factory
"There's a new set of signals approaching from the left. Blocks and hornets." Ulrich relayed the information to his friends as soon as it appeared on the screen. The trip to the tower had not been easy, and at every turn, more creatures showed up. The only thing that had saved them so far, was Jordan. His weapons did loads of damage and he took most of the hits without suffering losses. He had even used X.A.N.A.'s possession of him to their advantage once. When the creatures approached, Jordan pretended that he was possessed by X.A.N.A. and they escaped without a life point lost. Ulrich was beginning to feel a bit nervous. X.A.N.A. was wearing them thin and he had no idea what to do if someone got devirtualized. He didn't know if he had to press a key or type a code. –I'd better call Verdana and see if she can enlighten me.-- Without a word he dialed her number. "The phone you are calling is out of service range at the moment. Please try again later." A female voice said in that annoying way of hers. "For 75 cents we'll keep trying and notify you when we are connected." He hung up. This did not bode well. In fact, it seemed to illustrate the end of their lives, the end of all they worked for. As much as he didn't want to tell the others, he knew he must. --But—he reflected,--there's no need for them to know yet. It might influence their fighting morale.—