Jeremie, Odd, Aelita, and Ulrich walked slowly across the school grounds, finding it hard to keep their eyes off the void above them. When they reached the path that led to the park, they found simply... an edge. The ground simply stopped, a cliff leading over the edge to oblivion. They followed the edge in a complete circle around the school, arriving back at their original starting point.
"Looks like Xana has gone and created a real whopper of an attack." Said Jeremie. "He's virtualized the school and everyone in it onto an isolated landmass in the digital void." Ulrich relayed this information to Yumi over the cell phone.
"Jeremie, look at that!" Said Aelita, pointing into the sky.
The drifting island the school was on had drifted into view of what looked like a gigantic multicolored four-leaf clover that filled up half the sky. They could just make up the large blue sphere that made up its center, and they guessed as to what they were seeing.
"Xana's isolated us in the void, on the outskirts of Lyoko." Ulrich said to Yumi, telling her about seeing Lyoko from far off. "Yumi, stay at home until we figure out how to escape. We'll meet you at the factory later."
"Ok, Ulrich, but how are you going to escape?"
"I don't know. Jeremie will figure something out."
"Ok. Be safe." Yumi hung up.
"Well Einstein, got any ideas to get us out of this mess?" Said Ulrich to Jeremie as the four of them walked back into Jeremie's dorm room.
"Why don't we just attack each other with our weapons?" Asked Odd. "We'll devirtualize, and then we can get revirtualized back to where the towers are. And Jeremie can program a vehicle so that one of us can fly out to the school and pick up Aelita."
"I don't know, Odd." Said Jeremie. "I don't think Xana would leave open such an obvious escape route. I'll do a test first, to see if its safe."
"What do you mean 'a test'?"
Jeremie went over to the computer and picked up a pencil that was lying nearby. He started typing into the computer, and then laid the pencil on the table in front of them. It began to lose its virtual "skin", as it flaked off in small, sheet-like squares. For a moment, a white wire-frame remained underneath, and then it disappeared. The computer screen lit up with a big flashing red exclamation point.
"Just as I thought." Said Jeremie. "We're out of range of the scanners. Out here, there's no way to get rematerialized in the real world."
"Then how the heck do we get out of here?" Exclaimed Odd.
Jeremie looked glumly at them, unsure of what to do.
"Hey, Jeremie," Said Aelita. "If you can devirtualize things from here, then why can't you do the reverse? Can you program our vehicles from here? Because if you can, then we can fly to Lyoko from the school."
"Good idea." Said Jeremie, thoughtfully. He turned back to the computer and started typing furiously.
"Umm..." He said. "This may take a few hours actually. Sorry, guys."
"A few hours!" Exclaimed Ulrich. "The entire school must be freaking out by now! We have to fix this as soon as possible!"
"I'll see what I can do to speed things up. In the meantime, if Xana isn't going to do anything more dangerous than strand us here, time isn't going to be a big issue."
"Your attention please." Said the loudspeaker in the hallway, startling them all. "There is an emergency meeting in the gym for all students happening right now. Please do not be afraid to cross the school grounds, but do not approach the edges of the property. That is all."
"You guys go there." Said Jeremie. "They may need you to explain things. I'll stay here and work on this."
Meanwhile, Yumi was sitting alone in the living room for her parents to come back. She could hear Hiroki playing in his bedroom. Usually he would be going to the local elementary school, but authorities had told all families in the city not to send their kids for fear of more school disappearances. She decided to call Ulrich back, to see what was happening. But when she dialed, she only got a recorded message saying that the phone she had dialed was registering "no service".
"That's weird." She said to herself. "It was working fine a little while ago."
She decided to let some light into the room, so she opened the shades on one of the windows. But instead of the view of the street, she saw only swirling blackness outside.
"What?" She cried. She burst out the door of the house, and standing on the doorstep, she realized that the entire house was encased in a cylinder of specters.
"Looks like Xana isn't going to be letting me out of the trap he set for the others"
There was a flash of light, and the house and its two occupants disappeared.