I found another allotment of time, so another chapter is up! Everyone celebrate! Anyways, thanks again to everyone who reviewed. To the faithful nine or so, your constant reviews keep me going on those days I get writers block. To those of you who reviewed last chapter for the first time, thanks, it made my day to see them. Well I'll shut up and let you read.

Smoke filled the air and there was confusion everywhere. Ulrich was firing as fast as he could, trying to slow down the oncoming soldiers. He looked down to reload and when he looked up there was an enemy soldier standing above his foxhole.

"No."

The soldier fired and the bullet pierced his heart and the blood began to flow out. Ulrich's eyes began to glaze over and he sagged to the bottom of his foxhole, which now seemed like a shallow grave. All signs of life were left the brunette's body as the enemy soldier turned and fired at the others.

"NO!" Yumi screamed waking up. She swallowed hard and looked around the room. 'It was just a dream, it was only a dream' Yumi told herself trying to calm down.

"Yumi are you ok?" Kasey asked from the other side of Yumi's door.

"I'm…I'm not sure." Yumi said almost sobbing.

Kasey walked into the room and saw Yumi at the edge of tears. "What's wrong?"

"I had a bad dream, I..." Yumi gasped as the sight of Ulrich dying flashed through her head.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Yumi nodded and described her dream.

"You don't think it's a vision of what's going to happen do you?"

Kasey tried to give a reassuring smile. "No, we may have powers in lyoko, but I don't think you can tell the future here. Ulrich will be fine, don't worry."

"Thanks Kasey." Yumi said wiping away a tear. The two girls hugged and then went to get some breakfast.

Breakfast was the last thing on Odd's mind as he shot an enemy soldier a mere ten yards away. The smoke and fire all around was burning his eyes and it was pure chaos all around. Only one thing was clear, they weren't wining the fight.

"Ulrich, they're getting too close!" Odd yelled to his friend.

"I know, we got to hold though!"

"Do you see any of our soldiers?"

"Haven't seen one since the battle started."

"I think they…" Odd paused as he shot another soldier in the knee and then twice in the chest. "I think they retreated!"

With bullets whizzing around Ulrich peeked around to find nothing. The only shooting from their side was Omega Squad.

"Omega Squad……..what……doing…..ordered……retreat."

Ulrich grabbed the radio at his feet.

"Say again!"

"Said….retreat….you….alone….get the hell out!"

Ulrich dropped the radio.

"Shit, they left us here!" He yelled to the others.

"I can't hold them off of the machine gun much longer!" Odd yelled.

"Artur, Vlad, can you hear me?" Ulrich screamed into the squad's headset.

"Yeah, we're very busy!" came the quick reply.

"Cover Ivan and Nicolas as they run to the rock outcropping."

"Roger!"

Ivan and Nic grabbed their guns and ammo and crawled out of their foxholes and sprinted for the rocks. They were almost there when the bullet hit Nicolas. Nicolas's leg buckled as a fiery jolt of pain shot up and into his stomach.

"Oh Damn!" Nic cursed as he fell clutching his leg.

Ivan grabbed him and dragged him the rest of the way to the rocks.

"Where are you hit?" Ivan asked

"In the leg, the fucking leg!" Nic yelled very shaken by being shot.

"I've got it." Jesse said running over to them and starting to dress the wound. The bullet had passed through the leg, and Jesse wrapped a bandage on both sides. By the time he was done, his hands and shirt were covered in blood.

Ivan grabbed his gun and started firing.

"Alright, Artur, Vlad pack it up!"

Artur and Vlad grabbed the machine gun and ammo and took off. Without the heavy fire from the machine gun, the enemy soldiers surged forward.

"Odd we got to go!"

"Don't have to tell me twice!" Odd said as he was already half way out of the hole.

The two sprinted zigzagging as they went. Odd was running as fast as he could, but Ulrich's soccer training had always lent the brunette more speed. A mortar landed in front of Odd, knocking Odd to the ground.

"Ulrich!" he screamed running to his friend.

"I….I'm…damn what happened?" Ulrich asked grabbing his head which felt like it was on fire.

Ulrich appeared to be still in one piece, but he was pretty out of it. Odd half dragged him the rest of the way and the small squad set up at the rock outcropping.

"I'm…I feel like puking."

Jesse who had finished tending to Nic walked over to Ulrich.

"What's your name?"

"I'm Ulrich you know that?" Ulrich said a little irritated by the stupid question.

"Why are you here?"

"I'm here to…to…oh man!"

Jesse sighed, "Ulrich you'll be fine, the blast must have thrown you into the ground pretty hard, you have a concussion."

Enemy soldiers swarmed all around and the squad lay very very still among the rocks. One enemy soldier pointed towards the rocks and a group of four started walking over to them.

"Oh great." Odd muttered.

"I have the one on the right, Jess you take lead left." Chance said looking through is scope.

"Wait, don't shoot, look." Ivan said as a commander yelled at the soldiers and they turned away and headed back to join the rest of the AMEA army marching past.

"Oh that was close." Odd sighed.

The soldiers lay still for hours. Jesse continued playing medic to Nic and Ulrich, checking their wounds every few hours. Once nightfall came, Chance and Jesse went to scout the area.

They walked a few miles back towards what had once been friendly territory.
What they found was a massive army of ten thousand men, between them and home. The squad was separated from their fellow soldiers, from their loved ones, and from all supplies.

"Let's go tell the others." Chance said.

They both crawled back down the hill they had been scouting from and walked back.

Ulrich saw them coming, "So what's the news?"

Chance had a grim look on his face, "It's not good. We are trapped behind enemy lines, Nic is wounded and will be slow moving, and we are going to run out of rations in three days."

"Any good news?" Odd asked.

"Yeah, we're all together, and all alive." Jesse said.

"Yeah, that's definitely a plus." Odd said smiling a little bit.

"Well we can't sit here forever, we need to move out while it's still dark." Chance said.

"Yeah, let's go, Ivan, can you help Nic?"

Ivan nodded at Ulrich and everyone grabbed what gear they had left and moved out, with no idea for what the future held, they just kept walking away from the AMEA army, hoping to find a safe place to spend the next day.

"This is an emergency alert! France is being invaded! France is being invaded! We strongly urge everyone to leave or find a safe place to hide."

Yumi stared in shock as she and Hiroki watched the news. Footage of the battle showed the French army being decimated as thousands of AMEA troops poured across the border into France.

"I…Oh my God!" Yumi sobbed.

Hiroki looked at his sister. He had never seen her so scared or fragile. She had always been the big sister to look up too.

Hiroki scooted over on the couch and held his sister close. "It's ok, everything will be ok, I promise sis."

"But…but Ulrich and the others." Yumi sobbed.

Hiroki was at a loss, the footage looked bad and it seemed like the French army was struggling to find a place to make a stand. "Yumi, Ulrich will be ok, he's always looked out for himself and you, and…and I'm sure he's fine."

Hiroki's words didn't help much, but Yumi was thankful that her brother was trying. "Thanks Hiroki, you're a great brother."

"Yeah? Huh I wonder when that happened?"

Yumi allowed a small smile, "come on, we need to help the others prepare."

"For what?"

"For the war that is coming here."

By the time Hiroki and Yumi arrived at Kadic, most of the students had packed up and were heading out. Jim and the few staff were closing up the place.

"Jim where are Kasey and everyone?" Yumi asked.

"They said something about a factory, I told them it wasn't safe, but they wouldn't listen. You two need a ride?"

"No, but thanks, we got to stay with our friends."

Jim looked reluctant to leave the two behind, but he had to get the rest of the staff and students to safety.

"Be careful, you here?"

"We will Jim, be safe." Yumi said and with that Jim drove off.

The two made it to the factory in record time. The jumped in the elevator and arrived in the control room to find everyone else.

"Hey what's the news?" Yumi asked as they entered.

Everyone turned and Kasey told someone on the computer screen to hold on.

"Yumi we need to talk." Kasey said, pulling her away from the others.

"What's wrong?"

Kasey took a deep breath trying to hold her emotions in. "Yumi…Ulrich and the others were in the roughest part of the fighting, that's Jeremy on the screen. He said that no one has seen them or heard from them since a broken transmission during the battle."

"No…they have to be ok…they have to be." Yumi gasped.

"We don't know anything yet, but we came to a conclusion, if they are alive, they are in trouble. We are staying here. If they are ok, this is where they'll come."

Yumi nodded, "Will we be safe?"

"That's why I pulled you aside, I think we need Xana for this."

Yumi looked shocked, "are you nuts? The last time we made a truce with Xana you were brainwashed and Odd almost died saving you!"

Kasey put both hand on Yumi's shoulders and looked her friend in the eyes. "You know as well as I do that this is our only chance of surviving. We can't run fast enough if the war is going as badly as it sounds. We need his help."

Yumi was silent for a moment. "Alright, but I'm going to do the talking, ok?"

"Alright."

With that Yumi headed to the scanner and Kasey informed the others of their plan.

Hey, I hope you liked it. Please review, they make my day and it let's me know if you are still interested in the story. Best wishes to everyone.