Warning: Rated for language, violence and adult behavior.

The main characters of this story are based on characters from the cartoon 'Code Lyoko.' I do not own, nor do I claim, any copyright to these characters.

This story also uses characters from the graphic novel 'Sin City' by Frank Miller. I do not own, nor do I claim, any copyright to these characters.

This story also uses characters from the movie 'Wasabi', directed by Luc Besson. I do not own, nor do I claim, any copyright to these characters.

References to 'The Goon' in this story do not refer to the character of 'The Goon' by Eric Powell.


The gang waited for the meeting to begin. They had been holed up in the warehouse they were in ever since they arrived in Paris, three months ago. Tonight's meeting marked the beginning of the end of their mission here.

Another man entered the room where they gathered, the boss. He was a large, piggish sort of man. He walked over to the head of the table and sat down. The chair creaked as he settled into it. He asked the assembled group, "now, what do we have?"

"Quite a bit," said another man, the photographer of the group, "I've been all around, and there's a lot to choose from. You've seen some of the preliminary pictures and gave me some suggestions to follow up on."

"What have you got?"

The photographer pulled out some pictures. In one picture, two girls were talking to a monster of a man. The boss recognized the man as a passenger who worked his passage on the trip from Basin City. A rather unusual coincidence, the boss thought, but put it out of his mind when his minion began speaking again.

"The young girl is Milly Solovieff. She's at the upper limit of age range that you gave me, but has the advantage that her parents travel abroad."

The man then displayed another picture, this time of Milly with a young black girl around her age. "In this picture, she's with another prospect, Tamiya Diop. Once again, no parents locally. Both meet your criteria, if just barely age-wise. Another advantage seems to be that they are friends. I've seen them constantly together, so grabbing both will be easy."

"I like your thinking," the boss said, " but let's go back to the first picture, the pink haired girl. What about her?"

"Aelita Stones," the photographer said, "she's outside your age criteria, but other than that, she's perfect. She's from Canada, and her parents are still there. Something else, the school has scant records on the girl, very unusual."

"Suspicious?" the boss asked, "do you think she's some kind of bait?"

"No, nothing like that," the man replied, "it's just weird, that's all. Anyway, other than age, she'd be a perfect catch."

"In her case, age is not a factor. She's on the list. I'm sure I can get a good price for her from any one of a number of different customers. I might even be able to auction her off!" The boss smiled in greedy anticipation. "What else do you have?"

The photographer went through the pictures and information he had gathered since their arrival. Hours later, the boss had made his decisions. In all, they would grab about thirty girls over the next couple of weeks. He specifically told his men to leave Solovieff, Diop and Stones until last. He had them in mind for some special buyers in Basin City, and want to be sure that he had them in hand before they set off.


Aelita Stones sat on the bench in the courtyard of Kadic Academy, a down look on her face. That's how her friends found her after classes.

"Hi, Aelita? Hey, what's wrong?" Jeremie asked his friend.

"I'm kinda worried about Marv," she replied, "I haven't seen him anywhere in two days."

"Well, maybe he left," Ulrich added, "he's not from around here, you know. Maybe he had to go home or something."

"Maybe," the girl replied sadly, "I would have thought he'd at least say goodbye first."

"Goodbye? Who's leaving?" came a rough, gravelly voice. The gang turned to see Marv walking up, a smile on his face.

"Who's leaving?" he asked the kids again.

"Marv! Where have you been, I've been worried!" Aelita said, "and what happened to you?"

"Nothing," the big man replied, "the cops just wanted to talk to me about some disappearing girls, you've heard about that on the radio I guess."

Marv was talking about the rash of kidnappings that had been taking place in Paris over the last two weeks. Young girls, some as young as ten, were being snatched right off the street. The police were in a quandary and the public was up in arms.

"They didn't think you had anything to do with it, did they?" Yumi asked.

"Well, they were just being thorough," he replied, "I'm a foreigner, and I've got the look of a street thug. They just played a hunch."

"Then why are you battered?" Aelita asked, concerned.

"This? Ah, don't worry about it! That's just cops bein' cops," Marv happily replied, "truth be told, Frenchies are some of the nicest cops I ever run across. I even told them that when they were done."

The gang just stared at the big man. He had just all but said that the cops beat him during an interrogation, and now he was saying they were some of the nicest ones he ever met!

"Listen up, kids," Marv said seriously, "you all need to be real careful. I don't know what's going on, but I suspect somebody's rounding up a bunch of talent to sell offshore. You girls in particular need to be careful so you don't join the talent pool."

"What kind of talent, Marv," Aelita asked.

Marv looked at the girl for a moment, debating whether or not to tell her the truth.

"Prostitutes," he finally said, "someone may be stealing young girls to become prostitutes."

He left the kids at the bench, not wanting to explain to Aelita what a prostitute was. Her friend Yumi's eyes got wide when he spoke the word, so she knew what he meant. If Pinkie didn't know, Yumi could tell her.

Marv went to the principal's office. He told Mr. Delmas what had happened, what he had found out, and what he suspected. He also gave the principal the name of the detective that had interrogated him, Hubert Fiorentini, and recommended that the principal get in contact with the man for suggestions on how he could better protect his charges.


Sissi looked at the dress for a moment, then hung in back on the rack. She looked down the line of dresses, then selected another one. She examined it with a critical eye, then turned with it and held it up to her as she looked in a mirror that was close by. She liked what she saw, so she set it aside to try on. All the while, she was thinking about other things.

The school year was drawing to a close, hence her shopping trip, and she had yet to find some way to get back at The Goon for the humiliation he put her through. She had run many plans through her head, some practical, some pure fantasy. Her only attempt a revenge didn't turn out quite the way she thought it would, though. She placed a call to the police, told them that The Goon was responsible for all of those girls disappearing, then hung up. Sure enough, the police came by and took The Goon away. But Sissi heard from Hervé just now that The Goon was back, and none the worse for the wear.

How could the police just let a monster like that run loose? she thought as she took her selections to try them on.

Sissi was walking back to Kadic Academy with her purchases when she noticed someone familiar. Standing on a corner across the street, was a dark skinned girl, about her own age. It took Sissi a moment to put a name to the face; Sam, or Samantha, that was it. The principal's daughter remembered her now, Samantha was a friend of Odd Della Robbia's, was being the operative term. Sissi remembered seeing the girl a few times in Odd's company last year, but not since then.

Just as she finished processing that bit a trivia, a white van screeched to a halt in front of the girl. From her position, Sissi saw three men in hoods, jump out of the van, grab Samantha, and drag her back in the van with them. The door slammed shut and the van sped away.

Sissi screamed.


Detective Hubert Fiorentini shook his head as he emerged from the room. Several pedestrians had seen the kidnapping, but couldn't provide any new details. They already knew the gang used a white van, wore hoods and snatched their victims and sped off. What they didn't have was a face or a license plate. But Hubert interviewed each one, praying for that one little bit of information that would break the case wide open.

He looked up and saw two men standing there. One, he knew already, a American named Marv. He had gotten a tip that Marv was one of the kidnappers, so he had the man brought in and interrogated. The man was cooperative, for the most part, but even hard questioning didn't break loose any new information. A lot of speculation, some of that very intriguing, but no facts.

Now he stood there with another man, the father of his latest interviewee.

"Your daughter was not harmed," the detective said, "she was nowhere near the kidnapping when it happened. Unfortunately, other than the name of the victim, she wasn't able to provide us with anything useful."

"Is she free to go?" Mr. Delmas asked.

"Yes, of course," was the reply, "but be careful with her though, she was very traumatized by the experience."

"Of course," replied the principal.

"I'm surprised to see you hear voluntarily, Marv," Hubert then said to the big man, "despite your kind words, I thought you would never darken a police precinct again."

"Jean-Pierre asked me to come with him, so I did," was the big American's response, "anything I have to hide has nothing to do with this, or Paris or France for that matter."

"Have you thought of anything else?" the detective asked.

"Nope," was the response, "but I've been turning something around in my head. I ain't quite ready to say somethin' about it, 'cause I don't want you off on a wild goose chase, not in this case. I may not be the most righteous man on earth, but I don't like seeing this kind of shit happen anywhere."


The drive back to school was quiet. Sissi was still shaken by the experience, and having The Goon in the back seat didn't help matters either.

"Sissi, I want you to stay on campus until further notice," her father said, "you came too close to this evil for my taste. I don't want to lose you."

"But daddy, they never came near me!" Sissi exclaimed, "why should I be locked up and everyone else gets to run free!"

"I'm going to restrict all of the students to the school," her father replied, "I've already had calls from some parents wanting to withdraw their daughters from the school over this. It will only be for a few more weeks, I promise."

"Yeah, for everyone else, not me," Sissi flatly said.

"Would you accept an alternative, then?" her father asked.

"What?"

"You can go out, but only if you are accompanied by someone. By Marvin in particular."

Sissi whipped her head around to the form in the back seat. The Goon just grinned at her.

"Daddy!"

"Elizabeth, right now he is the only person I trust with your life. Despite your opinion of him, he is a good man, and more than capable of protecting you. It's either Marvin, or restriction to the grounds, your choice."


When they got back to the school, Marv stopped Sissi.

"We need to talk, Elizabeth," he said.

"No, we don't need to talk," was her retort. She went to walk off when his huge hand clamped down on her shoulder. She snapped around and launched a vicious kick, catching him in the groin. He just grunted, but still held on.

"Well, I'll say one thing, you've got spunk if nothing else," he said, "now Sissi, this conversation is not optional. We need to talk."

"What for, Warden? Am I going to have to weed the woods too?"

"Ah, still sore over getting punished, eh?" he said with a smile, "well, you did your crime, got caught and did your time. Far as I'm concerned, that's the end of it. This is something else altogether. If it's what I think it is, these guys are going to make those girls do a lot worse than pull up a few weeds by hand. And your father doesn't want that to happen to you."

"I'm sure daddy would pay any ransom for me and..."

"There's no ransom, kid. If these guys were after money, It'd be out in the papers by now. Nope, these guys are rounding girls up to sell as slaves. There' going to ship them off to..."

Marv stopped. Suddenly, the random thoughts that had been bouncing in his mind coalesced into a pattern. A pattern he could associate with a memory, an ugly memory.

The warehouse where he found Enrique Hertz.

Something about that place was familiar to Marv, but he could never quite put his finger on it. Now he could. The setup he saw at that warehouse was similar to one he saw back in Sin City on the docks.

It was holding cells.

The crime families of Basin City were continuing the age old tradition of importing prostitutes into the country, trying to set up another red light district in competition with Old Town. The girls of Old Town didn't like that for many reasons, competition being the least of them. Most of the time, the girls 'imported' were kidnapped abroad and forced into the sin trade. And, the gangs were also known to steal children for those sick individuals who liked their victims young and virgin.

Suddenly, a voice rang out on the school's loudspeakers. It was Jim Moralés.

"All students not in the dormitories report to the gymnasium immediately! All students in the dormitories, return to your dorm rooms immediately! Do not leave the campus! I repeat..."

"Sissi, do you have a cell phone?" Marv quickly asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Give it here, Now!"

The teen got out her cell, and Marv grabbed it from her hand. He dialed a number, cursing the small buttons and his large fingers, but was able to dial the number he wanted.

"Detective Fiorentini? Marv. Get down to the docks. There's a warehouse next to the Roarke, a freighter moored at Pier 36. The warehouse is set up as a holding pen for slavers. That's where your missing kids are!"

He ended the call and tossed the phone back to Sissi.

"Get to the auditorium now! Tell your father I'm going to the docks!"


Milly and Tamiya were walking in the park after class. They had a project due for science that required them to gather some seeds and identify them. They had just gotten a few seeds from around a bush when two men grabbed them, covering their mouthes with a cloth soaked in something. The fumes made the girls pass out. Two other students saw them being taken and ran for help.

Elsewhere in the park, Yumi and Aelita were walking back to school. Yumi found the pink haired girl at the old house, The Hermitage, located on the other side of the woods. The gang found the place early in the school year, when Aelita's nightmares drew her there. Since then, she would sometimes go there to be alone with her thoughts, trying to remember just a little more of her past.

As they were walking back to the school, Yumi was admonishing her friend about running off like that because it got everyone worried. Suddenly, three men jumped the duo. One of the men grabbed Aelita and tried to cover her mouth with a rag of some kind, but Aelita was able to shake the man off. The other man just hit Yumi and knocked her out of the way. Yumi tumbled, but came back up and lunged back at the man, kicking and striking him with several devastating blows. As Aelita struggled with the first man, the third man attacked Yumi, supporting his partner.

"I lost my chloroform!" the first man shouted, "help me secure her!"

"Busy over here!" hollered the third man just as Yumi connected with a vicious kick to the man's groin. The second man recovered and struck Yumi in the back of the head, knocking her down. The third man, now free but injured, limped over and helped the first man secure Aelita. The three men took their prize, kicking and screaming, and ran.

Yumi recovered and saw the men run off, carrying her friend. She got up and ran after them. When she caught up to the group, the men were trying to force Aelita into a white van, but Aelita was putting up a hellacious fight. Yumi sprinted over and jumped into a flying kick that caught one of the men in the head, breaking his neck. Before she could recover and renew her attack, one of the other men hit her hard with something, knocking her cold.

In the meantime, supported by another man inside the van, a rag was put over Aelita's face, soaked in chloroform. As she passed out, she heard one man say, "screw it! Pull the jap bitch in and let's go! We're leaving in an hour!"