Well, how long has it been? Five months since the last chapter?
...Yes, that sounds about right.
I'm back people! Sorry about the delay, but eh...you know. College. And the fact that this chapter is LONG. And I do mean LONG. This is the longest chapter I've ever written for any story on this site, period. More than 25,000 words without taking the Author's Note into account! That long people, that long. For those of you who are turned off by chapters of such length...this project is meant to simulate the lengths of: Actual episodes, monthly manga chapters, and weekly manga chapters, so the chapters being long is kind of a given, so I recommend that you steel yourselves and endure regardless!
But still, I present the 3rd File of Garage Kids, complete at long last!
Even though I didn't have Corrinetheanime to proofread the final draft, I still give thanks to her for checking over the previous ones before this chapter was completed. I also give thanks to Deadcoder of the Code Lyoko Wiki for helping me out with the science behind the story, which has helped to refine several plot points that will come up later.
The Disclaimer is on the first chapter, enjoy folks!
Garage Kids
File 3 – Shadows in the Machine
"Tamiya, I don't get it, aren't you happy my teddy bear's back?" Milly whined.
"I'm happy for you Milly, really, I am! But you dropped that thing in the middle of a bunch of broken power lines! How could it have just come back to your room?" Tamiya replied.
"Maybe someone brought it back to me!" Milly protested.
"You know Sebastian, Hugo, and Charlie are all creeped out by it. Whenever you talk to it, it freaks them out. They definitely wouldn't have gone back there for your teddy bear!" Tamiya retorted.
"Then maybe it was Amare! Or Ulrich! Or Jeremie! Maybe it was Yumi!" Milly cried out in increasing desperation.
"Yumi didn't look like she knew how you got the teddy bear back this morning. And I don't think Amare or Ulrich care about your teddy bear. And Jeremie pretty much just told us why we couldn't go back there, so it can't have been him!" Tamiya explained, trying to calm Milly's defensive panic.
"Maybe…maybe..." Milly whimpered, before crying out in defiance, "maybe my teddy bear came back by itself!"
Albeit, a tad too loudly for people around the lunchroom to hear.
While most of the other students just ignored the red-haired junior journalist apparently going insane, the students who had been with her last night when the cables nearly shocked her and Tamiya were growing concerned.
"You…don't think that Milly's teddy bear coming back and the cables breaking apart are connected, do you?" Jeremie guessed.
Yumi raised an eyebrow at the bespectacled boy's question. She may have told Jeremie about the anomalous event, but even so…that question was, well…
"Jeremie, explain how you linked a teddy bear somehow returning to its owner and power cables breaking apart." Yumi asked, explaining the absurdity of the situation.
While Jeremie thought that over, Milly was still trying to defend her teddy bear's return. "Look, my teddy bear is back! That's what matters right now!" she said.
"You're wrong," Sebastian said, walking up to the girls' table, "what matters is that you throw that thing into the nearest trash can Solovieff. A teddy bear somehow returning to its owner by itself is, how do I put it…disturbing."
"I'm not throwing my teddy bear away! He helps me when I'm stressed!" Milly protested, hugging her teddy bear defensively and throwing glares at Sebastian and Tamiya.
"Well…maybe," Tamiya began, throwing her own glare at Sebastian for his bluntness, "but you can't rely on your teddy bear forever Milly. I know he's like a security blanket for you, but there's going to be a day where you can't use him. Imagine what would happen if we're about to achieve our dreams of being journalists for the papers, if they saw an adult hugging a teddy bear, well, they'd think that it would be weird."
Tamiya had tried to console Milly as gently as she could, but Milly was still hysterical.
"Well, well…" she muttered, trying to think of a rebuttal, only to dash out of her seat and run out of the lunchroom.
"Milly!" Tamiya called, getting up from her seat and running after the red-haired girl. Yumi had looked at the scene, both with pity for Milly being a tad fragile, and annoyance at Sebastian for being completely tactless.
"You could've been a little nicer." She said to the tan-skinned boy.
"Yeah, yeah…" Sebastian muttered, annoyed at how he had let his paranoia get the better of his common sense.
"You do have to admit," Amare said, walking past Jeremie, Ulrich, and Yumi's table, "it IS still disconcerting that she uses that teddy bear as an emotional crutch."
"Yeah." Hugo confirmed as Amare pulled up a seat next to him.
"Teddy bears shouldn't move on their own," Charlie, wearing blue overalls over a pink shirt, muttered. "Unless they're Winnie-The-Pooh…maybe her teddy bear is secretly Winnie-The-Pooh?"
Hugo looked at his kid brother.
"No Charlie, that teddy bear is not Winnie-The-Pooh." He said flatly.
"It was a good guess!" Charlie protested.
"No, no it was not." Hugo replied, shaking his head.
Listening to the other conversation, Jeremie summarized the entire situation. "Either way…this is all getting really weird."
"I said it this morning, and I'll say it again, someone had to have moved Milly's teddy bear and snuck back into her room." Ulrich said.
"I doubt it, no one else here knows or cares about our nightly activities." Jeremie pointed out quietly, though loud enough for Ulrich and Yumi to hear. "I mean, everyone here has their own shady business, but no one is much of a snitch…so it couldn't have been anyone else, and asking around is going to start bringing trouble we don't want."
"Wait what?" Yumi asked, eyes widening in shock. "You mean to tell me that almost everyone in this school does stuff like in your group?"
Jeremie shrugged his shoulders.
"If it isn't school or sanctioned activity-related, no one asks about it, or at the very least, no one tells the teachers about it. If it disturbs classes of course. Our movie nights are pretty tame, and we reserve those for the weekends anyway." He explained.
"Well...I really should've asked around more…" Yumi muttered. Milly had only given her the basics of what happened in the group of people she and Tamiya called their friends, and Sebastian had just nodded his head when Milly had dragged Yumi over to him and explained that Yumi would be joining the group's movie watching. Yumi had had no idea at the time that her current school or town could have... quirks, owing to how she'd kept to herself for the most part. "The more you know..."
"Either way, this whole thing is weird, but...intriguingly so...so I guess I might as well try to get to the bottom of it." Jeremie said.
"I thought you were going to look for scrap metal." Ulrich muttered.
"With all this rain? It's probably rusted and conductive with water. Besides, I'm not planning on doing any scavenging until I run out of parts." Jeremie pointed out.
"Good luck with that then." Yumi said, getting up from her seat, "I'd better find Milly and Tamiya. Milly's probably acting like this because of what happened last night. She wants something to comfort her after nearly getting shocked like that, and losing her security blanket might've sent her over the edge." And with that, Yumi left.
"So, how about it Ulrich? Want to help me investigate some paranormal activity?" Jeremie asked.
Ulrich looked at Jeremie, then looked at the other kids in their group.
"I'd recommend staying here Stern, less chance of something weird happening!" Sebastian called out.
"I'll take my chances with the 'paranormal activity'." Ulrich sighed, wanting to get Sebastian and the others (aside from Amare, who didn't see how people could fear a teddy bear) out of their ridiculous paranoia concerning a stuffed animal. Besides, he needed something to do to kill time.
Milly had run across the entire campus, sprinting through the academy park, which was a heavily forested area, until she eventually reached the gardening shed. Milly tried to turn the handle, and found that the door was surprisingly unlocked. Normally, Michael Rouiler, the school groundskeeper, kept this door locked, so why it wasn't somewhat surprised Milly, but in her current emotional state, that question quickly evaporated as she entered the tool shed, closed the door, and slid down to sit on the floor.
"I don't get it. Why can't they be happy you're back like I am?" Milly asked her teddy bear.
The stuffed creature did not reply.
"I mean, you don't care about whether I'm old enough to do anything…And I'm glad you're here…because of…" Milly trailed.
She thought back to last night, running through the rain, happy that she'd set Yumi on the path of friendship, though she was miffed at not being allowed to see romance films to cap the night off. Boys, why couldn't they ever enjoy something comforting and happy? They always had to watch things that made them feel 'manly' or something. But regardless, she was satisfied with the night at that point, the short film Sebastian had showed wasn't terrible, and unlike several of the boys, she'd enjoyed the documentary (Which was a nature one focused on the ecosystem of mountainous regions).
But then that cable had snapped. Milly remembered seeing the sparks fly, and how the immense wire swung about like a crazed serpent, before flying at her and Tamiya like a whip. Just before Ulrich had pushed her out of the way, Milly had seen the electricity crackle from the wire, as if the cable had come to life and was trying to kill her. She then remembered how the other cables broke and whipped around like crazy…
She could've been killed; Tamiya could've been killed…they ALL could have been killed.
Milly started to hyperventilate in a panic, with visions of lightning striking her appearing before her eyes. Lightning that then shot Tamiya. Lightning that shot Yumi. Lightning that struck down Ulrich and Jeremie, electric cables strangling Sebastian, Hugo, and Charlie, electric cables impaling Amare…
"Ah, ah, WAHHH!" Milly cried, hugging her teddy bear fiercely.
Tears fell down Milly's cheeks as she sobbed with fear, dripping atop the stuffed animal in her arms. But then, she heard a voice call out to her.
"It's okay Milly, you know that I'm always here for you."
"What?" Milly asked, exiting the embrace of her teddy bear.
Then, much to her surprise, the teddy bear's arms moved, and then wiped the tears off Milly's face.
"T-teddy?" Milly asked in surprise.
"I'm always here for you Milly. Always here to help you through the rough times." The teddy bear comforted.
Milly gasped as her teddy bear leaped out of her arms and then hugged her by itself.
"I'm always here for you…" the teddy bear murmured, eyes beginning to glow a deep yellow...
Jeremie and Ulrich were in the underpass again. Due to the threat of the rain last night, Jeremie had left his laptop in his new computer lab. It was still fairly sparse, though several boxes had been opened. The empty equipment cart was currently acting as a makeshift table and Jeremie, sitting down on one of the few cushions in the room, made a mental note to get an actual desk for his lab. Jeremie had also brought his pack so that he would be able to take the laptop back to his room without worrying about dropping it.
Ulrich, standing up, was currently carrying a skateboard, which he used to get around faster, and since his hands weren't full, he could actually use it. Jeremie had a scooter, but he'd left it behind in another empty room, and had to walk. Thankfully, he had found it when the two returned to the underpass and it was now lying against one of the walls. The reason Ulrich brought his skateboard was because neither one of them was willing to go down a road with broken power lines (that were also likely being repaired and thus the road would be blocked off anyways), and took different routes until they met up at the underpass, with Ulrich's route being longer than Jeremie's.
"So, what exactly are we looking for?" Ulrich asked.
"First off, I want to gather more information on the storm last night, I need to see if anything like those broken power lines happened to other people, and I figure that using my laptop would be the perfect method!" Jeremie explained.
"And we can't use a television because?" Ulrich asked.
"Because the internet already has all the articles that the televisions cover already, and, AHA! There we go! Look!" Jeremie said, turning his laptop towards Ulrich, who knelt to read the news articles.
"Broken street lamps across several districts, car crashes in neighborhoods, a television exploding and causing a fire..." Ulrich muttered, listing the articles.
"And another one, several power lines broken, four people injured." Jeremie said, pointing to another article on the web page.
"Those last two…they sound like what happened to Jim yesterday and what happened to us last night!" Ulrich gasped.
"Yup. Looks like we weren't the only ones who got stuck with broken power lines and destroyed rooms." Jeremie said, pushing his glasses into place. "We got off easy. You saw Jim's room, right? After his T.V. exploded? Did the room look like it was on fire?"
"No…it looked more like your room." Ulrich answered. "A mess, but nothing that bad."
"So once again, we got lucky. Four people were critically injured from two cases of power line failure. If you and Yumi hadn't saved Milly and Tamiya, that number could've become six." Jeremie explained, his expression becoming grim. "These incidents are connected, Ulrich."
"But I don't get how a teddy bear factors in here…" Ulrich muttered.
"Neither do I, but before we jump back over to the case of the returning stuffed animal, I want you to look at this." Jeremie said, closing the news article and directing Ulrich to another webpage.
This page showed off a basic diagram of a city's power lines, and how they transmitted power to the rest of the city from the power plant located just outside the city limits.
"Why are you showing me this?" Ulrich asked.
"Something was bothering me while I walked over here. If the power line close to the school was damaged, then why didn't we have a blackout? The electricity seemed to work fine." Jeremie replied.
"Maybe that power line doesn't connect to the school?" Ulrich ventured.
Jeremie put a hand up to his chin, "Even if the school is on a different subgrid, it would still affect the load balancing, which would at least make it flicker significantly. Remember, Paris is supplied by multiple nuclear power plants and an assortment of smaller plants; and that's just the stuff currently operational. All of the grid was built with the reality that there are multiple sources and thus it's more of a grid than a tree-"
"Alright, alright, I get it." Ulrich interrupted with a lie. Really, some of Jeremie's explanations, if not most, if not all of them, were WAY too detailed for the brown-haired boy's tastes. "So now we get back to the teddy bear? Maybe the wind blew it back." He guessed half-heartedly.
Jeremie looked at Ulrich blankly.
"You got anything else?" the brown-hair asked rhetorically.
"Either case, I'm 90% certain that everything that happened last night, and maybe even what happened before that, are connected to one another. What we're missing right now Ulrich, is the cause, the root of the problem." Jeremie stated.
"Maybe it was the storm?" Ulrich guessed.
"If Jim had a similar problem before that storm arrived, then the storm can't be the cause. Heck, maybe even what happened last night affected the storm just like all of the equipment." Jeremie rebuffed.
"Then what caused it?" Ulrich asked, putting a hand to his face in annoyance as the mystery seemed to deepen and yet at the same time make less and less sense.
"I don't know, but we need to find out." Jeremie replied, about to shut off his laptop.
That's when it happened.
A loud buzzing noise began to emanate from Jeremie's laptop. The web page that the computer genius had switched onto began to glitch out and distort, until the screen went white, except for a massive black silhouette that took up most of the screen. The silhouette seemed to be that of the Space Needle in Seattle, rising out of a black void and connected to said void via what seemed to be cables.
"WHAT THE-?!" Jeremie and Ulrich cried out, jumping up in a fright.
Jeremie's laptop landed on the ground, and five ghost-like creatures erupted from the screen, flying around the room like a swarm of crazed hornets. Four of the ghosts either phased out of the room or left via the exit, but the fifth one dove into the box containing the partially disassembled robot arm Jeremie had worked on last night.
Before the boys' eyes, the arm seemed to jump out of the box and landed on the floor. It then dragged itself along the ground for a few centimeters before it opened and jumped towards Jeremie's throat. Before it could reach Jeremie however, Ulrich grabbed one of the floor cushions and thrust it in between Jeremie and the robot arm. The arm grabbed the cushion instead of Jeremie, only to then yank it out of Ulrich's hand and then, grasping the cushion just like an actual human hand, the robot arm tore apart the cushion with an unnatural strength.
"What the heck is going on?!" Ulrich yelled in horror.
"I don't know!" Jeremie replied, equally terrified.
The arm dragged itself along the ground yet again, crawling towards the boys for a few feet, before convulsing wildly for several more seconds. Then, the black ghost that had possessed it shot out of the arm and phased out of the room much like its brethren.
The underpass was then silent as Jeremie and Ulrich put their backs against the wall, and slid downwards, trying to make sense of what had happened and willing their hearts to start beating again.
A few minutes passed before Jeremie cautiously crawled over to his laptop and picked it up. The screen was now turned-off, and Jeremie gave the power button a tentative press. The web page that Jeremie had had up previously returned to the boy's screen, as if nothing had happened.
Quite obviously, this was more disconcerting than comforting.
"M-maybe it was those ghosts?" Jeremie asked in shock.
Ulrich just blinked, and then nodded.
The two boys were in quite a pickle. In the space of a few seconds, the situation had gone from perplexing and strange, to ominous and horrific.
Yumi walked through the school courtyard, looking for Milly. As she entered the school park, she saw Tamiya looking behind several trees. Yumi immediately ran over to the other Kadic News reporter. Hearing footsteps, Tamiya turned and looked up to see Yumi.
"What is it Yumi?" Tamiya asked as the Japanese girl came up next to her.
"I'm trying to help you find Milly." She answered.
"Thanks. She's sulking…I can't exactly blame her though. What happened last night was scary." Tamiya said.
"My thoughts exactly. Everyone else seems to be doing well, at least I think they are." Yumi said as the two girls began walking through the woods.
"I'm not. It's still, weird about how everything is going along like it always does, or just a bit better than usual, and then it becomes so, wrong and scary. You said that we should try to deal with them... I just want to know, how do we deal with them? I want to tell Milly so she'll feel better." Tamiya said.
Yumi was quiet for a few moments, rolling Tamiya's repeating of the advice she had given that morning in her head, debating on what to say. After a few moments pause, she began to explain.
"It depends on the situation," Yumi explained, "there are a lot of times where if trouble is heading your way, you have to run away in order to deal with it, but there are also times where you have to fight with everything you've got. Like last night for instance, running was our best option so we wouldn't get electrocuted. But if we were surrounded by say, a gang of muggers, our best bet would be to fight them off if we weren't able to run away."
Tamiya thought over the older girl's words, and nodded carefully. Then another question popped into her head.
"How do you know so much about this?" Tamiya asked Yumi. "It sounds like you know a lot about defending yourself."
At this, Yumi was silent for a few more moments, memories of previous events flashing through her mind. This silence lasted for a little while longer than before, and it was not until the two girls reached the gardening shed that the Japanese girl spoke up again.
"It's something I've had to deal with a lot in my life. That's, all I want to say for now." She said.
Tamiya was a bit curious as to what Yumi meant, but seeing the gardening shed, she decided it would be best to find Milly first.
"I wonder if Milly's in the tool shed?" Tamiya murmured, before she ran up to the window pane on the right side of the building. She got up on a long wooden box and banged on the window pane, trying to find her friend. "Milly!" the African girl called through the window, "are you in there? Are you finished sulking yet? Yumi and I want to talk with you!"
But before Tamiya could get a response, another, annoyed voice came up from behind. "What are you kids doing near my tool shed?"
"Oh uh," Yumi said, turning around, "we're trying to find Milly, Mr. Rouiler!"
Michael Rouiler, a brown-haired man, wore long green safety gloves and black boots, along with a yellow plaid shirt underneath a gardening apron, which covered most of his jeans. He was a stickler when it came to safety, considering the dangerous objects in the shed. Yumi had become acquainted with him while trying to practice Penchak Silat in the woods. He had been fairly reasonable, thank goodness, but he was quite jumpy and strict whenever students came near his equipment or projects.
"If you're trying to find your friend, I don't know why you're looking in there, I always keep the door to the gardening shed locked, and right now, I need to unlock it so I can fetch my rake. So, Tamiya, get down from there!" the groundskeeper commanded.
Tamiya quickly got off the box, but just as she and Yumi turned to leave, Michael Rouiler noticed something odd when he got to the door.
"Wait, what the heck? It's already unlocked?" he muttered in surprise.
But as he opened the door, there was a soft bump followed by a short cry, and the girls were still close enough to hear the familiar voice that it belonged to.
"Milly!" Tamiya gasped.
Michael Rouiler opened the door fully, to see Milly Solovieff, holding her teddy bear, rubbing her back and in the gardening shed.
To say that the groundskeeper was furious was an understatement.
"What are you doing in here?!" he barked.
"Um, I just came here, and…" Milly began, but the groundskeeper was having none of it.
"Get out of the tool shed! It's off limits to students for a reason! You could get hurt in here!" he yelled, prompting Milly to run out of the gardening shed in a panic…
But in the opposite direction of where Tamiya and Yumi were standing.
"Wait, Milly, come back!" Tamiya called out.
"When you find her, bring her back here! We need to talk with the principal about this!" Rouiler demanded as Yumi followed after Tamiya.
After the girls left, the groundskeeper examined the lock, shaking his head in disbelief. Then an expression of confusion made its way across his brow as he tested his keys on the door lock.
"What the?" he murmured.
The lock seemed to have been altered. His key didn't fit into the lock like it normally did.
"How did…" he muttered, his voice trailing off. "What the hell is going on..." Rouiler growled in annoyance, pulling out his cell phone to call the principal.
But the groundskeeper should've taken a closer look at his shed's interiors. Because unbeknownst to Michael Rouiler, the number of nails in his box of nails had been significantly reduced.
But no one knew about the lost nails, not even Milly. That is, except for the teddy bear she was carrying. If anyone had been looking closely at that moment, they would have noticed the black lines resembling streams of tears on Milly's face, as well as the fact that, for a moment, her teddy bear had grinned, very much like how a mischievous toddler might smile when planning on doing something naughty.
And if someone had looked into its smiling mouth, they would've seen that it was full of nails.
Given that Milly was already quite a distance away from Tamiya and Yumi however, they obviously couldn't get a closer look.
"Milly!" Tamiya cried out, trying to catch her friend's attention.
But even though she was in earshot, Milly didn't respond, and seemed to only run even faster than before.
"Agh! Why does she have to act like this?" Tamiya growled as she picked up the pace.
Yumi, being taller and having longer legs, could make longer strides and made more progress, catching up to Tamiya and passing by the younger girl trying to run faster to get her friend. And yet, much to Yumi's surprise, Milly proved to be faster than both of them. The two girls tried to catch Milly, but as the three weaved and ran through the forest, the red-head seemed to be getting further and further away, until Yumi and Tamiya reached the school courtyard, effectively returning to where they had started.
As the two caught their breath, Yumi decided to question Tamiya. "Has Milly always been this fast?"
Tamiya shook her head, "Milly's never been able to outrun me before."
"Okay then, this is getting stranger and stranger…" Yumi muttered, unsettled at how weird the situation was becoming.
As Yumi looked around, she saw Sebastian talking with Amare, Hugo, and Charlie. Amare saw Yumi and Tamiya, held up his hand to stop Sebastian from talking about whatever he was saying, and pointed at the two girls. Sebastian's eyes widened as he took notice of the duo, and he quickly walked up to them, followed by the other kids.
"Did you two find Solovieff?" he asked.
"No, and you really shouldn't have put her down like that. She and Tamiya nearly got electrocuted you know!" Yumi answered, giving Sebastian a glare.
"Yeah! Milly's really scared about what happened last night! I am too!" Tamiya agreed.
"We didn't mean to put any pressure on you two!" Hugo protested, "it's just, look, you said it yourself, Milly can't rely on that teddy bear as a security blanket forever!"
"Well, yeah, but…" Tamiya began, but immediately faltered as she remembered how she had given Milly a fair bit of grief about the teddy bear herself, and since she was roommates with her fellow junior journalist, technically speaking, she was the one who had pressured Milly the most about the teddy bear.
"Look, last night was…a bit uh, shocking, for lack of a better word," Amare said, managing a guilty smirk as everyone face-palmed at the pun he made, "and I think it's safe to say that all of us are a little bit shaken up over it."
"I had a nightmare about it last night…" Charlie mumbled, prompting his step-brother to put a hand to his shoulder.
Yumi let out a sigh, it was true. Last night was again, rather shocking, no pun intended. It wasn't too bad of course, no one was hurt, but it wasn't exactly the first thing that you'd expect from a night on the town…well, somewhat of a kid-friendly night on the town, of course. Even so, a power line breaking apart out of the blue was not something any of them had prepared for.
The older kids could recover from it relatively easily, but the younger ones, especially the ones who nearly got shocked from what happened...they were likely to still be scared from seeing a freak accident like that.
Silence filled the air. Then Sebastian spoke up.
"I'll admit, I'm not proud of letting my paranoia about that teddy bear come out like it did. And I'll say that that weird thing that happened last night was out of the ordinary too…" he said.
"And?" Yumi asked.
"Look, I don't want Solovieff ending up as some plushie-obsessed weirdo that lives in some deluded fantasy world all her life. That's why I'm not a fan of that teddy bear and why I find it creepy. Nothing more, nothing less." Sebastian admitted.
"Personally, I don't see it as being too weird, at least until today, 'cause you know, Milly's saying that it was walking by itself." Amare put in, before gesturing over to Hugo and Charlie. "Point is, we're willing to help her out, right guys? That's what friends are for."
The boy in the cap and his little orange-haired brother nodded.
"So yeah, we're going to help you two look for Solovieff." Sebastian agreed.
Having not known Sebastian all that well, Yumi was more than a tad surprised at how the Street Kid was willing to make up for his prior conduct. Tamiya, who did know Sebastian on the other hand, was not.
"Thanks guys." Tamiya said, grateful for their assistance.
Yumi found herself nodding with approval, finding that her decision to enroll in Kadic had proven to be a good one. The heartwarming moment was cut short however, as Jean-Pierre Delmas walked into the courtyard, with Michael Rouiler emerging from the park.
"You two!" Rouiler called out to Yumi and Tamiya.
Before everyone could move, Delmas and Rouiler had strode up close to their group.
"Alright Mr. Rouiler, what exactly is going on here? You called me saying that you needed to speak to me regarding the tool shed lock." Delmas said.
"Yes. Apparently, the lock was changed last night, and the door was left unlocked. Because of that, a student, one belonging to this group over here…" Rouiler explained, gesturing to the six students near him. "Ended up in the tool shed somehow."
"I see, why is this? And which student was it?" Delmas questioned, looking at the students.
"Um, well, Milly was a bit stressed out this morning, and she, kind of, sort of, ran off into the park, and then, um, ran into the tool shed." Tamiya said cautiously.
"So it was Ameila Solovieff then? Alright then Mr. Rouiler, we have our culprit." Delmas said.
The groundskeeper looked at his boss, clearly suppressing the urge to groan. "I already knew that." He grumbled before he began muttering under his breath. "You're as quick as a whip when it comes to wanting to get kids out of the alleyways, but you're slower than a snail when it comes to everyday trespassing..."
"Ah. Well then, do you all know where Ms. Solovieff is? I'm afraid that trespassing into the tool shed is off-limits, and I'll be administering the proper punishment." Delmas asked.
"We're trying to look for her right now. I think she's still on campus though." Yumi spoke up.
"Very well then, when you find her, please escort her to my office." Delmas said.
The six student-group nodded, then ran out of the school principal's way.
"Alright, I must ask, how on earth did you figure out that the lock was changed?" Delmas asked as he followed the gardener back to the tool shed.
"I used to be a locksmith before I became a groundskeeper. Unlike Jim, I'm willing to talk about it, but that's not important right now. What's important is figuring out how the lock changed, it's really quite strange." Michael Rouiler explained as the two adults walked into the park.
As for the students, they hid over at the school archways, thinking about what to do next.
"So now that we're all on the same page," Hugo said, "now what?"
"We split up and look for Milly." Yumi said.
"What if Solovieff's off campus?" Sebastian asked.
"Then we'll have to look for her out there…Okay. Four of us stay here on campus and try to look for Milly, while two of us head off campus and see if we can find her." Yumi explained.
"Why don't we just call her on her cell phone?" Charlie asked, stating the simple solution.
Silence filled the archways as everyone looked at Hugo's younger brother. Without another word, Tamiya quickly dialed Milly's number on her own cell phone and called her. Unfortunately for the group, they got a voicemail instead.
"Hi, this is Milly, I'm not here right now, please leave a message, especially if it's newsworthy!" Milly's recorded voice message said. Likewise, no-one could hear a ringtone that might indicate that the red-haired journalist was nearby.
"Well, that was a bust." Sebastian deadpanned.
"Looks like we're going with the searching and finding tactic after all." Amare noted with a shrug.
"Looks like it." Sebsastian grumbled. "Okay, I know my way around the streets, so I volunteer to search off campus. Who else volunteers?"
"Me." Yumi replied immediately.
"You're not exactly the most knowledgeable about the streets here Ishiyama." Sebastian warned.
"Yeah, but earlier, Ulrich and Jeremie went out to try to see if they could find out something about why Milly's teddy bear came back." Yumi replied.
"We know, we heard it all earlier." Amare lampshaded.
"I didn't!" Tamiya protested.
"So you want to find Belpois and Stern, and see if they've dug up anything then?" Sebastian asked.
"Yes, plus, then we'd have four people off campus looking for Milly, and, they've been here long enough to show me around town so I don't get myself lost. We get more people searching for Milly, and we can even put this mystery to rest." Yumi confirmed.
"All right, you got your cell phone? Let me add the numbers into your contacts." Sebastian said, holding out for Yumi's phone.
Yumi handed the mobile device to Sebastian, who added in the group's contact numbers. After a few minutes, he handed the phone back to Yumi.
"Best of luck then everyone." Amare said as the group split up.
Yumi and Sebastian ran down to the gate entrance.
"Okay, for now, I want you to follow me, I'm going to show you a few routes that you'll want to use while you're here." Sebastian said as he and Yumi ran into town. "Especially since that broken power line is in the way of the shortest route. After that, we'll see if Solovieff is in the underpass. If she isn't, we split up, and you try to find Belpois and Stern…I wonder how they're doing?"
All the events above happened when Jeremie and Ulrich had their first encounter with the strange black creatures. By the time Sebastian had showed Yumi to an alternate entrance to the maze of corridors in the underpass, the two boys had taken another route, the route that would get them to the police station as quickly as they could.
Unfortunately, the officer at the front desk was having a hard time believing what Jeremie had to say about their recent 'discovery'.
"Alright, let me get this straight, a bunch of black things came out of your laptop and attacked you with a robot arm..." the police officer at the front desk said.
"Yeah! Ghosts, uh, specters!" Jeremie said, holding the robot arm in front of the officer frantically.
"Specters..." the police officer muttered, typing in the information into his computer half-heartedly.
"Right, I think they might be some kind of electrical impulse emerging from the internet network, sort of like a computer virus! And that they might be causing all kinds of weird stuff around town!" Jeremie continued.
"So the ghost things were hacking into your computer, and using lightning to attack you and your friend…"
"Basically!" Jeremie said.
"Kid…That is single-handily the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my entire life." The officer deadpanned.
"But it happened! Tell him Ulrich!" Jeremie protested.
Ulrich turned around, ready to talk to the officer, only for two other officers to rush into the station, handcuffing a balding man with glasses. He had a dirty blond-colored beard and mustache, and wore a gray shirt and black pants. The man looked a tad injured, with bruises all over his body, and was grimacing in pain as the officers brought him in.
"Hold it! We've got a certain someone! Clear out the police station!" the female officer on the prisoner's left commanded.
"Beat it kids!" The officer at the front ordered.
Jeremie and Ulrich jumped as the man was brought to the desk. The deck officer looked him over, and then gasped in recognition.
"Is that Peter Duncan?" he asked, "we've been trying to catch him for two years now!"
"Yup, old Duncan here finally got unlucky, his van crashed last night and he was knocked out. Once we found him, we also got back everything he'd stolen on his latest theft!" the male officer said.
"I'm not up-to-date with that report..." the officer at the desk mused. "What'd he try to make off with?"
"He'd stolen several old art pieces, as well as several packs of photo-editing software. Not to mention some restoration hardware and a bunch of security codes from Deckard Inc." the female officer explained.
The officer at the front deck nodded seriously, deleting what he had been typing up concerning what Jeremie had tried to explain to him and replacing it with the details of Duncan's heist.
"I would've gotten away with it…" Duncan muttered in annoyance, "if it hadn't been for my van suddenly going out of control and crashing into a backway alley!" He growled at having to recall how embarrassing it was to have been caught like this. "Plus, those computer codes are useless, what with my laptop getting smashed before I could leak them." He growled quietly.
The male officer ignored Duncan as he continued to talk to his colleague at the front desk. "We're getting more officers on the scene, so we're going to lock up Duncan for now for questioning."
"Right. You might want to get him a doctor, the guy's got some nasty bruises." The front desk officer replied, taking notice of Duncan's battered frame.
"Will do." The female officer nodded, before seeing that Jeremie and Ulrich were still in the station.
"You kids have to leave!" She demanded. "This man is extremely dangerous! He's been responsible for art theft, kidnapping, safe cracking, bank robbery, and hacking!"
"Wait, when you said that- "Jeremie began, but he was interrupted.
"MOVE!" The female officer barked, prompting the two boys to hightail it out of the station.
After a few moments of running down the sidewalks, ignoring the sirens of the numerous police cars that were heading down the street to where Duncan had crashed, Jeremie and Ulrich sat down on a city bench.
Jeremie slipped the robot arm into his backpack.
"Well, that failed." Ulrich deadpanned.
"I've heard of Peter Duncan before, but even so, this is a lot more important!" Jeremie ranted. "I bet it was because of what happened last night that he crashed in the first place! It's those specters, it has to be them! They're responsible for everything that happened last night, and even before!"
"Let me guess, they came out of his computer and smashed up his car." Ulrich said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
"Pretty much! I'm convinced that it's some kind of computer virus." Jeremie affirmed.
"Jeremie, what kind of computer virus comes out as a bunch of ghosts?" Ulrich asked.
"I don't know for sure, but still, you were there too! You saw it! Besides, what other explanation do we have?" Jeremie questioned.
"None…" Ulrich grumbled, shivering from the arcane sight he had witnessed earlier. Maybe Peter Duncan HAD crashed thanks to the Specters...
"If only we had some sort of inspiration…something that we could use as a Eureka moment!" Jeremie growled in annoyance, pulling his laptop out of his pack and opening it up.
As Jeremie looked at the news articles that he had been on before the specters had burst out of his computer, he then snapped his fingers.
"I've got it!" he cried out, typing into the search tab a new internet address.
"Was that your 'Eureka' moment?" Ulrich deadpanned.
"Yes!" Jeremie replied gleefully, ignoring Ulrich's sarcasm, opening the site he wanted.
"Here it is, a site about the Billancourt Panic…" he murmured, gesturing for Ulrich to look at the site.
The two boys saw a website article that started off with a summary of the event;
"On June 6, 1994, reports emerged in the Boulogne Billancourt area of a radiation leak. The government called for a mass evacuation of the Parisian suburbs, as well as the main city of Paris itself. According to official reports, it was the result of a project that was experimenting with new applications of nuclear energy via the usage of an experimental computer system, and as such was not bound to a singular facility. For an entire week, the populace was requested to not approach the city until the disaster was brought under control."
Ulrich read over the summary again.
"So they managed to fix everything up right? I mean, no one's complaining about radiation leaks right now." He said.
"True, but look at part of this analysis." Jeremie pointed out, as he and Ulrich looked at another part of the piece.
"While the government, as well as experts and officials, have stated that the disaster's radiation output was the same as that of Three Mile Island, as opposed to the far more severe Chernobyl disaster, there are still several noted discrepancies in how the disaster was treated. Most of the suburbs around the city were torn down and rebuilt, something which shouldn't have had to be done if the accident was as controllable as officials say, as it should've been restricted to the laboratories reported to have been involved with the experiment. Even more strange is that, in the days leading up to the disaster, there were reports of unusual seismic activity. Some investigation has shown that this activity may have stretched as far back as ten years before the Panic, with some speculating that this could've started at an even earlier date."
"It doesn't say anything about disembodied computer ghosts you know." Ulrich pointed out, suspicious of the article.
Jeremie didn't respond, and continued to read. Not getting a response out of the bespectacled blond, Ulrich begrudgingly followed suit.
"Since then, rumors about the truth of the disaster have persisted. From the 2 year-long reconstruction process, to the rise of criminal activity throughout the world and the rather abrupt technological advancements, specifically in information technologies and computer engineering, many theories have been brought forth about what exactly happened. The searches for evidence have not revealed anything of substance, and while many theories have been put forth, none of them have been proven. People have come to Boulogne Billancourt to discover the cause, but have all come up short. To this day, the mystery of the Billancourt Panic has yet to solved…"
"So...do you have something?" Ulrich asked when Jeremie seemed to be done with the article.
"I have an...idea..." the computer genius murmured as he pulled up a program in his computer.
Ulrich watched as Jeremie typed code into the laptop for several minutes, before sighing, figuring that he might as well ask. "And what IS this idea of yours?"
"I'm running a program on the statistics for previous visits to town." Jeremie answered.
"...Why?" Ulrich asked, not getting what the computer genius was aiming for.
Jeremie pushed his glasses into place as he studied the data and ran the numbers through the program. "Well, first off, we have a strange event that happened in town today, and one that happened seven years ago...no sense in assuming that they're unrelated. Now let's see here...good, good..." he muttered before returning to the topic. "So, since we're dealing with a hypothetical situation, I figured that we look up a hypothetical solution!"
Ulrich raised an eyebrow at Jeremie's train of thought. "...There is no way that that's going to work."
"It's all we've got to go on." Jeremie replied, stretching as he pressed the 'Enter' key once again, watching as venn diagrams appeared on a map of the city, overlapping in some areas, showcasing densities of recorded visits to Boulogne Billancourt. The computer genius' eyes widened as he saw where more and more circles overlap, with the points of investigation becoming denser and denser in that overlap...
"...The old factory...the one that Sebastian claims is haunted..." Jeremie said at last, satisfied at his discovery.
"...You're going to have us head over there aren't you?" Ulrich deadpanned.
"Well, I was planning to go there in the first place anyways." Jeremie admitted, putting his laptop away and getting up from the bench.
"Okay, but, that place is just an old car factory, right? What could it have to do with computers, ghosts, and nuclear disasters?" Ulrich asked.
"Well, it's a fairly large facility, so if you were installing an experimental nuclear reactor, it could fit." Jeremie answered. "If you were to gut the whole place, I'm certain that it would be possible to install a complex computer system and laboratory. As for the ghosts, well, I'm sure SOMETHING had to happen for them to pop up."
"We don't have any other choice, do we?" Ulrich groaned.
"Pretty much." Jeremie replied.
Jeremie got on his scooter, and Ulrich followed suit with his skateboard, and the two traveled down the streets and sidewalks, heading for the factory. However, just as the two passed the underpass that they had used to get to the police office, Ulrich's phone began ringing, forcing him to come to a stop.
"Hold on!" he called out to Jeremie, who halted his scooter.
"What is it?" Jeremie asked.
"Phone call." Ulrich said, seeing an unfamiliar number calling him.
Cautiously, hoping that it wasn't a commercial, Ulrich answered his cell phone.
"Hello?" he asked.
"Ulrich, this is Yumi." Yumi called from the other end.
"Yumi? Wait, how did you get my phone number?" Ulrich responded.
"Milly's running all over campus. She's a complete wreck from last night and we're trying to find her before she gets into more trouble with Mr. Rouiler. I got your phone number from Sebastian, we went out looking for Milly in case she left school, and we split up after looking in the underpass. I'm trying to find you guys so you can help out, and plus…maybe you and Jeremie found something about the teddy bear?" Yumi divulged.
"Well, it's, kind of a weird story. Where are you right now?" Ulrich asked.
"Still in the underpass, Sebastian left and I'm trying to find my way out. He told me about an exit close to the police station that I could use, and I'm leaving it right now…" Yumi replied, walking out of the underpass and coming face to face with the boys.
"Well, that's convenient!" Jeremie said, "you came just in time to help us out with we've found!"
"Wait what?" Yumi asked, already lost.
The three children walked down the streets, Ulrich and Jeremie holding onto their skateboard and scooter respectively. As they did so, Ulrich brought Yumi up to speed. The Japanese girl had the exact same reaction as the police did.
"So, the reason for all of the stuff that happened last night was because of some kind of computer virus that comes out as a bunch of black ghosts and possesses things like in some horror movie?" Yumi asked in disbelief.
"Pretty much." Ulrich deadpanned.
"Okay, forgive me for thinking that this explanation sounds like pure science fiction." Yumi replied.
"You weren't there," Jeremie said, "but how else does it explain how the teddy bear came to Milly on its own?"
"You think that Milly's teddy bear is possessed by a ghost that came out of a computer? How does that even work?" Yumi asked, mind boggled at the absurdity of the question she had just asked.
"It's hard to explain, but it did happen, like say…" Jeremie trailed off, pausing as he looked at a sight up ahead.
Ulrich and Yumi followed Jeremie's line of sight, and then saw it.
A black streak, floating about like a ghost, until it shot down an alleyway.
"Follow it!" Jeremie cried out, hopping on his scooter and turning around the corner.
"Now do you believe us?" Ulrich asked as he ran after Jeremie.
Yumi didn't reply as she followed Ulrich. However, none of them got very far. The alleyway was a dead end, and the specter had not phased out of it. Jeremie had hastily gotten off his scooter once he saw what was in the alleyway. The specter had curled itself around several piles of discarded rebar, like it was an anaconda about to swallow its prey.
"What's it doing?" Yumi asked, looking at the rather surreal sight.
The specter slowly opened what seemed to be its mouth, which was somehow far larger than the specter itself. It chomped on the rebar, slowly covering all of the piles in its darkness, until all of the rebar was coated with the specter's black form. After a few tense seconds, the darkened rebar faded away...dissolving like a tablet in water.
The three children looked on in shock, staring at the now empty alleyway. Eventually, Yumi cleared her throat.
"So uh, where IS this factory again?" she asked.
Tamiya had returned to the woods, looking for Milly. Still however, she had made no progress, and she had no idea if the others were having any luck themselves. She was just about to call Amare to see if they'd found any clues to finding Milly, only to hear some inaudible whispering. However, while she couldn't know what exactly was being said, she DID recognize a certain someone's voice.
"Milly!" Tamiya whispered, tiptoeing over to one of the larger trees.
"So, you're saying that I should introduce them to you?" Milly asked softly, a tone of mild excitement in her voice.
"Yes, I will educate your friends about this scenario. I will teach them about the will of the world, as I have with you Milly." The voice said.
Tamiya, having not heard the conversation's details, made her presence known.
"There you are Milly!" she said, startling the red-hair.
"T-Tamiya?" Milly stammered, gripping her teddy bear defensively.
"I've been looking all over for you, and, hey, what's with your face?" Tamiya asked, noticing the black lines running down Milly's cheeks.
"What? What's wrong with my face?" Milly asked, worried.
"Um, nothing, nothing." Tamiya replied, shaking her hands to dismiss that train of thought.
The woods were silent for a few moments as Milly continued to grip her teddy bear. Tamiya sighed, then pulled out her cell phone.
"Amare? This is Tamiya, I've found Milly, get everyone else and find us here in the woods. We're going to have an intervention." She said.
"Gotcha." Amare said from the other end.
Tamiya hung up and offered her hand to Milly. "Come on Milly, we need to talk. To everyone."
"Um…" Milly muttered, fidgeting her feet, until a voice spoke in her head.
"Go on Milly, just keep me secret for now until everyone has gathered. Then, everything will be alright, just do what I told you."
Milly nodded timidly and took Tamiya's hand. But when Tamiya had turned forward, she didn't notice a rather eerie smile creep onto Milly's face, nor the exact same smile being reflected on the teddy bear…
After navigating through the city streets, Jeremie, Ulrich, and Yumi reached the abandoned district where the Renault factory was located. The factory itself was located on an island in the middle of the river, and was connected to the mainland via a road bridge. The bridge led to a large set of doors that marked the main entry into the complex.
Ulrich looked at the factory. Sebastian had said that the place was creepy, and Ulrich was now wondering if Sebastian's superstitions were correct for once. The atmosphere felt heavier, and there was a chill in the air.
Yumi had only heard of the factory from what Jeremie had told her about its history, and while she doubted that the facility was connected to the strange occurrences around town recently, she was feeling rather nervous in front of the place. But it was all just rumors right? The plant was shut down due to not being able to keep up with modern car building methods, nothing more, nothing less.
Even Jeremie, in his excitement, couldn't help but feel intimidated by the building. It wasn't as if the factory itself was creepy, but rather, the thought of whatever was inside of it that was foreboding. For a moment, he questioned why he'd made the decision to come here and drag Ulrich and Yumi along for the ride, but he pushed those questions out of his head and walked up to the large set of double doors.
"Well?" Yumi asked.
"I'm just seeing if there's a way to get in here." Jeremie murmured, examining the entrance.
"I'm just going to ask, aren't buildings like this checked regularly? It's probably locked or something…" Ulrich asked.
"It should be…" Jeremie said before noticing something on the ground, "but the fact that the lock and chain are broken probably speaks volumes about all of this."
"Wait, what?" Yumi asked, walking up to Jeremie, who was kneeling on the ground.
Jeremie got up, and presented a broken lock and chain to Ulrich and Yumi. The lock looked like it had been smashed, and the chain shattered into numerous fragments.
"So, the lock's broken. That doesn't prove anything." Ulrich said.
"Only one way to find out though, give me a hand!" Jeremie said, taking a deep breath and grabbing the side of the left door.
Ulrich and Yumi looked at each other, a bit too long as they realized that they were checking each other out, blushed, and then got to work helping Jeremie open the door. Slowly, the rusted set of double doors began to budge, and move, until they had opened completely.
The early afternoon light filtered into the dark interior, and Jeremie took a tentative step forward. As Ulrich and Yumi followed him in, the features of the factory were finally exposed to them…and proved that this place was no longer a mere automobile factory.
The entire facility seemed more like some mad scientist's secret hideaway, filled with enormous machines that came straight out of a science fiction film. None of these structures looked anything like what a person would need to make cars. Enormous pipes, wires, and various television screens adorned a great deal of the facility, which was basically put, a maze of ominous-looking technology.
"Okay…maybe this place DOES have something to do with everything going on in town." Ulrich said, mouth handing wide open.
"Incredible…I can't believe that a place like this exists! Forget the scrap heaps! I could use this stuff in my robots for sure!" Jeremie exclaimed in awe.
Yumi shook her head, trying to stay focused. "Don't forget, we're supposed to find out if this place has anything to do with what's been happening…" her voice trailing off.
"I think I see a computer terminal up ahead!" Jeremie said, getting on his scooter and zipping over to a crook were many screens were gathered.
Ulrich and Yumi followed, as Jeremie pulled up an old rolling chair, and settled down in front of one of the screens.
"So uh, Jeremie, where's the 'On' button in this place?" Ulrich asked cautiously.
"No idea…" Jeremie muttered, deciding to press the 'Enter' key.
Computers, if not used for a while, enter sleep-mode. This enables them to save on power and preserve data in case someone needs to get back to it after leaving the computer for some time. It seemed that this computer system was in sleep-mode, because once Jeremie pressed the 'Enter' key, the computers turned themselves back on, screens blazing with light.
"Whoa!" Jeremie cried out, surprised by what he was seeing.
"Why did the computer start-up like that?" Yumi asked, a tad spooked.
"It was probably just in sleep-mode…" Jeremie muttered, as he examined the screen before him.
There was but one single folder on the desktop, having the name: 'XANADU'. Jeremie found a mouse, and clicked on the icon. At that moment, a set of files presented themselves to Jeremie, listed as: 'Interface', 'Assorted Files', 'Encryptions', 'Guide', and 'Message'. Jeremie decided to click on the 'Message' icon first, as Ulrich and Yumi gathered around him.
An audio file popped up on the screen, and started to play in a heavily distorted male voice:
"To anyone who has found this, you have stumbled upon a great secret. I ask you to try to keep that secret. You have found my great project, an experiment that I led that created a virtual world. A virtual world that goes by the name of Xanadu, named after the ancient Mongolian city whose name has been used several times throughout history. I would like you to not shut-down this world, for this virtual world is connected to the real world, and if it is destroyed, then our world will be destroyed along with it. But within Xanadu, there is a computer virus, an extremely complex program whose existence threatens us all. I ask that whomever finds this, please, take my work, my notes, enter Xanadu, and stop this virus. For if it is not stopped, it will mean the end of the world regardless.
Best regards, the Professor"
All three children looked at each other in shock.
"Did he just say that the world's going to be destroyed?" Ulrich asked, mouth gaping open at the sudden turn their investigation had taken.
"Well, let me check his calculations…maybe he was exaggerating?" Jeremie said nervously, opening up the 'Assorted Files' folder and looking for the calculations that this, Professor, had spoken of.
"This, this can't be real." Yumi murmured quietly, shocked at how something like this could even exist.
"Yeah, but…" Ulrich started, but, still in shock about the recent turn of events, he stopped talking.
Both Ulrich and Yumi were silent as Jeremie examined the files left behind by the so-called Professor. To think that the sudden appearance of electric ghosts was caused by some kind of supernatural computer virus was a result of some mad scientist's work in an abandoned factory. It was far above their heads, and yet, here it was. So many questions flashed through their heads. Why was this place built? What was its purpose? What exactly happened that went so wrong? How bad was this virus? What kind of mess had they gotten themselves into?
After a few minutes, Jeremie rolled away from the interface, and wiped his glasses.
"Anything?" Yumi asked.
"I've looked over this guy's calculations, he wasn't lying. If we try to blow this place up with dynamite, or find and hit the shut-down switch, if there is one, we'll probably end up causing the entire universe to implode in on itself." Jeremie replied.
Both Ulrich and Yumi's eyes widened.
"Please tell me you're joking." Ulrich begged.
"Since when have I ever told a decent joke?" Jeremie asked.
"Never." Ulrich grumbled.
"How can you understand all of that?" Yumi asked in shock, walking up to the monitor and looking at the mathematical formulas that had been written down on a series of paper sheets that had been photographed and scanned into a PDF file. To be blunt, she couldn't comprehend a single equation that the 'Professor', or whoever it was, had written.
"I've studied equations like these before…somewhat." Jeremie said, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. "But the major factor was that they've been annotated in several places."
Yumi took a second look at the equations, scrolling through the file. Jeremie was right, there were in fact several annotations in place, as if the person writing the equations was creating a summation of what the formulas represented. Unfortunately, said annotations included yet more formulas before getting to written words that explained the scientific principles behind…whatever it was that ran this computer system. Yumi guessed that it was the scientific principles and what seemed to be the simpler equations that Jeremie was able to comprehend.
"I still don't understand it." Yumi grumbled.
Ulrich walked over and looked at the monitor himself. "I'm lost." He said bluntly.
"But what's in there is correct, you have my assurance." Jeremie tried to reassure the two.
Ulrich and Yumi were not completely reassured.
"Okay, okay, so all of this, those ghosts, those cables, those accidents, Milly's teddy bear, all of it's been caused by a super-powerful computer virus inside this, virtual world called Xanadu. Apparently, we need to go into this virtual world to stop this virus, instead of just having a demolition crew destroy this place. How the hell do we do that?" Yumi asked.
In response to Yumi's question, Jeremie rolled back over to the computer and clicked the 'Interface' icon. The computer screen morphed and changed, as several new windows popped up, with specialized programs for each of them.
"I think this is how. There's a program here that activates a procedure that allows us to go into the virtual world. The only question is, what's going to be used to get people in there." Jeremie explained.
"And that would be?" Ulrich asked.
Jeremie clicked on the 'Guide' icon, which brought up a text file giving a brief run-down of how to operate the supercomputer. He quickly read it over, and turned to look at Ulrich and Yumi.
"According to this, we're going to be using a device known as a Scanner. They're right above us, take that staircase over there and you'll find three open columns. Once you're in and I type in the right commands, you'll be transported to Xanadu, although…" Jeremie replied, though his voice trailed off.
"Let me guess, there's a catch." Yumi groaned.
"Yup, going into those Scanners without some kind of protective bodysuit will cause people to take on a form relative to their subconscious, which also comes with a set of well, superpowers." Jeremie replied.
"That doesn't seem so bad." Ulrich ventured.
"Superpowers that will stay with you in the real world." Jeremie finished.
Ulrich and Yumi raised an eyebrow. Superpowers in the real world? Now this was making even less sense than before.
"Wait, so, if we go in there, we'll get superpowers, but we'll be able to keep those powers in the real-world…Please tell me we'll be able to control them." Yumi begged, groaning in apprehension.
Jeremie looked back over on that part of the guide. He scratched his chin in thought.
"From what it says in here, I'm going to guess that they're controllable, as long as no one tries to experiment on anyone." He said at last.
"If we go in there, please promise us that you won't do that." Ulrich groaned.
"When dealing with something like this? I'm going to guess that doing experiments like that had some side-effects on this place. Besides, I'm a computer engineer, not a biologist." Jeremie reassured. "No sense in attempting something I don't know anything about."
Yumi and Ulrich looked at each other, both nervous about the scenario that had been presented to them. On the one hand, a part of them wanted to tell the police about the situation, but after Ulrich and Jeremie had been brushed aside, the brown-haired martial artist wasn't sure that the police would even believe them. Not only that, but entering this virtual world would permanently alter them. Jeremie said that they'd only retain the abilities that they'd develop from going to this place, but who knew if this equipment would even work properly? Of course, not doing anything would make things worse.
Ultimately, it was Ulrich who spoke up.
"Well, if the cops didn't believe us, we might as well solve this ourselves." Ulrich declared.
"Alright." Yumi said, still apprehensive, but, having heard of the story from Ulrich, had come to the same conclusion as he had.
Both she and Ulrich climbed up the stairs to the scanners, right where Jeremie said they would be. Jeremie studied the program guide to using what was called the virtualization, and typed in the commands carefully. After he had done so, two new icons appeared on the screen. The guide called them I.D. cards, which stored the data of whomever was virtualized in Xanadu.
Jeremie was just about to hit the 'Enter' key to virtualize Yumi and Ulrich, when his cell phone started ringing.
"Ugh. Hold up guys! I'm getting a call!" Jeremie called up.
"Same here!" Yumi replied.
Both answered their phones. Jeremie was being called by Amare, while Yumi was being called by Sebastian.
"Yo, Jeremie, Tamiya's found Milly, and she wants us back for some kind of intervention. You need to be able to come by." Amare called.
"Sorry Amare, something came up, can't do it right now! Sorry!" Jeremie said hurriedly, hanging up.
As for Yumi: "Ishiyama, you find Belpois and Stern yet?" Sebastian asked.
"Yeah, but, well, we may have found something that could be linked to the whole 'teddy bear coming back on its own' thing. Not entirely sure though. I'll let you all know if we've actually found anything important." Yumi replied.
"You sure?" Sebastian asked, his tone of voice suggesting suspicion.
"Yes." Yumi replied.
"Well, if you've found it, congrats." Sebastian grumbled, hanging up.
With the phone calls done and over with, Jeremie looked back to his progress. The virtualization program was ready. It was time to take the leap of faith.
"You two ready?" Jeremie called.
"As ready as I'll ever be." Yumi replied.
"Hmph." Ulrich grunted in the affirmative.
"All right, let's do it!" Jeremie said, pressing the 'Enter' key.
The scanner doors shut, and in the scanners, both Ulrich and Yumi felt a powerful gust of wind from beneath them. Then, there was a blinding light, forcing the two to shut their eyes tight. When the wind died down and the two felt that the bright light from the scanner was gone, they opened their eyes.
And what they saw put them in a state of awe…
Meanwhile, the other children were gathering in the park. Amare had met Sebastian when the boy had returned from his street trek, and they both recounted their conversations to Jeremie and Yumi respectively. Hugo and Charlie hadn't made any progress in finding Milly, though Charlie swore that he saw something moving while he and his brother had been checking the dorms.
The four boys gathered in a clearing in the middle of the woods, with Milly and Tamiya joining them shortly.
"Okay, everyone's here, except for…where are Jeremie, Ulrich, and Yumi?" Tamiya asked.
"They think they've found something regarding the uh, you know." Amare said, referring to the teddy bear.
"So, everyone's here then except for them…" Milly muttered, keeping her head low. "...That's too bad..."
"Eh, if they've found something, best not to disturb them. But even so, the topic at hand, what happened last night. Everyone raise your hands if you found it terrifying." Amare said, keeping an even tone.
Everyone raised their hands.
"See Milly? Everyone found it scary." Tamiya said.
Milly lowered her hand and just gripped her teddy bear, not replying.
Sebastian sighed, "look Solovieff, I'm sorry about earlier. But, how do I put this delicately…"
"You mean without being an asshole?" Amare chuckled.
Sebastian shot Amare a glare, only for Hugo to speak up in the Street Kid's stead.
"Charlie, let's tell Milly what happened when we got back last night." Hugo told his brother.
"Uh…sure." Charlie murmured nervously, "well, I was uh…"
"He was crying." Hugo put in bluntly.
"I wasn't!" Charlie protested, but he faltered.
"Charlie was freaked out completely, he kept on bawling and crying. I can't blame him." Hugo said calmly.
"It was, so, so…scary! Why did that happen?!" Charlie bawled, running up to his older brother, perfectly showcasing what had happened when the two had gotten back to their dorm room.
"But you know what I said to him? You want to know how I calmed down this little crybaby?" Hugo asked rhetorically.
"I'm not a crybaby!" Charlie interrupted, wiping his eyes grumpily, despite more tears already welling up in his eyes.
Hugo ignored his brother and just gave a lazy grin, "I'll tell you. First off, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. If that power line didn't hurt us then, then it isn't hurting any of us right now. It's okay. It was all probably just a freak accident. You shouldn't be freaking out over every little thing, otherwise, you'll just end up going crazy. It's all right now."
Milly stared at Hugo and Charlie blankly, and then started to stare at them a bit longer than what would be considered normal.
"Point is Milly, that power cable scenario was dangerous, I'm not going to lie, contact with it probably would've killed you." Hugo said.
"Not helping!" Tamiya growled.
"But it didn't touch you, and so it didn't hurt you. Most importantly…" Hugo continued without missing a beat, only to have his 'Big Brother Lecture' be cut off again, this time, by Milly herself.
"Shut up." She commanded.
"Huh?" Hugo asked, startled.
"You don't care if I'm hurt or not! You just want to take Teddy from me! That's what all of this is! You all hate him! You don't think he's real!" she yelled hysterically, the black lines on her face becoming thicker and more noticeable.
"Sure he's real." Amare said casually, causing Milly to snap her head towards him. "You're holding the thing, and we can all see it. It's definitely real."
"I don't think that what she meant." Sebastian face palmed, starting to feel nervous and claustrophobic as he saw the black lines become more prominent on Milly's face, along with her increasingly crazed glare.
"You don't think he came back by himself! You all want to give me your so-called 'comfort', when he gives me everything I need! And he'll give you all what you need too!" Milly ranted madly.
"What are you talking about Milly?! He's not alive, he's just a toy!" Tamiya asked.
It was then that the teddy bear wriggled out of his owner's grip, and landed on the ground, walking in front of his owner. Then, he started talking, his mouth moving very much like a human's, which proved to be a rather disturbing effect.
"As you can clearly see, I am in fact, alive." He said in a rather deep and monotonous voice.
Silence filled the air for several moments as the other children registered what had just happened.
"IT'S EVIL! I KNEW IT WAS EVIL! KILL IT!" Sebastian screamed in a panic, running over to kick the teddy bear. Unfortunately, the stuffed animal jumped up and then countered Sebastian by punching him right in the gut, knocking the wind out of the boy and forcing him back.
Sebastian staggered, then fell onto the ground, clutching his stomach and trying to breathe again.
"Sebastian!" everyone except for Milly cried out, gathering around him.
Tamiya then looked at Milly who was smiling as if the bear had given Sebastian a hug instead of a punch.
"Milly, what's going on?" Tamiya asked, frightened.
Milly didn't answer, because the teddy bear answered instead. "It's quite simple you see. I am acting out the Will of the World. Dear Milly has accepted that Will, and I intend to educate all of you about it as well."
"Okay, the teddy bear is talking like some pretentious anime villain, now I KNOW it's evil." Hugo muttered.
"He's not evil!" Milly protested, dumbfounding everyone else.
"He just…" Sebastian wheezed in disbelief, "punched me!"
"You deserved it!" Milly yelled.
"And I will do much more than merely punch you." The teddy bear growled.
At that moment, the creature grew in size, until it was eight feet tall, then, from both of the teddy bear's arms, five large blades burst out of the stuffing, acting as impromptu fingers. The bear opened its mouth, revealing a large bear trap for teeth, held in place by numerous nails. Rebar grew out from the teddy bear's legs, and five more blades each burst out of the bottom of the teddy bear's legs to act as toes for the feet. The teddy bear's eyes began to glow a harsh red, as the left eye became covered in metal. Numerous needles and nails popped out of the teddy bear's fur, while its chest seemed to leak stuffing before revealing numerous computer chips and wires embedded in it.
"Now, I will teach you all the meaning of The Will of the World." The teddy bear said, flexing its new appendages.
"RUN!" Amare cried out, and everyone immediately scattered.
Tamiya immediately grabbed Milly's hand, running past the Terminator-like teddy bear and dragging her friend along with her in order to escape. Strangely enough, Milly made no attempt to resist.
Now alone, the teddy bear merely sighed.
"Such a shame you all do not wish to learn about the truth children. But you will learn. You will one day face the reality of the world, even if I am not here to assist on that day." He sighed with pity.
Needles, threaded along thin metal wires, burst out of the teddy bear's back.
"Regardless of how you will face the end, you cannot escape the Will of the World…" He muttered as the threads began to spread, weaving around the trees…
"Wow…" Ulrich said in awe.
"Wh-what is this place?" Yumi asked, equally astounded by where she and Ulrich now were.
The two were standing in the clearing of a dense forest, with the midday sun shining brightly upon them. The forest was made up of deciduous trees, and was on the side of a large slope. As such, Yumi and Ulrich were able to take in not just the trees and sky, but also the enormous lake that they could see below them, as well as the unusual sight of the enormous pillars in the distance, with gigantic cables connected to their bases. In addition to this, both were expecting that a virtual world would look more, blocky, like a video game. Instead, the grass looked and felt like real grass and the trees had the details you might expect from an actual tree. They were also expecting that they would appear with 3D graphics, akin to a video game, but everything around them looked and felt like it belonged in the real world. Taking a deep breath of the crisp forest air, it felt like they had truly arrived in an entirely real, living world.
With of course, the exception being that Ulrich was dressed as a samurai, and Yumi was clothed like a geisha. Once the two figured out that little tidbit, they were quick to react. And by quick to react:
"WHAT THE-?" Ulrich asked, looking at his and Yumi's clothing.
"Um? Why do we look like this?!" Yumi asked, never being the type of person to wear kimonos or yukatas unless she had no choice.
"So you two are in! That's great!" Jeremie said, voice being transmitted to the duo.
"Yeah, and we look like video game characters!" Yumi said indignantly.
"Why are my pants so baggy?" Ulrich asked in disbelief, not used to traditional samurai wardrobe.
"I did say that you'd take on a form derived from your subconscious." Jeremie pointed out. Before either Ulrich or Yumi could continue talking however, Jeremie was quick to put them in place. "Regardless of what you two look like, need I remind you that we're trying to find and destroy a computer virus that could be doing who-knows-what right now?"
That stopped Yumi and Ulrich from commenting, and the two instead took tentative steps, trying to get used to their new forms. Surprisingly enough, they felt that they could move as easily as they did in the real world, even with the long sleeves and baggy pants weighing them down. It felt…natural to them.
"Okay, so, what about the powers then?" Ulrich asked.
"I don't know what they are, sorry. Right now, I'm looking through the guide here, and I've found a program that needs to be installed." Jeremie replied.
"What program?" Yumi asked, stretching her arms.
"A weapon program. I'm guessing that it's to allow you to fight off the virus." Jeremie replied.
"Nice to know that we won't be defenseless." Ulrich muttered, engaging in several high kicks to get used to fighting in his new clothes.
"So, what do we now? Wait or start exploring?" Yumi asked.
"Hmm," Jeremie mused, trying to think of a strategy, "I have a full screen view of where you two are. I can tell you two if you're about to be attacked…and oh crap."
Upon hearing those two last two words, Ulrich and Yumi immediately got into fighting position.
"What is it?" Yumi asked nervously, her guard up.
"It's a ghost! Coming on your left!" Jeremie warned.
The samurai and the geisha turned around, and saw what appeared to be a floating shadow blob creeping towards them. It was doing so rather slowly, and jumped upon seeing Ulrich and Yumi's sudden actions. The air was tense as the two looked upon the monster, which was now in the clearing. It turned what seemed to be its head towards Ulrich, then Yumi, and then Ulrich again.
Then, the creature crouched, and then pounced at Ulrich, shooting at him like a cat about to catch a mouse.
"AHH!" Ulrich screamed, running away from the monster. But when he stopped moving, he and Yumi found out something rather incredible.
Ulrich was much farther away from the creature than he would have assumed for one thing, and for another reason, the creature had stopped in midair as if something had arrested its movement. It was now struggling to move.
Yumi looked at the ghost, and started to feel a large amount of exhaustion, and collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath.
The ghost unfortunately, was now starting to move again, and began to shake itself violently, once again looking at Ulrich and Yumi wildly. This time however, the ghost turned its attention to Yumi, and rose up into the air, gathering momentum…before dashing towards her at high speed.
"YUMI!" Ulrich cried out, and he ran at the specter.
But as Ulrich ran, from the monitor, Jeremie noticed the blue light trail Ulrich was leaving behind, as the samurai ran at high speed and tackled the specter to the ground. The specter thrashed about in Ulrich's grasp, and soon managed to slip away, but was quite dazed from the recent offensive. The A.I. was confused, who were these strange beings that appeared in the middle of the forest? Whatever they were, they were a threat to the mission, and the specter started to get its bearings back, preparing to eliminate these intruders.
Ulrich got up from the ground, only to collapse from exhaustion himself. He looked at the specter, which began to hover over the two like a vulture.
"Jeremie, what was all of that?" Yumi asked, paying attention to Ulrich after his sudden high-speed run.
"It's to safe to say that those were your powers." Jeremie explained, "It looks like Ulrich's got some kind of super-speed, but I don't know what your power is yet Yumi…I think you used it…but it wasn't as noticeable as Ulrich's. But be careful, that thing looks like it's about to attack again!"
The specter did attack again, wasting no more time, and dived at Ulrich. Ulrich shot up and tried to get out of the way, only to trip on a tree root. But just as the specter thought that it could kill Ulrich, it found that it had stopped moving once again.
The reason soon became clear. Yumi, holding her hand out as if she was reaching out for Ulrich, was glowing with a bright blue aura, which was also surrounding the specter, as if it was gripped in a vice. Ulrich and Jeremie, looking on, were stunned.
"So that's it! Telekinesis!" Jeremie chirped.
Having used up even more of her stamina however, Yumi quickly collapsed in exhaustion again. However, the time she'd bought Ulrich had been enough for him to get out of the specter's way as it escaped Yumi's telekinetic grip and slammed into the ground. The creature remained silent aside from the deep, monotonous, droning sound it normally gave off, but it was becoming rather annoyed.
Not that it would have time to stay annoyed. At the terminal, Jeremie watched as a screen indicating the charge-up for weapons showed that Ulrich and Yumi's weapons were ready.
"Ulrich, Yumi, your weapons are charged and ready to go!" he called.
"When I can move again, I'll get back to you on that…" Yumi groaned, dizzy from the exertion of using her new powers so suddenly.
Ulrich quickly felt around, looking at his waist, and saw the katana sheathed on his belt. Wasting no time, he drew the blade, which was made from blue binary code, and rushed at the specter with his Super speed.
Before the creature knew what had happened, it found itself cut to ribbons, and dissolved into nothing.
Ulrich panted from his own exertion, and collapse, his adrenaline rush wearing off. As he rested, he took notice of the sword that he was now carrying.
"Whoa." He breathed quietly in awe.
"Glad you like it." Jeremie said. "But we still need to find out how those ghost monsters are attacking the real world. I'm looking through the guide on Xanadu to look for it. But if you two can spot anything from where you two are that I can't see, go investigate it."
Ulrich looked in the distance, then saw what seemed to be another black blob circling around a tower not too far away, the tower that just seemed to rest on the shore of the lake.
"I saw one of those monster things, on the tower, over there!" he pointed.
Yumi slowly got up, followed Ulrich's finger, and then saw the same thing.
"He's right!" she confirmed.
"Head over there right now!" Jeremie ordered, "who knows what's happening in town right now?"
The samurai and the geisha nodded, and immediately headed over to the tower.
At that moment, what was happening in town was focused in the park of Kadic Academy. There, Amare, Charlie, Hugo, and Sebastian were all running for their lives from the murderous, yet philosophical terminator teddy bear. As for Milly and Tamiya, the dark-skinned girl was desperately trying to get a response out of Milly, but the girl maintained a blank doll-like expression on her face, and she put up no resistance as Tamiya dragged her along. Tamiya had hidden herself and Milly behind a large tree, but knew that it was only a matter of time before 'Teddy' came and killed them.
"Milly! Please, wake up!" Tamiya begged.
Milly did not respond, only turning her head to look at Tamiya. It was funny how her friend thought she could avoid Teddy. She couldn't avoid him, none of them could, or would. Milly just kept on smiling, staring into the sky happily.
A distance away, Amare, Charlie, and Hugo were looking at the space between some of the trees. Threads of metal wire were crisscrossing between the trunks and branches like spider-webs, preventing them from getting out of the woods, or getting to a distance where they could be heard crying for help. They couldn't even touch the razor-sharp wires, lest they cut into their hands.
"I'm not liking this." Amare muttered.
"Wh-what's going to happen Hugo!?" Charlie whimpered, failing to hold back his tears of fear.
"We'll be alright." Hugo comforted, if only to calm down his brother. But Hugo, like his brother, was terrified of what was going on, with his heart beating in a frenzied panic.
On the other side of the woods, Sebastian had also noticed the barrier of wires, and was looking for a way to escape. The only problem was that he hadn't found one. He was just about to try digging a hole to get underneath the wires, only to hear heavy footsteps.
Sebastian's breathing stopped for a moment as he registered what was coming after him. Quickly, he looked for a way to get out of the corner he was in, and he slowly inched forward to an escape position. Just in time too, because once he reached the point that would allow him to slip out of an attack, the bear stomped into view, a deep mixture of a growl and a whirling noise escaping his bear-trap maw.
"Now then child, accept the Will of the World! Allow me to slay you!" the bear commanded.
"Uh…NO!" Sebastian replied, legs shaking in fear.
"Your defiance will earn you nothing!" the bear snarled, jumping at Sebastian, claws drawn.
Sebastian managed to summon the strength to duck out of the teddy bear's way and ran back into the woods. Unfortunately, the monstrous creation was behind him, and it was starting to catch up.
"Why do you run boy? The Will of the World has determined that you must perish! Why do you resist the natural course of things?" the teddy bear asked.
"Because I don't want to die you crazy-ass monster!" Sebastian shot back. "I'm not going to get killed by some terminator bear thing that came to life because…something! What the hell did Solovieff do? Make a deal with some kind of evil devil plushy to bring you to life?"
Teddy chuckled grimly. "No, no, nothing like that. I merely came to life after Milly dropped me in the streets last night. After which, as I lay there, I felt a great spark come through me, and thus, I awakened to find myself mobile! I immediately set upon a journey to return to Milly, and as you saw, I succeeded in that quest! Since then, I have been filled with two ambitions, to ensure that Milly is happy, and to fulfill the Will of the World, which I have explained to her."
"Okay, so you're possessed by some kind of demon then! I'm dreaming, I must be dreaming!" Sebastian laughed madly, his sense of reason on its last legs.
"This is no dream, boy, and my brethren and I are not demons! We come to fulfill the Will of the World, and it is through this vessel that we shall do so! When you, and the others who made Milly suffer perish, the rest of humanity shall join them! One way or another, your perception of what the world is will die!" the bear ranted, getting closer to Sebastian than the boy would've preferred.
Before Sebastian could respond, he heard the voices of Amare, Charlie, and Hugo.
"What the heck?!" Amare cried out as the three boys reached a clearing, and saw Sebastian being chased down by the terminator/stuffed animal.
"RUN! RUN! RUN! He's crazy! That thing's crazy! It's talking like a crazy cultist! He's trying to kill us! Run, RUN FAR AWAY!" Sebastian yelled in a complete and utter panic, picking up speed.
That did the job, Amare split away from Hugo and Charlie, and the two brothers ran in another direction. Sebastian turned right when he reached the clearing, and Teddy stopped to look around.
"So you intend to make me choose…" he murmured. "Very well, I shall play this game of hide-and-seek."
Teddy looked down at the footprints that Hugo and Charlie had left behind.
"I shall attack you two next." The bear monster hissed, running after them.
Back to Milly and Tamiya, Tamiya kept on trying to get Milly's attention, but Milly did not seem interested in talking, only humming gently to herself.
"Milly! Please! Why aren't you answering?" Tamiya begged, tears leaking from her eyes. "Why do you love that teddy bear so much? He's trying to kill us!"
"Because that's what Teddy needs to do." Milly finally replied, now staring at her best friend with a blank expression.
"What?" Tamiya asked, in shock from what Milly had said, and how that had been how she'd finally gotten Milly to respond to her.
"Teddy needs to do this. He explained everything, it's the Will of the World." Milly answered vaguely.
"You're not making any sense!" Tamiya cried angrily. "The will of the world!? What are you talking about Milly!?"
"Teddy says that we have to help him carry out the Will of the World." Milly said, chuckling, not answering Tamiya's question. "I can see it, Tamiya. I see the darkness of the new world. I can see...her. We're going to live in a new era. Isn't that great! It's a great scoop! A scoop that we get to have, all thanks to Teddy! And you said that he would hurt my chances of being a journalist!"
Tamiya was utterly horrified at the insanity that was coming out of Milly's mouth. The dark-skinned girl stood up, backing away from her friend, and then the realization of what was going to happen dawned on her. She was going to die. Everyone was going to die because of some kind of haunted teddy bear monster. To make matters worse, Milly had been brainwashed by him, and it didn't seem like she was going to exit whatever trance she was in.
Tamiya shakily walked over to another tree, knelt down, and started to cry from the sheer fear and despair of the situation. This was it. Game over.
Milly crawled over to Tamiya, and gently embraced her friend.
"It's okay Tamiya." Milly consoled. "If you apologize to Teddy, I'm sure he'll forgive you. You at least wanted to help me, but those big kids and their baby brother didn't. While Teddy deals with them, I'll teach you what he taught me. There's nothing to worry about. You'll learn all about the Will of the World just like how I did. So don't cry. I don't like it when you cry."
Milly started to hold Tamiya more tightly, holding Tamiya's hands in her own, holding an iron grip that caused a shriek of pain from Tamiya.
"Milly, stop!" she whined quietly.
"There's no need. Just, allow me to show you what the Will of the World wants." Milly whispered quietly into Tamiya's ear, before giving it a gentle nibble, hugging her friend even tighter than before, in an attempt to force Tamiya onto the ground.
"I-!" Tamiya started, horrified as she felt herself feeling a mixture of drowsiness and ecstasy, until she suddenly remembered her conversation with Yumi earlier.
'It depends on the situation, there are a lot of times where if trouble is heading your way, you have to run away in order to deal with it, but there are also times where you have to fight with everything you've got.'
Tamia realized something as she felt the mental fog creeping into her vanish. This was one of those times of danger where she would have to fight. Tamiya would not lose Milly this easily. She wouldn't allow Milly to stay under the teddy bear's brainwashing. She had to make Milly see reason, and she had to do it now!
"NO!" Tamiya cried, elbowing Milly, breaking out of the brainwashed girl's grip. Milly didn't let out a verbal response of any kind at the blow, but when Tamiya turned around, a look of betrayal was clearly evident in Milly's eyes.
"Tamiya...why?" Milly asked softly. "Teddy said that I had to introduce you to the Will...he said it'd make you understand...that she would tell you everything..."
"No Milly! Teddy is messed up! He's crazy! He's a monster! He's brainwashed you! He wants you to think that hurting people is good!" Tamiya replied, defiant.
Milly looked at Tamiya with another blank stare for a second, then charged at the dark-skinned girl like a bull, tackling her to the ground and pinning her arms down with a demonic strength.
"TEDDY'S GOOD! HE PROTECTS ME! HE'LL MAKE SURE THAT NOTHING BAD EVER HAPPENS TO ME AGAIN!" Milly roared, the black lines on her face becoming jagged.
"HE'S PROTECTING YOU FROM WHAT?!" Tamiya yelled, struggling.
"FROM EVERYTHING THAT WANTS TO HURT ME! YOU, EVERYONE ELSE, AND THOSE CABLES!" Milly shrieked in reply.
At this, Tamiya stopped struggling, and looked at Milly dead in the eye.
"I've never wanted to hurt you Milly." Tamiya said calmly, but firmly. "Sure, we fight sometimes, and sure, I don't think much of needing something like a teddy bear to protect myself, but that never means I've wanted to hurt you. Neither did the others. Sebastian and the others are only creeped out by that teddy bear because you keep relying on it! You can't rely on a security blanket forever!"
"HE'S MY GUARDIAN! NOT MY SECURITY BLANKET!" Milly protested, gripping Tamiya even tighter, though Tamiya noticed tears starting to form in Milly's eyes.
"It's because of last night right? That's why you're so scared, that's why Teddy got into your head!" Tamiya said, striking the heart of the issue.
"It happened so fast! We could've died!" Milly cried, tear streaming down her face, slowly erasing the black marks that had formed.
"But we didn't die!" Tamiya exclaimed firmly. "We survived! It was just a freak accident! Ulrich saved you, and Yumi saved me! Both of us were saved by people, not teddy bears!"
"So?" Milly asked, her voice becoming lower.
"So we lived! It's just like what Hugo said! You can't freak out over every little thing! You don't need a teddy bear to protect yourself from every little thing!" Tamiya answered.
The black marks on Milly's face started to return, "I DO NEED HIM!" Milly protested, though her increasingly distressed face indicated second thoughts on that.
"He's trying to kill all of us! He's just some crazy teddy bear monster that popped out of nowhere, and he brainwashed you! You don't need a monster to help you!" Tamiya replied confidently.
"I-I, but, but." Milly groaned, getting off Tamiya and clutching her head in pain.
Tamiya got up, and didn't let up. "While I was trying to find you, Yumi came along to help. While we were doing that, I asked her just how we were supposed to deal with something like this! I was scared too Milly! Out of my mind, and everything looked scary!"
"Teddy's not scary! He's…" Milly began, but Tamiya interrupted her.
"NO! Teddy's not a good guy!" Tamiya retorted. "Listen to me, Milly, Yumi told me that whenever trouble is heading our way, there's a lot of times where we have to run, but that there's also times where we have to stand our ground and fight! Like I'm doing now! I'm not going to let you be that monster's brainwashed puppet!"
"But…" Milly muttered, the black lines on her face fading away again.
Tamiya rushed forward, and gripped her friend in a tight embrace. This wasn't anything like the disturbing, seductive hug that Milly had pulled on Tamiya, this was an actual hug, an envelopment of comfort, to let Milly know that she was not alone. And Tamiya was determined to ensure that Milly wasn't ever alone.
"I'm here for you Milly! Everyone is! Please, just, come back! If that teddy bear is really your friend, have him stop!" Tthe dark-skinned yelled, not letting go of the red-hair.
That did it. Milly looked at her best friend and blinked. The black lines then faded from her face completely, crumbling away like chipping paint, and Milly returned the hug. The two girls stayed like that for a few seconds, before parting. Tamiya breathed a sigh of relief to see Milly's face no longer marred by the disturbing markings or creepy facial expressions.
"I went crazy, didn't I?" Milly hesitantly asked after a few more seconds.
"You did." Tamiya said, smirking.
"I'm, I'm sorry Tamiya! I was just so scared! I didn't know what to think, and I lost one of the few things from home that I brought with me! Something to remind me of my parents! I-I just didn't want…" Milly said, only for Tamiya to pull her into another hug.
"It's okay Milly! We're going to get through this!" Tamiya said confidently.
Even though their opponent was the terminator if he was a crazy teddy bear.
It was then that the boys ran into the area, and crashed into one another, falling onto the ground right in front of the two girls.
"Um, are you guys okay?" Tamiya asked.
"I've been better…" Amare muttered, rubbing his head.
Sebastian looked at Milly, and saw that the black markings that had been on her face were gone, along with her malevolent crazed expression.
"Oh? So you're sane again Solovieff? Great! Maybe you can make Mister Crazy Bear not kill us!" he snarled sarcastically. Sebastian feared it would be the last thing he said. Because Mister Crazy Bear was coming from the direction that Hugo and Charlie had been running from.
And he wasn't happy. He was just crazy. And glaring at the children while looking like a feral Terminator. Feral Terminators tend to freak children out.
"Wow, this took a while." Yumi quipped, having recovered her strength, much to her surprise.
Ulrich nodded quietly, running at normal speed along with Yumi, as the two navigated the terrain of the virtual world. The area they were in was heavily forested and mountainous, making crossing it rather difficult. Ulrich had tripped in several places, and Yumi had to use her telekinesis to keep him from tumbling down the hills. She found that she was getting used to exerting this ability, which would prove to be rather useful, considering the danger that lay ahead.
But it was as she said, getting to their destination took longer than they could've hoped or preferred. Thankfully, they had not been attacked by any specters, so the only real thing worth noting was again, the time it took for them to reach the Tower.
It was situated on a slope not too far away from the lake, with some of the cables connected to it emerging from said lake. Ulrich and Yumi had just exited the forest they were in, and could see the tower from the other end of the lakeside. Circling the Tower were four specters, a bit larger than the one that had attacked them earlier. Three other specters were lurking on the ground near the Tower, guarding their brethren as they influenced the real world.
"So, do we have a plan?" Yumi asked.
"We run up there and destroy them." Ulrich said simply.
"What if something weird happens?" Yumi whispered. "What if those things are stronger than the monster we took on? I mean, just one of them nearly took us out."
"Well, this place is kind of like a video game." Ulrich said confidently. "Maybe we'll just respawn or go back to the real world."
"Yeah…About that…I've been looking through the guide. Your virtual forms are fairly durable, but if they take too much damage…well, there's no respawn or return procedure. I mean, there IS a rematerialization feature to get you guys home, but if you die here, you uh, die for real…" Jeremie informed them nervously.
Ulrich and Yumi's eyes widened and they looked up at the sky, as if they were looking at Jeremie from down below.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Ulrich yelled angrily. "You could've warned us about that Jeremie!"
"The guide didn't mention it until now! I'm sorry!" Jeremie protested.
"Which makes it all the more important that we plan this through!" Yumi reprimanded sternly, putting a hand on Ulrich's shoulder, but still glaring up at the sky, also being annoyed that Jeremie had not warned them of the possibility of death before they jumped into the Scanners.
Then again, she and Ulrich HAD volunteered to try to stop these specters in the first place, so perhaps she wasn't in a position to judge.
"If you guys think that you won't be able to handle the specters, I'll bring you two back in right now, I have the rematerialization procedure up on standby." Jeremie said.
Ulrich looked at Yumi, and she returned the look. The two then switched their gazes towards the opposition. Just seven specters. Not too difficult at first glance, but again, as Yumi had said, considering what had attacked them earlier, they had no idea if the others were just as tough, far more dangerous, or were hiding something even worse. Taking the time to examine them revealed that while the specters prowling along the ground looked to be the same size as the first specter the duo had encountered, the four circling around the Tower, clinging to it like leeches, varied from either twice as large to three or maybe four times as large. Yumi was right, they did need a plan.
"So, what should we do?" Ulrich asked in a hushed whisper as he and Yumi stood behind a large rock.
"The first three might not be too bad. If we ambush them, we should be able to take them out." Yumi explained. "We don't want a drawn out fight. We might have a lot more stamina and endurance in this place, but we struggled with one specter before we got our weapons. We need to get them both in one blow."
"How do we do that?" Ulrich asked, gesturing to his sheathed katana, "We've only got one weapon."
Yumi quietly felt around her obi, and pulled out two folded fans. She unfolded them, revealing that they had the same blue binary structure within them as Ulrich's sword. The two looked at the Tessen Fans skeptically.
"How are two fans going to do anything?" he asked.
Yumi didn't reply, instead, she looked at the tools provided to her carefully. A lightbulb went off in her head. Yumi folded the fan in her left hand, and then drew herself back.
"You might want to back away." She said.
"Wait, are you-?" Ulrich began to ask, but before he could finish, Yumi threw the fan into the air. The fan flew around like a disc, its interiors now spiked like a buzz saw. Then, like a boomerang, the fan returned to Yumi's hand, and then folded.
"I think that'll work." Yumi said confidently to a wide-eyed Ulrich.
Ulrich nodded, now knowing that they could both one-shot the small-fry. Of course, there was still the other problem of the larger ghosts.
"How do we deal with the big ones?" he asked.
Yumi looked at them thoughtfully. The larger specters' positions on the tower varied. The largest of them was highest, being halfway up the tower. The other three huddled closer to where the support cables were plugged into the structure. Any ideas Yumi had to actively reach the specters she quickly shot down mentally due to the factor of inexperience she and Ulrich had regarding their powers.
"Do you have anything for us Jeremie?" Yumi asked.
"I'm still reading through the rest of the guide." Jeremie replied. "There's actually an interesting tidbit here about the ghosts here…"
"Does it involve destroying them?" Ulrich asked.
"No, but it does say what'll happen if you destroy the ones surrounding a Tower." Jeremie replied.
"Let me guess, it stops them somehow?" Ulrich asked, rolling his eyes at what seemed to be an obvious fact.
"Pretty much." Jeremie explained. "By destroying the specters haunting a Tower, whatever influence they hold over the network is cut off. So, if you guys destroy the specters on the Tower, then it'll mean that they can't gain access to our world."
"The only problem is, how?" Ulrich grumbled. "We've got some big ones up on that Tower right now."
"I've got one idea, but it is risky." Yumi said.
"I'm all ears." Ulrich muttered as Yumi began to explain her plan.
After hearing what Yumi had in mind, Ulrich rubbed his hands. "Sounds up my alley." He smirked.
Yumi stayed silent, but smirked at Ulrich's reply.
"Let's do this then." She said, and then, both samurai and geisha snuck to the edge of the woods, circling over to the enormous tower.
The teddy bear looked at the group of children before him, and paid close attention to Milly's face. Seeing that his influence over her was gone, the Teddy Bear shook his head with disappointment.
"Truly a shame that you have decided to reject the Will of the World, Milly." He said, voice deepening significantly.
"T-teddy." Milly stuttered, before gritting her teeth and standing up straight. "I want you to stop!"
Teddy gave a grim chuckle. "That I cannot do Milly. It is the Will of the World that these humans must perish." He replied. "Out of gratitude for having kept me as your companion for so long, I will spare you and Tamiya, and make you both see the error of your ways."
"A-and us?" Charlie whimpered.
"You will die." Teddy answered flatly.
Sebastian looked at Teddy nervously, and swallowed a load of bile building up in his mouth. Reasoning with the insane abomination was clearly impossible, but Sebastian was desperate to try anything that could delay the inevitable, or at least make sure that help could arrive. As such, he decided to play the card that most heroes in television try when the villain has cornered them. Get the villain to explain their motivations.
"Uh, so uh, why do we have to die? What is the will of the world?" Sebastian asked, trying to word the questions as best as he could in the current situation.
"I have already answered that you must die in accordance with the Will of the World. But if you wish to perish as an enlightened individual," Teddy replied, "Then I shall grant you that wish."
"I'd rather not perish altogether." Amare muttered, only for Hugo to elbow him in annoyance.
"The Will of the World, it is a force, a driving command that desires the end of the world as you know it." Teddy explained. "It is a sublime voice that exists in us all, guiding us to our end goal."
"…And Solovieff bought that?" Sebastian asked incredulously, looking at Milly.
"I uh, don't remember all of it…" Milly stuttered sheepishly.
"She was hypnotized Sebastian; how could she remember any of it?!" Tamiya snapped at Sebastian.
"Well I'm sorry, I wasn't there to listen to an insane teddy bear monster ramble about the end times of Karakorum!" Sebastian snapped back.
"What I say is not insanity." Teddy growled in annoyance. "I speak the truth. A truth that you lot clearly fail to comprehend."
"Uh, yeah, because being killed by a crazy monster with a voice in their head is so hard to grasp!" Amare said, rolling his eyes in spite of the situation.
Hugo would've tried to rein Amare in again, but he had caught onto Sebastian's plan. As long as Teddy was debating philosophy…or at least, some disturbing faux philosophy, he wasn't trying to kill them. He doubted that Teddy would let them go, but as long as he was talking, he was standing still in one place, so if anyone had run into the wire barrier that Teddy had created, then they could warn someone about the situation, and hopefully get them away from Teddy.
So Hugo decided to play along.
"Uh, sorry for my friend here." Hugo said, gesturing to an indignant Amare, "but uh, what exactly is the voice that guides you? And why does it want us all dead?"
Sebastian quickly followed up. "Yeah, why does the 'will of the world' want to destroy us?"
Amare and Tamiya were both about to ask Sebastian and Hugo why the hell they were egging on Teddy, Amare especially since Hugo had just tried to get him to shut up, but both soon realized that the two boys were stalling for time. So, the two stayed silent as Teddy took their questions into account. Tamiya put her hands over Milly's ears however, wanting the red-hair to stay by her side in case Teddy tried to hypnotize her again.
"The voice that guides us. That is the Will of the World, as I have said before," Teddy explained, "It desires the apocalypse. That is all."
Amare looked at Teddy with disbelief.
"Really? That's it? You're just here to…kill all of us because the voice in your head wants you to? Why does it want that?" he asked, trying to keep the conversation alive.
To the collective horror of the group, Teddy merely shrugged.
"I do not know. Perhaps it is what you humans would call instinct." Teddy replied. "You humans have what is known as a sixth sense yes? Intuition? This works the same way. It is by simple instinct that the Will of the World desires your demise. Your curiosity is a redeeming trait, but too little, too late."
At that moment, Teddy broke into a combat stance, and resumed his charge at the group.
"Oh come on!" Sebastian cried, and the children started running once again, their hopes for salvation ebbing…
"YAHH!" Ulrich cried out, rushing from his hiding spot.
"You could try to be a little quieter!" Yumi yelled, running after him.
Ulrich was already using his super-speed, rushing at the specters. The three creatures on the ground turned around, disturbed by the sudden noise, and saw the young samurai boy running towards them. One of the specters immediately shot at Ulrich, only for him to quickly draw his katana. As the specter started to twist about like a tornado, Ulrich stabbed at it with his sword. The blow connected, and the dark creature found itself being cut in half as Ulrich ducked to avoid contact with it.
Ulrich skidded to a halt, watching as the specter disintegrated, but quickly turned around, seeing the next two specters fly towards him. Ulrich swung his katana, and the two creatures backed away, hovering above Ulrich cautiously, worried about the sword that the strange individual possessed that could destroy them.
Before they could attack Ulrich again however, two blue discs shot from behind the boy, and started cutting the specters apart. Before they could react, the monsters had been completely shredded by Yumi's Tessen Fans, which returned to their owner, who folded them again.
Ulrich couldn't help but grin audaciously. "You said that your plan was to attract the big guys, I figured running in screaming might help."
Yumi folded her arms in mild annoyance, but was satisfied that she and Ulrich had gotten rid of several specters regardless. Yumi then looked up to check on the bigger specters. When she did, her eyes widened.
"Looks like it did help! Jump!" she cried out.
Ulrich looked up too, and he quickly obeyed Yumi as one of the larger specters seemed to drop in front of them, hovering over the ground menacingly. It swung around as if it was trying to realize what the two were, and it quickly shot back up into the air, flying in a quick circle.
"What's it doing?" Ulrich asked.
Jeremie looked at the monitor, and saw the second specter detach from the tower.
"It looks like it's bringing in a friend." His transmitted voice warned.
"One-on-One fights then?" Ulrich asked. "Bring it on."
"Someone looks like they're enjoying themselves." Yumi noted with a nervous smirk as the two large specters dived towards her and Ulrich.
Ulrich gave his own smirk, but there was no time to respond as the specters charged towards him and Yumi once again.
"Ow!" Charlie cried, tripping over a root.
"Shit!" Hugo swore, grabbing his bawling brother and carrying him away.
The situation was getting desperate. The kids were getting exhausted from all of the running they were doing to avoid Teddy, and they knew that they couldn't keep it up much longer. They were all in a group now, too frightened to try to split up and potentially be killed all alone. They felt safe in numbers…even though that would do nothing against Teddy's blade-like claws.
"If this is the end guys, I have a – "Amare began, but Tamiya cut him off.
"It's not going to be the end! It won't!" Tamiya yelled desperately.
But just as she finished her declaration, Teddy appeared before the group, and they all skidded to a halt, only to fall atop one another in the confusion.
"You were saying?" Sebastian grumbled as he tried to come to terms with dying.
"This is the end children." Teddy growled as he rubbed his claws against one another for a quick sharpening.
The kids managed to untangle themselves out of the pile and scoot backwards away from Teddy, but it was obvious now that there was nowhere left to run. They were exhausted and frightened, and had no strength left to move after moving a few feet.
Milly looked at her teddy bear, horrified at what it had turned into.
"Teddy…" she murmured.
Teddy loomed over Sebastian, raising his claws into the air.
"As you were willing to learn about the nature of the Will of the World child, I will grant you a few last words. Speak now, for they will be the final words that come from your mouth." He commanded.
Sebastian gulped, but before he could speak….
"STOP!" Milly cried out.
Teddy's right eye rotated to look at Milly while the left one continued to focus on Sebastian. "As I told you before, Milly, I do not intend to stop the fulfillment of my purpose." Teddy said.
"How is hurting people your purpose?!" Milly cried out. "You're a teddy bear! You're supposed to comfort people, not hurt them!"
"I comforted you Milly, I helped you while you recovered from that near-death experience." Teddy replied.
"You didn't comfort her, you brainwashed her!" Tamiya replied indignantly, causing Teddy to glare at the dark-skinned girl.
"What you call brainwashing, I call comforting." Teddy explained. "As I told the one you call Sebastian." Sebastian gulped as he was name-dropped. "I came to life after I was separated from you Milly. A great shock went through me, and I was suddenly gifted with sentience and the ability to move. I could see, hear, and touch."
"The-the cables brought you to life then?" Milly questioned, realizing what Teddy meant by 'a great shock'.
"…Okay, I'm no Jeremie, but I'm pretty sure that's scientifically impossible." Amare noted.
"And yet, it did happen. I'll admit, it was strange to know so many things at birth. I knew that my normal body could not withstand the rain, and yet it did." Teddy replied. "I also knew that I had to get back to you Milly. You were my owner, and I was your comforter. I had to get back to you, and so I did, I braved the storm, falling and tripping along the way. There were times where I felt my strength fluctuate, where I would either collapse or wander in the wrong direction. Yet I never gave up, and I managed to return to you."
"You did all of that for me?" Milly asked in awe.
"He's trying to brainwash you again!" Tamiya cried out.
Teddy shook his head.
"Education about the Will of the World is far different than explaining my backstory. I will not teach it to you two anyways until the present vermin are extinguished." He replied.
"A teddy bear robot monster knows what a backstory is? This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder." Sebastian deadpanned despite the situation.
"SILENCE!" Teddy roared in Sebastian's face, giving the boy a good view of the sharp objects acting as teeth in the bear's mouth, as well as his tongue, which was made of thick barbed wire and circuitry.
"Yes-sir." Sebastian whimpered.
Charlie scooted behind Hugo in fear at Teddy's outburst.
"In either case. I returned to you Milly. As I dried myself off and returned to your arms, I found myself unable to experience sleep. I heard a multitude of voices within myself." Teddy continued. "They were disorganized, crying out for the destruction of the world. At first, they all had separate voices, but then, those voices changed into one, which commanded me to carry out the Will of the World. It was an alluring, reassuring voice, very much like that of a mother soothing her child. It then explained the nature of what had happened to me, before returning to the discordant voices of before. But no longer were they chaotic, now we all had a sort of mutual understanding with one another. We were to carry out the Will of the World, and I was the vessel for which it was to be done."
"You mean, destroying everyone? Killing everyone?!" Milly cried out in horror at what her teddy bear had told her.
"Not everyone would die Milly. I beseeched the Will of the World for you to be spared. It agreed to my request, so long as you would help us carry out the Will as well." Teddy explained.
"And you agreed to turn into…that?" Milly asked, pointing in terror of Teddy's current form.
"Indeed I did." Teddy confirmed. "Throughout the night and day, I felt the components for my new body form within me. It was a painful procedure, but I endured it regardless, for the Will of the World, and for you Milly."
"But why me? Why would you agree to not hurt me but hurt everyone else besides Tamiya?" Milly cried out.
"I did not include Tamiya in my request." Teddy revealed. "At the time, you were to be the only one spared, and as my brethren gathered the parts to create my new body, I watched the suspicions of your peers grow, and as that suspicion grew, so did my desire to destroy them. It was only when I began to introduce you to the Will of the World that you asked for Tamiya to be spared, which the Will agreed to, on the condition that Tamiya assist us as well."
"Is that true, Milly?" Tamiya asked in shock. "You didn't want Teddy attacking me?"
"You chose to let us die!?" Hugo asked in equal shock. "Why?"
Milly grabbed the sides of her head, trying to remember what exactly happened. She remembered crying, and seeing Teddy come to life and hug her. She remembered some vague words Teddy had spoken of, including the Will of the World that he seemed to obsess over. She could vaguely recall a motherly soft-speaking voice, but aside from Teddy's glowing eyes, she could not recognize anything else.
"I-I can't remember." Milly groaned.
"I remember though." Teddy said. "You were distressed at how everyone seemed to disparage you, seemed to think that they were better than you due to being older."
"Charlie's younger than Milly though." Tamiya couldn't help but point out.
"I remember pointing that out myself, and then a reply of 'I don't care' from Milly." Teddy replied, that one fact seeming to bewilder him so much that the bear wasn't roaring at anyone like he had with Sebastian.
Hugo's eyes widened in bewilderment, and then narrowed in annoyance as he realized what horrible fate had nearly befallen his younger sibling. But before he could say anything else, Teddy continued talking.
"Milly was angry at you all, but, she couldn't bring herself to want her best friend dead. She merely wanted Tamiya to understand her, and so asked the Will of the World if she could merely convert Tamiya to our cause, which the Will agreed to."
It was then that Milly remembered some of what had happened. Words that had been whispered into her ear by that soft voice. She remembered crying out for Tamiya, begging for her friend to be spared, followed by affirmation, before everything went dark again.
Milly felt her forehead. "I, I, I was, angry at everyone…but, I didn't want to hurt Tamiya, I wanted her to be with me…" she murmured.
"You threw us under the bus, Solovieff!?" Sebastian roared, causing Milly to wince. "Just because we found a haunted teddy bear creepy? We didn't want to do anything horrible to you! We're not bullies! We're your friends! We just found the damn teddy bear security blanket thing weird and wanted you to stop doing it!"
"You should've gone about it another way around then. Then instead of me purifying you from the world, you would've spread our teachings as we evolved and became ever more powerful." Teddy snorted.
Sebastian blinked. "Okay, first of all, if we survive this by some miracle, we're going to be having a long chat Solovieff." He said, pointing at Milly in minor annoyance. "Secondly, I think I'd rather be killed instead of being the word of mouth for some creepy cult. The town's got enough of THOSE in its seedy underbelly as it is."
At this, Teddy's right eye just blinked.
"So you would rather die than spread the truth of the world? Such a shame." Teddy grumbled.
"What you call a shame, I call retaining my dignity!" Sebastian snapped.
"B-but you still haven't explained why you wanted to spare me in the first place!" Milly cried out. "Why didn't you try to hurt me like you're trying to hurt everyone else?!"
Teddy was silent for a few moments. The air was deathly still as everyone stared at the abomination.
"It is because as you said before Milly." Teddy said at last. "You are my owner. Your father bought me for you when you were three. Ever since then, whenever you felt sad, hurt, or lonely, you would always try to cuddle up and talk to me. When you learned that you were to be sent off to boarding school, you made sure to take me with you. I have always been there for you Milly, and now that I have obtained sentience, and have knowledge of everything that has happened to us, I wish for nothing but the best for you as I fulfill my other purpose: To carry out the Will of the World."
"…Teddy…" Milly murmured, her voice trailing away.
"Heartwarming." Sebastian grumbled. "Except for the part that involves killing us!"
"Enough. I do not wish to waste any more time." Teddy sighed, sounding exhausted. "The time has come."
More threads of steel wire emerged from Teddy's back, before zipping around all of the children except for Milly, wrapping them up tightly and pinning them to the ground as the needles weaving the threads dug themselves into the dirt and trees. The message was clear. There was to be no more escape.
Teddy raised his right claw into the air, preparing to gore out Sebastian's organs. The boy screamed, and then quickly closed his eyes when…
"PLEASE STOP!" Milly sobbed, grabbing onto Teddy as tightly as she could.
Teddy seemed confused for a few moments before his eyes rolled down to look at Milly.
"I am sorry Milly, but it has to be this way." Teddy said quietly, gently comforting his owner.
"NO! You don't have to kill them! You don't have to kill my friends!" Milly begged. "Th-they tried to help me out when I was scared! They DO care about me! They're not evil bullies! PLEASE! DON'T HURT THEM!"
Milly grabbed Teddy even tighter, sobbing into his fur.
Teddy gave a sigh. It almost seemed remorseful. Almost.
"Even so, no matter what happens Milly, humanity must be destroyed. The Will of the World does not-"
"Who cares about the Will of the World wants?!" Milly cried, "what do YOU want Teddy?"
The air was silent once again.
"…I want you to be happy Milly. That is what I want. But in order for you to achieve the greatest happiness, the greatest pleasure, I must do this. That is what I have determined. The Will of the World informed me of what it will bring about, and what it will bring about will give you the happiness I want for you." Teddy replied softly.
There was to be no more arguing. Milly's continuing pleas faded to background noise as Teddy raised his claw, and swung down towards Sebastian's throat…
"GAH!" Ulrich cried, barely dodging an attack from the specter.
To say that the battle was going badly would be incorrect. But to say that it was going well and that Ulrich and Yumi had a large advantage would also be incorrect. Both of them still had not managed to destroy the two large specters that were attacking them, and to make matters worse…
"Be careful! You don't have many uses left in your weapons! I don't know if there'll be enough time for them to recharge if you run out of energy now!" Jeremie warned urgently.
"How many uses do we have?" Yumi asked, closing up one of her fans.
"Ulrich's got about three minutes left in his sword, and you've got about ten throws left per fan." Jeremie confirmed.
"How long would a recharge take?" Yumi asked, keeping an eye on the specter she was fighting, which was high above her and flying around erratically in an attempt to dodge the geisha's fans.
"It would take about three minutes." Jeremie confirmed.
"Not an option." Yumi said grimly. "We'd get torn apart by then."
Re-sheathing his katana, still running from his specter, Ulrich put up a question.
"Why not just bring us back and then send us back in when we get back?"
"Not possible according to the guide. There's a three-hour cool-down period before you can be sent back in. Not to mention that the scanners are programmed to abort a virtualization attempt if enough time hasn't passed." Jeremie answered.
"Great." Ulrich muttered, speeding up a tad.
The two specters that the samurai-geisha duo were fighting had learned from their fallen brethren, taking care to avoid the weapons of Ulrich and Yumi. Yumi's specter, as stated before, was flying high in the air in an erratic pattern, trying to confuse Yumi so that it could dodge her tessen fans when the time came to attack her. The specter Ulrich was fighting on the other hand, was using a sort-of 'Red Light, Green-Light strategy', where one minute it would quickly dash towards his back, but then keep far away from him whenever Ulrich tried to go on the offensive.
As such, neither side had landed a blow on the other, resulting in a stalemate…but it was one that would eventually fall in the favor of the specters. If Yumi and Ulrich lost their weapons, then they would have no way of fighting the monsters, who would then go back to the tower they had infected and continue whatever attack they were waging on the real world.
Even so, if the specters made one mistake, then there was a good chance that the two virtual warriors would be able to turn the situation around.
As Ulrich turned around to try to swing his katana, the specter flew upwards, with Ulrich only managing to barely graze the black creature as he attempted a draw slash. While the monster briefly vibrated with what Ulrich assumed was pain, it did not stop in its movements and flew up beyond the range of Ulrich's sabre.
Ulrich's mind was racing with thoughts on how to finally destroy the monster as he now stood with his sword drawn.
Sword drawn…
A lightbulb clicked in Ulrich's head. It was a crazy idea, but hey, whatever works.
Ulrich re-sheathed his sword and resumed his speed-run. Once he did so, the specter he was battling resumed chasing him. Ulrich kept running, but instead, started to gradually slow down, allowing the specter to get closer to him, as it did not slow down to match Ulrich's pace. The boy kept his hand on his sword, ready to draw it once the specter got close enough…and this time, it wouldn't escape.
The specter jumped upwards and shot down towards Ulrich, its maw starting to open…
Right on top of the young samurai's blade.
Ulrich moved just far enough to the edge of the monster's jaw, and drew his sword as the specter dove atop him, propelled by its momentum, it found itself unable to stop in time as it was impaled by Ulrich's sabre. Wasting no time, Ulrich shoved forward, forcing the blade out of the specter, who writhed in pain as it took a substantial blow.
Ulrich started hacking at the black monstrosity, with as much speed and power as he could muster, and thus, finally, the specter dissolved in defeat.
"Phew…" Ulrich panted, kneeling to rest.
Then he remembered Yumi and his head shot up to see her battle.
Unaware that its colleague was no more, the specter that the geisha was fighting flew even more wildly as Yumi tried to keep up with it. Then, it shot downwards like a comet, going at a rather fast pace and utilizing a spiraling path so as to avoid Yumi's fans.
Indeed, such a strategy seemed to work for it, as Yumi threw one of her fans in an attempt to strike down the monster. Unfortunately, just as Ulrich's sword did a few seconds earlier, the specter was only briefly grazed by the tessen.
But the specter did not realize that it had only dealt with one fan. The second one was still primed and ready to go, and Yumi launched it just as the specter turned around her back. The first attack had slowed down the specter a bit, just enough for the second fan to land a more substantial blow.
The specter recoiled in pain. But if it thought that was the end of that, it was severely mistaken. Yumi may have been disarmed, but the specter had made the very poor choice of writhing in one place. If it had had either a little time to recover or continued moving, it might've caught the young geisha off guard and kill her.
Because by staying in one place, it had given Yumi enough time to click into her head the idea of trying to guide her fans via her telekinesis.
Focusing, Yumi started to glow with blue light, quickly turning around and focusing on her first fan. Grasping her hand, she turned around and thrust at the specter.
Now on a straight path, the deadly disc shot forward rather than in an arc, and scored a direct hit on the specter, blue binary slicing into black particles, blasting a hole through the specter, which also forced it into the return path of the second fan, which sliced into the injured monster and returned to its owner's hand.
The specter flew down closer to the ground in pain, too slow for it to dodge the return of the first fan, which cut into the monster once again.
The specter could take no more of this, and it slowly dissolved into oblivion
"Great job!" Jeremie transmitted, invigorated by the turning of the tide.
Yumi and Ulrich, panting, looked as the penultimate specter, which was the same size as the last two, dashed towards them in desperation.
"We're not out of the woods yet." Ulrich grunted, running over to where Yumi was.
The two shared a glance as the creature tried to attack them, flying in a zigzag pattern in an attempt to confuse the duo.
But they were starting to get the hang of fighting in the virtual world, and had managed to solo two specters of this size. Ulrich dashed away from Yumi, causing the specter to fly at him. It failed to realize that this was a distraction, and it was soon cut into by Yumi's fans. Twisting about, the monster turned around trying to attack Yumi, but suffered two blows from behind thanks to the return trajectory of the tessen.
The specter moved, groaning as it turned around…
To see Ulrich attacking with a flurry of slashes that finished the creature off.
"Just…one left." Yumi panted.
"You've got two minutes left, Ulrich! Eight throws per fan, Yumi!" Jeremie warned as the last specter detached from the tower.
The two virtual fighters looked at the last monster, which hovered above them menacingly. Now that they could take a closer look at it, Yumi could confirm that this monster was in fact, twice as large as the previous three specters they had fought…which wasn't exactly reassuring, considering her and Ulrich's exhaustion.
The monster slowly opened its mouth as it looked down at the two intruders. Then, it started roaring like an angry polar bear, and flew at Yumi, who, in a panic, threw her tessen fans at the creature. Its large size meant that it was not able to dodge the weapons as easily as its brethren…but it also meant that it could resist a blow from them much easier, and the monster wasted no time in diving at Yumi and managing to throw her a distance away.
"YUMI!" Ulrich cried out in horror as the girl was flung onto the ground, groaning in pain from the blow.
In a fit of rage, Ulrich dashed at the specter, and started hacking away at the monster, who started screaming as Ulrich tried to keep it in place, as Yumi's fans were still active and flying towards the monster. The specter roared again, but managed to move and bite down on Ulrich's sabre, doing so near the hilt area.
This had two results. One, the blade still injured the specter, so it wasn't able to bite down enough to tear off Ulrich's hands, but on the other hand, doing so near the hilt area frightened the boy enough that he dropped his sword, enabling the specter to grab the saber in its mouth, and throw away so that it could no longer do any harm to the monster.
"NO!" Ulrich cried out as the specter slammed into him, forcing him into the ground.
The specter then flew away as Yumi's fans flew towards it on their return trajectory, dodging the weapons as they slammed into the ground in front of the geisha.
"Oh, no! ULRICH! YUMI! GET OUT OF THERE NOW!" Jeremie called in a panic, preparing the return procedure.
"Ugh…" Ulrich groaned as he staggered to his feet, before seeing the monster rise up into the air, its wounds starting to heal, as it flew down and chased after him.
Ulrich screamed in panic, and ran as fast as his legs could carry him, trying to avoid the monster as Yumi got up as well, shakily picking up her fans and trying to catch up to them.
Ulrich looked behind him as the specter seemed to catch up, and then looked in front of him, seeing that he was nearing the Tower. The Tower he and Yumi were trying to purge free of these monstrosities…It wasn't long until Ulrich actually started to entertain the notion of retreating…he never liked running away from a fight, but beating up thugs was quite different from fighting virtual abominations.
Ulrich ran through a small set of trees, and saw that the specter was getting closer. Yumi, running behind, tried a desperate throwing of her tessen, using her telekinesis, whatever energy she could muster that remained, to guide them into the monster.
Ulrich was almost at the Tower, but realized that he was going too fast to turn around. Thinking quickly, Ulrich used his remaining stamina to plant his feet into the massive white wall and jumped from it. He wasn't able to score a landing though, and rolled into the grass, stopping a few meters away from the Tower.
But if Ulrich was unable to slow down, neither was the specter. It was then that the most miraculous thing occurred…
The specter slammed into the Tower, screaming as it did so, as if the tower was now deflecting it. In the real world, Jeremie fell onto the floor, feeling the ground shake beneath his feet as his chair rolled out away from him.
Back in the virtual world, the specter became unstable, about to scatter to pieces…and it was then that it flew right into Yumi's tessen fans, which destroyed the remaining mass that the specter needed to remain stable.
Letting out a final, pitiable whimper, the black monster faded away just as its brethren had.
The air was tense. Ulrich panted heavily, as did Yumi as her fans returned to her. In the real world, Jeremie remained quiet, his heart beating quickly as he got up, his arms and legs shaking as he nervously retrieved his chair and rolled back up to the computer screen. A window representing the status of the tower that had been infected had been brought up, which was how Jeremie could monitor the tower. Before, the three-dimensional model of the structure had a red tint to it, which according the guide, indicated the presence of specters.
Now, there were two things Jeremie could note. One, the model was now completely green, indicating that the tower was safe. Two, the window itself was starting to lag, until it automatically closed. Jeremie had a bad feeling about that last part, but at least knew that Ulrich and Yumi had done it. They had stopped the specters.
Shakily, he called out to the two.
"Are you guys okay?" he called out to them.
Still panting, Yumi looked around.
"There aren't any more of these things?" she asked.
"No! You guys did it!" Jeremie called out with glee.
Ulrich and Yumi breathed a sigh of relief. They had done it.
"I'll bring you guys in now." Jeremie transmitted, and two pillars of light consumed the virtual fighters, returning them home after their first, and on that note, successful, mission.
Sebastian closed his eyes, praying that he would die painlessly. He waited a few seconds, then a few more. He slowly opened his eyes, wondering why Teddy hadn't torn his throat out. He could hear Milly continuing to beg Teddy to spare him. At least he knew he was going to die with people mourning him. Seconds passed, seeming to stretch into minutes...but still the Street Kid remaining in the world of the living.
Sebastian looked up, and saw that Teddy had paused, his claws centimeters from the boy's neck.
Nervous sweat poured down Sebastian's forehead. Why hadn't Teddy killed him? Did Milly somehow get through to the monster out of the blue?
Just as Sebastian realized how low the chances of that was, Teddy staggered upright, acting as if he'd been shot.
"T-Teddy?" Milly asked, fearful tears in her eyes as the monster that had once been her stuffed animal stood deathly still.
The seconds ticked away, the forest silent except for the wind and the small chirping of birds.
Then, the screaming began.
"AGHHHAHHHAGGGH!" Teddy roared, as if he was pain.
Milly yelped, and jumped clear of Teddy as he first started to spasm, clutching his head with his claws in clear agony, screaming horrifically.
"AOLKJ;LEIHLASSGGHIIE!" he screamed incoherently, as a sort-of, glitching-out effect covered his body.
Static covered Teddy's body, his entire form consumed as he first turned monochrome, then color-negative, before turning back into his normal form…albeit with his features shuffled around, his mouth being where his eyes were, his feet replacing his ears, his eyes on the stubs where his arms used to be, as his ears were now where his mouth was, and his hands had swapped with his feet. Teddy's form continued to glitch out as his body parts continued to shuffle around his body until they returned to his normal form, aside from it being completely covered in black pixels until the covering shattered, with Teddy screaming louder than ever.
But just as his body seemed to return to normal, Teddy stopped screaming, creating a great silence once again.
Everyone stayed still, terrified by the scene unfolding in front of them. Then, Tamiya looked down, and saw that the wire threads restraining her were dissolving away like ash. Amare, Hugo, Charlie, and Sebastian looked at the wire threads holding them in place, and saw that their own binds were crumbling away.
"Wh-what's going on?" Amare choked out.
"My…Connection…" Teddy choked out, "Has been severed…"
"Severed?" Milly asked nervously, looking at Teddy, who collapsed onto the ground.
In response, Sebastian quickly crawled away in fear, not wanting to stay closer to Teddy than was safely recommended any longer.
"I…fail to recognize who did it…" Teddy mumbled. "My brethren, their voices have been silenced, cut off…our mission here has failed."
The teddy bear monster looked at his owner with what looked like regret in his eyes, their glow changing from a harsh red to a gentler green.
"It seems that I have failed you, Milly." He said with remorse.
"T-Teddy…" Milly gulped, swallowing nervously as she looked around at her companions, who were still huddling the ground in shock.
"I-It's not like you failed…" she ventured.
"HE TRIED TO KILL ME!" Sebastian yelled, gaining strength through a new wave of incredulous shock.
"N-not like that!" she replied hastily as Sebastian and Hugo shot her dirty looks.
Milly looked at Teddy, and then at Tamiya before facing her teddy bear once again.
"I'm…sorry that this happened Teddy." Milly apologized, pity evident in her voice. "I-I don't know much of what's happening right now…but…you didn't fail in trying to make me happy."
"You still wanted him to kill us?!" Hugo yelled in shock.
"NO!" Milly yelled, raising her voice. "I don't want anyone to die! Let alone get hurt!"
"Y-yeah…" Charlie stammered, trying to point this out to his brother, who clearly had a hard glare in his eyes.
"Everyone here said that I can't rely on a security blanket forever!" Milly said. "And they're right! I can't! A-at some point…I should learn to let go…And that's today. You didn't fail to make me happy Teddy…because…you helped me realize this…that I have to let go and stand on my own two feet."
Teddy looked at his owner as she straightened herself up, sharing a look towards him.
"I'll find happiness…thanks to my friends…and I'll succeed in whatever I plan on doing, regardless of what life has to throw at me!" Milly declared.
"…You know, if it weren't for the fact that this was being said to a robotic teddy bear demon, that would've been pretty profound." Amare commented.
Sebastian and Hugo glared at Amare, before returning their gaze to Milly and remembering all of the weird stuff that had begun the day. Both silently came to the same conclusion.
As for Teddy, the behemoth remained on his knees, at first silent as his body started to crumble and dissolve. Then, he let out a slow, amused chuckle.
"Well…ha, ha." He mumbled. "I suppose every child must grow up someday. It is a painful truth, yet one that has to happen nevertheless."
Milly watched as Teddy's body continued to break down, the creature collapsing onto the ground completely.
"If that is what you want Milly…then I will not stop you. Not that I need to anyways…" Teddy said quietly.
"Wait, what was that last part?" Tamiya asked.
But she did not receive a reply from Teddy, whose eyes stopped glowing as the creature became inactive for good, and where a horrific monster once stood, there was nothing whatsoever.
But as the children took in this fact, darkness overcame their eyes. Milly collapsed onto the ground, while everyone else lay down on their backs, letting exhaustion consume them.
Ulrich and Yumi collapsed onto their knees, gripping the sides of the scanners as they took in the fact that they had returned to their world…now safe from harm from the specters…for now at least.
"Are you two okay?" Jeremie asked.
Ulrich felt his body over. He was expecting broken ribs from the attack that the final monster had dealt to him…but nothing was broken. He looked at Yumi, and saw a similar expression on her face. Aside from exhaustion and the possibility of sore muscles, he and Yumi could in fact, be said to be okay.
"Yeah." Yumi replied, answering for the two of them. "I'm honestly surprised…I would've thought that we'd be more exhausted than this…or, you know…"
She and Ulrich staggered down the stairs in silence, eventually coming to Jeremie, who was continuing to review the data present on the computer screens.
Nodding his head in acknowledgement, Jeremie turned around, wiped his forehead of the sweat dripped down it, and took a deep breath in relief.
"Well…we survived that." He finally said.
"…I still can't believe this is real though." Yumi replied, feeling herself over. "I mean, we just fought against these, specters, and…well…" Her voice trailed off once again.
"Yeah…" Ulrich muttered quietly.
Jeremie turned around and looked back at the screens.
"I'm going to stay here for a little while longer. I want to make sure that we know as much information as possible about this virtual world...We just took a really huge risk, and I'd rather that if we have to come back here, we know what we're getting into." He said. "You guys…you'll probably want to head back and rest."
"Gotcha." Yumi said gratefully as she and Ulrich hightailed it out of the factory.
They were silent as they walked across the bridge and through the abandoned district, slowly making their way back to Kadic, thinking about the ramifications of what they had just done. It was a massive adrenaline rush, going to that virtual world. Both Ulrich and Yumi could still feel their hands and legs shaking, trying to get used to just…walking normally. Ulrich was tempted to try confirm if he really could dash along at high speeds in the real world and not just in the virtual one…but the need to rest after an excursion and fight like that nixed that idea.
As the two walked along the sidewalks, nearing Kadic, Yumi thought about calling Sebastian and talking to the others about what they had found. After all, it wasn't every day that you stumble upon some strange remnants of a secret project of some kind, and after her experience in Xanadu, she was now sure that those specters had something to do with the whole, 'Living Teddy Bear' phenomenon.
On the other hand, though, there was the risk of what would happen if a secret like this got out. Jeremie and Ulrich claimed that the police did not believe them, and Yumi herself hadn't believed them either until she saw the specter's actions for herself…telling the others that they'd found something like a haunted factory was just asking for trouble.
But she did say to Sebastian that they'd found something close to a lead, and so, she decided to call and say that it was nothing…
But she only got Sebastian's voice message instead.
"This is Sebastian, leave a message." The recording said.
Yumi tried again, but once again, received only a voice message.
"Something wrong?" Ulrich asked.
"Sebastian's not picking up." She said. "You don't think that…"
The instant that thought was planted in their heads, Yumi and Ulrich picked up the pace and quickly reached Kadic. Turning behind an entrance wall, sure that no one besides Yumi could see him, Ulrich tried to use his super-speed, and found, much to a brief relief, that it was still working in the real world. Ulrich slalomed through the trees, trying to see if he could find the others in the woods.
Ulrich briefly looked down, and balked at seeing a strange imprint on the ground…shaped almost like some kind of…bear claw.
"Oh no…" he groaned, dreading what he might have stumbled upon...and what he might find next.
Ulrich picked up the pace, until he reached a clearing…and spotted them. Amare, Charlie, Hugo, Milly, Sebastian, and Tamiya, lying down on the ground, which was covered in more of those same imprints. A closer inspection of them didn't reveal any injuries, but even so, Ulrich grabbed the unconscious Amare's shoulders and started shaking him vigorously.
"Amare, wake up!" Ulrich cried out.
"Ugh…" the dark-skinned boy groaned, pushing Ulrich away as he flopped onto the ground, clutching his head.
Startled by the noise, the remaining children slowly rose up as well, groaning.
"Are you guys alright?" Ulrich asked.
"Stern? What are you doing here?" a groggy Sebastian asked.
"I could say the same thing, what happened here?" Ulrich replied.
Sebastian looked around, and then he saw one of the imprints Teddy left behind on the ground. Soon, the memories came rushing back.
"…You wouldn't believe me if I said that Solovieff's teddy bear became some kind of killer cyborg and tried to kill us, right?" he asked.
…So the specters had turned Milly's teddy bear into a killer robot of some kind. But Ulrich decided to feign confusion instead.
"Um…I don't see any killer teddy bear cyborg." He said. "Also, that's stupid."
"He…he vanished!" Milly spoke up. "He screamed that his connection was severed…and then he dissolved into the air."
Well, that confirmed that he and Yumi had been successful at least. So if they destroyed all of the specters, then whatever monster they created would be destroyed along with them.
"Uh, huh…" Ulrich nodded in a manner to show that he didn't believe them.
Yumi at this point, managed to catch up to Ulrich, and saw the scene before her.
"What happened here?" she asked, concerned.
Milly and Tamiya then ran up to her, and immediately started explaining what had happened, though their respective narrations tripped over each other, forcing Yumi to calm the two down as they told her of the nightmare that they and their friends had just gone through and yet somehow miraculously survived.
"That…that's quite the story." Yumi said when they had finished, disturbed at the horrible monstrosity the specters had created from a simple teddy bear.
"So…did you two and Belpois find anything?" Sebastian grumbled, standing up and patting himself down, desperate to keep himself calm after such a traumatic experience.
"We didn't find anything whatsoever." Ulrich said flatly. "Jeremie got distracted by this new kind of computer and stuck around town trying to see if he could get it."
"I guess that was a fool's errand then." Sebastian grumbled.
"So…what do we do now?" Amare asked.
"We take this story to our graves, let us never speak of this again." Hugo said flatly, making sure Charlie was unhurt. "So this had better not be in the Kadic News."
"Yeah…I think we're going to put this behind us." Tamiya sighed. "This isn't the kind of story we're going to publish."
Hugo kept a small glare on Milly as he and his brother left the clearing. But before he did:
"You'd better not get any more demonic robot toys Milly." He growled threateningly.
"Y-Yes sir!" Milly gulped.
Hugo grunted while Charlie looked back at the scene. But before he and his brother could complete their exit, there was a sound of footsteps as Jean-Pierre Delmas and Michael Rouiler came into the scene.
"So you've finally found her." Michael Rouiler grumbled. "We've a lot to talk about young lady." He said, gesturing to Milly.
"Oh right…the…garden shed." Milly said nervously.
But in comparison to Teddy's insanity, simple administrative punishment was nothing.
"We'll discuss punishment in my office, come along now." Delmas said sternly. "There's nothing left to see here everyone, move along."
As everyone moved out of Delmas' sight, Milly timidly followed behind him and the gardener. If she had to deal with what life had to throw at her, dealing with detention or restricted access would probably be a good start. She and Tamiya shared one final look as she left the scene.
Hugo chuckled quietly to himself as he also left the clearing. "I guess this is a good way to start with payback..."
Ulrich and Yumi quietly slipped away as the others separated, deciding to return to Ulrich's little fighting area in the overpass. There, they sparred silently, ironing out the kinks they felt from their first battle in Xanadu. If they were going to be fighting on a daily basis, then they had to be sure that they could handle the arduous trials ahead. They practiced together until it was time for dinner. When the time had come, they came to the lunchroom without incident. Jeremie wasn't there, oddly enough, while the others were. They too were being quiet, not wanting anyone else to hear about their little, encounter. Everyone ate silently, and when dinner ended, Ulrich and Yumi were out the door before the others. Both were thinking about retrieving Jeremie from the factory, when they saw the bespectacled lad walking towards the dorms, his laptop in hand.
Ulrich and Yumi ran towards him.
"Where were you?" Yumi asked, "You've missed supper."
"Supper can wait." Jeremie replied urgently. "I've made some discoveries regarding Xanadu...Come to my room."
Ulrich and Yumi looked at each other, and followed Jeremie to his dorm room. When they got there, the boy set down his laptop on his desk and sighed as he sat down. Ulrich remained standing, while Yumi sat on Jeremie's bed.
"What did you find out?" Yumi asked.
"I've done further research on Xanadu's systems." Jeremie explained, "I'll admit…I'm going to be having to do a lot of reviewing on Quantum Physics if I want to fully understand the functions of the supercomputer."
"Supercomputer?" Ulrich asked in confusion.
"That's what the machine is. A supercomputer," Jeremie answered, "a high-performance machine many times faster than a normal computer. Anything less, and a virtual world like Xanadu wouldn't even exist."
"Okay, okay, we get that." Yumi sighed, "But did you find out anything more about this thing?"
She then went on to explain what had happened to the other kids during their discovery of Xanadu to Jeremie, who put his hand up to his chin in thought.
"Well…that actually does help concerning where we go from here."
"What do you mean?" Yumi asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Well…while I should be able to fully understand how the supercomputer itself works in about a week at most, it's…" Jeremie started.
"Just get to the point. What are we up against? How are we going to deal with all of this?" Ulrich grumbled, impatient.
"Alright, alright, sheesh." Jeremie huffed. "Basically, to start off with…I found out how long the supercomputer was active before we found it."
"How long?" Yumi asked.
"Well, when a computer isn't in use after a while, it shuts off the screen to converse power…I tried to check the activity of the specters in Xanadu…they were active non-stop for two weeks." Jeremie answered.
"Two weeks?!" Yumi asked in shock. The specters had been active that long? "How? Why?!"
"I learned from the files that the Professor had uploaded that the longer the specters continue to infect a tower, the stronger their attacks become." Jeremie confirmed.
"But WHY were they active?" Yumi gasped. "Who turned the supercomputer back on!?"
Jeremie rubbed his head sheepishly. "I...honestly don't know. My best guess is some random wannabe-adventurer came to the Factory before we did and activated some kind of protocol before...uh..."
"Don't...don't finish that, please..." Yumi groaned, cupping her face into her hands.
"What else is there?" Ulrich asked with growing dread.
"Well, you know how earlier, the last specter crashed into the Tower?" Jeremie asked in turn.
"Yeah…" Ulrich replied.
"That's not exactly something we want happening. It's just like the Professor said, the virtual world is connected to the real world, and the towers act as the link between the two." Jeremie explained. "It's how the Specters influence our world."
"So, if they fly around the tower, they can cause all of the weird stuff that's been happening around town…but if they crash they just cause earthquakes, that's what you're getting at?" Yumi asked.
"Yes." Jeremie confirmed, picking up one of the CD-ROMs and inserting it into his laptop. "I've spent most of the afternoon trying to see if there's a source within Xanadu for the specters, I was hoping that I could code a kind of anti-virus and get rid of them."
"Have you?" Ulrich asked.
"No." Jeremie muttered. "If there's a source for the Specters, either I can't access it, or I can't identify it in all of the virtual world's coding…and if I mess up and make a glitch, well…"
Ulrich and Yumi remained silent at the implications if something like that happened.
Jeremie ejected the CD-ROM from his laptop and inserting into his main computer.
"For now, all I've been able to do is use the programs in Xanadu to make a firewall for my computers, which should at least block them off from being used as a way for the specters to enter the real world." He explained.
Yumi opened her mouth to ask a question, but Jeremie answered it before she could even get a word in.
"And before you guys ask, no, I haven't figured out a way to distribute it all over the network. Yet." He said ruefully.
"So we're going to have to deal with this the hard way?" Ulrich asked.
Typing in the code for the firewall into his computer, Jeremie nodded grimly.
Silence filled the room once again. All three children had quite a lot on their minds. In the space of a day, they had uncovered a dark secret within their town, a strange mystery that came right out of, as Yumi had said, Science Fiction. It was a mystery that they would have to be careful in unraveling, one where, if they made the slightest error, would result in disaster striking down the entire world.
Ulrich and Yumi looked at each other, worry evident in their faces…but they steeled their resolve. If it was coming down on their shoulders to save the world…so be it. The two looked at Jeremie, who continued to focus on his computer.
"Alright." Yumi said. "Let's do this."
"There's no turning back." Jeremie warned.
"We knew what we were getting into." Ulrich replied. "We jumped in anyways."
Jeremie turned around to look at Ulrich and Yumi, eyes obscured by the light in his room and computer. "Okay then."
A pact was thus made that night…a pact that would start an adventure…a pact that swore an oath to protect the world.
A pact that would one day come with grave consequences…
And thus, a long File comes to an end! Next chapter, we return to the present-day as Odd digests all of this information!
Thoughts on the chapter? Let me know in a review!
-Epsilon Tarantula-
