Yumi grabbed her fan from the air, turning to look at Aelita backing away from the Scyphozoa and William, with...
Jeremy?
"Aelita!" Yumi cried, jumping onto her Overwing. She turned to the Hornets, which were flying away in broken formation. She turned back and unfurled her fan, tossing it at William.
He dodged, coming back up with a sneer. He pointed his sword at Yumi. "At your command, X.A.N.A." He said.
He swung his sword, aiming a strike at Yumi's Overwing. Hitting the bottom of her vehicle at an angle, Yumi's Overwing flipped upside down, and she grabbed desperately at the handle before it disappeared from the devirtualization phase.
She hit the ground with a roll by Aelita's side, jumping into stance.
"Ready, Aelita?" Yumi asked, grabbing her stray fan from the air.
Aelita nodded, holding up her energy shield.
X.A.N.A laughed. "I'm sorry," he said, "but you must have forgotten something."
Yumi scowled. "Did we forget to kick your butt?" She retorted.
"Close, but no cigar, little one." X.A.N.A laughed again. "Devirtualization."
Yumi and Aelita's weapons melted into blue streams of data, leaving them defenseless. They turned to each other with a gasp.
"Jeremy, what do we do?" Yumi asked.
Jeremy held a hand up to his head, groaning. He barely looked at the Scyphozoa, turning to Aelita with pained eyes. "Run to the tower."
"What about William?" She asked.
"Jeremy isn't in good condition to answer that my dear." X.A.N.A replied. He clattered at the keyboard. "There, you should have some life points left, and I extracted the poison from you Aelita, but you better act quick." He said with a sardonic chuckle.
"Quick for wha-" Yumi began to ask. William charged and stabbed her, keeping his hand steady as he drained what was left of Yumi's life points. She looked at him, saddened by the lack of familiarity in his eyes. "William."
Aelita watched as the Yumi left a shell of herself around the sword, flinching as William broke his weapon away, dispersing the frame from view. He turned to Aelita, raising his sword at her level.
Suddenly, she felt a push from behind, turning to see the Scyphozoa's arms grab blankly at the space she was standing in. Jeremy glanced at her. "Run!"
Aelita charged towards the tower, stopping short when she saw William blocking her way. He smiled, and moved to the side, gesturing to the tower in a sarcastic manner.
Aelita felt her heart fill with dread, and she turned, watching helplessly as Jeremy was lifted in the Scyphozoa's arms, with barely any time to reigister a cry before it started downloading data from his body.
Jeremy felt numb, watching the Scyphozoa slowly take away what it wanted. His half lidded eyes could hardly focus on the symbol of Lyoko, his arms were pinned tightly to his body, and he could almost feel weightless, carried into the air without actually being held by the Scyphozoa.
He could vaguely see streams of data flowing through it's tentacles, and he wasn't really surprised to find that it was blue. All of a sudden he felt something being pulled from him. A sort of power, a resistance to X.A.N.A's control.
He felt weaker, slacken by the Scyphozoa's paralytic hold. He almost couldn't feel any pain from before, the burns, his ribs, he couldn't even feel his fingertips, and it felt nice.
It was calming to know that there was something to take his pain away, but he didn't want it to be the enemy. His friends. He needed them, he needed Aelita, and he could almost hear her crying his name, begging him to resist.
But he couldn't. It wouldn't let him. The edges of his vision were becoming dark, and he could hear Aelita less and less.
And just somewhere over the atmosphere, he could hear an echo of laughter, and crying.
Yumi slammed her fist on the scanner, getting up and walking to the ladders by the room, crawling up the rusty metal bars with seething anger. She threw open the latch, and X.A.N.A barely spared her a second glance.
"Ah, how nice of you to join us." He said.
Yumi scowled. "Why don't you come over here and see how nice I can be?" She said, while bending into a fighting stance.
A crazed beeping came from the supercomputer, and X.A.N.A laughed. "I'll have to take up your offer later, warrior Ishiyama. But for now, I really want you to enjoy this little twist I made up."
He bowed to her, and with a loud, barking laugh, X.A.N.A left Delmas' body, letting the unconscious principal crash to the floor.
Yumi ran to the computer, and gasped when she saw the data on the screen.
Ulrich stirred from the ground alongside Odd, but Yumi's eyes stayed glued to the screen, denying the numbers that were depleting in front of her.
Ulrich groaned from behind the chair. "Yumi, what's going on?" He asked.
Odd followed with a disdainful chuckle. "Don't mind me. Just a little crispy."
"Worry about that later!" Yelled Yumi. "Get to the scanners, Jeremy's in trouble!"
"You mean, Einstein's in Lyoko?" Odd asked.
"Yes, and the Scyphozoa's attacking him, now go!"
Odd and Ulrich gasped, running to the ladder and sliding down quickly. They ran towards their respective scanners, jumping in as they opened.
"You better hurry before Jeremy..." Yumi trailed.
"Before Jeremy what, Yumi?" Ulrich asked. He jumped back out the scanner, ready to climb up he ladder and take care of any threat above the scanners.
Yumi stuttered in the mic. "It, it's too late." She said softly. "X.A.N.A'S gotten what he wanted."
Odd started. "That's impossible. Jeremy always has something up his sleeve."
"Everything's gone downhill." Ulrich said.
Aelita did everything she could to keep Jeremy's attention, begging him to resist the Scyphozoa's power, to keep his eyes open, but nothing worked.
His already half closed eyes slowly shut, and his blue aura continued to flow through the Scyphozoa's tentacles at a steady pace.
William stood by, watching Aelita suffer with no way to help Jeremy without her Energy field. He blocked the way to the tower every time she made a run for it, and laughed when she turned to face Jeremy with fear.
Finally, the Scyphozoa dropped Jeremy, floating away with his data. Aelita ran to Jeremy's side, shaking him.
Jeremy, Jeremy if you don't wake up, I'll," She paused, "I'll start dating Odd."
Jeremy remained unconscious, moving only to the pull of Aelita's arms.
William laughed, descending on Jeremy and Aelita while drawing his sword.
Aelita covered Jeremy's body with her own, holding him close.
The scanners whirred to life, buzzing just as Yumi cried, "Aelita, no!" through the headset.
The scanner at the center opened up, and Aelita fell out. She crawled forward, picking herself up and running to the ladders by the scanner room. She crawled up the shaft, jumping over Delmas' unconscious body, and standing over Yumi. She took over the controls, typing furiously into the keyboard.
"I'm setting back what X.A.N.A deactivated." She said. She continued typing until William's view of Lyoko popped up screen.
"What's he doing?" Said Yumi.
Aelita typed faster, bringing another screen onto view. Jeremy's stats poured into view, and she started a scan to find the missing pieces. Aelita noticed that X.A.N.A had hacked into Jeremy's Lyoko form, preventing him from fighting back.
"Aelita..." Yumi said worryingly.
Aelita looked back at the screen, watching as William positioned his sword over Jeremy's chest, waiting to make sure that the girl's got an eyeful before impaling Jeremy with the sword.
Aelita screamed, watching helplessly as his life points drained before her. The virtual card's color dulled in the screen, and Jeremy began to deconstruct into small blue digits when the card became completely inactive.
William removed his sword from the empty space in front of him, placing the heavy weighted blade on his shoulder, and disappearing into black smoke, cutting off the live feed.
Aelita stared at the screen, watching Jeremy's inactive card, praying for it to come alive.
Instead, she heard the scanner room buzz with life, and she ran to the ladder, deciding that the elevator would take too long.
Odd and Ulrich stood in front of the active scanner, waiting cautiously for what was waiting on the other side of it. It slowly opened, a heavy set of steam rising from the pipes under the scanner's metal plating.
Jeremy stood in the center of the scanner, staring at the group with dead eyes. He breathed as if he had run a mile from Jim's PE class.
Odd blinked nervously. "Uh, Einstein? Say something?"
Jeremy smiled painfully. "Keep doing that Odd, I swear."
"Swear what, Jeremy?" Odd asked.
Jeremy almost answered. But before he could, he collapsed out of the scanner, landing in Odd and Ulrich's arms. They laid him gently on the floor, turning to the girls.
"Does the elevator still work?" Ulrich asked.
Aelita nodded slowly, kneeling to Jeremy's side. "I just fixed it." She said. She examined the extensive burns on Jeremy's arms and neck, putting a hand to her mouth when she saw how deep they were. "We need to get Jeremy some medical help."
"Right." Ulrich said. "Odd, help me pick up Jeremy."
Odd lifted up Jeremy by his left, and Ulrich, on his right. Together they supported Jeremy up, carrying him over to the elevator.
Aelita fiddled with her hands as Yumi pressed the button, and as they back to the computer room, stopping for Mr. Delmas.
After dragging his unconscious body to the elevator, they started again, rising back up to the abandoned factory.
Yolanda was accompanied back to her infirmary by Jim, after principal Delmas had the entire school evacuated to another safer complex. The head nurse had informed his secretary for most of the students much needed medical supplies, but was surprised to know that he was nowhere to be found.
Jim offered to protect her in case of any more cave-ins from the school building, reminiscing about his days as a military excavator.
When she prompted him about his military career, he had replied that he'd rather not talk about it.
When she reached her infirmary, she began unloading her student's medications, smiling softly at the small amount of help she could be to her school.
There was a slam outside her door, and Jim jumped into a sophisticated stance, ready to (as she saw it) actively fight as a Praying Mantis.
Ulrich burst through the door, with Jeremy at his shoulder, Odd and the others closely behind them.
She hurried the medication over to her desk, instructing Jim to take Jeremy and set him on the bed. She took his wrist for a pulse, using the stethoscope to monitor his breathing.
She reached for a phone and dialed for an ambulance, regarding the faces of the poor boy's anxious friends.
Aelita stared at Jeremy strapped to the gurney with a oxygen mask, shaking every once in a while when the ambulance jarred in the street. Yumi held her hand softly, sharing a glance with Ulrich every second or so, and Odd sat silent, staring at his hands while twitching his foot.
The EMT's worked quickly and quietly, asking minor questions, and crouching around the small area for better seating area while keeping Jeremy in place, while the driver's companion in the passenger seat spoke into the car radio.
They arrived shortly to the hospital, and Jeremy was quickly rushed off into the ER.
A doctor was asking the others questions as Aelita entered the waiting room. He wrote something on his clipboard and walked away, hardly giving Aelita a glance as he walked away.
"So, what's the story?" She asked them.
Ulrich bent over to look at her. "Everything stands with the whole school deal. But when Jeremy made his way across the campus, a stray wire hit him."
"Did he believe you?" Yumi asked.
"That's what it looked like." Odd said
"What about his burns?" Aelita asked.
Ulrich sighed, lacing his fingers together. "The doctor said that most of his superficial burns are under his skin, and the other are going to take some time to heal."
"No surgery? With burns like that, it would take a skin graft to heal." Yumi said.
"How long would something like that take?" Odd asked.
"About five to ten days, depending on the patient." Aelita answered.
The group sat in silence, taking turns to ask about Jeremy, and buy snacks whenever one of them got hungry. After an hour, Aelita went up to the receptionist's desk, barely opening her mouth before a woman burst in through the ER's waiting room doors.
Her long blonde hair bounced with each quick step she took, and her greayish blue eyes were shadowed with fear. She gently placed her hands on the surface of the desk, her glasses sliding as she peered at the woman at the desk.
"My son, is he here?"
The receptionist barely blinked an eye as she hovered a hand over her keyboard. "What's his name madame?"
"Jeremy Belpois."
Aelita gasped, though she could've already guessed that the woman standing in front of her was Jeremy's mom. The resemblance was uncanny, in a matter of speaking.
The receptionist nodded after hitting a few keys. "Your husband, has he been informed?"
"Yes." Jeremy's mother replied, breathlessly.
"Alright. A doctor will call you shortly. You can sit." The receptionist glanced at Aelita after Jeremy's mom left to sit. "Is there something I can help you with, dear?"
Aelita ran after the mom. "No, I'm good." She hurriedly told the woman before catching up to Jeremy's mother.
Susanne Belpois felt her heart drop when she got the call. Only a few hours after checking up on him, he had ended up in the the hospital. She had dropped everthing, calling her husband and giving him the same news as she nearly blew her lungs out whistling for a taxi.
Her husband Michel had taken the car, driving late to his office before she could even kiss him good-bye.
They had agreed to meet at the hospital, hoping to speak to the people who brought him in.
Susanne had gotten there first, rushing out of the cab before the driver could give her any change.
A girl with the brightest pink hair was standing by the desk, stepping away for her when she made her way to the desk.
She could've sworn the girl gasped, when she said her son's name, and before she could even sit down, the little girl had grabbed her hand.
"Yes?" She had asked her.
The girl's face went soft, and she stared Susanne as if she had known her for a long time.
"My name's Aelita." She said. "I'm a friend of Jeremy's."
Susanne glanced at her with shock. "Are you one of the kids who brought him in?"
The girl nodded. "We're all here." She said. "I'll introduce you."
"Please." Susanne said, following the pink haired girl to her friends.
So my whole school was evacuated, apparently there was a bomb threat. I doubt there's anything wrong because the last time this happened, there was just a box up cupcakes sitting outside the school's front doors.
In other news, i'm thinking about making aCode Lyoko page on insta with my second account goddamnitwilliam, and if you wanna check it out, great!
Catch you on he flipside!