When William's next teaching session on Lyoko came, Jeremy was prepared to ask for a chance to figure out William's Lyoko powers. He was surprised when the girl replied, "I was wondering if you'd ever ask. Sure, go ahead. Just don't take too much time away."
Jeremy directed them to the tower so that he could scan William's Lyoko form and find out better what it held. Meanwhile Cassandra kept doing maneuvers with her sword, as if fighting against a foe William could not see. It was odd to look at it, the girl fighting fiercely, if not desperately, against something that only she saw.
"Cass?" William called her. The girl jumped and turned to look at him, surprised. "You sure were focused on that exercise thing."
The girl looked away from him. There were things she did not want to ever tell him, and the being of nightmares was one of them. She feared it, she wanted to fight it, but how do you fight something that's only in your head or in the changing future one could never predict?
And that nightmare was them both.
"What's haunting you, Cass?" William asked more quietly, having moved closer to the girl. He faced the girl's blue eyes full of hidden fear they could not hide from him. But even with his hand on the girl's shoulder encouragingly, the girl just said, "It's not your problem." What William did not hear was the girl's silent continuation in her own mind. Yet.
"Can't I help you?" For a moment Cassandra was quiet, then she figured out a way to respond to him, "Just train and become a powerful Lyoko Warrior so that X.A.N.A. won't ever get you and I won't have to worry about you too."
William was going to take his hand away from her shoulder and back away, disappointed, but as Cassandra's own hand stopped his hand from leaving, he decided to ask, "Are you sure you don't want to share it with me? I mean, I could help you." One had to tread carefully when trying to preach further any decision of Cassandra's.
"No, you can't," Cassandra turned to look at him again. "It's my issue, and there's nothing you can do about it... for now, at least." A small pause in talking as the two Lyoko Warriors looked at each other, measuring the mental distance between each other. "Your wellbeing, no matter what X.A.N.A. is planning for you, is more important than what I fear of."
The memory of Scyphozoa creeped in William's mind. He had not faced that creature in combat since his first time on Lyoko, but Cassandra's almost absurd fear of them had made him anxious about them. Despite all he had heard about the dreaded monster, it did not seem that dangerous to him.
Of course, he was just an amateur who knew nothing of what had come to pass on Lyoko, as Cassandra had put it the first and last time he had made the mistake of saying it aloud in her company. He tried to avoid giving the girl any reasons to say nasty things, but given the oddly shifting balance of hostility, anger, pure frustration, fear that nagged her deep inside and love, it was very difficult to predict what would make the girl send the blades made of words at him. Even more difficult was to trigger the rarely-seen side of the spectrum of feelings of the girl. All the negative had buried the positive, and it was very difficult to dig up the latter. But William had seen from the girl's behavior that part of the positive side was able to surface from time to time on him.
Maybe everything was not lost after all.
"William, I've now figured out your powers," Jeremy informed.
"Cool! What do I have?" William asked, suddenly excited.
"You can launch shockwaves from your sword and you seem to have some sort of a levitation skill," Jeremy told.
"Wow! So much power!" William exclaimed.
"Brute strength, huh?" Cassandra was more skeptical. "Well, then you need to hone skill and strategy since you have the strength. Those you'll need more."
"Sure," William said. "Do you know any strategies you could share with me?"
"If they fit you, then yes," Cassandra said. "But I doubt that."
"Why?" William asked.
"My strategies rely on swift movements. I developed them for nimble and light swords, not heavy ones that are more difficult to control," Cassandra crossed her arms. "Just why the heck did you get such a difficult sword?"
"Maybe to balance out his strength so that it would not be too overkill," Jeremy said.
"Maybe," Cassandra said. "But it still is difficult to deal with."
"I guess I just need to practice a lot so that the weight won't hinder me, right?" William said cheerfully.
"Sure. So let's get back to your practicing, shall we?" Cassandra said.
"Of course," William said. He did not know if anyone could help him with his Lyoko powers, but at least he could learn to handle his primary weapon.
Some hours later Cassandra decided they had practiced enough for the day. Jeremy materialized William and allowed the two to go on their own ways, the other one on Earth and the other one on the virtual world.
He still did not know why Cassandra wanted to stay on Lyoko and be sour about not being able to continue studying. William had failed to elaborate the possible reasons with the information he felt comfortable to tell them without Cassandra's consent. Apparently it involved something complicated, and none of the Lyoko Warriors had decided to try to find out exactly what.
It was way too difficult to figure out what was going on Cassandra's head for those who did not know her well, and as even William had difficulties with her, they had come to the conclusion that unless the girl herself told them, they would not know.
/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Cassandra Delorien, Riverain and the rest of its original characters (c) Me/