She stared her nightmare right into his eyes.
"Hello, Cass," he said, his voice smooth as silk but just as dangerous as his Zweihänder's blade against her back. How on Lyoko had she ended up into this deadly embrace with the Dark William? He came just closer to her body and Cassandra knew she could not run away with the huge blade ready to slice her into oblivion if she tried anything. She had a weird feeling of being able to shoot something out of her hand, but she knew that she could not do what without getting killed in retaliation.
"What do you want?" she asked. The Dark William chuckled.
"You know what I want," he said quietly, lifting the girl's chin with his free hand. Cassandra did not dare to move even though she wanted to break free. Her heart beat fast, trying to break free of her earthly limits.
"Cassandra, wake up!" Jeremy's voice broke in.

Flash.

The orange of the Desert Sector was gone. There was only the blackness of the tower. No Dark William, just Cassandra lying on the floor.
"What?" the girl asked bluntly.
"X.A.N.A. attacks the Core of Lyoko," Jeremy told. "Meet the others in the Core Zone." The girl did not answer. She just got up and left to the tower even though she absolutely did not feel like fighting right after another nightmare. This particular one felt like it had dried out her strength; she was more tired than she had been when she had fallen asleep.

When she saw William cutting a Scyphozoa's tentacles with a shockwave, she could not believe the monster had appeared without her knowing it. She was relieved to see her friend faring well against that awful thing, so she just nodded her acceptance to the boy and turned to slice the Creeper which had dared to come close to her. This was not how she had wanted to let go of him on this matter but right now she could do nothing about William leaving her protection behind her back.
And in the end, it was just good and necessary that the boy fared. This proved that there could be times when she could not defend her loved friend from the Scyphozoa.
"Let's go," Ulrich said as he activated the key and ended the countdown. The group ran past the rest of the Creepers, destroying only the ones that were close enough to be destroyed. There was no time to be wasted on random monsters.
As soon as they reached the Celestial Dome, the vehicles were waiting for them. Vert, who acted as Cassandra's means of transport, was waiting for them there, too, allowing even Cassandra to leave for the Core of Lyoko instantly.
"The first shield layer just disappeared. You have four mantas waiting for you there and three more are coming for you now. Be prepared," Jeremy informed them.
"Vert, ready to shoot," Cassandra called out. She unsheathed her sword and made it large to act as a shield.
"Odd, Aelita, Yumi, are you ready to attack? They are coming to your view now!" Jeremy told.
"William, do you think you can throw a shockwave at them?" Yumi asked her fellow who rode the Overwing with her.
"Not with one hand without getting us all killed," William answered. He held onto Yumi's shoulder with one hand to keep his balance on the ride. "If you can get us close enough, I can slice a Manta, but I can't use shockwaves midair like this."
"You could try levitation. Then you'd have the space for swinging your huge sword," Ulrich noted.
"That's way too risky. We don't have time for getting someone materialized if something goes wrong," Jeremy said. "Cut the showing off and do the things the safer way."
"Jeremy is right," Cassandra noted. "Stop strutting your stuff and do the thing."

Odd destroyed one of the Mantas, while the two others faced their end via Yumi's fans. Ulrich and Cassandra rushed past the others as they fought to get to the Core chamber to meet the Mantas there. They had to be as quick as possible as the second shield layer got weaker and weaker.

The samurai sped away with Super Sprint, leaving the swordswoman behind to follow him. They both knew that the girl would reach the Mantas before the others anyway. Jeremy waited anxiously, forcing himself to watch the shield layer's durability go down point by point.
"Guys, you must hurry up. The Mantas have to be destroyed quickly or else Lyoko is doomed!" he said.
"We're on our way, Einstein," Odd said. "Banzaaaiiii!" The boy sped up from the entry point and up the stairs with his Overboard, Aelita shouting onboard. The pink-haired girl managed to catch a glimpse of Cassandra along the way, but as she had to concentrate on holding onto Odd to avoid falling, she could not look around very much.

As Cassandra reached the end of the stairs, Yumi and William had caught up with her. Ulrich had managed to destroy one of the four Mantas while two others shot at the Overboard, destroying it. Odd and Aelita fell. While Odd managed to catch the third remaining Manta with his claws, Aelita kept falling. That's gonna hurt, Cassandra mused as she ran to race to the top.
"Aelita!" Yumi shouted.
"Get going, you can't help her!" Jeremy shouted. "She'll return to the scanner, but if the Mantas destroy the last shield layer, it's game over for all of you!"

Yumi and William both did not hesitate to heed the order. They ran behind Cassandra, unable to watch as Aelita fell down and hit the ground below them, starting to be devirtualized then. Just a few seconds later she fell to the floor from the scanner; this devirtualization had been a hard one.

In the meantime, Ulrich was shot by the two Mantas Odd had not occupied himself with. The samurai started to disappear into pixels too, leaving Odd to struggle with controlling the Manta he had landed on. Cassandra deflected one of the lasers and managed to hit a Manta with it. Right after that William's shockwave took the life of the other Manta which had devirtualized Ulrich.
"Odd! Destroy your Manta, it's the only one remaining!" Yumi shouted. Odd did not respond with enough volume to be heard, but his Manta exploding was enough of an answer. Jeremy sighed in relief. The second shield layer could not have taken many shots anymore.
"Just in time. Good job, everyone," he said. "I'll materialize you now."
"Bye, Cass," William said. "See you later."
"See ya, Cassandra!" Odd called out from his distance as he disappeared.
"Bye," Cassandra replied quietly mostly to William. She sat down, putting her sword in front of her. She wanted to sleep but, knowing her nightmares to be lurking in her subconscious, she decided to just close her eyes and rest without sleep. She had to be ready for whatever would happen next.

The Lyoko Warriors left the factory soon to rush back to their lessons. Odd and the others and discussed about their mathematics test and how they had fared. Maths had never been Cassandra's strong point, earning her a B at the maximum in the tests. Her father had never liked that. "And remember, if I ever catch you whoring with boys, you're going to regret it for good, you worthless whore," her father had once threatened her when she had got a B from a test. She had been so upset and afraid of the threat becoming a reality she had skipped swordplay club for a couple of weeks, earning especially mister Bouchard's worry.

If someone had been more worried than him, it had most likely been William, who got his share of awful bits.

"How are you doing, Cassandra?" the boy had asked her the morning after that call which had upset Cassandra the most.
"Leave me alone," Cassandra had replied simply. She did not want to even see this boy, let alone his group of friends.
"What's wrong?" William asked.
"Just leave me alone!" Cassandra shouted. The boy jumped and left quickly, passersby laughing at him.

In the evening, William went to the swordplay club's next session but Cassandra did not.
"Perhaps she has her period now, so she's grumpier than usually and doesn't want to come," a boy named Samuel joked.
"Samuel, that kind of immature jokes are not okay," mister Bouchard said strictly, "and they certainly don't belong to swordplay, so think before you joke about others' personal things."
"Sorry," Samuel muttered.
"William, do you know where Cassandra is? You two seem to have gotten along better since you joined the club," mister Bouchard asked, turning to the newest member of the club.
"No, I don't. She sent me packing in the morning and hasn't talked to me ever since," William told. "Mathieu, do you have any idea what could have made her like that?"
"No," Mathieu answered. "I do know that she's had times like these when she has been nasty even here, but I dunno what could have or would have upset her to act like that. This is actually even worse than previously. And when it comes to your joke, Samuel," Mathieu took an annoyed look at the younger boy, "such happens so rarely it can't be periods that makes her like that, so shut it."
"Well, she'll probably come next time. Let's start," mister Bouchard said.

After a week, the situation had not changed; Cassandra seemed to shut herself to her room as soon as possible, skipping even some meals. Mister Bouchard decided to go talk with her. His knock on the girl's room's door was met with an annoyed "Go away."
"Cassandra, it's me, mister Bouchard. I want to talk with you," the teacher said. After a short pause, the door cracked open. The pale girl looked at him, asking, "What is it?"
"You've skipped the swordplay club's sessions for a week now. Is something wrong?"
"No, no," the girl's voice sounded hesitant. "I just haven't been feeling well, so I decided to skip. Have I missed something important?"
"No, but I was worried. You never skip the club sessions. Is there anything I could help you with?"
"Umm, no. I'll manage. Thanks for asking, though," Cassandra hesitated. "I'll have a test next week and I need to study, so I'll probably skip the club this week too. But I'll return next week, I promise."
"I see," mister Bouchard knew that Cassandra never put the club aside because of tests. "Are you sure everything's okay? You know, if anything's wrong, you can talk with me about it, and I'll help you in any way I can."
"No worries, mister Bouchard, everything's just as fine as they have been," Cassandra mustered a smile. "Nothing's changed. I just need to study more than usual."
"Very well, then. I'll see you on the lessons. Good luck with the test, Cassandra," mister Bouchard said, smiling. "I won't hold you any longer. I just wanted to make sure that you are ok."
"Of course," Cassandra said, grateful and understanding. "Thanks for caring. Few teachers do to that extent. See you." The girl closed the door, leaving the PE teacher alone to the corridor.

As he left, he had no idea that the girl to whom he was like a father figure was crying. He had no idea what happened to the girl at home and what her parents did to her. He thought the girl's sudden need to study so much to be suspicious, but as he did not think of domestic violence to be the cause – after all, surely Cassandra would have told him by now since she had started to trust him during the years of swordplay club that much – he had no idea why Cassandra would suddenly act like that.

He never found out, anyway.

No one ever did.

/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Cassandra Delorien, Riverain and the rest of its original characters (c) Me/