Chapter 15:

Ulrich led the charge as they rushed into town looking for their missing comrade, however, no matter where they looked, they kept coming up empty handed.

"Where could he be?" Aelita stated worriedly, through her hard breathing.

"He couldn't have gotten that far," Yumi put in truthfully as they stopped in their tracks to take a breather, allowing her to look back the way they had come, "Maybe we passed him." She suggested, which seemed plausible, so they quickly started running in the opposite direction, this time paying more attention to the dark allies and businesses in the area.

"Good grief, this is like trying to find a hay in a needle stake," Odd proclaimed some ten minutes later of still nothing.

"Well, then enlighten us, where would you go?" Ulrich countered sternly, causing his friend to wince as he thought that over.

"I don't know," He admitted unhelpfully, before suddenly stopping in his tracks as they passed the entrance to the park where the Hermitage resided.

"What?" Ulrich asked exhaustedly as the rest of them stopped to look back at him.

"If I had just spent 20 years in a virtual world – I'd want to see trees," Odd answered honestly, which caused them to look toward the woods.

"You're sure," Yumi asked and he nodded confidently. "Alright, let's go," She commanded and they quickly rushed into the forest.

…

"What about the Hermitage? Would you go there?" Yumi demanded breathlessly, when they were still coming up with nothing to account for all their running.

"Are you kidding?" Odd proclaimed through his deep breathing exercises, "That house has already tried to kill me three times."

"Okay what about –" She was about to suggest before Aelita interrupted.

"Look!" She commanded, pointing to something in the trees and they all looked around just in time to spot a shadow running through the forest ahead of them. "That's one of those ninjas," She announced, leaving her friends to nod in agreement, before moving to follow the creature.

…

Thankfully, in the end, the thing did lead them to their friend, but, unfortunately, it also led them to a dozen more just like it; and on top of that Jonas, who was clearly unable to use his superior strength to drive them away this time, had already been cornered and driven to his knees as two of them held his arms behind his back to insure he didn't move.

The four of them smartly decided to hide in the trees until they had a plan to free him, but, as they watched the interaction, they realized they may not have the time.

"Looking for something?" Jonas asked one in particular as it raised its hand to produce a green light from its palm, which was obviously used to scan the human.

However, the ninja didn't answer him, instead, just focused on its mission as the light zeroed in on something in Jonas's body and glowed red for a moment, clearly indicating that it had located what it was searching for.

"Virus found, not distinctive of host," The ninja announced in an automatic voice as it lowered its hand again which allowed its swords to reappear in its hands. "Destruction protocol," It added, before crossing the blade in front of its body in preparation, "Destroy host."

"No!" Aelita screamed as she raced from her cover, with her friends' right behind her, managing to take the group of specters completely by surprise in the process, which, thankfully, stopped their leader from killing their friend for the time being, but it wasn't enough to convince the others to release him.

Now that they knew the creatures could actually be destroyed, and that there were no humans inside that could be hurt in the process; unlike Xana's specters, the Lyoko Warriors were a lot more willing to use whatever force necessary to beat the crap out of them.

Though the ninjas were still rather skilled – in a mechanic kind of way, it was no different than fighting monsters on Lyoko, and with the use of sticks and rocks from the forest; they were able to take out several of them in only a few minutes.

However, with the main one busy and the group of flunkies that were clearly only guards, the two that had been holding Jonas, took the distraction as a chance to drag him away from the scene.

"Hey!" Ulrich called after them as he kicked one of the lower goons out of his way and rushed to intercept, only for the leader to appear in his way and nearly take his head off with one of its swords.

"Oh, how nice of you," He joked as he came up and expertly used his fighting skills to grab the ninja's arm and twist it enough for it to drop its other sword into his hand and he promptly used it to drive the specter back again.

They continued to dance around each other for several minutes, with Ulrich landing multiple strikes, considering the creature was almost laughable predictable. Until, finally, he saw an opening and plunged his stolen weapon directly through its heart, unfortunately causing the sword to disappear with it as it was absorbed into oblivion, but he didn't give it much thought as he looked around to see how his friends were doing.

Discovered that they'd managed to take out all but one, which Odd currently in the process of tearing apart with a sharp stick, he didn't see any reason to remain where he wasn't needed, and bolted after Jonas again.

However, before he'd managed to locate them again, his phone rang, causing him to growl at it as he continued to run.

"Jeremy, I'm a little busy right now," He complained into the device, "We found Jonas, but he was –"

"Stay away from him, Ulrich!" Jeremy suddenly ordered, causing the kid to skid to a stop in his tracks.

"What – why?"

"He's not who we think he is," The genius announced in a panic. "I found the program he's carrying. It's not just a virus, Ulrich," He proclaimed sternly, clearly out of his mind with worry.

"What are you talking about? What is it then?" Ulrich demanded, only to drop his phone in shock as his friend answered.

"It's XANA."

O.O