Chapter 4

Some Introductions, Finally!

A/N: Tada, a new chapter. I'm glad that I'm getting some attention, but I think I might need to reword the summary. I just have this feeling that it's not conducive to getting readers. But the first chapter's pretty good, so maybe I need more fights like that.

In that case, here's Odd, getting the snot beaten out of him (not really).

Odd Della Robbia wasn't a complicated person. In fact, he was pretty sure that he was the least complicated person on team Lyoko. He never needed much of a plan, always was ready to charge in and get the job done, and was usually able to come up with some way to do something that no one had thought of.

Thus, when faced with three supposedly unarmed people, one of which had his friend slung over his shoulder, walking out of the factory, Odd fed this through his processor and got this as a reply: Hostile people, remove. And with that, Odd doubled forward, screamed like a banshee, and charged.

"!"

The three exiting the factory exchanged looks. Finally, one slipped his hand onto his pocket, drew some sort of stick, and with a rather impetuous flick of the wrist, made things way more complicated.

"!"

Odd dangled from midair, suddenly hoisted by his ankles into the sky. That, to put it mildly, was a surprise. Never, not once, had any of Xana's (deliberate) attacks rendered him incapacitated in such a humorous way. Sure, he'd been turned into a statue once, been fused with Kiwi by accident, and had even swapped bodies with Yumi when he was being dematerialized, but never hung upside down.

Fortunately, as his current position had left facing away from the three probably Xana-fied teens, when Yumi and Ulrich charged past, Ulrich unintentionally brushed past him and turned him around. The three people quickly sprang into motion; the far left one that had slung Jeremy over his shoulder dropped him, lifted the stick and started shouting. A laser burst shot out of his hand, missing Ulrich by inches and nearing getting Odd. Ulrich retaliated with a sharp series of blows to black-hairs abdomen, driving the wind from him.

Yumi, meanwhile, was circling the other two, a tall blond boy at least sixteen and a slightly smaller red head with green eyes that almost – no, wait - perfectly matched Ulrich's particular shade of green. They had also taken out sticks (short staves, wands?) and were holding them threatening at her. "We don't want to hurt you, and we personally think that Severus deserves to be beaten within an inch of his life, but this isn't the time for that."

"You call that not wanting to hurt us?" Yumi gestured at Jeremy, while Blondie amended Green-eyes statement to 'you want him beaten within an inch of his life'. "We now that you don't have any compunctions with hurting people Xana." Yumi then took three rapid steps forward and socked Green-eyes in the jaw.

"Lily!" both Blondie and Black-hair shouted as Green-eyes went down. Black-hair then turned his stick-stave-wand thing at Yumi, only for Ulrich to go for the cheap shot and knock him out cold too. Faced with two highly teenagers trained in pencak silat, the premier fighting style of Japanese, he should never have stood a chance. Instead, he threw a handful of fire at his feet, using the sudden appearance of fire to grab Green-eyes and vanish with a crack. Odd hardly had time to wonder how many tricks these guys had up their sleeves before Ulrich pointed behind him and shouted, "Get them!" A moment later, he and Yumi raced back across the bridge, and Odd was left with two unconscious teenagers.

Yumi ran as flat footed, but her thoughts ran faster. The pair that had escaped them, the blond and Lily, had left the unconscious kid with the hook nose behind. This wasn't normal behavior for those under Xana's thrall. Usually they acted and reacted as a pack, moving in tandem and leaving little opening for her and the Lyoko warriors to fight. But Xana had been shut down for about six months, so he might have been just a little out of it. Maybe.

As for everything that they were doing, Yumi could pretty much explain all of it from past experience. The light show was clearly lasers, probably caused by the sticks they had being a sort of laser gun. The fire was certainly gasoline, though that seemed a little too convenient. Teleportation was also a factor, but it only looked like the thralls were capable of short distance teleportation. One thing stood out though; When the blond spoke, he hadn't sounded like he was being controlled. He sounded normal.

Regardless, Yumi was catching fast on the tall blond. He had stopped to try and pull something out of his pocket. Yumi closed the final ten feet in a flash and lunged, tackling the fleeing boy, knocking a transparent blanket out of his hands. Yumi looped her arms over his neck and her leg across his, locking any movement. Ulrich caught up, stooped to grab the stick-laser-gun and direct it at the immobilized blond. "Now then, let's see if we can't find some rope."

The blond continued to struggle, but Yumi wouldn't be moved. Ulrich crouched down and said, "Like it or not Xana, you'll not going any yet. We will…" Ulrich trailed off, then grabbed the boy by the cheeks. "Let him go Yumi, and look at his eyes."

Yumi complied, untangling herself from the blond and turning him to face her, curious. The eye of Xana, a circle with a single dot in inside it and four outcrops, one on top and three equal distant from each other on the bottom. But when the blond looked up at her, all that was in his eyes was a trace of fear that was overruled by determination. Yumi groaned in annoyance. They weren't being controlled by Xana, which meant that they had just attacked three innocent-

Wait a minute! What were all those lights?

The blond, perhaps hoping that he could get away while the pair seemed lost in thought, was promptly forced back onto the ground by Yumi's boot. "Talk, and maybe you can leave."

The blond seemed put out, but started to speak anyway. "My name is Remus John Lupin. I've no idea wants going on, or where I am. Can we just leave, please. I want to…" the blond, Remus, trailed off for some reason unknown to Yumi. Yumi just sighed, bent over, and pulled him to his feet. "Okay, maybe we can let you go, but only after you explain what those flashy lights were."

Remus stiffened. "I could show you right now if you want." Yumi felt something poke her stomach, followed by Remus yelling in her face. "Stupefy." Red light erupted in the small gap between the pair and Yumi staggered back. She had felt like she'd been kicked in the gut. So she retaliated in kind, swinging her leg into Remus's head. Remus met the ground with a thud.

"So it looks like we'll have to do this the old fashioned way." Ulrich grabbed Remus and pitched him onto his shoulders, as Yumi did the same with Lily. "How's you're good cop persona? Still need work?"

"Nope, I'm just out of practice. How's your bad cop?"

"Better hurry up, otherwise I'll be inclined to practice some kick boxing on your arm." Ulrich looked like he only just held back a smirk at Yumi's raised eyebrows. "Well, what can I say, I'm out of practice too."

Yumi adjust the unconscious girl on her shoulders and started towards the factory, Ulrich trailing behind. The walk back would have only taken about five minutes, seeing as they had managed to catch Remus and Lily after only two minutes of chasing. Before they knew it, the familiar bridge had come back into view, complete with iron trusses and unconscious people.

"About time you got here." Odd glared from the upside-down position he was in, trying look threatening. The appearance was undermined by the fact Odd was as red as an apple. "Don't you care about the raging headache I'm going to have for the next few hours?"

"Frankly Odd, no. But thanks for keeping an eye on the prisoners for us." Ulrich slapped Odd on the back, and then tried to figure out how to get his friend and roommate back on the ground. After about thirty seconds of heavy thought, Ulrich just shrugged his shoulders and went over to revive Jeremy.

"Bwuh happened." Jeremy came to in the expected way, fairly disoriented and with a massive headache. "And why is Odd upside down? And floating?"

"Well, we have no idea and were hoping you could figure that out for us," Yumi said. "So hop to it Einstein." She and Ulrich looped their hands under Jeremy's arms and brought him back to his feet. The little genius walked over, stared at the floating Odd for thirty seconds, then turned and said, "Well, I got nothing."

"Hey, if no one is going to ask the guy that's suspended in midair if he knows, how to get down, I could just ask myself." Odd pointed at the still unconscious hook nosed kid. "That stick thing did it. He pointed it at me and flicked it up. Try that."

Ulrich scrounged out the stick that the hook nosed boy had held (Yumi really wanted to know his name) and pointed it at Odd and give it a flick. A second later, Odd hit the ground with a coconut like thud. Yumi could practically see him mentally pleading 'not the hair, not the hair.' to no avail, falling unceremoniously on his back and, consequently, on his hair. "Well, I hope you happy now. You just had to go and ruin my hair." Odd sat back up, the reddened face already fading. "Well, looks like we've got a tower to deactivate." Odd smiled at his (rather poor) wit, but Jeremy frowned.

"You mean that these guys are being controlled by Xana?" Jeremy shared a confused look with Odd, but Yumi jumped in. "No, they didn't have the eye of Xana. In fact, the only odd thing was that they had you unconscious, and those lights."

"There weren't any tower active on Lyoko, so they might have been acting of their own volition." Jeremy scratched at his chin, oblivious to Odd's shock. Yumi grabbed Remus's unconscious form, and made to move him into the factory.

Things were going to get interesting.

"Name?"

"Whaaah's going on?"

"Name please."

"Ere, Severus Snape."

Yumi threw a confused look at Jeremy, but he shrugged and just wrote it down. The two of them were sitting outside the room that the interrogation was taking place in, with Odd and Ulrich trying to figure out what the three arrivals were doing here.

"Where do you live?"

"…Cokeworth, England."

"Really?"

"Yes, really," Severus spat out. Yumi was getting the impression that he was going to be worse than his two companions. Lily had either been completely silent or insulted all of them rather creatively. Remus on the other hand had been moderately cooperative, up until Ulrich had asked him if he had come with anyone other than Lily and Severus. At that point Remus had completely locked up and was incapable of answering any other questions. Both currently were sitting down opposite to Yumi and Jeremy, Remus still frozen, Lily trying to coax her friend out of the stupor.

"What year is it?"

"Well, the stupid muggle can't tell time, who knew?"

Lily glared at the door, making Yumi flinch. Seriously, it was on thing to have attacked innocent people, but to have something like this was just mind-blowing.

"Please answer the question."

"1975. What year do you think it is?"

"2006, but that's beside the point. Do you or do you not believe in magic?"

"…"

"Please answer the question."

"No, I don't."

"Really, because your friends seemed rather adamant that it existed."

"My friends are bloody crazy. Where am I?" Straining noise could be heard from inside the room, a mark of Severus's attempt at escaping. Yumi glanced at Lily and Remus again. The confusing thing was that when they had woken up, both had been convinced that they were in the United Kingdoms, that they were magicians, and that they were still speaking English, even though Yumi had insisted furiously that they were speaking French. Whatever was going on had affected their minds.

"Where do you think you are?"

"What do you care? Let me go!"

"No."

"…"

Crack!

Yumi jumped to her feet as Severus appeared out of thin air. He reacted by Cracking out of existence and appearing next to Remus and Lily, quickly looping his arm under Remus's. The boy just sagged, nearly dragging Severus with him. Ulrich and Odd burst out of the room, fists raised and ready to fight. Lily beat to the punch though.

Slap!

Severus staggered, the weight of Remus causing him to over balance and land on his tail. "What the bloody-." Severus was caught off guard by Lily's wand now on his throat. "Severus, shut. Up. And listen."

And Lily sat back down.

Severus stared at Lily, trying to wrap his head around what she had just said. Jeremy and Yumi shared a glance, but decided that it was time to share the findings. But certain things can always change. And right now, it was time for a change. So rather conveniently, Yumi's cell rang. And things were already starting to happen.

A/N: Well, this was a hard chapter to write. I mean it, really. This was hard for me. Two thousand words! I mean, I used to be able to bang out nearly five thousand in two days, but hardly half that in nine. I must be slipping.

I'm sorry if this is coming out late for you. I'm just having some writers block. So to compensate, I'll toss a nice spoiler for a later chapter in. Here you go!

Remus snapped his cell phone shut and started out of the building. He was still safe for now, with the full moon nearly a week away. Jeremy had said that he should be able to finish the dimensional jump program any day now, and then reconfigure the retrieval programs to pull Sirius and James out of Xana's clutches. He shouldn't need to reveal anything to Lily and Jeremy or his friends if it all went to plan. But so engrossed by his hopes and fears that Remus was, he never saw the thick black mist ooze out of the electrical socket behind him.

Remus registered the attack only as a headache, before it suddenly became something far worse. The pain and agony of limb growth was unmistakable and Remus's last conscious thought was a silent plead to learn that he was dreaming. But he was having a waking nightmare instead.

The transformation complete, Xana's newest monster rose to its paws, black eyes taking in the world around it. The Werewolf threw its head back, and howled for blood.

See you next week! ;-)