"Uh, Jeremie...are you sure this'll work?" Odd stepped tentatively into the scanner, all his friends' eyes on him. That uneasy feeling he had felt before crept back again, acting up like a spider-sense, or at the very least a premonition. He was beginning to think that his sweaty palms were more that a teenaged side-effect.
"No probs," the wiz adjusted his glasses and made a feeble attempt at cracking his knuckles, back in the control room. "Like I said, it's just going to improve your physical abilities. You'll be more agile, strong, fast, more...cat-like. No side effects. Guaranteed."
"Or your money back," Yumi quipped along.
"You sound like a bad commercial," Ulrich snorted, having the same idea. "Next you're going to tell us the meat in the cafeteria is real."
Odd chuckled, suppressing the incoming nervous vibes.
"Very funny," Jeremie's voice buzzed through the speaker in the scanner room. Faintly heard were the keyboard taps that followed, and a final nerve-racking question. "Ready?"
"Eh, yeah, sure," Odd replied.
"It'll be fine," Aelita assured him with one of her sugar-coated optimistic looks. "We've thought of everything."
With one last true-to-his-nature smirk, he mumbled a responce as the scanner door shut firmly. "So reassuring."
There was silence. He could have sworn he heard the hum of the gang's chatter outside but the super-sound structure of the scanner let little through in the way of noise.
Odd sighed, hoping he wasn't about to regret this in a few minutes when it was over. We've thought of everything. What was it Jeremie had said about the marabounta when he had launched it? Something similar, he recalled. That was before it started attacking Aelita and made itself public enemy number 1. How about the time he decided to upgrade the William clone by adding some diluted XANA codes? Or before that when he tried the materialization-straight-to-sector 5 program? Version 1.0 got Ulrich into disembodied ghost mode didn't it?
Suddenly the twirling breeze began to float up through the scanner as always — it was starting. Odd closed his eyes, ready to just get it over with (and hope for minimal damage later).
Instead of continuing with the transfer, scanner and virtualization ritual, Odd was instead kept in the scanner, multiple new programs running madly all around him.
"Is that supposed to be happening?" Yumi wasn't the first to notice wisps of steam seeping out through the scanner's cracks, and a little siren started to go off that didn't sound in the least positive.
"Jeremie?" Aelita called up to the computer room, knowing that that was not supposed to be happening.
From inside the scanner, Odd could sense it too. The air quickly became very dense, and he could barely breath as the heat rose too, seeming to mimic a sauna's intensity.
"Turn it off! Something's wrong!" Aelita yelled.
"I-I can't! It won't stop! Everything's all buggy!" Jeremie panicked at the computer.
"He's going to suffocate, we have to do something!" Yumi exclaimed.
Ulrich jumped at the scanner, immediately trying to pry open the doors with his hands. Yumi and Aelita soon latched on, pulling with all their strength. Even on the outside of the scanner they could hear Odd had begun to bang on it, he too was trying to get out.
The factory's siren echoed as they managed to part the doors slightly, steam pouring into the room. Upstairs Jeremie frantically tried code after code to stop what had turned into a horror show.
Despite their best efforts, Yumi, Ulrich and Aelita couldn't open the scanner any further, hearing the knocks grow quieter and weaker, until they stopped all together.
"Odd!" Ulrich cried, choking on the steam still seeping out.
"Come on, come on," Jeremie typed and typed over and over.
As his finger hit the enter key ending a certain code, the scanner flew open, sending the pullers stumbling backwards and Odd's lifeless body falling limply to the ground.
Gathering their balance in an instant they surrounded Odd, who was unconscious, calling his name again and again.
Within a few moments he let out a groan, specked with coughs, and sat up slowly and gingerly.
"Odd! Say something!"
"Are you alright?"
He nodded his head slightly. "Fine." But he didn't say 'fine'. What came out of his mouth sounded more like the mew of a cat...Minor malfunction. The program gave him a jolt, he was probably just temporarily out of sorts. That was all.
"Just barely ok and already making jokes," Ulrich shook his head at his ever-humorous friend.
"You gave us a real scare," Yumi said.
Meanwhile Aelita was having different thoughts, "I guess the program still has a few kinks."
"A few?" Odd replied, but again, instead of words he emitted a disbelieving meow.
"Ok you can give it a rest Odd, it was funny the first time," Ulrich told him.
Odd formed words of protest that he would have loved to voice but instead he spoke a series of meows again.
"Seriously, it's getting old," Yumi concurred.
He wore a look of distress, pointing to his throat in a desperate attempt to help them understand.
"Wait," Aelita slowly started to see it, although still largely confused like Yumi and Ulrich. "Can you, not say anything else?"
Odd shook his head frantically.
Just then the elevator opened and a strongly concerned Jeremie rushed out towards them. "Is he ok?"
Odd let out a pitiful meow to Jeremie's confusion.
It seemed to finally dawn on Ulrich though. "Holy. Flipping. Kankrelats."
Cat-like. Yup, nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.
A/N:
*Ulrich's last line is a running joke between my super Lyoko-fied friend and I, so...yeah.
*Also, the title is an obvious reference, which those of you who are marvel-univerce inclined would notice.
For a while I figured I'd make this into an actual fic but since I wrote it I haven't really developed the idea at all, so I figured I'd post it. Reviews are appreciated!