A/N: All rights reserved to the respectful owners of Code Lyoko [and all its variations] and Iron Man Armored Adventures. This fanfic is cross-posted on Wattpad under the same title but different author: Echo_Nitemare ~ she is my co-author so go vote, comment, and like her stories if that is something you do.

Unfair Circumstances

Chapter 6: Dancing with the Devil

~Aelita and William~

Aelita dodged another sword blast from William. He had called on some mantas a few minutes ago to surround her and narrow the range she had to get away. He was trapping her between him and the edge of the sector.

William's cruel smirk only enhanced his words and sent a chill down her spine, "Not another step Aelita. One false move and the rock holding your friends above the digital sea will disappear and they will fall in - virtualized forever. And we wouldn't want that would we?"

Freezing her movements at his comment, she gulped and stopped moving away from him, allowing William to walk straight up to her. With less than 5 steps between them, he held his sword at her throat. "Xana will be pleased to have your company for good." From above them, Yumi and Odd yelled out to her, "Aelita! Don't worry about us. Defend yourself!"

With hands down by her sides, she took a steady breath, closed her eyes, and opened her mouth. A beautiful melody emitted, and made the land under William's feet vanish, causing him to lose his footing, barely grabbing onto the side of the edge before falling completely. Aelita quickly hopped over him and fired an energy field at the mantas - destroying one, as her initial target dodged. Running towards the other edge of the sector, she kept singing, creating a bridge to get away from the 'death trap'.

Watching as his prey got away, William growled, pulling himself completely up. Vaporizing into smoke he followed after her, ordering the remaining manta to guard his other prey. After all, he couldn't risk the others finding a way to get free before XANA had Aelita in his grasp. He would not be happy at that one bit.

The smoke acted as a fly on the wall. Flying around behind Aelita, and ducking behind a volcano any time she were to turn around and make sure she wasn't being followed. It was as close as he could get to her without being spotted too soon. Yes, he needed to corral her back to the cage her friends were being held in, but there needed to be a plan first. So it was better to follow her closely behind and make sure she didn't get too far away while he thought it out.

"C'mon Aelita. You can't run forever," The smoke called to her. Casting William's voice out, making it untraceable. You could hear the smirk on his face in the way he spoke. It meant he was close. Closer than what was comfortable. She couldn't just stop running. He was so close that he could catch her, but even being virtualized, she was starting to get winded. It wasn't long before the smoke form of William, intertwined between her rushing feet. Causing her to trip head over feet, and slide on her side till she came to an achy stop. Groaning as she picked her head up, she watched as William rematerialized and stalked toward her. Throwing out a glob of wispy black smoke at her form, it wasn't long before unconsciousness claimed Aelita.

~Ulrich and Jer~

Jeremy began mumbling, "No, No, No, this is bad - STARK you need to hurry! Aelita is in some real trouble here!" Ulrich felt helpless as he watched over Jer's shoulder as William's Icon walked Aelita's icon back towards their trap. Finalizing a line of code, Jeremy whooped in joy as the window peeped green, "Yes! I was able to fix your character card, Ulrich! I can now materialize you onto Lyoko, the only problem is that I can't instantaneously virtualize you in the Lava sector. It has to be either one of the original four or sector 5." Ulrich announced running towards the ladder to the scanner room, "Who cares where I land, just direct me to them so I can offer assistance!" Sliding down the ladder he landed in the room with the scanners. Rushing towards the only available one, he hesitated only a second, as Jeremy added on to his previous statement, "Also, I will lose communication with you when you get to the Lava sector so be warned - if you lose a sword, I wouldn't know." Nodding his head, even though Jeremy couldn't check the cameras right now, he stepped into the scanner and awaited what would become the longest fight on Lyoko to date.

~Yumi and Odd~

Things had gotten boring real quick up in the cage. Aelita had ran away a while ago with William following behind her, leaving Yumi and Odd no source of entertainment. Sure some mantas were hovering around them, but it wasn't like either party could get at and attack each other. The shields around them would pop up whenever anything tried to cross it. Be it some sort of 'blaster' fire or a limb.

So at this point, Odd and Yumi had to get a little creative. The two of them each held one of Yumi's twin fans, the blade spread out as though it was a handful of cards. "Any imaginary Threes?" Yumi asked. She felt like she was going crazy, asking about numbers that didn't even exist on her fans. "I thought we were playing ISpy?" Odd cheekily asked, already trying to cheat their imaginary game. As crazy as the situation was, the two of them had started to take their 'game' seriously.

With a huff, Yumi responded, "Fine! I spy someone who's hiding a three in their paws!" Odd let out an annoyed whine. Handing Yumi her fan back as the 'threes' were the last pair either of them needed to make. "Take it." He remarked.

Their tech-wiz buddy announced out almost in desperation, "Ulrich is on his way - so just hold out a little longer you guys! Also, the transfer student is almost to your location - almost being a relative term mind you." Odd yipped in joy at the announcement, before noticing that their guards - I mean friends the mantas, were facing towards the ground again. Curious as to what they were observing, Odd crawled as close as he could to the cage edge, noticing black on-pink on the ground below. Growling out, Odd yelled, "Hey ugly! Why don't you pick on someone else! Let me out of this cage and I'll keep you entertained as I kick your butt!" William barely paid him a passing smirk as he kept an unconscious Aelita floating above the volcano hole - waiting for the last members of the warriors to show up.

~Stark~

"I really hate this place," Stark remarked as he hopped onto yet another moving platform. The exploding bugs were firmly behind him, but that didn't stop him from having to constantly jump around a sector he had previously thought would be more put together. After all, every few seconds, the platform he was on would stop moving, and slowly start disappearing as it hovered over a volcano. Half the time he had to jump through an explosion of lava, leaving him to wonder just how many more hits he could realistically take. On a hunch he activated his headpiece again, having closed it as the exploding bugs popping up made it go haywire. It started beeping and locking onto an object about 600 feet in front of him. Huffing, he began to head in that direction, keeping his ears open for any more annoying bugs. Seeing a single platform at the end of the island, he sent a wish to Rhodey that he'd actually survive this whole ordeal long enough to make it back home. Taking a step on, he traveled with the platform, passing almost a hundred - no thousands - of towers. As his platform began to descend down, he noticed two people stuck between two platforms hovering about 300 feet in the air and a Pink haired girl out cold hovering over the opening in the middle. An uneasy feeling settled into his gut.

He could just about track the movement of the platform and how close it was to the rock circle where he assumed Einstein's friends were being held hostage and decided to jump off early. It wasn't an easy drop to take, as he was easily 500 feet in the air at least, but he tucked and rolled as best as possible upon landing. It was dizzying to stand, but he pushed himself up anyways. His ears picking up on the voices coming from what now appeared to be some weird cage.

Odd noticed him first, yelling out, "Get to Aelita! She's in danger! Make sure she doesn't fall into the sea below or we will lose her forever!" Yumi chimed in from beside him, "Watch out for William, he won't hesitate to devirtualize you!"

Stark turned towards the teen wearing all black - weird fashion statement, but oh well. Aiming a blast with his palm, he stated, "Back away from Aelita creep, or this is going to get ugly." William's sneer turned almost vicious as his eyes shined with glee. Making sure enough smoke surrounded Aelita, keeping her out, he walked towards this new avatar, confidence willing his every step. Materializing his sword, he saw the metaphorical sweat-droop appear on Stark's face.

"Hey, Smart-Alick! I did not sign up to be skewered by a butcher knife the size of a skateboard!" Dodging William's swing, he saw the destruction the teen did to the ground. Gulping in slight terror, he thanked whatever technology god on this world that bodily reactions such as peeing his pants were not possible. As that is what would have happened to him just now. Releasing his charged attack at William, Stark dodged and weaved energy blade attacks, trying to maintain a close enough distance to aim, while at the same time not decapitated, or vivisected.

~Ulrich on Lyoko~

"Okay Jeremy. I touched down in the Desert Sector. Where do I need to go?" Ulrich asked as he stood up on the rocky sand. The desert held an eerie calm to it as XANA was focusing most of his energy on the lava sector. Even the veins full of code that coursed in and out of the ground lacked the pulsing energy that it normally held. It put Ulrich on edge as he walked further into the sector, both swords unsheathed and ready to launch an attack.

"Hey, Einstein! Am I finding a waytower or not?" Ulrich called out after receiving no answer to his previous question. He was growing even more worried now. Slightly panicking at the thought of Jeremy now being alone in the middle of a high-profile XANA attack. "Sorry, Ulrich. I'm still trying to fix the communications with the others on the Volcano sector," Jeremy apologized. It was true. He was typing nearly 5 lines of code a second. A difficult thing for even him to do, distractions or not. "Uh, there should be a tower up ahead on top of that spiral. You might have to activate a few buttons though. I can't access any of the desert code - minus the towers - while trying to fix communications," Jeremy added.

Ulrich nodded his head, ignoring the fact that Jeremy couldn't see him, and made a B-line for the spiral rock near the edge of the sector. A stray kankerlot or two filled his pathway, but with a quick super-sprint, while dragging his sword through the ground, he made quick work of the bugs. Hitting the buttons was annoying - having never experienced buttons other than in sector 5 with a countdown attached - he wearily worked his way through the sector waiting for the metaphorical shoe to drop.

Seeing the waytower growing closer, he put one final burst of speed, slicing through a crab leg that tried to materialize, and tried to slow his gait as he entered the tower. Bending over to catch his breath inside the tower, he could feel energy returning to him - never realizing how running in a constant super-sprint actually drained him. With a final gulp of digital air, and refusing to look down below him, he did a leap of faith - or trust fall off the edge. Either way, he was glad no one was able to see his look of terror as he fell down to the next sector.