Time for episode 7, Image Problem. I always thought it was a strange episode, but not nessicarily bad.
I also must apologize for my crummy writing in Cruel Dilemma. It's sometimes hard to create dialouge that can have an affect on what the main 5 say. And also for the OOCness of XANA... I admittedly didn't have that scene entirely written out, so I may revise it later.
Chapter 10: Image Problem
It had been a relatively easy trip to Lyoko. Yumi, Aelita, and myself were running to the tower in the Ice Sector. We had run into little dificulty, which made Yumi and me suspicious of foul play.
"30 degrees north!" Jeremy's voice rang out above us. Aelita looked at Yumi and me for only a second before focussing on the path in front of her once more. "You should be able to see it by now."
"Hey, I'm not that blind!" I shouted at him. After all, he was more near sided than me.
"Yeah, it sticks out like a sore thumb." Yumi agreed. The three of us slowly walked forward, nervous about every step. "Nothing's happening."
"Yeah... It's awfully calm." I agreed.
"Well, be careful." Jeremy warned.
"Go and do your stuff, Aelita." I said, jerking my head in the direction of the tower. She walked inside of it, leaving Yumi and me alone. I was leaning against one of the rocks. We heard a strange noise, making us both tense up. I looked left and right, but found nothing out of the ordinary.
I then suddenly found myself back in the scanner room. I had been devirtulaized by something, but Yumi hadn't. I pulled myself up off the floor as another scanner opened, revealing a passed out Yumi. I ran over to her and began shaking her shoulder.
"Yumi? Are you ok!? Yumi!" The elevator door opened, revealing Jeremy to be inside. He walked over to me with a worried look.
"Yumi?" He asked.
"I don't know what's wrong with her!" I admitted. "She was fine on Lyoko, then we some how got devirtualized." Jeremy said nothing as he pulled his cell phone out.
"Ulrich? You know how the girls went to Lyoko?" He paused, most likely listening to Ulrich's response. "Something went wrong I guess."
Infirmary
Ulrich and Odd carried Yumi's limp body onto one of the beds. They gently set her down as the nurse looked over her.
"Well, what happened to her?" The nurse asked. Jeremy shot me a nervous glance, as we had failed to create an excuse beforehand.
"Um, she started feeling sick during recess." I quickly lied.
"It's cause she's been studying real hard. Our teachers give us way to much homework." Odd added.
"I would second that notion, but it's not nearly as much as back home." I thought. My mind raced back to one of the first days of 8th grade, in which our science teacher gave us 11 worksheets front and back and expected them to be completed by the next day.
"Alright, I'll take care of her." The nurse assured us. "Now back to class, all of you." None of us moved. "You heard what I said, now go on! Go!" She pointed at the door, which we all reluctantly walked out of. I pointed my head towards the ground as we walked over to the cafeteria's entrance to sit down. I felt kind of bad about what had happened, seeing as I was on Lyoko as well.
"Are you sure she wasn't devirtualized by a laser?" Ulrich asked. "Maybe there was a Megatank hiding somewhere."
"If there was, then it only devirtualized me then left." I said.
"There were no monsters. I would've seen it on the screen if there had been." Jeremy explained. I nervously tugged on my sleeve.
"Well, then how was I devirtualized?" I asked.
"I... Don't have definitive answer for that. Sorry." Jeremy looked back at Ulrich. "Besides, she still had all of her Life Points, while Emily's ran out."
"Well, in any case, something abnormal happened." Ulrich said, to which we all nodded at.
"That's the understatement of the year." I sarcastically said.
"The proof is that she passed out in the scanner. Normally the return trips are pretty easy." Odd and I sent the brainiac a look of complete disbelief.
"You wanna run that by me again, Einstein?" I said, annoyed beyond belief about what he said.
"What? Did I say something wrong?"
"You think the return trips are easy?" I asked.
"You oughta try it one of these days, you'll love it." Odd said, also unamused. Jeremy rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly under our gazes. Ulrich turned around to see Yumi behind us.
"Oh, Yumi!" He exclaimed. She turned around with a look of shock. We walked up to her.
"Guess you're feeling better, huh?" Odd asked.
"You has us scared." Ulrich admitted.
"Tell us what happened." Jeremy said.
"Yeah, how did we get devirtualized?" I asked. Granted, I knew what was really going on, but the last thing I needed was suspicions to be raised... Not to mention I actually was pretty curious of how XANA devirtualized me without use of a monster. Yumi was about to walk off, Ulrich stopped her by putting a hand on her shoulder.
"You sure you're ok?"
"Yeah."
"Really?"
"I'm just tired."
"Yumi, tell us what happened on Lyoko." Jeremy said, crossing his arms as he spoke. Yumi looked back at him with an annoyed look.
"Nothing, you hear? C'mon, let's go over to the factory now." She said.
"Um, why? There's no activated tower." I said. "The tower Aelita entered was a false alarm." I pointed out.
"Notable point, not to mention how crazy of an idea that is considering your condition." Ulrich agreed.
"Hey, we've got more important things to do." Odd said, catching our attention. "Like eating, for example." He said with a grin. Jeremy, Ulrich, and I all rolled our eyes.
"Odd, I've said it already, but I swear you're a walking stomach." I reiterated. He chuckled, but stopped when Yumi walked by him with an unamused look. Odd followed after her, shrugging at us.
"What about Aelita? Is she safe?" Ulrich asked.
"Yeah, she should be. I told her to stay in the tower." We followed Odd and Yumi into the cafeteria. After grabbing our trays we joined them at our usual table.
"Yumi, what happened? How did you and Emily get devirtualized?"
"I don't know." Yumi replied, though something seemed off about it. It seemed forced and automatic. "I don't remember."
"You don't remember what happened?" Jeremy questioned.
"No, nothing." My god, I so badly wanted to call her out on her lying, but I held my tongue.
"Do you think it could've been something with the scanners? A bug or something like that?" Ulrich asked.
"I'm kind of doubting that. After all, I came out fine." I pointed out.
"Unless maybe it's XANA trying out a new tactic." Yumi tensed up for a minute at Odd's words, but quickly relaxed.
"I honestly have no idea." Jeremy admitted. "I'm beginning to wonder if all these transfers are becoming a health problem." My eyes suddenly began to water as Sissi walked by.
"Hey, is that dead fish I smell, or just cheap perfume?" Odd jokingly asked.
"Oh god, that's bad!" I said, coughing after my sentence. I covered up my nose and mouth with my hood. "That's crappy perfume alright."
"You two are such a riot." Sissi said, annoyed.
"No, that crap is legitimately making my allergies crazy." I said, though she didn't listen.
"Oh, Ulrich! What do you say we get together after school?" She asked. Ulrich looked over at me, then put a hand to his chin.
"Get together with you? Very tempting, but um, not!" All of us minus Yumi and Sissi began to laugh. "I'll be too busy treating the lung damage you're giving Emily." He jokingly explained.
"You're just showing off because Yumi's here!" Sissi shouted. "She likes to keep the competition as far away as she can."
"That's not true." Yumi said. "Why don't you go out with her? She's really pretty." We all stared at Yumi in confusion, Odd even dropping his fork. Even Sissi was shocked.
"Hey, you wouldn't be trying to make fun of me, would you?" The only response she received was a strange look from Yumi. "No? Great! Thanks a lot Yumi." Sissi looked longingly at Ulrich. "Ulrich, I'll be waiting for you in the parking lot after school. Chao." The wicked witch of Kadic walked off.
"Hey, what are you trying to pull anyway, huh!?" Ulrich asked with a glare.
"Nothing. Go on, go out with her. She's been waiting for this for ages, go on!" Mr Delmas approached Yumi from behind.
"Ms. Ishiyama, come to my office right now!" He said sternly, and forcefully led her out of the lunch room. Ulrich folded his arms with an annoyed look.
After lunch we walked out of the cafeteria.
"What's going on with Yumi? Is she mad at me or what?" Ulrich asked us. "I've never seen her like that."
"She must've had a really serious shock." Jeremy deduced.
"Ulrich!" We turned around to see Nicholas and Herb approaching us from behind. "What's the big idea of having a date with Sissi, huh!?" Herb angrily exclaimed.
"This isn't the time for that, you hear Herb? If you want an explanation, go and ask Sissi." Herb glared at us, but still left after hearing what Jeremy had to say. "I'll leave you to your love stories. I've got a super psychopathic computer to feed."
"Ok, see you later." I said as he walked off. I looked over at Ulrich, who still had an annoyed look on his face. "C'mon, I know what will take your mind off of what happened."
"Oh? And what would that be?" I pulled out my 3DS.
"How about a round of Mario Party?"
Later
"No way!" Odd cried. "No way you can tap a button that fast!" We were playing a minigame that involved tapping the A button quickly, and I beat the boys by a long shot. I grinned as I flexed my right thumb.
"Practice makes perfect, Della Robbia." I simply said. Ulrich looked over at his alarm clock.
"Well, I think we're gonna have to cut this board short. We have 10 minutes till class starts." He announced. Odd begrudgingly turned off his DS, muttering something about me cheating.
"Let's go and get Jeremy." I said. "He's probably more focused on Aelita than the time." We walked over to his dorm and turned the handle.
"Jeremy, hurry up, it's almost time for-" Ulrich, Odd and I gasped at what we saw: Yumi inches away from Jeremy's face, holding his glasses, and Jeremy blushing madly. Ulrich sent a glare at both of the and stormed off.
"Ulrich! It's not what it looks like! Wait!"
"Bravo." Odd said sarcastically, then walked off, pulling me along with him. Though, I swore I saw a smile on Yumi's face.
Science Building
None of us really paid attention in science, as we were all too focused on what had happened before class. When the bell rang, Jeremy grabbed Ulrich's arm.
"Ulrich, you have to listen!" Ulrich sent a look of disdain at Jeremy and pulled his arm away from his grasp.
"I don't wanna listen to you." He snapped. Jeremy looked down at the floor.
"There's something not right with Yumi. She's not in her normal state." Jeremy explained. "I don't know what she's been through, but she's traumatized!" Ulrich looked back a Jeremy reluctantly.
"Ok... Let's go." We made out way back to Jeremy's dorm room as quickly as we could. "What do you think this phenomenon is" Ulrich then asked.
"I wish I could tell you, but I have no idea. Aelita's checking it out. It could be XANA's doing." Jeremy answered. He pulled out his key and put it in the lock. "Great, I forgot to lock the door." When he opened the door, we were shocked to say the least. Jeremy's computer stuff was broken beyond repair, and strewn all across his desk. "All my equipment..."
"Do you think Sissi's behind all of this?" Ulrich asked.
"Why would Sissi do it? If anything she's mad at Odd and I for her perfume." I said. "It'd make more sense if it were Herb, but even then he was more mad at you than Jeremy."
"Wait," Jeremy said. "who was the last person to leave this room?"
"I dunno." Ulrich said, but then thought about it and gasped. "No, that's impossible! Not Yumi!"
"You've gotta admit, she's been acting weird lately." Odd said, stringing the pieces together. Ulrich looked down at the broken monitors in disbelief.
"Ok, Yumi hasn't been herself lately, that's true... But still! The enemy is XANA! Jeremy's right: XANA's launched an attack! And I'm sure all this other stuff is to distract us while he's quietly getting rid of Aelita!"
"Aelita!" Jeremy exclaimed. "She's all alone on Lyoko and we can't get to her!"
"Well? Are we going to the scanner room?" Yumi asked, having shown up in the doorway while our backs were turned. Her eyes darted between all of our glares.
"...Yeah, let's go."
Factory
We made it to the factory easily, but there was high tension in the air around us. Even Ulrich realized that Yumi shouldn't be trusted at that point. She once again looked at all of our glares. When the elevator opened, Ulrich and Odd walked to a scanner.
"Ok, do your stuff Jeremy." Ulrich said.
"Transfer, Ulrich, transfer, Odd. Scanner, Ulrich, scanner Odd. VIRTUALIZATION." After that, it was our turn. "Transfer, Yumi, transfer, Emily. Scanner, Yumi, scanner, Emily. VIRTUALIZATION!"
I found myself in the Ice Sector once again, but without Yumi. Ulrich looked around with a worried glance.
"Where's Yumi?" He asked.
"What!? You mean she's not with you?"
"No, she wasn't transferred." Ulrich replied. We then heard a scuttling noise and the sound of lasers being fired. Aelita was running away from some Roachsters as fast as her legs would allow. She jumped over a rock right as one caught up with her. It fired, but Ulrich was quick on his feet and deflected it with his saber.
"Laser Arrow!" Odd raised his arm and fired at the reaming Roachster, killing it.
"Hurry! We've got to go and free Yumi!" Aelita exclaimed. Out eyebrows all shit up in surprise.
"Yumi?! Yumi's not-"
"The real Yumi. Aelita clarified. Ulrich wasn't buying it, however, and shot her a suspicious look. "The one who's here on Lyoko. The other one was created by XANA!" She quickly explained, pointing at a big, orange bubble. "Jeremy, whatever you do, don't go near Yumi! Do you hear me Jeremy? Jeremy!?" We heard no response, making us all nervous.
"We'd better pick up the pace!" I urged. "The faster we resolve this the better." They all nodded and ran forward along with me. We stopped when we neared the tower and bubble. XANA still had some Roachsters guarding it.
"Odd, fire an arrow on my signal, ok?" Ulrich explained, to which Odd nodded at.
"Gotcha, chief."
"Now!" Odd fired and arrow, gaining the monsters attention. It fired multiple laser, which we all managed to dodge somehow. Ulrich ran up the path while Odd and I distracted it with our fancy footwork. When a laser was finally fired in his direction, he deflected it onto one of the walls, which in turn destroyed our pest. We all approached the bubble, looking at Yumi's unconscious figure inside of it.
"It's a Guardian. A sort of digital jail, adapted to the body imprisoned in it." Aelita explained. I put my hand on it, which turned out to be a terrible idea, as it burned my hand. I quickly pulled my hand away, shaking in some sort of hope to relieve myself of the pain. Ulrich raised his katana and struck it. All that did was almost cause his saber to get stuck.
"I can't destroy it with my weapon." Ulrich said, sending a pleading look towards Aelita.
"I can create a clone- a false image of Yumi." The pink clad elf suggested. "We can try and convince the Guardian it's mistaken."
"Ok, lets go." Ulrich agreed. Aelita nodded at him, then fell to her knees and began to sing. A holographic version of Yumi appeared next to the Guardian. The Guardians form began to shift around, as if it were trying to grab the hologram, until it eventually exploded. And unconscious Yumi fell out, which Ulrich immediately kneeled down next to.
"What...? What happened?" She asked, slightly disoriented. Odd flipped up to where we were standing.
"Sorry, no time to explain. We've got to deactivate the tower." He apologized as Aelita stood up.
"Jeremy's not responding; I don't understand. I get the feeling something's wrong."
"He's all alone with the other one." Ulrich pointed out.
"If she manages to destroy the scanners, it's game over." I realized. Yumi sent us all a confused look.
"Other? Other what? Who wants to destroy the scanners?" She questioned.
"Well..." I began, nervously rubbing the back of my neck. "To be blunt..."
"The other, you." Odd finished, rather dramatically might I add. Yumi's eyes widened in surprise. Ulrich helped her up, but she had a rather worried expression.
"What if something's happened to Jeremy, and what if we don't deactivate the tower in time?" She asked.
"We will Yumi, that I can promise you."
"Even so, this is serious. One of us needs to go back to reality, and right away too. There isn't much time."
"Right, I'll go. Emily, fire a spell at me." Ulrich requested.
"No," Yumi said. "it's better if I go. I don't know how many Life Points I have left, and if it's only 5 or 10, I'm not much use you. Not to mention I have to deal with something that I can settle. It's between me and myself." I moved my staff to Yumi instead of Ulrich.
"They say you are your own worse enemy. Good luck, Yumi. Magic Blast!" I fired the energy that had been building up at Yumi, instantly devirtualizing her. I looked over at the boys and Aelita. "We'd better hurry, but we have to be careful. Devirtualization could be fatal for all of us now." They all nodded. Odd looked down at the activated tower from a rock above it. He watched two Roachster scuttle around the base.
"Uh oh, we've got company." He warned us. Aelita looked up from the two monsters below just in time to see another approaching us.
"Odd, watch out! On your right!" He looked over and jumped as it charged it's laser. It fired and hit him in his abdomen. Ulrich rushed over to defend Odd from another blast.
"How many Life Points do you have left?" He asked as he deflected the shot. Odd shrugged as struggled to recover.
"I don't know, but it's gotta be less than ten by now." Odd estimated. I ran up to the Roachster from and stabbed it with my staffs blade. One of the remaining two hit my foot, causing a loss of my footing. I nearly fell into the Digital Void again, but Aelita pulled me to safety.
"Thanks, Aelita." She smiled at me in response.
Odd in the meantime, was flipping around trying to dodge lasers, but was once again hit in his stomach. He gave us a look of surprise. "I'm still here?" He questioned. "My calculations must've been wrong."
"You always were a wash out in math." Ulrich teased.
"No kidding, me in 6th grade was better off than you." I threw in.
"Right, but it's thanks to you two that I can count to three." I looked over at our remaining friends.
"Speaking of math," I said, catching their attention. "There's four of us, and two of them. I'm terrible with probability, but I can see who has a better chance here." Ulrich smirked at me.
"How about I show you a little bit of addition and subtraction? Triplicate!" Ulrich and his two clones ran forward, one of them getting shot in the process. Two was all he needed, however, as both him and his remaining clone destroyed both Roachster quickly with a stab from his katana. "Fusion. Aelita, you're up." The pink elf girl nodded, and ran into the tower. Odd gave the two of us a confused looked.
"So, three Ulrichs minus one Ulrich plus two Roachsters equals win?" He asked.
"We've taken this math thing way to far..." I muttered as white engulfed us.
Jeremys Room
"That's fantastic!" Aelita noted. "The fact that XANA was able to materialize another Yumi, proves one thing. It proves that materialization is really possible.
"That's crazy." Yumi chimed in. "XANA is helping us with our materialization research!"
"Maybe he really wants Aelita to leave his domain of the supercomputer." I joked.
"Back to work then, Einstein." Odd said. Jeremy turned to him and nodded happily.
"No sweat." He said. His confidence about Aelita's materialization took a major jump up. "I'll start programming again right now!" Odd grinned madly.
"Why bother? Just go and ask XANA. He's got all the answers!" Odd joked. Ulrich shook his head at that notion.
"No way. Just take a look at the Yumi he sent us." Yumi and I smirked at one another.
"What do you mean? She wasn't that different from the original." Odd said, although I can't tell if he was joking or not.
"She sure was." Jeremy said, agreeing with Ulrich. "I saw the difference. Most notably when she started to flirt with me."
"Oh really? Are you sure?" Yumi asked. I was trying hard not to grin. "Do you have any proof that it's the real me you're looking at?" She sauntered over to him and pulled off his glassed. She got close to his face as he began to blush. Ulrich, had apparently had enough.
"Oh no, cut it out. I've had enough of that for one day." He firmly said. Yumi and I smiled at one another.
"You're not jealous, are you Ulrich?" She asked. Ulrich had a shocked look on his face at that question.
"Sure looks like it." Odd noted, and we all laughed. He then gave me a pat on the back. "At least Emmy here stayed normal." I gave him a blank look.
"How do you know I'm not XANA right now?" I asked monotonously. I then grinned and tackled him. We spent the next few minutes wrestling on the floor, Ulrich cheering on Odd and Yumi cheering on me.
Man hanging out with these guys is fun!
So, there's Image Problem. Now, as for the second OC, I'm still on the fence. Part of me wants to, but another part of me thinks it should just be me.
And as for the guy who left the review in Teddygozilla: I'm aware when school events take place, but I'm stuck with order of the episodes.
In other news, I'm gonna be starting high school soon. Yeah, my summer was pretty lame. I was stuck in places with no internet a lot of the time, so I didn't have a way to update, even while using my phone.