Chapter 5: The First Battle in Weeks; General POV

"It's about time something exciting happened!" Odd exclaimed as him, Ulrich, Aelita, and Jeremie ran to the factory, where they would meet Yumi. "X.A.N.A.'s been so quiet lately I almost thought he was surrendering!"

"I don't think that'll happen anytime soon." Jeremie responded. "Unfortunately."

"I hope Lacey's going to be okay on her own." Aelita mused. The pink-haired girl had just thrown a lame excuse over her shoulder as she rushed out the classroom.

"I'm sure she'll be fine." Ulrich assured. "Besides, this is important."

"Yeah, saving the world for the billionth time is way more important than helping your brand new roommate to her next class." Odd grinned.

"Not helping." Ulrich told his friend as Jeremie lifted the manhole that led to the sewers.

"I think they're heading there right now." Lacey whispered into her phone.

"And you didn't bother to follow them?" Lacey's X.A.N.A.-fied dad questioned.

"Look, it's only my first day handing out with them. "Lacey began to explain. "I need to gain their trust before I can go with them."

"You know what needs to be done, so do it." Lacey's father's possessed voice came back before Lacey heard the phone click.

"Transfer, Aelita. Transfer, Odd. Scanner, Aelita. Scanner, Odd. Virtualization!" Jeremie watched as the two images appeared in the screen, "Ulrich, Yumi, give me a minute to program the vehicles abd then I'll transfer you two. Odd and Aelita need a bit of a head start."

"That's fine, Jeremie." Yumi yelled from where she was in the scanner room.

"Yumi," Ulrich broke the awkward silence. "About that dance—"

"Who did you ask, Ulrich?" Yumi questioned.

"No one!" He quickly responded. "Not yet, anyway." He gave Yumi a small, yet shy smile. "Has someone asked you?"

"Well—" Yumi was interrupted by the ground shaking. Or, rather, the whole building. "Jeremie!" she called up to her friend after the ground stopped shaking. When there was no response, the Japanese girl and the German boy looked at each other before heading back into the elevator to check on the blonde boy.

When they got up there, Jeremie was lying on the floor, unconscious. His headset was laying on the keyboard, waiting for someone to pick it back up. Ulrich and Yumi bent down next to their friend. Yumi checked for a pulse and nodded at Ulrich when she found one. She quickly got up and grabbed the idle headset to communicate to her virtualized friends.

"Guys, is something wrong?" Aelita asked.

"Yeah, keep us in the loop!" Odd added.

Yumi looked back down at the unresponsive Jeremie, who was being tended to by Ulrich. "Jeremie looks like he got hit by something in the head." She replied. "He's unconscious, but I think he'll be alright. In the meantime, I'll try to finish programming the overboard. As soon as I figure out where Jeremie was before he was interrupted, that is." Yumi began studying the screen.

"Hurry, Yumi. I see some hornets coming our way." Aelita commented.

"I'll take care of them!" Odd jumped up. "Laser arrow!" Both of the hornets exploded. He landed back on his hands and feet, similar to a cat's posture. "You know, I think X.A.N.A.'s little vacation just made him weaker."

Aelita looked skeptical. "Any other monsters, Yumi?"

"It looks like there's some around the activated tower, which is a bit north of you." Yumi told the duo. "Here's your ride."

"Thanks, Yumi!" Odd jumped on his purple transportation. "Need a lift, princess?"

"No thanks." Aelita swiped her hand over her bracelet to activate her wings. "I think I'll fly."

"There's three tarantulas and two bloks guarding the tower." Yumi told her friends. "You guys can handle it, right?"

"Of course!" Odd picked up speed as he was heading toward the tower that was currently surrounded by red.

"Be careful, you two. I'll virtualize myself in just a minute." Yumi activated auto-virtualization and looked back at Ulrich. "You can manage things here, right?"

Ulrich stood up and nodded. Yumi nodded back and began to leave, but Ulrich caught her arm before she could do so.

"Good luck." He told her shyly. They both blushed a bit and smiled at each other for a minute.

"I'll be back." She nodded again and slowly went back into the elevator.

Ulrich sighed and took hold of the headset. "Don't worry guys. Yumi's on her way."

"How's Jeremie?" Aelita asked.

Ulrich checked back on his blonde friend. "He's out cold, but he's still breathing. I'm watching him, don't worry Aelita." He teased.

"Thanks, Ulrich." Aelita felt her face turn slightly warmer. She then could here Yumi landing behind her. Yumi immediately shot her fans at the Bloks, successfully hitting both.

Just as Yumi had done so, the factory began shaking again. A piece of metal fell from the ceiling, just missing Ulrich's head.

"Well, now we know how Jeremie was knocked out." Ulrich mumbled. "Do you guys think you could hurry? The factory's kind of falling apart."

"Well, it would help if X.A.N.A.'s monsters would stop shooting at us." Odd sarcastically replied.

"He's still pretty weak for how long he took off." Yumi noted again before effectively striking a tarantula.

"I agree. I thought that it would be much bigger than this." Aelita nodded, before getting hit by a shot.

"Careful, Aelita." Ulrich pulled up her I.D. card. "You only have 20 points left."

"Laser arrow!" Odd yelled as he destroyed another tarantula. "I don't know what you guys are talking about. X.A.N.A. seems pretty normal to me."

"No, the girls are right." Ulrich responded. "Only a few earthquakes? Seems pretty flimsy."

"Fine. I'll just be all alone on my little island then." Odd crossed his arms.

Yumi rolled her eyes at Odd's childish comment and threw a fan at the last tarantula. "He must be planning something bigger, then."

"I'm going in!" Aelita announced, walking quickly into the tower.

"Man, she gets all the fun." Odd whined.

"You could've called it you know." Yumi pointed out.

"Tower deactivated." Aelita said as she watched the data files disappear shortly.

"I'll devirtualize you guys." Ulrich said to his friends. "No use doing a return to the past."

"You think Jeremie's going to be okay?" Yumi asked.

"He just needs a little trip to the infirmary and he'll be fine." Ulrich answered. "I'm bringing you in."

Once Ulrich knew that his friends were on the way, he sighed with relief. "Another X.A.N.A. mission down."

So I'm really enjoying writing this, but are you enjoying reading it? Let me know! (: NEW: Review and you get a sneak peek of the next chapter!

And I KNOW I haven't updated in forever, but I was busy. I went to my favorite band's (Sick Puppies! Charming Liars, who I LOVE, was an opening act along with Thiron X and Candlelight Red. Yeah… I like rock;)) concert last night and it was AMAZING! And I have horse shows coming up to practice for… Yep. Busy. Did I mention school? No? I somehow have time for that. ;)

See you soon!

Peddiegirl101