Three

The first thing Aelita saw when she entered the room was a blond girl, maybe 14, sitting on Jeremie's bed next to Odd.

Her presence made no sense to Aelita, until she noticed the black clothes she was wearing.

"You're the assassin?"

The blonde cocked a head at her. "Aelita," she said, her tone light but guarded. "We've met."

"Like a second ago! And Jeremie, why are you just sitting in here, chatting with a-a-a murdered, like it's the most natural thing?"

"Well, gee, princess, you've never begrudged talking to us before," Odd said.

"You're not murderers! She could have killed me and you invite her up to chat! She was trying to kill me in case you've forgotten!"

"She has got to be the nicest girl I've ever met," the assassin said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. "Really, Ice-stroke, you couldn't have done any better? Remind why I didn't shoot."

"Because of Danny, and Alex, and Javier, and Cameron, and every other boy you'd thought was cute that we were ordered to fire on."

"What the hell are you talking about, Jeremie" Yumi snapped. "We came to get answers so could you please explain!"

"Well," Odd said. "It all started, when, when we were like, what, six?"

"What started, Odd please make sense," Ulrich said.

"Wow," the assassin smirked. "You boys left the world of sniping snipers, to get involved in the world of snapping snappers."

"Would you all just shut up!" Jeremie shouted. "I can't even hear myself think, rather less get you all to!" He pointed at the assassin. "Everyone, this is Belladonna, Belladonna, this is Ulrich, Aelita, and Yumi."

She looked them up and down. "Nice group you got yourself. Are they always this grumpy?"

"Only when our friends are being shot at?" Yumi snapped.

"Friends? As in the plural? As in more than one friend being shot at? I didn't know you told them about our little… run in."

"I didn't," Jeremie replied shortly.

"Bad grammar, then?" She cocked an eyebrow.

"Shut up," Ulrich growled.

She snorted.

Jeremie glared. Yumi, Aelita, and Ulrich all felt a shiver run up their spines. A shiver that silenced the room.

"I'll explain if you shut up. All of you." He looked around the room. "Good. Now, like Odd said, it started when we were about six. Odd, Bella, and I were all going to the same elementary school. We banded together and made a little group we called the Nightshades."

Yumi gave a little gasp, and Ulrich frowned suspiciously.

"We each had individual skills, and we used these to spy on our classmates, neighbors, teachers, anyone, actually. It wasn't like our parents were home at the time. These excursions eventually led up to what you know today. Bella was really flexible, she could contort herself quickly and in any shape you could ask. Odd was the gymnast, he could flip, jump, roll, anything. I had-"

"Aim," Ulrich said.

Jeremie smiled. "You see where this is going."

Yumi shook her head. "You're kidding me. You're the Nightshades?"

"Were," Odd said. "We disbanded a year ago, when our parents sent us to Kadic. We realized things would be too risky to continue."

"I never stopped," Belladonna said. "I kept up my work."

"That's 'cause you could. It wouldn't be easy for us to, what with teachers always around. Besides," Odd smiled. "We have a new secret."

"X.A.N.A? He doesn't sound very fun to me." Belladonna rolled her eyes.

"You told her about X.A.N.A?" Yumi asked.

"Naw," Belladonna said. "He hired me."

"X.A.N.A hired her!"

"Wait wait wait!" Aelita shrieked. Everyone turned to her. "What are the Nightshades?"

Belladonna smirked. "Only the MOST feared team of freelance assassins, like, ever!"

Aelita blinked. "What?"

Ulrich frowned. "They were a team of assassins that anyone could hire, provided they had the money."

"No one knew anything about them," Yumi said "except their fighting methods. Belladonna was extremely flexible and her signature weapon were small hypodermics, each loaded with enough poison to kill someone, quickly. Panther, I suppose is Odd, was the quick gymnast, specialized in knowledge of human anatomy; one hit from him could disable a limb or even kill someone, depending on where he hit them. Ice-stroke, Jeremie, had aim and an arsenal of razor sharp daggers that he carried always up his sleeves, though he was also well known for being able to cause physical reactions with his eyes. He could glare at someone and they would shiver and get a feeling of deep unease. Then they would usually die." She glared at Odd and Jeremie. "I don't know what to think now."

Odd sighed at the three's incredulous looks. "Look, it wasn't that bad. You guys only know what we wanted the public to know. If someone wants someone else dead, we usually assume that that person did something to deserve it. Unless their crazy, and then we don't do what they say anyway."

Jeremie sighed. "You give us a little to much credit. But we had a job and we did it. Soldiers have jobs to execute-"

"And we had people to execute," Belladonna crowed.

Jeremie looked at her. "Really? Why are you baiting Aelita? What do you have against her?"

Belladonna shrugged. "She screams a lot."

Aelita glared. "What were you saying about a run in?"

Jeremie and Belladonna explained what happened in the warehouse a week back.

"See, in the past we have been set against each other. Sometimes some people hire us to try and kill each other. Since we're all covered up it would be easy for us to mistaken each other," Jeremie said.

"So we learned to recognize each other by our eyes. When Icy saw Bella's eyes, he knocked his glasses off to showcase his own."

"Shoulda just glared at me," Belladonna said. "Anyway, after that I ran back to find this X.A.N.A. We have a policy that if you try to get us to kill each other, we would kill you. But, I couldn't find him. Later I got a job from someone signed by a weird target sign, telling me to knock off a girl. He gave me where she lived and what she looked like, but no name. He never gave me names, even with Jeremie. Obviously. I think he didn't want me to connect the two jobs, so he contacted me via little legged target signs." She put up her hands defensively. "How was I supposed to know that was X.A.N.A again. At the time I was just looking for a job."

"Alright, alright, enough of that," said Odd. "Bella has some important news."

All eyes turned on the assassin. She smiled. "Your pal X.A.N.A has paid off several rich, powerful, and corrupt people to nuke each other. These people have nuclear weapons and are willing to use them. If this ensues, we will have nuclear holocaust." She looked up at Odd and Jeremie. "This is your jurisdiction Icy, Panther. What should we do?"

Yumi sighed. As much as she felt she should hate them for being assassins, she couldn't. Like Jeremie had said, they were soldiers of a different sort. She could tell Aelita and Ulrich had similar thoughts.

"The thing is," Aelita said. "As Lyoko Warriors, we can't really do anything. If he's paid them off, then it's not a matter of deactivating a tower, or fixing a program implanted in someone's head…" She shook her head.

"I agree," Yumi said. "But short of stealing their weapons or sabotaging their plans, I don't know what else to do."

"Well, we have a problem," Belladonna said. "'Cause X.A.N.A's paid these guys weeks ago. You don't have time."

"I have an idea," Ulrich said. "You're not gonna like it, but I don't see us having another choice. X.A.N.A doesn't know that Belladonna's friends with Jeremie and Odd, we can use that to our advantage. See, X.A.N.A doesn't think we know about this, but he'd figure that we'd go after the weapons, not the people. My guess is X.A.N.A has the nuclear weapons very well. But I don't think he's guarded the people he's paid off…"

Aelita gave him a sharp look. "Are you saying that we should kill them?"

There was a paused.

"No," he responded. "I think the Nightshades should."