Aelita's POV:

As the door to the elevator closed, I suddenly felt very tired. Rubbing my eyes, I could feel the other worried look. I could feel the curious eyes of my friends looking down on me. "Look, keep playing along with me. We are being watched. I will explain more in the sewer. It is one of the few places we are free from worry." I told them. They all nod their heads as the elevator reached the top. Without saying anything, we climbed the ropes and started to head across the bridge. I can tell them soon. "First one to the manhole gets Jeremie portion of food!" Odd called as he began to sprint. "Does he really think we would challenge him for food?" Ulrich asked Yumi and I as we dared not take him on. As I pulled the cover on the hole, my concern for Jeremie reached a boiling point. I could not help but worry about what XANA is planning to do to him.

Aelita, we will stop him, have faith. He won't get away with this. I swear, we will be together again. His voice tried to reassure me from the mental link we share.

"So, what is really going on?" Yumi asked as she crossed her arms, looking at me. "It seems XANA put up security cameras all over the place. My guess, they are there for Jeremie's personal torture. From the area XANA locked him in; he can see and hear us. The only places there are no cameras, according to Jeremie, are the elevator, the sewers and the new wreck room." I began to pace up and down the sidewalk of the sewer. I could see the stress and worry creep across the faces of my friends as I continued to pace. "So…now what do we do?" Ulrich asked. We began to walk back to the school. "I guess for now, we can do a little acting outside of the safe areas. Like pretend we are worried, but know there is nothing we can do for now. So try to act like we always do, but every now and then, become worried about Jeremie's survival…" Yumi suggested to the group. Her voice was barley a whisper when she said survival. "That should cover XANA, but what are we REALLY going to do?" Odd said as we reached the park's manhole. "For now, wait for that localization program to try to trace him. Beyond that, we do like we always do. We will have to wait and see what XANA has planned." I said as I folded up my scooter and placed it next to Jeremie's. "Alright, ready for the big show?" Odd asked as he climbed up the latter first. As Ulrich put the cover on to the hole, Yumi asked, "So how are we going to explain to Delmas about Jeremie's disappearance?" I began to think of something that XANA would predict we would do. "Well, I can sneak into Jeremie's room and make a fake call to him that something came up and he had to go home for a bit. I would suggest a clone, like we did for William, but I don't know how to activate towers like Jeremie can." I told a practically lie to my friends. I could activate a tower, but I was worried XANA could use it to hurt us. "Yeah, and I don't know about all of you but I don't think Kadic is ready for the athletic king of flirting again! I know I'd rather not lose my crown as the head ladies' man. And also, you may become super jealous on out of all of us here Princess if the clone DOES pick up someone." Odd joked to all of us. We all laugh at the joke, maybe a bit harder that we would usually, but we wanted to keep the act up for XANA as we headed to the cafeteria.

Tell Odd I am considering a one way trip to the digital sea if he tries to joke like that again…

I could not help myself but giggle at Jeremie's last thought. I quickly began to hum a Subdigital song to cover up the giggle. We entered the almost empty cafeteria and grabbed trays. "Let me guess, Jeremie said you can have his portion again?" Rosa, the short curly haired cafeteria worker asked Odd. "Well, um… yes he did as he was heading out." Odd scratched the back of his head as Rose piled up another sandwich onto his plate. "I swear, between the both of you, I don't know who's scrawnier." She added as Odd walked down the line. "I am not scrawny! I'm Svelte!" He practically yelled into the air. Giggling, we all grab our food and walked over to our favorite table. We all sat down at our favorite spots and glazed at the empty chair next to me. You could make out the sadness in all of our eyes of seeing the chair empty. "So, have any of you seen the new episode of Doctor Shrank? It was totally Epic! First he…" Odd began to talk to all of us. He kept rambling on, trying to keep us away from our dark thoughts. I forced his words out of my head, as I tried to focus on think of a way thru all of this mess. Realizing that no one was paying attention to him, Odd stopped talking and stared down his tray of food. Without him talking, my thoughts could form a bit clearer in my mind. The locator programmer is a start, but afterwards? What if he is on a replika? I don't think anyone of us is in a rush to dive into the digital sea without Jeremie there to tether us to Lyoko. But what if XANA sent him somewhere unreachable, someplace too far away for the Skid to reach on its limited power supply? Or what if we really did do nothing and XANA gets bored and he…. Calm down Aelita! Thinking like that right now is now a good idea. The others need you to think of a plan.

Jeremie's thoughts touched mine once more, Take it easy Aelita, everything will be fine. Just focus on yourself and the others. The note XANA left me when he trapped me suggested he wants you all dead before me. He wants me to suffer before he comes after me.

I never noticed the others finishing up until Yumi reached over and touched my shoulder. I grabbed my semi-filled tray of food and threw it all away. We all walked in silence as we headed back to Jeremie's room so I could place the call.

There has to be a way out of this! There just has to be!

(what will XANA do to our little warriors? Will anyone notice Jeremie missing? Find out next time I update!)