"I'm telling you, you need at least a B on this test to pass this class."

"And I'm telling you that I don't care if I pass this class."

"You need it to graduate," the math teacher told his worst student for the umpteenth time.

"So? It's not like I need to know any of the stuff, anyway," shot back Michael, slouching back in his seat and gazing at the man before him unconcernedly. He observed as his teacher closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He almost sympathized with the man. He looked perpetually tired.

"I'm willing to offer after school tutoring, whenever it would work best for you," the teacher said at last, in a voice of clearly forced calm.

"Don't need it, don't want it, get out of my face," Michael replied recklessly.

The teacher's blue eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth to lecture his student when he noticed the time. The other students would be coming in any moment. The man straightened up. "We'll continue this conversation later."

"Yeah, sure we will," Michael muttered as the math teacher walked back to his desk and opened his lesson plan. His stomach growled, protesting at missing lunch for the third day in a row to have the same argument with Mr. Belpois. He stared down at his desk as the students began to filter in, trying and failing not to feel ashamed.

"Ugh I want this day to be over with already," he heard Ivy mutter as she walked toward her spot beside him at the back of the room, her brown hair hanging over her face. He privately agreed, though he would not have admitted commiseration to save his life. She looked over at Michael as she sat down next to him. "Still having problems in class?" she asked him as she got out her supplies, glancing at the board. Michael ignored her. It was bad enough having Belpois lecture him again. He didn't need to discuss his "problems in class" with her.

Mr. Belpois finished writing down problems and turned to the class, waiting for them to settle down. "Good afternoon, class. First of all, I would like to remind you that Thursday is the cumulative review test. Remember, this will be worth 12% of your final grade in the class, so study up."

Michael, meanwhile, made a show of not listening to Mr. Belpois. He yawned and stretched his arms above his head, then got out his iPhone and turned the volume up loud enough that it was audible to half the class. He knew Belpois wouldn't take it away. The times that he had, Michael had found a different way to disrupt the class. He felt rather than heard Ivy's sigh of frustration and knew that her green eyes would be staring daggers. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, lips curling into a smirk. Well, if he could frustrate both Belpois and Miss Perfect-Student here at the same time, Michael supposed that he was more talented than he'd thought.

And then… Michael was not certain what happened. For just a split second he could have sworn he saw something out of the corner of his eye, something black and smoke-like, and then the next moment his head was ringing. "Ow!" The iPhone was shrieking into Michael's ears. He tore the headphones out, barely registering that every person in class had turned to look at him, or that Ivy had fallen out of her chair.

"What's going on back there, Michael?" Mr. Belpois asked, striding down the aisle toward them. Michael might have been proud if he had done it intentionally. Instead he tapped helplessly at his iPhone.

"I don't know!" he replied honestly as Mr. Belpois came up beside him. "It just started freaking out." The iPhone was still howling, and the screen flickered from image to image at light speed until it at last settled on a black screen with a red target-like symbol. The Eye of XANA flickered on the screen for one heartbeat, two... Then the iPhone went dead.

"The headphones probably exploded from that loud music." Ivy sounded quite annoyed as she picked herself up off the ground. Michael at last glanced up at her, his ears still ringing, and saw her eyes fixed on the iPhone. 'She saw it too,' he thought, and at once was sure it was true.

"That was weird..." was all Michael could think to say, voicing what surely must be the opinion of the whole class. He looked up at Mr. Belpois... to see him pale and shaking. Why? As he was opening his mouth to ask, however, Belpois' hand snaked out of nowhere, snatching up the iPhone. "Hey!" Michael protested.

"This has become a distraction in my classroom." Michael had never heard Mr. Belpois sound like this before. It was as if he were barely holding back panic. "I am confiscating this until further notice." He walked back to his desk and sat down heavily in his chair. "You may begin tonight's homework," he informed the class, pocketing the iPhone.

Michael glanced again over at Ivy and saw her eyebrows were raised. She, too, must have noticed how jumpy Mr. Belpois was acting. When she tried to catch his eye, however, Michael looked resolutely away, reminding himself that they were not friends. Besides, now he needed to figure out how to get his iPhone back..

oOo

"I saw what I saw," Jeremie repeated stubbornly. It was evening, and Jeremie stood in his kitchen surrounded by his old friends - and once, a very long time ago, fellow Lyoko warriors. He had not told them what he had seen today when he had invited them all over that night, and despite the growing sense of urgency in the situation he had forced himself to chat and be social with Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi as they ate the dinner that he and Aelita had cooked. It was only once this all was done that Jeremie had dropped what he had assumed would be a bombshell on the group. Instead...

"It's not that we don't believe you, Jeremie, it's just... That's impossible, isn't it?" Yumi said doubtfully."XANA's gone, after all."

"You think that I don't know that?" Jeremie snapped impatiently, his nerves getting the better of him. "I'm telling you, it was the Eye of XANA."

"Did you do a scan on both the computer and the iPhone?" Aelita asked Jeremie from her place next to him as he leaned against the counter.

"I'm sure Einstein did one," Odd chimed in. "Leave no stone unturned, right?"

"I did," Jeremie agreed. "They didn't turn up anything abnormal."

"Then there's not a problem," Yumi said decisively. "It must have just been your imagination."

"So false alarm?" Odd asked the group at large.

"No, it wasn't," Jeremie replied firmly. "Do you honestly think that I could imagine something like this? I wasn't looking to see the Eye of XANA. It was the very last thing I expected, I assure you. Nevertheless, it was there."

Michael froze. He could have sworn that he'd just heard someone move. If he was caught sneaking out this late he was going to be in a lot of trouble. He allowed the moments to tick by, listening intently. At last, he cautiously peered around the corner. No one in sight. Silent as a shadow, he slipped outside and started for the gate. Belpois' house was only a couple of blocks away, he knew. Michael fully expected that a loser like him would be asleep by now. Just go in, get his iPhone, get out. Nothing he hadn't done before.

It only took Michael a few minutes to travel the short distance between Kadic and Mr. Belpois' house. He was surprised and dismayed to find that the house was not dark and quiet. The lights were on in the kitchen, and voices could be faintly heard from outside. Michael stopped in front of the house and checked the scrap of paper to make sure that he had the correct address. He did. 'Well, great,' he thought to himself dark-haired boy gazed at the windows, thinking. He had come this far, so it would be stupid to turn back now. He had paid fifteen euros for this information. On the other hand, he could not see any easy entrances, and from the noise level he guessed that it was more than Mr. Belpois inside. He was so preoccupied with this decision that he did not notice the person sneaking up behind him.

Inside, Jeremie's tirade continued. "Alright Jeremie! I believe you!" Odd said at last, holding up his hands in surrender. Jeremie did not fail to notice the smile on Aelita's face, the one that she always wore when she was trying to bite back a laugh. This served only to heighten his agitation. Why was no one taking this seriously? He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

"In any case," he said in a measured voice, "I think that we should run a full scan, which would involve at least one of us going to Lyoko. Preferably you, Aelita, if you'd be okay with it."

"I'm fine with that. It would be nice to go visit lyoko again," she replied, looking to him.

"Good." Jeremie gave Aelita a thankful smile. "However, just in case XANA is somehow back -" At this, Yumi made a skeptical noise "- we should have someone else virtualize with her. I am assuming that you won't want to go, Yumi."

"I never said that. I'm coming to the factory, certainly. I will likely stay around and watch the supercomputer with you, if that's okay, Jeremie."

"All right," Jeremie agreed. "Who wants to go with Aelita, then?"

"Ooh! Pick me! Please!" Odd shouted waving his hand in the air

'What are these guys talking about?' Michael wondered. He'd given up his search for an entrance - he'd just demand the iPhone back tomorrow anyways - and was now listening in on the conversation. 'Virtualize? Factory? Supercomputer?' It didn't make any sense. Michael frowned. It was at that moment that he heard someone right behind him wonder aloud. "XANA?"

Michael spun around, startled. For a moment he did not recognize her in the dark, but then he recognized Ivy. "What are you doing here?" he hissed to her.

"Fine." Jeremie nodded. "Aelita and Odd will go together. Let's get to the factory." He ignored Odd's little "Yes!" and his pumping a fist into the air, though in spite of the seriousness of the situation, the corner of his mouth twitched.

"Now? Jeremie, it's nearly midnight!" Yumi protested.

"If it's XANA, we don't have time to waste."

"Yeah! It's not like we have anything else to do and we're already up," Odd added cheerfully.

Yumi sighed and muttered something under her breath, but otherwise gave no complaint. Without another word, Jeremie strode open to the door and opened it.

"What's it to you why I'm here! I should be asking you the same thing!" Ivy's voice was defiant, and those green eyes were trained on Michael in a flinty glare.

"Why I'm here is my own business!" Michael whispered. "I have a good reason to be here! You..." The realization struck him suddenly. "You followed me, didn't you!"

"Well, you're the one who knew where his house was." Ivy hissed at him her eyes narrowed. "You're here to get your iPhone back aren't you?" she added.

"So what if I am! What are you going to do? Report me? We're both out of school grounds!" Michael shot back. "Anyway, I can't get it back, and I'm going back to school in a moment, so if you would do me the favor of leaving me al-" He broke off as the door opened without warning, spilling light out of the kitchen onto the steps. Automatically, Michael clamped a hand over Ivy's mouth and dove into a bush, pulling her down with him. She fell back against him, muttering something angry against his hand before watching silently as a strange parade of people emerged from the house.

First was Mr. Belpois, jingling some keys, followed shortly by a woman with pink hair that Michael vaguely remembered seeing occasionally in Jeremie's classroom. A young man. a head shorter than all of his companions, burst out of the door behind them, dashing toward the car and eagerly yelling "Shotgun!", much to Mr. Belpois' obvious distain. A Japanese woman laughed at this, trotting over to the car to join the first woman in the back seat. Bringing up the rear was another man, tall, dark-haired, and classically handsome. He closed and locked the door before joining the rest of the group. All of them were young, perhaps in their mid-twenties, and something about them… Michael could not quite put his finger on it. It was as though they had a strange sense of purpose to them, despite the playful antics of shortest man. Together, Ivy and Michael observed as this strange group of people piled into Jeremie's little car, and in another minute they had pulled out to drive away.

Michael waited until they were almost out of sight before he got to his feet, releasing his death grip on Ivy's arm and covering her mouth. She rolled away from him at once. "Don't ever! do that again!" she said angrily as she got up and brushed some leaves off of her. Michael ignored her, looking first at the house, then and the car's tail lights. On the one hand, he wanted his iPhone. On the other hand, he was curious to find out what they'd been talking about. Deciding that curiosity trumped his need for his phone, he started after them. "Now where are you going?" came Ivy's demanding voice after him.

Michael rolled his eyes. This girl was so annoying! "If you must know, I'm following them," he told her, not sure why he was being so honest. "They were talking about some pretty weird stuff in there, and I don't know about you, but I for one want to know what's going on."

"In that case, I'm going with you," she informed him, catching up with the dark-haired boy. "I saw some kind of symbol in your phone when it went haywire. And it seemed like Mr. Belpois knew something about it." She explained to him.

Michael opened his mouth to tell her that she was most certainly not going with him, that he'd rather die drowning in acid than go anywhere with her, that if he had to hear one more word out of her mouth his ears would bleed, but paused. He didn't have time for this. If he stopped to argue with Ivy, then he'd lose the car. Michael groaned. "Whatever!" he snapped at Ivy, turning to jog after the car. "Just stay out of my way!"

"Fair enough," he heard her say. Michael supposed that was the best that he could expect.

oOo

While not a long journey, following the car was more difficult than Michael had initially anticipated. Aside from his nerves of being spotted, there was also the fact that they were on foot. Fortunately, the trip was slow for the car as well, as if the driver could only half-remember where it was going. At last, the car halted outside of what appeared to be a huge, crumbling factory. Several hundred feet back, Michael stopped as the tail lights went dark, reaching out to grab Ivy's arm and drag her out of sight behind one of the bridge supports. "They might check if anyone's following," he explained in an undertone in response to the angry look he received from her. Sure enough, Belpois got out of the car and looked at the street behind them, making sure that there was no one around before continuing into the factory. Michael released Ivy's arm very quickly. "Okay. Let's go." Once the last person had disappeared from sight, Michael started after them. He moved swiftly but silently across the bridge, not waiting to see if Ivy would come and privately hoping that she would not. To Michael's displeasure, she did.

The boy reached the end of the bridge and ran out onto a platform that overlooked the ground floor of the elevator just in time to see the five adults all crowding into an elevator. "You know, I seem to remember this being much more roomy," Mr. Belpois, his voice echoing in the empty factory. The door closed, and the rickety elevator made its precarious descent.

"Face it I'm not leaving," Ivy said to him as she joined him on the edge of the platform, looking down at the factory scattered with debris.

"Well, thanks for just ruining my evening," Michael snapped, though it was half-hearted. He was busy trying to figure out how he would get down there. He'd need to find another route. And, much as it pained him to admit it, two people looking was quicker than one. "Come on," Michael growled, grabbing a rope and sliding down.

He caught her smirk as she slide down after him. "So what are we looking for?"

"A way in," he said shortly, already starting to look. "They took the elevator, so that's out of the question, and I really don't want to get lost in here."

Ivy nodded, wandering a few steps away from him as he peered through the darkness, wishing that he still had his phone to use as a flash light. "Hey!" Ivy called a short time later, waving him over to the elevator shaft. "I found a ladder!"

Michael came over to the edge of the elevator shaft and examined the ladder. "Hm." To him, it looked rather dangerous, but it was the only visible way down. A thought suddenly occurred to him. He turned to Ivy, a wicked grin on his face. "Ladies first," he said with a mock bow.

To his surprise, she responded in turn. "Aw, how sweet, but I think you should go first," the girl replied with mock politeness as she stepped back. "Age before beauty." she added as she looked down the shaft.

Michael let the grin slide from his face, replaced with a dark scowl. "Listen, you're the one who insisted on coming," he snapped. "Go!"

Ivy raised an eyebrow at him, then sighed. "Alright. No use fighting an idiot when we're this close." She started down the ladder. Michael watched her descend into the dark. He swallowed hard, took a deep breath, then followed.

They soon reached a door that was clearly meant for the elevator. "What does it look like down there?" Michael called to Ivy, halting his progress and looking down at her as she examined the door.

"There's a keypad of some kind," she reported. "Give me a minute." She strained, and for one, terrible moment Michael was quite certain that she was going to fall. The next minute, the door crackled and opened. "I guess the keypad's broken, but the button to open it still works." Ivy stepped inside of the open door. "Come on, Michael!" Fighting not to look down, Michael jumped in after her, nearly knocking her over. "Careful!" Her voice was full of a mixture of annoyance and concern. When she next spoke, her tone had changed to one of awe. "Whoa…"

The boy looked around. They were in a very dimly lit room containing a very large set of computer screens hooked to innumerable wires and a computer chair that appeared to have been built into the floor. A strange, mechanical structure was in the center of the room, its purpose not immediately apparent. The technology was old, he could tell that at a glance, at yet everything was so smooth and sophisticated… What would it be like if the power was on? Mr. Belpois and his friends were nowhere to be found.

"Michael, over here." Ivy was pointing to another ladder, these blessedly inside the room rather than in another elevator shaft. Most of the light in this room was emanating from the room that these steps led to. "Let's go check it out."

Mutely, Michael agreed, and started down the second ladder. The lights in this room shone from some emergency lighting on the floor, clearly installed in case the power was ever turned off. A circle of what appeared to be three hollow pillars met their eyes. "What are these?" Ivy asked in hushed tones.

Michael made a slight noise, not betraying any of his interest on his face, but really, he was quite fascinated. He moved closer to one of them, examining the wires attached to the top. They were open, as though waiting for someone. For one, wild moment, Michael considered them being some sort of high-tech transporter, but that was pure science fiction. "But what do they do"? he wondered aloud, forgetting that Ivy was there.

Ivy shrugged as she stepped in to examine the inside curiously. Michael scowled. He'd wanted to do just that, but now it would look like he was copying Ivy. Of course, he did not want to be denied closer examination just because Ivy decided to do the same thing. Michael got into another one and looked up at the top.

And suddenly the room blazed with light. In the moment it took Michael to register that this light was coming from the pillar which now contained him, the doors slid shut around him. "What the-? Michael, what did you touch!?" he heard Ivy exclaim, her voice muffled.

"Aw, sure, blame me for this!" Michael said, voice dripping with sarcasm. He threw his shoulder against the door that had suddenly snapped shut, but it would not budge.

"Well sorry!" He could barely hear her now. A strange whirring sound was beginning. The white light from the base was blinding him, and rush of air ruffled Michael's wavy hair. He yelped as he was lifted off his feet. The light grew brighter and then... He was falling.

Editor's Note: I had to go through, like, six different versions of this before FFN would accept the breaks to indicate time passing and perspective switch. Cut me a break here, FFN. -Rai