For all of Jeremie's talk of impending doom and constant vigilance, the attack did not come in the night. Nor did it come the next day, or the day after that. In fact, what followed was two weeks of relative peace.
Michael was hesitant to admit it, but they had been the happiest he had been since arriving at Kadic, and even some of the best times of his life.
It had been two weeks today that Ivy and Michael had snuck back onto campus for the first time. Jeremie had flatly refused to drive them, saying that it would be too suspicious having them come back in his car if anyone saw them, and that Jim would surely catch them if they tried to get on to the school grounds through the gate. Michael had never before noticed how creepy the park was that night, and he suspected that Ivy shared the same sentiment. The two of them stuck close together and moved quickly to return to the well-lit safety of dormitories, and Michael found himself thinking for the first time (but not the last) how glad that he was that Ivy was with him.
It had been thirteen days since Lucas had made it clear that he was not going to leave Ivy and Michael alone. He had invited Ivy to join their table again, though what madness possessed him to think that this was a good idea, Michael would never know. Ivy declined and continued her solitary breakfast, this time with a book for company. Lucas spent the rest of the meal trying to wheedle information out of Michael instead. Michael, accustomed to this by now, had brushed him off easily. He was relieved that Lucas wasn't going to cause a fight between himself and Ivy again thanks to Ivy's good sense, but when she rejected Lucas' offer he felt just the tiniest twinge of disappointment.
It had been twelve days since he had scraped by on the cumulative review. How Michael had managed to pass was a small miracle, a sentiment which was shared by Jeremie who told Michael in no uncertain terms that if he wanted to continue as a Lyoko warrior that he needed to start studying harder. Michael did not take this well.
"Look," Jeremie said, trying to be firm. "The fact of the matter is, if there is a XANA attack, you may end up missing class. Your grades will struggle enough as it is, so you need to buckle down. You're a smart kid –"
"Oh, really?" Michael's voice dripped sarcasm. "Thank you so much, I never knew. Now all my hopes and dreams can come true!"
Jeremie continued as if Michael had not spoken. "- so I need you to act like it and get it together. If you just tried studying for a change –"
Michael was done listening. The boy stalked off, muttering murderously under his breath. Jeremie didn't understand.
It had been eleven days since the team had shown them Sector Five. They were exploring the last of the sectors that they had yet to visit, the Desert, and Michael had just decided that this was his favorite when Aelita turned to them and said "Do you want to see something else?" Ivy and Michael had been eager to explore this new sector, while Aelita told them all about how, once upon a time, Sector Five had been different every time and a key needed to be triggered to keep it stable. Michael knew that he should not, but could not help but wish that this protocol was still in place. He found the whole idea of Lyoko almost unbearably exciting.
Aelita even showed them the Skidbladnir, the ship that they had used to search the Internet for traces of XANA. Jeremie had insisted they recreate it a few years previously, "just in case". Michael begged to be taken on to the ship, but Aelita had just laughed and assured him that they would go one day, but not today. Michael found, with all he had seen that day, that he could not bring himself to be too disappointed.
It had been ten days since Michael had agreed to tutoring. Much as he loathed the idea of being stuck in a classroom with Jeremie, (on a Saturday, no less!) he had to admit that Jeremie could very easily keep him from Lyoko, if he was so inclined. Unhappily, Michael had made his way to Jeremie's classroom at the agreed-upon time, expecting to be bored to tears.
He was surprised. Jeremie did indeed wait for him, but he was not alone. Instead, the brown-haired young man who had spoken very little when they had first met stood beside him. And, while Jeremie did provide the materials and interjected from time to time, it was Ulrich who did most of the talking.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, Michael had met someone who did not make him feel stupid. Ulrich never made the presumption that Michael was not trying, and he was extremely patient. When Michael had difficulty, Ulrich and Jeremie explained the concepts together, and Michael found that when the two of them worked together to explain what was being asked of him, he could understand. Once the two hour study session ended, Michael even gave them a quiet, embarrassed "Thank you" before rushing out of the room so they could not see that his eyes were just the slightest bit overbright.
It had been nine days since Odd had taken them racing. Jeremie had initially disapproved, stating that they should be focusing seriously on learning how to fight. Odd had been adamant.
"Aw come on, Einstein," he had whined. "We used to do stuff like that all the time on Lyoko. Ulrich said you kept Michael cooped up forever yesterday studying. It's time to let them have a little bit of fun. And besides," he added, "it's a great chance to teach them about Way Towers. If they pick the wrong ones, they'll just end up in the same sector, right?"
Grudgingly, Jeremie had conceded, but when it came time to actually race, he seemed as cheerful as anyone. Odd claimed the Overboard, and Michael and Ivy flipped for the Overbike. Michael won, but wiped out in the Ice sector. While Odd beat them both handily, Ivy came in second with ease. Michael complained that it wasn't fair, but not as loudly as he might have other days, and he and Ivy agreed to have a rematch someday.
It had been eight days since Lucas seemed to have decided to leave them alone. Despite the fact that surely the boy must know that Ivy and Michael were sneaking off together – for at this point, half of the school was whispering about it – he had conceded that his prying was doing nothing but making them both uncomfortable. He dropped the subject, though every so often when Michael caught Ivy's eye or stopped her to tell her something, Michael caught Lucas giving them a knowing smile. Michael found this deeply irritating, and resolved to start avoiding Ivy at school to quash the rumors.
In fact, by the very next day, Michael had decided never to speak to Ivy again. Looking back on it, Michael could honestly not recall what the fight had been about. The training session on Lyoko had not gone particularly well. Michael had been devirtualized for the second time and, whatever Yumi said, he was firmly convinced that it was never going to get any better. Jeremie had sent them home early, and it was still before curfew when Ivy and Michael returned to the school, which meant that at least two students saw them emerge from the woods together. Michael knew that this would only fuel the rumors about them, and Ivy just would not stop talking to him.
He did not remember exactly what was said. When Michael got angry he tended to say whatever first came to his mind, and what came to his mind was often very unkind. All he remembered is by the end of their shouting match in the courtyard Ivy was crying again, and Jim was standing between them threatening to send both of them to the principal's office. For once, Lucas had the good sense not to ask if he wanted to talk about it.
The silence had lasted less than a day. Michael had been considering all day how to broach the subject of separate training sessions with Jeremie. He never got the chance to. During their last class of the day, Ivy and Michael received a text simply reading "SOS XANA". As he had been trained to do, Michael started to raise his hand to ask to go to the infirmary, but Ivy's hand punched the air first. He volunteered instead to go with her, and five minutes later they were sprinting down the tunnel to the factory. Michael's stomach was in knots and, judging by Ivy's pallor, she was every bit as nervous as he was.
In the lab, the two of them stopped short. The sense of urgency that they had both felt when the call came drained away as they found Jeremie, Aelita, and Yumi inside, staring at the computer with confusion. It was Aelita who told them that it was another false alarm, that the tower had, for whatever reason, deactivated itself again.
"Is that normal?" Ivy had asked. "I mean, has that happened before?"
"Once. A very long time ago. That was because XANA was tricking us, pretending to be my father," Aelita told them quietly.
Jeremie was transfixed by the computer screen and seemingly unaware of the conversation going on around him. As the elevator deposited a winded Ulrich and Odd, he put his face in his hands. "He has to have a plan," the man whispered, his voice trembling slightly. "I don't understand."
Aelita wrapped her arms around his shoulders and murmured softly in his ear. Yumi gazed at him with what could only be described as pity. For the first time it occurred to Michael that these people, while no longer children, were still quite young.
It had been five days since Jeremie had decided to put their training into overdrive. The aborted attack yesterday had served only to strengthen Jeremie's paranoia, and he informed Ivy and Michael that one of them would be going to Lyoko while the other one stayed behind to run the supercomputer with him. Ivy and Michael flipped for it. Both of them felt like they had lost. And so, while Ivy got to go to Lyoko and fight Tarantulas, Michael was stuck in the lab while Jeremie drilled him on the procedures for running the supercomputer. Stressed and slightly panicked, Michael ended up materializing the Overwing a full two meters above where he was supposed to, meaning that Ivy had to jump for it. The Tarantulas took her down as she tried to haul herself up.
Michael had apologized (admittedly halfheartedly) to Ivy, and ignored Jeremie's lecture about keeping his head under pressure. He wanted to think that he would have been better if it had been anyone other than Jeremie coaching him, but deep down he was not so certain. That night when they returned to school, instead of falling into bed and passing out at once, Michael found himself at the desk, reading and re-reading the booklet that Jeremie had written up for him and making annotations in the margins.
It had been five days since Michael had heard Ivy laugh for the first time. It was Ivy's turn on the supercomputer, while Michael trained with the semi-unemployed Odd, who showed up to train with them more nights than not. Tonight they were to be fighting Wasps, which Odd felt would make excellent target practice. He had even conceded to allow Michael to fly his beloved Overboard, while Odd himself took the Overbike.
While Ivy performed admirably in giving directions and information about the swarm, she, too, had a slight hiccup with the vehicles. Ivy was considerably closer than Michael in her judgement of where to virtualize the Overboard, but was slightly too ambitious with how close she tried to place it with Michael. So it was that Michael ended up with the Overboard materialized through the middle of his calf.
"Ow! Ivy?!" Michael hopped on one foot, trying to shake the Overboard off. Ivy's laughter echoed through Lyoko, while nearby Odd clung to a tree to keep himself from falling over with mirth. In spite of Michael's discomfort, he could not help but smile, and he thanked Ivy when she fixed her mistake. It was nice to remember that she was human, too.
It had been three days since Yumi's promise of Pencak Silat lessons had come true. Jeremie, Ulrich, and Michael had agreed on weekly tutoring sessions until Michael's grades improved, followed by an hour of Pencak Silat practice in the gymnasium. The conditions laid out by the principal were that anyone who wanted to could join, and that Jim was allowed to monitor them whenever he wanted. Since Jim generally spent his Saturday afternoons napping, and no one else seemed to want to join, Michael, Ivy, and Ulrich were alone. Ulrich was every bit as patient of a teacher in this area as he was in math, and for once when something did not come naturally to Michael, he did not feel badly about himself. All of that would come in time, and Michael relished in the chance to stretch his muscles after the study session. The fact that he got to spend yet more time with Ivy was simply a bonus.
It had been two days since Michael had worked up the nerve to ask Ivy to eat breakfast with them. He knew it would just fuel the rumors, and he knew that there was every chance that he and Ivy would start fighting again, Michael found he didn't care. He found, in fact, that the impossible had happened. Michael had made a friend. And he felt like it was about time that Ivy knew that she made one too.
When Ivy declined his offer, Michael was not as hurt as he had anticipated that he would be. His guess (his hope) was that she was only trying to avoid Lucas. But she gave him a smile as she sent him away, and Michael returned to his table with a smile of his own. Friends.
It had been one night since Ivy and Michael had laughed together for the first time. As they snuck back into school, something that was quickly become a habit, they were faced for the first time with the prospect of being caught. Just as they were about to go up the stairs to the dormitories, they heard a descending pair of feet that could belong to no one other than Jim, out on his nightly patrol. Panicking, Michael grabbed Ivy's arm and dragged her into the supply closet just off of the hall, his heart pounding as Jim wandered past their hiding space to search for intruders outside. It was only once he was gone that Michael realized he had not let go of Ivy this entire time. He released her arm, and as Ivy turned to look at him, he held up his hands apologetically. "I know, I know. 'Don't ever! do that again!'"
She just stared at him for a few long moments, then a little bit of nervous laughter escaped her. Michael tried to shush her, only to find he was laughing himself, which just made her laugh harder. And so they stood in the cramped little closet, trying to quiet the other while fighting to keep their own laughter contained. At last they bade each other good night, and despite the late hour Michael found himself lying awake fifteen minutes later, smiling too hard to go to sleep.
Two weeks. Two weeks since they had become Lyoko warriors, two weeks since Michael's life had become immeasurably better.
But that was before it all went wrong.