Chapter 24: Taking control

"Yumi, no!" Those were Jeremy's words after Yumi told him fifteen minutes ago, about taking defense classes from Jim (or assist him, she didn't care). Now, there was no silence anymore, but the start and maybe also the end of a small fight. Those words did leave his mouth impulsively, too, before even thinking about a reaction which would have been more fitting.

"Jeremy, it is my choice!" Yumi said as response. Jeremy nodded.

"I know, but…"

"But, what? You don't tell me what to do."

"I'm not telling you what to do! I'm only…"

"Don't you get it?" she interrupted him again, "I can make a difference. I'm not doing because I like it. I want to protect these people here, just like you, but that won't be possible if you forbid me to do it." A silence followed, "Jeremy, please. I'm not asking you for your permission, but I do ask you to understand my decision." A longer silence followed, and Yumi felt kind of guilty. She had shouted back at him in an impulse. She hoped Jeremy wouldn't take this too personal, or would treat her differently because she made her decision. Eventually, he sighed.

"Alright, then," he said, "but please be careful. You're the only one who really knows what to do against Xe… Xa…"

"XANA?"

"Yes, him. You still know. You could really help us with that kind of knowledge." Yumi could clearly hear the despair in his voice. That was the reason why Jeremy impulsively had said 'no' – because she could remember the enemy he had forgotten so much about. Maybe he also was a bit jealous of her, or maybe he wanted her to teach her about XANA, because Jim's explanation wasn't quite accurate.

"I'd rather take action myself," Yumi said, making her answer sound definite. Jeremy shrugged and let Yumi leave for class so he could concentrate again on the waking of Aelita so he could ask her for more help. He turned his head to one of the screens, and immediately noticed something he didn't make. The picture showed three circles in one another with one stripe on top of it, and three stripes underneath it. And since he didn't know what that meant, he decided to call Yumi.

"Yumi, would you mind coming over here?" He heard how she walked back to him, but he didn't see where exactly she was, because he didn't want to see anything else – just the strange red picture on the black background. When Yumi finally stood next to Jeremy and saw that strange sign on the screen too, she grasped his wrist and she dragged him out of that room, away from the strange sign on the screen out of which rose… a black thingy. And even if Jeremy had questions, he didn't ask them because Yumi still was telling him to hurry up and go as fast as he could, with that black floating thing still chasing them.

"This shouldn't be possible," Yumi suddenly said when the black floating thing stopped or passed somewhere and indirectly gave the two friends to time to breathe a few seconds. Jeremy looked at her.

"What was that?" Jeremy asking, really wanting to know what the hell was happening there.

"XANA," Yumi explained, "The sign on the screen you saw… that's his Eye. If you had still been standing there now, he could have gotten you and possess you." Jeremy nodded: trust no strange eyes or black floating things. Noted. Then, some thought in hit him.

"Jim needs to know!" Jeremy said, and they hurried towards the main hall, where Jim should be teaching some people how to defend themselves which he taught anyone almost the whole time. The sound of the training students grew clearer as they neared the hall, and soon Jim and the four trainees and Emily came into sight. Jim saw them too after a while, and he felt something was wrong, since he thought it couldn't be good when both Jeremy and Yumi ran up to him with great hurry. He quickly told Walt Moriarty, Nessa Ovid, Damian Blunt, Sylvia Lebeau and Emily Leduc they had a break before he turned to the two remaining Lyoko Warriors.

"What's going on?" he asked the two children. Before the two 'kids' could really say anything, they heard a loud 'Ugh!' from one of Jim's students. All turned their heads towards the student who made this quite inappropriate sound. Walt was kneeling as if he had a very terrible stomach-ache, and he fell on his hands and knees eventually. Not much later, he slowly stood up, keeping his eyes straight to the ground. When he lifted his head and his hand crept closer to his gun, Yumi managed to make eye-contact with him – even from that distance, she could see them clearly.

"Seek cover!" Yumi shouted, and pulled Jeremy with her and Jim followed her, too. A second later, Walt started to shoot randomly with his gun, creating chaos in the factory once again. Yumi, Jeremy and Jim hid behind one of the pillars keeping the roof up. Jim and Jeremy were terrified, but Yumi was acting strangely calm. It's been a while for her, too, but she did remember what their enemy tended to do with his victims.

"What's happening?" a completely scared Jeremy, referring to the sudden change in recruit Walt.

"It's XANA," Yumi answered, having seen XANA's Eye in Walt's, "he's been possessed by him! But I wonder how that could be even possible, the supercomputer isn't on, is it?" She looked patiently at Jeremy, but until she shook her head. She really should learn to remember Jeremy didn't know any supercomputer, what it did, where it was and how it worked. All those time, Jeremy looked confused at her with a pale face.

"Hey, Walt, what's gotten into you?" Jim's eyes widened when he heard that young voice, and he looked from behind the pillar what was about to happen; soon Jeremy and Yumi followed his example. They saw a scrawny second-year boy looked at the back of the possessed recruit. Quickly, Walt turned around at aimed at the younger boy. Jim desperately screamed a name – probably the boy's – to make the younger boy run away, but he didn't have the time because XANA chose that moment to shoot. The boy fell back on the ground and bled by a head wound dealt by a possessed Walt, who know sank back to his hands and knees, groaning in pain. Nobody was sure what was going to happen, so they kept looking. When Walt lifted his head and saw the corpse, he crawled to it. Yumi was the first to go closer and assured the others Walt was himself again, for she could no longer see XANA in Walt's eyes.

Jim came closest to Walt, believing Yumi because Jeremy still trusted her and probably reacted to the video he made a couple of weeks ago. He noticed the recruit was sobbing, and he put a hand on the boy's shoulder. Walt looked up at the teacher.

"It wasn't your fault, Walt," he told the young man, "you were possessed. You could do nothing to stop it."

"I killed Damian…" the recruit said between the sobs, and Jim led him back to his sleeping room, to calm down the recruit. In the meantime people with tears in their eyes covered the corpse of Damian with a blanket before he too was being brought away, to his family, if he had any family hiding in the factory. And all those time, one thought raced non-stop through Yumi's mind, hoping Jeremy had been smart enough to put out the supercomputer at the beginning of the invasion.

How in the world could XANA have done this?

So, here it is! I hope you liked this! So, how will they manage to save their skin knowing what they know now? And Jim, Emily and the others, will they survive as well? And how is Odd ever going to get in the factory with the monsters blocking the usual entrance? You will find out in the next chapters of 'Simuation'. Okay, next update will most certainly be placed on the day of my last exam, Friday the 20th, and then we'll get back to the usual Thursday updates. And now the review-replying thing:

Bluedog197 (Actually, Ulrich's been ill for a while, and imagined Odd would help him, which got him killed... and thank you, I'm doing my very best and you can expect more CL stories from me in the future)

See ya next time!

-Dutchwriters2