Code: Survival, Season One

by I heart Lyoko

The Lyoko Warriors take a vacation to the United States when a mysterious disease suddenly brings the dead back to life. Can the group possibly hope to survive in what remains of our civilization? Or will they fail and join THE WALKING DEAD? (OC/OC J/A U/Y O/S) *Story is currently under rewrites to eliminate old writing errors*

1. The Nightmare Begins

(I DO NOT own The Walking Dead, Code Lyoko, or any of the names or brands that appear in this story. But I do own all OCs featured here unless stated otherwise.

That being said, enjoy the story, and please remember to review!)

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"… I'm bored ..."

'I'm bored' the boy said for the millionth time. 'I'm bored' the boy complained yet again. 'I'm bored' was quickly becoming a very annoying trademark about him among his friends at this point.

Travelling down a highway deep in the State of Georgia, there was a group of six teenagers in of a silver-colored van which was three or four hours out from Atlanta.

These teens were unlike any others in the world, and all of them have a very specific secret that they share together. They all keep the entire planet safe all by themselves. They are all that stand between the freedom of the human race and a computerized evil in a virtual reality...

They are the Lyoko Warriors. Teenage boys and girls who have shouldered the burden of protecting us all.

One of the warriors, a young pink-haired girl named Aelita Schaeffer, rolled her eyes at the latest "I'm bored" which came from the boy. The fourth in less than an hour on the sixth day of their Spring Break trip to the United States of America.

"C'mon, Odd..." Aelita turned away from the mobile game on her phone to deadpan at her friend, "Odd", who was sitting in one of the seats in front of the row in which she shared with her boyfriend. "Can't you find a way to entertain yourself?" she wondered. "No one wants to hear more of this..."

Being stuck in this rental van on some highway leading to Atlanta was one thing... but the constant complaining from her friend was another entirely.

Aelita's friend, Odd Della Robbia, sputtered his lips and pressed his head against the glass of the sliding door next to him. He and five of his friends have been stuck in this car for six days now as they made their way down the East Coast of the U.S. to visit all the great cities they could, and it would be at least another three or four more hours before they would finally make it to the hotel in downtown Atlanta where the rest of their friends and school teachers were.

Don't get the boy wrong; this trip has been one of the best things he's ever done in his life. The sights he's seen, the food he's gotten to enjoy, all the cute American girls he's gotten to flirt with - it was all absolutely wonderful! And he very much hoped to come back to this country again someday.

However, the extremely long drives in the van in-between the cities was excruciatingly boring. He never thought America was so... big.

He at least had his loyal dog Kiwi to keep him company, but alas he forgot to take his MP3 player with him when he left the school. And he didn't bother buying any books to read at the book stores at the airports in either Paris or New York.

Odd hadn't felt this bored in years.

"I've tried, Princess." Odd defended himself, using the cute nickname for Aelita which he and his friends came up with. "But my phone's been dead for an hour and Jeremie's science books just bore me even more."

"Well, can't you just play 'red car, blue car' with yourself or something?" Jeremie Belpois, Aelita's boyfriend who was in the seat next to hers, suggested without looking from his laptop screen as he typed down something which looked like gibberish to everyone other than him and Aelita.

"... Ugggggghhhhh ..."

Odd's complaints were something which everyone else in the van shared, but expressing them was not helping anything at all. Everyone else in this van wanted nothing more than to just get out of it, but unfortunately they had to try and tough it out if they had any hope of making good time to Atlanta...

A few months ago, the city government in Paris announced that they were funding an initiative which would allow Parisian schools the opportunity to take their spring break trips to other countries and "enhance their world view" so to speak. Some schools decided against participating, but the teens' school, Kadic Academy, and thirteen others from across Paris, agreed to join the initiative.

It was the biggest and most expensive trip that Kadic Academy had ever devised. It would cost more than a million Euros, and more than three-fourths of the students and teachers of Kadic were going to be a part of it. The rest all decided to just enjoy their breaks with their families at home.

In total, including from Kadic, about three or four hundred students and a couple hundred teachers were either already in the United States or currently on the way. A few thousand other Parisian students were visiting other nations such as Canada, Japan, China, India, Korea, Tanzania, and Brazil, just to name some of the more notable ones.

The money from the Parisian government would pay for the entire endeavor, but tens of thousands more Euros were raised by the families of the students and from a big donation campaign across Paris itself. One donator, David Clarke - the kind uncle of three of the Lyoko Warriors - gave the school an incredible fifty thousand Euros right out of his own pocket for the school's trip expenses... much to the appreciation of his nephews and the rest of the Warriors.

Kadic's faculty, including its principal Jean-Pierre Delmas, had personally planned the travel route and travel methods for their school while the other schools were more or less going their own way and planning things however they saw fit. It was surprisingly pretty well-coordinated, with each school going out of their way to not accidentally conflict with the travel plans of other schools.

Some schools would visit Alaska, others would not. Some would visit San Diego and San Francisco, others wouldn't. Some schools would visit Denver or Houston or Honolulu, others would bypass the states of those cities entirely. Some would enjoy the hustle and bustle of the major cities of America, others would go out to the countryside to see what small-town living was like.

Some schools would even only visit one or two cities and then fly back a couple of days later. In fact, a few of the schools already did just that, their students and teachers already preparing to resume the rest of the school year.

But there was a few schools, including Kadic Academy, which planned to make this trip a cross-country two week event. Kadic teachers and students who joined the trip would get to experience everything from the busy streets of New York City to the warm sunny beaches of California.

In short, it was going to be one of the greatest times of the lives of each Lyoko Warrior. They were certain of that.

Their friends and teachers were in Atlanta at the moment but they were due to leave early the next morning for Memphis - the next leg on their school's trip from one coast of America to the other. If they didn't get into Atlanta by tonight, they'd just have a lot more driving to do to catch up once again.

New York City was the school's first stop as well as that these six Lyoko Warriors'. The six teens had a great time during their three days in the "Capital of the World", seeing all sorts of sights which they were sure to treasure in their memories forever.

From there, the teens followed the school's route to Philadelphia, then to Baltimore and Washington D.C., then to Richmond, then down to Raleigh and Charlotte in North Carolina, and now onward southwest through South Carolina and to Atlanta, Georgia.

After Atlanta they would head north toward Memphis and then Chicago, where they would spend a day before boarding a flight to Seattle, Washington. Then after a couple of days in Seattle, it would be a long drive south to San Francisco and then finally Los Angeles, their last destination before they and the rest of Kadic's people would fly back to Paris via two separate connecting flights through Dallas.

The six teens in this car were anxious to experience everything America had to offer, but they were more anxious to meet up with the rest of their group... all twelve of them.

Oh yes, these six aren't the only Lyoko Warriors anymore. Over the last three years fighting against XANA, their numbers have swelled up from six to eighteen.

Many of these teens had joined with the intent of the original six to help them in their fight against XANA, and many joined without the original six actually wanting them to. Some even changed some things for the original six teens forever, such as the revelation that one of them was actually Aelita's brother. He also had a brother, and Aelita had come to view him as a second brother even if they weren't blood related.

But regardless, all of the teens were now close friends, and by then they viewed each other to be as close as brothers and sisters if not literally. They'd all do anything to keep each other safe as well as humanity as they fought XANA.

Or, well, at least that's what they did when XANA was still active...

You see, XANA - the evil computer AI which the teens fought on a virtual world called "Lyoko", hence their unofficial group name - had, for entirely unknown and unexplainable reasons to the group, suddenly went dark three months earlier. No activity whatsoever. One day there was a XANA attack which nearly destroyed the school and nearly killed a lot of innocent people...

And then the next day... nothing. Not a single line of code which indicated XANA's activity or sentience.

For all intents and purposes, XANA was simply... gone.

Although the group was naturally a bit (AKA very) freaked out by this unexpected development, they also really hoped that the evil artificial creature was finally gone for good somehow. Examinations on the supercomputer by Aelita and Jeremie turned up nothing of worry. Even Aelita's father, Waldo - the man who originally created XANA and the supercomputer - checked it out and saw nothing which concerned him aside from the shocking sudden disappearance.

There was no trace of XANA or his activity left whatsoever.

Finally, after years of fighting him... it seemed like the Lyoko Warriors had finally ensured the safety of the human race.

Peaceful weeks went by for all of the teens, their individual guard gradually becoming lower and lower with each passing day. Eventually, the international Spring Break school trip was announced, with Kadic being one of several schools in the Paris area which decided to take part.

Since the money raised up by the Parisian government and through private donation covered everything from transport to food and board, the Lyoko Warriors found it to be an incredible opportunity to do something great before they'd return to their classes.

Twelve of the Lyoko Warrirors signed up for the trip. The original six, which included Aelita, Odd, and Jeremie, all volunteered to remain behind for a few extra days just to do one last check on the supercomputer. When it was abundantly clear that there wasn't any trace of XANA left, the teens decided to go on the Spring Break trip at the urging of Aelita's parents, Waldo and his wife, Anthea. The two adults promised that they would carefully watch the supercomputer and warn the teens to return if anything came up.

So, with what seemed to be a free pass to finally return to their normal lives after years of fighting XANA and his machinations, the teens, with their plane tickets paid for by money gifted from David Clarke, boarded a flight from Paris to New York City.

Upon landing, the teens rented their van at JFK International Airport (again with money from Mr. Clarke, who was more than generous to friends of his nephews), ate at one of the local Italian places right off the parkway leading out from the airport, and then enjoyed themselves in New York for the next day.

After that, the teens drove their way down the east coast of the United States to go and surprise the rest of their friends who had taken a different flight, though they made sure to take time to stop and tour places in several cities as well. The entire time, they were only one city behind the rest of their friends...

The plan was to catch up with the rest of the Lyoko Warriors in Atlanta and surprise them, stay in a hotel in multiple rooms for a night, and then join up with them and the rest of the school group for the rest of the trip across America. They intended to take in every wonderous sight they could see before returning home.

All of the Lyoko Warriors were happy to visit the United States, and they hoped to make many memories here which would last a lifetime.

As she and her friends chatted, Aelita glanced out her window and saw a few police cars speeding ahead of traffic with sirens blazing. To her surprise, the three cars came very close to hitting a van while taking an off-ramp into some town she didn't see the name of on the sign.

Aelita took another glance out the window and saw another sign which indicated the exit onto another highway, the one which led toward Atlanta itself.

"William, next right." Aelita informed the van's driver while gesturing out to the sign.

The driver of the van, William Dunbar, nodded at the pinkette's words before changing lanes. Another driver in the car next to their van was polite enough to move a little so that William could actually get to the exit ramp, which earned that driver a gratuitous wave from the teen.

In the passenger seat, another teen was keeping an eye out on their surroundings just like how Aelita was. At first it was nothing but boring sights for Ulrich Stern - some farmland and a lot of trees, some more trees, and even more trees after that. At least some of the surrounding cars and trucks on the highway helped ease the monotony.

But then to Ulrich's surprise, he happened to see a group of fighter jets flying very fast far off in the distance. He had seen a couple of fighter jets in the skies in America already, but only individual ones.

This was more like ten or eleven fighters all at once, and all were flying in the same direction into the distance... toward Atlanta it seemed, strangely enough.

"You guys see that out there?" the boy inquired to his friends in the back seats.

"Yeah, that's crazy..." Odd, his best friend, agreed. "Guessing there's a drill and there's an air force base or two somewhere in this region."

"There's an American air force reserve base north of Atlanta." Jeremie explained from his seat, still not looking up from his laptop as he typed quickly and professionally.

In the seat next to Ulrich, a black-haired Asian girl turned to look at Jeremie with an incredulous expression on her face.

"How do you know something as random as that?" the girl, Yumi Ishiyama, asked him with disbelief.

Jeremie simply shrugged in response, as he was too busy with whatever he was typing to respond vocally. Yumi simply had to accept that answer for whatever it was.

In annoyance, Aelita reached over to Jeremie's laptop and shut it closed. He turned to look at her with surprise, only to be met with a stern look on her face.

"Jeremie Michael Belpois, you're on a vacation." Aelita firmly-but-lovingly reminded her boyfriend. Admittedly the use of his full name like that reminded Jeremie a little of his own mother. "You can write out all the codes you could ever want when we're back home," Aelita then told him, "But until then I'm gonna make sure you relax and have fun."

Jeremie sheepishly scratched the back of his head, as he usually would do whenever Aelita made her opinion of his constant lack of relaxation or fun clear.

"I... guess writing out the codes for my robots can wait for another couple of weeks..." Jeremie conceded the issue, though now he realized he'd have to fight a lot of boredom on the way to Atlanta. At least he had Aelita and his friends to help with that.

As a reward, Aelita gave Jeremie a kiss on the cheek. "Good boy." was what she told him after that. That kind of praise made the boy's face blush.

The rest of the guys in the van couldn't hold back their snickering at witnessing Aelita's method of getting Jeremie to finally chill out on the trip. Yumi didn't snicker but she simply had an amused grin on her face.

"Show him who's boss, Aelita!" Ulrich cracked a joke from up front.

Jeremie's retort was actually pretty good. "Is that coming from the guy who constantly gets his butt whooped by Yumi in all your Pencak Silat spars?" the genius teased.

That not only shut Ulrich up, it also made his face blush from embarrassment, and it also brought a fresh chorus of laughter from everyone else in the rental van. This even included a hearty laugh from Yumi, who eased Ulrich's hurt pride by leaning forward and patting him on the shoulder.

"... only sometimes." Ulrich muttered in response, too embarrassed to be more vocal.

"Oh don't be a sourpuss, Ulrich." Odd quipped, grinning at his friend. Ulrich was his best friend but man he had a sensitive ego.

"Yeah, yeah..."

As Ulrich continued to mope, Aelita handed Jeremie one of her pink-colored earbuds and they started listening to some music together - a Subdigitals song, specifically. Their favorite band.

The couple put on the music and relaxed while surfing through their phones and enjoying each other's company.

As she listened to music with Jeremie, Aelita scrolled through her phone's photo album to look at everything she captured of her and her friends' trip down the East Coast so far. Among them was an admittedly crude photo of Odd posing with the Washington Monument in a way which she didn't want to describe...

Eventually she scrolled past the trip pictures and to some of the older ones. She stopped at one photo she took only a couple of weeks before XANA's sudden disappearance...

A selfie of herself Chase and Dylan Enheart... David's nephews... and her two brothers.

When she first woke up on Lyoko, Aelita had no idea who she was or even the fact that she was a human being... Jeremie woke her up, freed her, and helped her alongside their friends to learn how to be a human... though it turned into re-learning after they discovered she was actually born a human.

The most shocking part of the process was discovering that she had a brother. Chase, as his adoptive parents named him. He was supposed to have gone into Lyoko with Aelita and her father when they fled the Men in Black all those years ago, but something went wrong when her father tried to virtualize him. The boy simply disappeared...

Her father thought his son was dead after that, but he had no time to mourn. Waldo Schaeffer had to risk sending his daughter next as well as himself. The threat of potential atomization through the virtualization process was nothing compared to what would've happened had the Men in Black captured them...

Ten years later, after Aelita was reawakened and finally freed from Lyoko, about one hundred new students came to Kadic as part of a school program to accept more foreign students. Some would actually become fellow Lyoko Warriors, but two of them were Chase and his "brother", Dylan, who both came from America...

The group still wasn't sure how Chase ended up all the way over on another continent after disappearing in the scanner... What they did figure out was that he was found amnesiac by the police and he was sent to an orphanage in Chicago, where he was quickly adopted by a man named James (though he often liked to just be called "Jim") Enheart and his wife, Rachel, who would name him and raise him for the next decade. Dylan was born shortly after the adoption.

The two grew up thinking they were blood relatives... Chase was so young that any traces of his memories of the Schaeffer Family eventually just disappeared entirely...

When the two joined the group and the truth was finally revealed some months later thanks to some of the Franz Hopper journals, the two boys took it hard... really hard...

Dylan had to come to terms with the fact that his brother wasn't actually his brother, whereas Chase had to struggle with something much more devastating - the fact that his family wasn't really his family. Even his own name wasn't truly his...

The two boys had already lost too much in their lives. Their father disappeared during an archeological adventure in some god-forsaken jungle when they were just kids, and their mother died in a car accident on Chase's tenth birthday... Now something like this happens?

It took time and a lot of healing for both of the boys to come to terms with it. But the rest of the Lyoko Warriors were there for them every step of the way. Especially Aelita...

After a while, the two boys decided to simply accept the facts of the matter, but at the same time they refused to throw away anything in their lives which meant something to them. They decided to just continue being brothers even if they weren't of the same blood... They wouldn't just stop loving each other, after all. Chase also decided to just keep using the name he was given rather than the name he was born with.

Since Dylan would still be Chase's brother, and since Aelita and Chase were true blood siblings... Dylan and Aelita had a discussion in which they agreed to view themselves as step-siblings going forward. It might not be conventional, but the two and their brother were all happy regardless, and both Waldo and Anthea agreed to the three's decision after they both were reunited with their son and daughter after over a decade apart...

The two brothers might not have actually been related... but after all of this, their relationship grew even stronger. And in the end they even got a sister and two new parents to love too. So that was a plus.

David Clarke was also told of everything later, as eventually the group unanimously deemed him worthy of trust when it came to the secrets of Lyoko and everything about Aelita and Chase's past, with Jeremie giving him a quick run through one of the scanners in the factory one day to make sure he would remember everything after the next Return Trip.

Since then, Uncle David has loved and adored Aelita like she was the niece which he never got lucky enough to have, and he's likewise made good friends out of both Waldo and Anthea. In fact, Uncle David and the couple are such good friends that he even takes them to view the horse races from his VIP spectator box at the Auteuil Hippodrome twice a month. Even once to one of his yearly art shows in the Louvre itself.

Aelita smiled down at the picture on her phone once again, feeling excited and even a little anxious to reunite with her brothers again. She had grown so close with the two boys over the last few years that spending all these days apart from them felt simply unnatural to her...

Putting her phone away for now, Aelita turned to look out the window, wondering what her brothers and the rest of their friends were up to and what adventures they've had so far on their spring break trip...

In the seat in front of Aelita, Yumi was scrolling through her own phone's contact list to find her mother's caller ID, which she pressed the moment she saw it. It took only a few seconds for her mother to answer Yumi's phone call.

"Hello? Yumi?" her mother, Akiko, answered from the phone in their kitchen back at home.

"Hey, mom." Yumi greeted. "I was just calling you to let you know that we'll be in Atlanta in a bit. If traffic doesn't bother us then we'll be there by midnight."

"I won't lecture you about being out late this time..." Akiko joked, then cleared her throat. "How was your drive from... what city was it again?"

"Charlotte, in North Carolina." Yumi reminded her mother. "Before that we were in Raleigh. Same state."

"I hope you and your friends are managing well on such a long drive." Akiko told her. By the repeated 'thunk' sound on her end of the line, she was probably chopping up something for an early morning meal.

Yumi cringed, thinking back on all her time stuck in this cramped van. It certainly wasn't high up on her 'fun things to do' list, even with the company of her friends...

"... well enough ..." Yumi told her mother, deciding not to be too definite in her answer. Best not to have her mom worrying about her.

"I remember a similar trip your father took me on after we got married." Akiko began to reminisce, "From our old home in Kyoto all the way up to one of the resort towns in the mountains in Hokkaido... more than one thousand miles in the most cramped little car you could imagine."

Akiko continued. "Plus I was pregnant with you at the time," she further explained, "so, well... let's say it wasn't easy for me to hold in my lunch when your father and I went on the sea ferry. Took ten hours to cross."

... suddenly all of Yumi's complaints about this van seemed very insignificant. She could appreciate that the van at least wasn't full of a pregnant woman's vomit.

"Sounds like it was hellish..." Yumi muttered more to herself than to her mom, then she decided to change the subject. "What time is it in Paris right now?" she wondered.

"Two in the morning." Akiko told her. "I stayed up longer than usual so I could get your call."

"I could've easily just left a message for you on your phone, mom..." Yumi lightly chastised her mother for not getting her sleep.

"I know, but I don't mind. I wouldn't miss an opportunity to talk to you." Akiko assured her.

"That's really sweet of you, mom," Yumi chuckled softly, "but please get your sleep next time, okay? You already spend more than enough time being awake because of me and Hiroki being ourselves, you know that."

By the sudden sizzle on the other line, Akiko put whatever she was making on a stove pan. "Mostly just Hiroki..." the mother conceded. "Next time I'll be more patient for your sake... But just keep remembering to call me at least once a day!"

"Of course." Yumi told her mother. Always once or twice a day, and she had no intention of breaking that.

As the two women chatted with each other, Odd glanced out his window and he could see that on the opposite lane of the highway there was a convoy of seven ambulances all hurrying somewhere with sirens blazing. Eight or nine police cars were leading or following the ambulances and a few fire engines were in there too. All of the emergency vehicles were going so fast that Odd was surprised they didn't hit any cars.

... Huh ... wonder what was drawing so much first responders?

"-and I also got some stuff which you and dad will like." Yumi finished saying something to her mother.

"Oh? You got me a souvenir?" Akiko asked, having already sat down to eat the Okonomiyaki she threw together. Many outside of Japan would call it a "Japanese pizza."

"Yep," Yumi smiled. The teen reached down into her travel bag to pull out and examine the little pink cherry blossom keychain she bought when she and her friends attended the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C. five days ago.

Her mother would love the keychain, especially since it was a token of their Japanese heritage. Yumi also got a refrigerator magnet for her father - a silhouetted image of the Jefferson Memorial with a sunset behind it and some pink cherry blossom trees on the foreground. Bonus points for it having the Kanji "sakura" written on a tan-colored scroll opened underneath the silhouette of the memorial.

"Sakura" means "cherry blossom" in Japanese. Yumi knew how much her father treasured his heritage like how she herself did, and she was certain he would like this.

"You'll really like what I got you, I promise." Yumi smiled as she put the keychain back in her bag. "I was in Washington and I got you a-" she began again.

"Don't tell me what it is!" Akiko suddenly interrupted, a small hint of excitement, "I want it to be a surprise! You can show me when you and Hiroki come home!"

Yumi snickered. "Alright, alright, I won't say anything." she conceded. "You'll just have to wait and see what I got you and dad when I get home. Promise."

As she and her mother talked, Yumi glanced out the window to watch a flowery meadow pass her by as the van drove...

"Well, I hope you continue to enjoy yourself for the rest of your trip, Yumi. Your father are getting anxious to see you again." Akiko cheerfully told her daughter on the other line. "Make sure that you watch over your brother and keep him out of trouble after you get to Atlanta..."

"I'll make sure to keep him safe. I promise." Yumi chuckled, knowing just how much of a handful her brother could be. "What about you guys? You think you can handle your children being away for another week or two?" she teased.

Akiko chuckled with her daughter, then sighed happily. "If you can manage without us, your father and I can manage too." she assured her daughter. "Still... I'm really looking forward to the next time we see each other. It feels like it's going to be an eternity."

"Not an eternity, mom." Yumi promised. "You and dad will see Hiroki and I again before you know it."

A moment or two went by with neither woman saying anything. Both simply enjoying the moment they spent together, even if separated by thousands of miles...

Yumi was about to say something to her mom before the older woman broke their shared silence first.

"You know, I had an idea." Akiko began to tell Yumi. "When you and your brother get home in a couple of weeks... you, your brother, your father and I should all-"

Suddenly, just as the flowers outside transitioned into a dark treeline, the voice of Akiko cut out into static, and Yumi could only hear a dial tone instead of her mom's voice.

"Mom? Mom, are you there?" Yumi blinked before she pulled the phone from her ear. The words 'SIGNAL LOST' was blinking on the screen of her phone.

Whatever her mom's idea was would just have to wait for now...

Grunting with annoyance, Yumi put her phone back in her pocket and uttered a Japanese curse word against this entire area for having a bad cell signal. She made a mental note to call her mom again once they get into their hotel in Atlanta...

As Yumi grumbled to herself, William could see a town up ahead as he drove the van, a place called "Pendergrass." His stomach suddenly rumbled in hunger when he saw some off-ramp signs which would direct them to some of the good fast food places right off the highway.

William realized he hadn't eaten anything ever since they left Charlotte last night... the others in the van realized they hadn't eaten since then either.

"Anyone else hungry?" William asked as he saw some fast food places up ahead. No one said 'no', and everyone could hear the growl from Odd's stomach at the mention of food, so William took the liberty of pulling onto the off-ramp.

After driving down another street and crossing over a third, William parked the van in the parking lot of one of the fast food restaurants and one by one the group climbed their way out of it. Together they went inside the place, each teen ordering a delicious cheeseburger, fries, and milkshakes in various flavors. Odd also bought an order of chicken nuggets for him and his friends to share, but mainly it was so he could give three or four to Kiwi as a late dinner.

The teens were in the restaurant for about an hour, maybe an hour and ten minutes. They enjoyed their food and chatted for a while, then shared a laugh when Odd tried and failed to get the phone number of the cute waitress who tended to them... though he did shut them all up once he succeeded in getting the number of the even cuter cashier girl when he went to pay for everyone's food.

When they finished eating their burgers, the teens took a few extra minutes to take in the fresh night air outside or to take a bathroom break before hopping back into the van - the "sardine can" as Odd had called it since leaving Philadelphia. The name stuck.

William drove the "sardine can" to the gas station next door for a quick fill-up and an opportunity for everyone to buy some extra snacks and drinks for the rest of their drive to Atlanta. Once everyone got what they wanted, William drove back onto the highway and continued on for Atlanta.

Another long boring hour of driving went by before the worst case scenario happened - the group got caught in a traffic jam.

"Aw, dammit!" William cursed. There was no way they'd make good time to Atlanta now...

"Wonderful..." Odd groaned, his boredom practically becoming lethal by now.

The teens had no other choice but to settle in and just hope this traffic jam clears up soon. It looked like it was going to be a while...

As they waited, Aelita pulled out her phone again to check the traffic alerts, wanting to see how long this jam was, what could be causing it, and how long it would be until it was cleared up. But, like Yumi, she didn't have any cell signal either, so in annoyance she pocketed her phone for the second time.

William rolled down his window and leaned his arm out in an effort to make himself a little more comfortable. The fresh air would do him and the others well.

Ulrich reached over to turn on the radio. If they were going to be stuck here for a while, they might as well listen to something nice to help pass the time.

The group bickered for a few minutes on what they should listen to. Ulrich and William for once agreed on something: that classic rock was entertaining. Yumi had overheard a Japanese K-Pop song and wanted to listen to it. Jeremie and Aelita for once disagreed on something: with Jeremie wanting to hear some classical music and Aelita feeling in the mood for some other Subdigital songs which were playing on the station after the one her boyfriend wanted.

Odd, in complete contrast to everyone, wanted to stick his own mixtape into the van's CD player... an idea universally panned by all the other five.

Finally, William forced a compromise on everyone - for the moment, they'll all just sit there and just listen to nightly news radio reports, and they'll figure out a station to listen to music on later. It seemed fair enough for the entire group, and it was reluctantly accepted by them...

William turned the radio dial and changed through several stations until he found some of the radio news stations, some local, some national, and a couple international ones. He settled for a state news one since the group usually listens to international ones back in Paris, so it would be good for them to get a Georgian perspective on things.

"-and President Resnick announced early yesterday morning that the United States Navy shall continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the South China Sea alongside U.S. allies in NATO and East and South Asia 'until the time that the Chinese Communist Party stops trying to force its ridiculous travel restrictions in what the entire world views as international waters'. There has yet to be an official response to the president's statement from Beijing." a news broadcaster finished up a report.

The news broadcaster began the next news report. "And just a few hours ago, House Speaker Elijah McCarthy held a meeting with Vice President Amaya Inouye and several Democratic and Republican congressional representatives on the ongoing issue of conflict between Irish and Italian criminals across New York City." the broadcaster spoke. "Speaker McCarthy, an NYC native, has been a frequent critic of the Resnick Administration for, as he put it: 'not doing enough' to protect New Yorkers from the ongoing violence. Speaker McCarthy has been a strong opponent of many of President Resnick's policies in the House since losing the presidential election to him two years ago."

The group was very bored by what they were listening to, but this was what they got for not agreeing on what music they wanted. No music? Fine, listen to drivel.

Still... it was better than most of Odd's songs. And at least Jeremie and Aelita seemed like they enjoyed listening to the news... even if the report is about something morbid.

"The criminal activity in New York, a so-called 'gang war' between the Irish 'Conway Mob' and the Italian 'Moretti Family', has thus far claimed the lives of thirty-eight people across the city, including ten civilians. New York Mayor George Grant has vowed to soon end the violence with the full resources of New York City law enforcement and the support of the U.S. government should the situation escalate." the news broadcaster finished that report. "In an address made directly to the citizens of New York, Mayor Grant has promised that the violence shall soon be ended, and-"

Having no interest in any of this, William switched the station to another news channel and prayed he wouldn't die right then and there from boredom. Anyone who wanted to hear the rest of that news report from New York didn't make it vocal. Either they were just as uninterested or were just as bored or both.

As he tuned to other stations, the group could hear the radio giving out partial bits of music, news reports, or talk shows as William tried to find something else to settle on.

"-and in the latest financial markets, the global view on gold export prices is that-"

"🎶-ere we are, going far, to save all that we love! If we give all we got, we will make it thro-!🎶"

"🎶-ake up, get up, get out there, raise your voice against liars, feed your anger like fir-!🎶"

"🎶-ove is good, love can be strong! We got to get right back to where we started from-!🎶"

"🎶-lots of booze and lots of ramblin'... It's easier than just waitin' around to di-🎶"

"-ell, to respond to your claim, General Benavidez, I feel that the best thing that you and the rest of the Joint Chiefs can do is to tell President Resnick that he-"

"🎶-imple and clean is the way that you're making me feel-!🎶"

"-ow we'll take a question from a Mr., uh... 'Shrike'... who calls us from Chicago. He says: 'hey, radio idiots, my buddies Brad and Spiers and I got a bet you can settle for-'"

"-continuing to hunt for the accused Harper Nielsen and his accomplices, Landon Wu, and Dominic Mendoza, who were alleged by Arizona state authorities to have-"

"🎶-nd I wish I was in Dixie, hooray! hooray! In Dixie Land I'll take my stand to live and die in Dix-🎶"

"🎶-thoughts endless in flight... day turns to night... questions you ask your soul-🎶"

"-he rumored 'Assassins' Creed IV: Black Flag' remake may finally be announced by Ubisoft tonight on-"

"🎶-he pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines, will shiver the whol-🎶"

"🎶-ba ba ba baaaa - I'm lovin' it!-🎶"

"🎶-so, what do you wanna do? What's your point of view? There's a party, screw it, do you wanna go-?🎶"

"-the Lord calls upon us to take ourselves high above decadence, above decay, above degeneration, above-"

"'-onathan Mettic', yeah, you got my name right the first time. Anyway, I'm long-time listener from San Francisco, and I wanted to ask you for advice on how to-"

"-so come down to Howe's Hardware if you're looking for a good price on timber! Howe's Hardware: 'Howe's' that for a dea-?'"

"🎶-alk... through the valley... of the shadow of death... And I fear... no evil... because I'm blind... to it all-🎶"

"🎶-oh, take us, take us back, take us back, oh, take us ba-🎶"

"C'mon, can't you just settle on something already?" Ulrich deadpanned at the radio tuner. This was getting ridiculous.

William glared with annoyance at Ulrich before finally pulling his hand from the radio. It had settled on one of the local news stations.

Now the voice of a female news broadcaster was heard. "Visits by the students and faculty members of fourteen Parisian schools continue to rise-"

"Hey, she's talking about us!" Aelita interjected with a sudden excitement, only to be met with shushes from a couple of the others. She pouted and crossed her arms.

"-undreds of schoolchildren making their way to visit cities across the United States and the world." the news broadcaster continued from whatever the teens missed hearing.

After a moment, the broadcaster continued. "One of our affiliate network's news teams in Atlanta went to speak in an interview with some of the students and teachers of 'Kadic Academy' - one of the schools from the Paris area which has made the long trip to the United States."

The six Lyoko Warriors nearly jumped in surprise. The news interviewed people from Kadic of all places?

"The interview with some of the students and teachers of Kadic was recorded by our affiliate network WABE in Atlanta, and reporter Dave Hammon. We will now play the recording for you television viewers and radio listeners."

The news report was switched to a recorded interview which happened in Atlanta earlier that same day.

"This is Dave Hammon of WABE standing in downtown Atlanta with students and teachers of 'Kadic Academy', the most recent Parisian school to visit the so-called 'Capital City of the American South.'" the reporter, a man, was heard in the van's radio. "Right now, I want to-"

Suddenly the reporter was interrupted... and the Lyoko Warriors had a pretty good ideas as to who caused the interruption.

"Oh my god - I've never been on TV before!!! Or the radio!!!" the excited-yet-familiar voice of Tamiya Diop was heard by the teens.

"This is the greatest moment of my life!!!" Milly Solovieff's equally-excited and equally-familiar voice was heard next.

"Alright, Milly and Tamiya!" Ulrich cheered on their young friends, clapping his hands together joyously. The others in the van felt just as happy for the two girls.

After all this time, Milly and Tamiya finally did it - they got on actual radio and TV national news. The teens felt very proud of them both.

The reporter seemed to take the sudden interruption by the two excited girls in stride. In fact, he could even be heard laughing to himself about it.

"Easy, girls..." the reporter urged them, though in a kind way. Then, he asked: "So how are you two liking America so far?"

"We love it! We've always wanted to come here, and-!" Tamiya was heard to answer, only to be interrupted by her best friend.

"We have our own news team back at our school!" Milly was so excited to get the school paper on the news that she more or less ignored the reporter's question. "'Kadic School News'! If anyone wants to watch us when we get back home, you can go to our school website and scroll down to the link, and-"

There was the sound of what sounded like a microphone being snatched back from the excited little girl who yanked it...

"I am so sorry about that!" the reporter laughed to the news broadcaster. By his tone, the group could tell he was hiding some annoyance toward Milly for taking his mic. With the microphone back in hand, the reporter went to the next person he wanted to interview.

As the group continued listening to the radio, William was able to drive a little further ahead... but not much. It was clear they would be here for quite a while.

"And now we ask Kadic's school principal, Jean-Pierre Delmas and schoolteacher Jim Morales their opinions on-"

Suddenly the radio cut out, the report being replaced by static. The group groaned at this since they all suddenly got excited to hear their beloved principal and P.E. teacher speak.

"Aw man, are you serious?" Odd whined. The first time he actually liked listening to the news and it gets cut off like that?

"Hold on, hold on..." Ulrich told him as he started fumbling with the radio in an attempt to fix the stupid thing.

"Signal issue?" Aelita guessed. To her, the radio itself likely wasn't the problem... maybe the signal was being blocked by something in the distance?

Ulrich was about to say something back to Aelita when the radio finally started working again.

"-ell, I'm mainly just thankful that the Paris City Government was willing to begin this initiative." the familiar voice of Principal Delmas was heard to answer some question which the group missed. "The students of Kadic Academy are the best in all Paris, and I've always felt that they deserved something really special. The school could never have afforded to do something like this without the help of Paris and private donors such as my friend, Mr. David Clarke."

The teens in the van all smiled at the mention of Aelita, Dylan, and Chase's "Uncle Dave." The guy definitely deserved some credit on television for something like this. They were all also very touched by Principal Delmas praising them and the other Kadic students as being the best in all Paris.

"Exactly, I agree." they next heard Jim speak up. "Plus its nice to finally be able to come back to America after all this time. Been wanting to ever since I caught the guy who tried to bomb the '84 Olympics when I worked as a private detective."

"Wait, that was you?!" the reporter broke from his professionalism in a moment of shock. "I was one of the news reporters there when that happened! How did-?!"

The sound from the radio report was suddenly drowned by the even-louder sound of a police siren, and moments later a police car flew very fast past the group and the rest of the traffic jam on the shoulder lane next to them.

The group, unfortunately, would miss this interesting question from the reporter as well... much to their disappointment, as the story of how Jim caught the would-be bomber of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics would've probably been-

"-'d rather not talk about it." Jim's classic answer was what they finally heard again after the siren faded into the distance. That answer was more or less all they'd get instead of a story... though they shouldn't be surprised. The guy had a habit of never going into detail.

If the reporter was disappointed by Jim's answer, he didn't make it vocally known.

"Well, thank you all for your time. Also, your English is really good." the reporter cheerfully said to the adults and the others from the school. "And may all of you have the best of luck on the rest of your trip across America!"

"Remember - that's 'Kadic' with a 'C'!" the teens in the van suddenly heard Milly interject in another desperate effort for people to read the Kadic News. "That's K-A-D-I-"

The young girl was herself interrupted by the reporter moving his microphone away from her... much to her annoyance and disappointment.

The group couldn't actually see how Milly reacted since they were listening to a radio, mind you, but they knew Milly well enough to know that she wasn't happy by this.

"Among the cities which other Parisian schoolchildren and their teachers plan to visit include here in Atlanta, Savannah, and Athens - so if you live in any of these cities, don't be afraid to show these people some good old fashioned Southern hospitality." the reporter cheerfully told his audience. "This was Dave Hammon for WABE in Atlanta and we thank you for watching and listening. Back to you, Hannah..."

With that, the state news broadcaster from earlier finally returned to pick up the rest of the nightly news. The Lyoko Warriors all angrily glanced at the radio when they heard that WABE reporter's microphone catch him cursing Milly as a "stupid kid" under his breath...

Ohhh, if any of them were there and they heard that idiot reporter say that... well, they'd 'make sure' he'd apologize to Milly.

"Thank you to Dave and WABE for that story." the broadcaster said, either not hearing or choosing to ignore the WABE reporter's remark before continuing. "Tomorrow, WABE reporter Carley Vigil will broadcast a report on the 'Cherry Blossom Festival' in Macon, and tomorrow night we'll report some new details of the conviction and sentencing of the convicted murderer of former Georgia state senator, Sam MacLean..."

"Now to wrap up the news for tonight," the broadcaster continued, "we have an update on the condition of wounded King County Sheriff's Deputy, Rick-"

Suddenly the news report was replaced by an interruption... again. But this time it was different...

... instead of hearing more of the broadcaster, all that greeted the teens from the radio was complete and total silence. Then, after a long moment, the familiar static was there.

Well, it was not only static this time... The teens could hear a voice on this station. Though it was faint, and that coupled with the very heavy static made it difficult to hear.

"...

...

The-... -ergenc-... al-... -ystem... -as... been activa-...

...

... office of-... civ-... def-... -nitiated the following messag-...

...

...

Normal broadcasting-... -ease-... -ediately...

...

...

This is a-... -ivil-... -gency-... warn-...

...

-o... not ventur-... -side...

...

-at all cos-...

...

...

Help is on the-...

...

...

..."

The static then took over completely before the teens could hear anything else.

Ulrich tried a few more radio stations but like before there was only static to be heard, so he just shut the thing off.

"What on earth was that all about?" Aelita wondered from her seat. The radio not working was one thing, but she could swear she heard that voice say something like... "civil emergency", perhaps?

"Who knows what it was..." Odd shrugged. "Probably just some weird radio show which we're not receiving..."

"A radio show?" William deadpanned though didn't look away from the road. "What year do you think this is, Odd, 1935?"

Odd deadpanned right back at the driver. "Hey, you know what I mean when I said-"

Suddenly the teen was cut off by a loud scream coming from outside of the van. Five teenage faces all instantly turned to look out the window to see what the heck was going on. They didn't see whoever made that scream but they definitely saw something was going on...

"What the...?" Yumi muttered as she saw some people who were standing in the night air suddenly turn and run in the other direction, abandoning their cars. Those people were soon joined by dozens more who were running from something ahead in the traffic jam.

Then, some gunfire was heard far off in the distance, somewhere very far ahead of the steep incline which the highway took. It was beyond the highest edge of it, somewhere far ahead of where it lowered back downhill.

A few moments after that, the teens heard some more gunfire from up ahead somewhere. Though this time it sounded a bit closer...

Then more gunfire was heard, but this time it was sustained like it was from an automatic weapon of some sort...

Then a lot more gunfire... as if from several different sources and several different kinds guns at once. And this time they didn't hear the gunfire stop.

Before any of the teens could question all the gunfire, a thunderous roar sounded from above. One which was so close that it made the van violently shake from the speed and velocity of the aircraft flying above.

Each teen clamored to look out the windows of the van just as another roar was heard, making the van shake just as violently.

The teens saw two more fighter jets... and they were heading in the direction of Atlanta just like those other jets from earlier...

"Something's very wrong here..." Jeremie pointed out the obvious. Those fighter jets weren't doing a training exercise, and he realized the ones earlier weren't either...

... to his own shock, he even saw for the split-second the jets were overhead that they were armed. The jets each carried long back tubes... bombs of some kind, most likely.

Why was the U.S. Air Force flying with live explosives over Georgia...? Over their own soil?

Ulrich nodded in agreement to what Jeremie said as he opened up the van door. Before anyone could question him, he was already standing out on the road itself.

"C'mon." he told all of the others in the van.

"Are you serious?!" Odd asked with a tone of utter bewilderment. "You're hearing gunfire somewhere up ahead and you wanna go toward it?!"

Ulrich frowned with determination. "We got to find out what's happening up ahead, Odd!" he reasoned. If there was danger, he and the others had to know what it was.

"And I'd much rather that the legacy of Odd Della Robbia not die out before the age of twenty!" Odd protested. "I haven't even released my album yet! Let alone get a trophy wife, or a yacht, or a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, or-"

"I'll go with him!" Yumi frowned with annoyance before she opened up the sliding side door and hurried over to her boyfriend's side.

Soon, Yumi and Ulrich left the van and their friends behind for the moment, both teens running as fast as they could toward the incline of the highway. It took some effort to reach the top of the incline - both because of the long steepness and for the fact that they had to make their way past vehicles and people everywhere.

As they ran by people, they could see many were just as confused about what was going on as they were. Others looked terrified, as if they thought that there was a risk of death hovering over them and everyone else around them. But no one moved from where they stood.

A couple more fighter jets roared above Yumi and Ulrich and everyone else on the highway. Some attack helicopters also flew overhead by the time the two reached the top of the incline of the highway.

When they got there, Yumi and Ulrich took a look at whatever lay ahead...

Up ahead, Yumi and Ulrich could see that the traffic jam seemed to stretch for miles, though it eventually disappeared into a haziness caused by a thick distant fog and the dark night which had already settled over all Georgia.

But in the haze, the two teens could see hundreds of people running toward them in fear for their lives. Behind the crowds of oncoming people was the flashes of gunfire from dozens of weapons being fired from different positions, and the lights of fires sparked by God only knew what...

It... it looked like a war was happening over there...

The crowds of panicked people were getting closer and closer... and Yumi and Ulrich both turned and ran back for the van in the face of a very real threat of trampling. They already saw one or two people suffer such a fate even from this distance.

The two teens ran quickly, but they only made it about three quarters of the way back to their van and friends before the panicked crowds finally caught up.

Yumi and Ulrich were swarmed. Dozens of people, hundreds of people - all panicked by whatever they saw in that thick distant haze - they ran past and pushed past the teens without any sense or care. Their confusion and fear over what they saw was what drove them to get as far away from it as they possibly could, and no one was going to get in their way.

A woman with a little girl in her arms pushed herself past Yumi so hard that the teen fell down onto the road. Yumi was instantly pelted by the boots and shoes of any and all.

"Yumi!" Ulrich exclaimed, desperately trying to push his way past people so he could save his girlfriend. He even resorted to punching some men in the face who wouldn't, or couldn't, get out of his way in time.

Yumi covered her face and the rest of her body as best she could from the trampling by the panicked crowd, but several hard stomps still hit her body, including a bad one to the side of her head which made her see stars. She could taste blood in her mouth.

Ulrich reached Yumi after several moments of this and he dived next to her. Rather than try to help her up and just get knocked over again, he had the brilliant idea to grab Yumi and to drag her under one of the abandoned cars with him.

The boy tried his best to drag his girlfriend to the underside of the car but it wasn't long before he started to get trampled into the asphalt too. One guy even deliberately kicked him in the side, as if he was angered that Ulrich and Yumi would dare lay on the ground and get in everyone's way.

The two teens desperately reached up for the door handles of the car to try and get themselves inside of it, where they would be safe. Neither of them could reach it...

Both Yumi and Ulrich kept being trampled for several more moments before Yumi finally felt a pair of hands grab hers and pull her upwards. At the same time, Ulrich felt some hands grab onto him and pull as well.

The two hurt teens were pulled from the stampede and up onto the roof of the car they had tried to get into. There they saw the familiar faces of Odd, Aelita, William, and Jeremie all look into theirs, all relieved to see the two were relatively okay in spite of almost being crushed to death...

"Oh god, are you guys okay?!" Aelita asked, her voice tinged with worry. "W- We hurried after you when we saw more fighter jets fly ahead, and we saw you guys get-"

"We're fine!" Ulrich hissed from pain as he held his injured shoulder. "God, guys - all of you - thank you! Without you, we both would've... we- we would've-"

"You don't need to say anything. I know you'd have done the same for any of us." Odd assured, patting his best friend on the back. He instantly pulled his hand back and apologized when Ulrich let out a gasp of pain.

The teens were forced to stay on top of the car until the crowds finally thinned out to just individual runners. When they all climbed down, they took a look at the damage suffered by Yumi and Ulrich. Aside from some bumps and bruises and cuts, the two seemed to get out of that pretty lucky. No broken bones.

Yumi's hand fell to her pocket and she felt her heart stop. She desperately started to look around for what she lost... only to find it laying in the middle of the highway.

When she picked up her phone, she saw it had been completely destroyed... Crushed under the feet of dozens of people who ran over it.

"Oh no..." Yumi paled when she saw what was left of her phone. She knew fully well that it could've been her which ended up crushed instead...

... if their friends didn't get her and Ulrich on the roof of that car, they both would've die-

"We need to get back to the van!" Ulrich interrupted Yumi's thoughts with an alarmed voice.

"What'd you guys see up there at the top of the incline?!" Jeremie demanded to know. The sudden stampede of people 'unnerved' him, and that was putting it lightly.

Yumi was about to tell him, but she suddenly noticed what caught Ulrich's alarm. The rest of the group also caught on only a moment later.

Far back at the incline, the teens could see that the distant gunfire which Yumi and Ulrich saw and heard had now drawn a lot closer. On the top of the highway incline was the soldiers who were deep in the fog and darkness, who had by now retreated and set up a brand new defensive position there on the high ground to rain down fire on... on whatever it was that they were trying to shoot at...

The teens had no idea what was going on, and right now they didn't care. All they were certain of was one thing.

They had to run.

Immediately the six teens turned and ran back for their van as quickly as they could, all certain that they were now running for their very lives.

"We saw a lot of that!" Yumi finally answered Jeremie's question, gesturing back at the defensive line of soldiers as she and the rest of the group all ran.

"We gotta get back to the van! Get out of here!" William stated to the rest of the group.

"What about the others?!" Aelita asked with a noticeable worry in her voice. If her brothers and the rest of their group were still in Atlanta and the military was rolling in to deal with whatever threat was happening...

"We'll find them all when we get there!" Odd assured the pinkette. The Lyoko Warriors don't abandon their own, not for any reason...

Their friends were all okay. They had to be. Especially since the military was rolling in force toward the city... They'll help restore peace and order within hours. Especially if anything crazy was actually happening within Atlanta proper...

But why was the military rolling out to begin with?! Was there a terrorist attack going on?! An invasion by another country?! Was this even only in the Atlanta area, or was this something happening in multiple places in the state?!

The six teens continued to run all as they ran past all the abandoned cars and all the remaining people who were either too confused to move or too scared to do so.

Soon they caught sight of their rental van in the distance... only to see it just in time for an out-of-control car careen from the opposite side of the highway, across the grass divider, and slam right into the side of the van itself.

"WHAT THE-?!" Ulrich exclaimed as he saw the left side of the van get totally crushed.

"KIWI!!!" Odd screamed before he hurried to the van, not caring about anything other than if his dog was okay or not.

Odd ignored any and all indications of danger as he rushed to find his dog. He was so overcome by worry that he didn't even check on if the driver of the car was okay.

The boy could hear Kiwi's frightened whimpers before he even pulled the sliding door open, causing the thing to fall off and clatter onto the asphalt. But to Odd's relief, he saw that Kiwi didn't look injured, and the dog, now suddenly happy to see his best friend, instantly jumped into Odd's arms and started licking his face in relief.

Once Odd felt certain that Kiwi was okay, he turned to finally check on the driver of the car. He saw that the rest of the group had already gone to the car and were trying to get the door open to aid whoever was-

Suddenly, a bloody hand pressed itself hard against the glass of the driver's door, followed by a woman's face which was bloody and broken and full of rage... though what the teens didn't know for the moment was that the woman's injuries were not because of the car crash.

The unexpected sudden fright made all the teens jump. Aelita especially, who was the one standing right there by the door, and who was sent stumbling back in her shock until she tripped on something and fell on her butt as a result.

"Gah!" Aelita exclaimed as she fell to the asphalt, though she didn't look away from the window even for a moment. Her eyes were wide like a doe caught in headlights.

Jeremie hurried to help Aelita up, both teens looking just as shocked as their friends all were...

As the teens all continued to stare at the window, the woman in the car kept slamming her bloody hand against the glass, her face wild and angry... animalistic even. As if she was no longer in control of her own self, and simply craved to do something horrible and violent to someone...

"W- What's wrong with this woman...?" Aelita hesitantly asked her friends. No one could answer since they simply had no answer.

On the hand and arm of the woman, the teens could see several bite marks and deep scratches... was she rabid?!

William wasn't willing to keep watching whatever this was. While in frustration over the car crash, he hurried to check out the van and to see how bad the damage caused by that crazy woman was. Even from a first glance he could tell it was bad... as if the sliding door wasn't already a big indication.

Unable to hold back his anger, William simply grabbed the disconnected driver's side mirror and he flung it into a tree.

"DAMMIT!!!" William cursed, then he went to angrily kick one of the tires of the van. Even with the insurance this was still going to cost a fortune to the rental company!

William turned to face his friends again, but he suddenly froze. Down the road he could see those soldiers who had taken up defensive positions at the top of the highway incline...

... they weren't up there anymore. They were running as fast as they could away from there.

The teens soon noticed this as well and they each turned to watch as a few dozen soldiers made their way toward them, then past them. Most looked horrified, others looked utterly haunted by whatever they had seen and fought against up there. Many were even running with rifles which no longer held magazines... They ran out of ammo against what they were fighting against?!

As the soldiers ran, some happened to notice the group of teens just standing there in the road.

"RUN!!! Get the fuck out of here!!!" one of the fleeing soldiers, a national guardsman though the teens didn't recognize that, cried out in terror to the teens as he ran for his life. He was too terrified to stop and actually offer the teens any help. Or even to tell them to run themselves.

Several more guardsmen ran past the teens after the panicked guy. One of them was holding a radio to the side of his head.

"Drop it! Drop the biggest fucking one you've got on the target!!!" the soldier cried into his radio in desperation.

The teens didn't hear the voice on the other end of the radio, though they could see that the soldier was unhappy with whatever he was being told.

"Just drop the damn thing or everyone here is gonna be lost! We've gotta get-..." he cried out into his radio. Then he had gotten too far away for the teens to hear more.

The six Lyoko Warriors might've been scared... unnerved... utterly confused... but after hearing something like that, and now that they're seeing soldiers running for their lives from whatever the unknown threat was... it had terrified them all.

... what on earth was happening here?

In the distance, Odd noticed there was two more fighter jets in the sky... but this time, he could see the jets flying straight toward the highway instead of in the direction of Atlanta. He alerted the other five teens to this and all of them turned to watch.

Flying at hundreds of miles an hour, it took only seconds for the two jets to get close. The six teens stood there, all frozen and uncertain about what was going to happen...

And that's when the jets dropped their bombs. As the jets flew above them, the teens gazes followed the several slim black tubes as they separated from the jets and fell down to their target destination... the highway itself.

When the bombs landed several hundred feet ahead of them, there was a brief moment where everything seemed to stand still. No one was running, no one was screaming. The banging on the glass from that woman in the car wasn't there, and even that light breeze in the air suddenly felt like it didn't exist...

But then the bombs exploded, unleashing their payload onto everything around whether it be metal, wood, or meat...

The bright light from the bombs made the teens cover their eyes, but nothing could have prepared them for the blastwave nor the almost-unbearable heat which hit them like a truck. Jeremie, Aelita, and Odd all even lost their bearings. Aelita herself fell to her hands and knees before Jeremie hurriedly helped her and himself back up.

When the shocked and stunned teens got their bearings back and looked toward the scene of the explosions, they were greeted by sights, smells, and sounds which none of them ever expected or hoped to see...

The screams... the screams... Screams of agony which none of the teens ever could have imagined in their darkest nightmares...

The smell of burnt and burning flesh... the sight of dozens of people burning to death in masses of flaming napalm right in front of them...

Men... women...

... children.

The Lyoko Warriors had brushed with death many times since Jeremie found and activated the supercomputer... they've seen others brush with death too... but time and time again they've overcome it. XANA always threw the worst he could throw at them, and they always stopped him in the end.

... but now they were seeing people die. Really die... And they were dying in a way as horrifying as this...

What they experienced here and now would stay with them. All of it would haunt their young souls for the rest of their lives.

It was as if hell itself has sprung up onto the earth...

"... oh god ..." Aelita whispered to herself in a shuddery, soft voice... tears running down the sides of her face.

Horror filled the very core of Aelita's being as she and her friends saw people roasting alive in the fiery napalm... people. Human beings just like her. People who only a short time ago were just going about their day...

As the fatal inferno continued to burn, the group caught sight of people on fire who were stumbling out of it. The poor people were all so burnt from the napalm that the teens couldn't even tell which ones were men and which one were women... the only reason that they could tell there was kids among them was because they were short, nothing more.

Close to the burnt people was others who had been injured by the blasts but who weren't too severely burnt. Some had already gotten up and ran for their lives. Others had taken injuries to their bodies or their legs which prevented them from moving too much, whether it was by burns or shrapnel or both. The pain was too great.

The Lyoko Warriors nearly ran out to help those people... but then they saw something happen which made them forget any idea of it.

From afar, the Lyoko Warriors could only watch as the burnt people stumbling out of the flames approached the hurt people on the asphalt. Those burnt people leaned down to the barely-living and injured people... and they started to rip the flesh clean from their bodies...

Roasted teeth and burnt fingers dug into the hurt-but-still-living people who were laying helplessly on the asphalt of the highway. Some of the hurt people screamed as they were ripped open. Others couldn't, though their bodies still visibly thrashed in a level of pain which was unimaginable to any of the teens.

As the burnt people dug their faces into the flesh of the helpless hurt people, the teens realized what was happening...

... the burnt people were eating them alive.

"H- How... w- why..." Ulrich gasped, unable to truly believe what he was seeing. Immolation in fire... mass death... cannibalism?!

Jeremie and Odd couldn't hold it in anymore. Both of the teens were so horrified that they vomited on the spot, leading to Aelita and William rushing to their aid.

People were burning... people were dying... people were eating each other and the teens couldn't begin to fathom why...

With only groans or gasps heard from the burnt people, the teens recoiled as many now turned their attention to them. The still-living.

With each step backward by the teens, the burnt people took a step forward. Some of them began growling. Others reached out with their arms and tried to snatch at the teens as they started to close in. The teens realized they wanted to do to them what they already did to those people on the road...

"Run!" Yumi urged all of her friends, trying to get everyone to move. If they didn't, they'll all die. "RUN!!!"

The group didn't waste time - they turned and ran like hell for the van. The woman in the crashed car continued to bang against the window, animalistically clawing her nails against the glass as she watched her prey run away...

Already afraid by whatever was going on, the idea of being literally ripped apart and eaten alive only made them practically dive into the van for their lives.

William hopped into the driver's seat and he slammed his foot on the pedal. The van, still missing its door, immediately reversed and jostled the teens inside. Everyone braced as the van turned and stopped, and they held tight as William switched to 'drive' and turned the van again to speed in the direction they originally came from.

It wasn't easy to drive on a highway full of people and abandoned cars. William was determined not to get himself, his friends, or anyone else killed as they fled.

They had to get off this highway, find their way to Atlanta, and they-

"WATCH OUT!!!" Odd suddenly exclaimed in the passenger seat.

William's eyes widened when he saw a few people pop out from behind a car and run out onto the street, having not seen the van until it was too late. William turned the wheel as hard as it could go and avoided hitting those people, but alas he sent the van careening into a roadside ditch by accident...

As it went into the ditch, the van flipped over onto its side. All of the teens got jostled since they weren't wearing their seatbelts. The airbags also went off and painfully hit both Odd and William in the face, dazing them both even as they fell out of their seats and onto each other.

Stunned and dazed from the crash, it took more than a few moments for everyone to gather their bearings. Kiwi was heard to whimper, having hurt himself in the accident.

The rest of the teens in the van barely managed to regain their senses by the time they heard Aelita let out a scream of horror, causing everyone to turn and see that Jeremie was laying outside on the grass by the road. Thanks to one of the sliding doors being gone, he was flung out of the van when it flipped...

Aelita wasted no time in trying to climb her way out of the van. Her foot was caught under something though, and she was struggling really hard to get out of it. The rest of the teens were all either on top of each other or were buried under their own luggage or both.

"Jeremie!!!" Aelita exclaimed, panicked at the idea of him being hurt as she tried as hard as she could to free herself. "JEREMIE!!!"

Outside, the blond teen boy moved slightly, as if he was regaining consciousness. Aelita could hear him let out a soft, confused, and very pained groan...

Jeremie slowly raised his head and forced himself up with wobbly arms, his hands searching for his glasses. He found them after a moment and put them on.

He wasn't in the van anymore...?

The supergenius flipped himself over and made himself sit upright. He grit his teeth from a sharp pain in his back, but he ignored it as best he could. What mattered to him was to get back to the van to see if Aelita and the others were all okay...

If Aelita was hurt...

Thanks to a sudden scream of "behind you!" from Aelita, Jeremie turned just in time to see someone approaching him. He first thought it was someone coming to help... but then he saw it was a person who was actually stumbling and growling, just like how those burnt cannibalistic people were...

The person lunged at Jeremie before the boy could even defend himself. The person's hands gripped the teen's shirt tightly as he pounced onto him, his mouth immediately leaning close so he could try to take a harsh bite out of Jeremie's shocked face.

The teens in the van tripped and stumbled over each other as Jeremie struggled with all his strength to keep this person from hurting him. He could feel the man's fingernails trying to dig into his skin through the shirt...

"Help me!" Jeremie pleaded to his friends as he fought for his life. "Someone! Anyone! I- I can't keep him off forever!"

"HELP HIM!!! GET THAT FREAK OFF OF HIM!!!" Aelita screamed at everyone else in the van. If she couldn't get free in the next few moments then she'll rip her stupid trapped foot off with her own hands if she had to!

Finally, William and Ulrich managed to get themselves out of the overturned van, though they had to do it by crawling over all their friends and going through the broken front window. They both cut their arms on the broken glass resting below them, but they ignored the pain for Jeremie's sake.

Without a moment to spare, the two boys began running towards Jeremie as fast as their legs allowed them to. They arrived just in time to yank the attacking man off of their friend and roughly pin him to the ground, with Ulrich making sure to press a knee down against the back of his head. It was partly to pin him down, and partly to just teach him a lesson for daring to attack Jeremie...

Moments later, the other teens made it out of the van as well. Aelita, despite a big bump on her head and a nasty cut on her leg, ran forth to Jeremie and almost tackled the bespectacled boy in a bone-crushing hug. It was a hug which Jeremie was absolutely glad to return to his girlfriend.

"A- Are you okay?!" a shocked Aelita could only ask that simple question. She had never seen Jeremie come so close to losing his life before and her worry showed...

Jeremie held Aelita tight in his arms, the adrenaline which flowed in his veins while fighting to survive finally fading away. He now felt very tired and in pain from the crash...

"T-That psycho just tried to bite me!" Jeremie replied, still shaky and confused. "H- He tried to bite me, Aelita!" even while saying it he just couldn't believe what happened.

"Jeremie, please tell me that you're-"

"I- I'm okay..." Jeremie interrupted her with an assurance. It wasn't the first time he's come close to dying, he of all people knew this... It was just the most recent brush with death, and perhaps the closest to be successful thus far. XANA had come close to killing him more than once, but this time... god...

If Ulrich and William had been only another moment too late...

Forcing a smile on his face for Aelita's sake, Jeremie pulled back slightly and rested his palm on Aelita's cheek. He looked deep into her eyes and tried his best to calm her.

"D- Don't worry, Princess..." Jeremie told her, his smile not fading in the slightest, "you're still stuck with me."

Aelita couldn't hold back a relieved smile when she heard that. She leaned forward and kissed him, still holding onto him and never daring to let go.

As the two geniuses hugged, William and Ulrich were still pinning the crazed man to the ground with great difficulty, as for some reason he just would not stop struggling. The man was acting like an animal... and there was no hint of him getting tired and ceasing his insanity.

"Stay down, dammit! Just stay down!" William growled as he struggled to keep the man's right arm on the ground.

"What's wrong with this guy?!" Ulrich exclaimed as the man tried to claw at his arm with his fingers, but failing.

Yumi and Odd had finally climbed their way out of the van through its missing door. Odd was carrying his hurt dog in his arms, wide-eyed from a million emotions and thoughts running through him all at once.

"Are you guys okay?!" Odd asked as he and Yumi approached the group.

"We're okay!" Ulrich assured him, though his voice was strained since he was putting all his effort in keeping the crazy man down.

"We're fine, I promise!" Yumi nodded. She and Odd were shaken up and bruised just like the others... but aside from that, they were fine.

Jeremie then looked around the area to get a sense of everything going on around them, not wanting to get any other surprise like this crazy guy. His eyes widened when they settled toward the direction they were going on the highway before their van suddenly crashed...

What appeared to be dozens of people that looked just like this man that were walking towards them from that direction. They were far, but they were close enough for the boy to make out details about them which were as horrific as they were nightmarishly unbelievable...

The people all appeared to have horrific wounds on their bodies... one person was even missing his jaw, another was missing an arm. A couple without legs were desperately crawling toward the teens, their demeanor exactly the same as this crazy man...

... those people looked like walking corpses.

"Guys, we need to get out of here! NOW!" Jeremie alerted everyone else. The group then noticed all of the people heading straight for them, and, much to their continuing horror - the burnt people were already coming their way from the opposite direction too.

Leaving the pinned guy with a punch on the back of the head by Ulrich's fist, the group quickly ran back for the van and grabbed only their most precious possessions - things which they couldn't leave behind. Personal items like photographs of their families and friends or their cell phones, mainly. The teens didn't even take the luggage bags which contained their clothes, they just abandoned it all in their rush to escape with their lives.

To Jeremie's surprise and regret, he found that his laptop had been crushed somehow during the van's rollover into the ditch Rather than take the now-useless electronic with him, the genius instead opened up the laptop with a screwdriver he found in the glovebox and he removed the hard drive, stuffing it into his backpack with what little supplies he could find which had survived the crash.

The hard drive held too much information on XANA and their group to risk leaving it behind... even in a situation like this, he wouldn't dare risk anything.

As the dozens of 'walking corpses' and burnt people approached the van, eating alive some of the others on the highway who couldn't escape. the Lyoko Warriors finished gathering up everything they could before they finally bolted for the treeline. They intended to get away from all these people and find somewhere safe to lay low for a bit...

Whatever just happened... the army will come and fix everything. The U.S. government... someone somewhere was going to help them and their friends in Atlanta... everone just had to stay alive until that happened...

... but what the teens couldn't know that everything they experienced on this highway was only just the start ...

... the nightmare begins ...