"Mara get up, we're going to be late." Ally called for the third time. Every morning it was the same thing, Mara refusing to wake up and them having to race to make it to class on time. Ally wanted to leave Mara, letting her best friend get detetion for being late. Lucky for Mara, Ally didn't want to deal with her friend's temperantrume. "Girl, get up!"
"Go away..." Mara's voice came out as guff. "I don't feel well."
Rolling her eyes, Ally yanked the covers off her friend. "Your going to bio. No matter how much you hate working with Kya. I'm not going to listen to your wincing about failing another test." Being roommates, might Ally was use to Mara's tricks and shcemes. At least once a week, Mara complained something was wrong, trying to avoid certain classes. Allowing Mara to get away with it, would cause more trouble for Ally then forcing the girl into attending class. Since Ally's older cousin was the princpal of the school, he often checked in with Ally, making sure Mara was keeping her grades up and staying out of trouble. Mara's family did donate alot to the school each year. So why wouldn't they want to check on their only daugther?
"Ally, stop." Mara pleas were useless, as Ally threw an outfit and a towel at her. "I'm not going to class. Just go without me." During the night, she had begun feeling nause and dizzy. Getting out of bed required energy she didn't have. Speaking, only made the nause worst.
Frusated, Ally yanked Mara into a sitting position. "Oh no you don't. The last time you were 'sick' you went shopping." Pulling Mara up, she shoved a towel and clothes into Mara's arms. "March straight into the shower. You've got ten mintues. Or I'm dragging you out."
As Ally pushed her towards the door, Mara's vison began to blur. Direct shapes, became blobs and unregzionable. Ally's voice grew distant and feint, as did the senseation of her grip on Mara. "Ser..ious..ly... Ally. I'm.." Mare pitfully tried pleading, her words coming out slurred. "st....-" Heat flared through her body, making her skin flushed red. Ally firm grip, suddenly grew scolding hot. Mara yelped in pain from her head throbbing, as she stumbled.
Falling Mara stumble, Ally saw the other girl fall to the girl. "Mara?" Gently touching Mara's shoulder, Ally was shocked by how hot the skin was. Brushing Mara's brown hair back, Ally on her friend. Concerned, Ally quickly got her cell to call her cousin.
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Kya's POV:
"What's going on in the girls' dorm?" Lynn asked, as he walked over with Cam. It was rare to see Cam before breakfast, since he lived off campus. Something tells me, he must've spent the night in the manison, then snuck over to Lynn's dorm to borrow an outfit. This wouldn't be unusal, since Cam perfered working in the lab where there were no distactions. While Tiya allowed the boys alot of freedom, Cam walking in after midnight would rise alot of questions.
"Mara's being taken to the hosptial." I answered. "Ally called the prinpal this morning, something about Mara being 'sick'." Mara was known among the students as a drama queen. Most of the teachers only saw her as a 'model student'. Not the spoil brat she truly is. Anytime Mara said she was sick, most of the time they believed her. What is it about rich kids that allows them to get their way?
"Maybe her ego finally got to big for her head." Cam joked. "Either way, we'll miss breakfast if we stay here." Following Cam, we headed to breakfast. The cafetria was more crowded then usual. Most of the commuters rarely came early like Cam and Alexei did for the school's breakfast. However, on special days, everyone came. Instead of the usual eggs, toast, and other breakfast foods. Today's speical was a complete Japanese style breakfast. The school encouraged multiculture relationships and understanding. This was reflected in several ways throughout the the school. Often, the school provide different foods and meals from around the world. Several times a month, a speical meuns replaces the regluar one. When the happens, the caferteia usually runs out of food. Every single student who attends Kanna Academy eagly awaits these days. If you arrive last, your only options will be the food the that is regurally served.
"Bad timing, nerds." Calex called from his table as we walked by. "All the good stuff is gone." To make his point, he took a huge bite of his food.
Walking pass, Lynn 'accidently' bumped into Calex, knocking the tray into his lap. "Whoops, my bad. Guess this nerd needs glasses." Lynn gave a boyish smile, as he headed straight for our usual table.
I joined Lynn, while Cam continued to the food line. "And you stay I should be forgiving." Shaking my hand, I wanted to laugh at the irony. Lynn tells me to forget about Mara, that karma will take care of every. Yet here Lynn is, bring his own karma justice to Avery. "Why should I listen to you again?"
Lynn shrugged, "You shouldn't, I'm a bad example to follow. Your a better person then I am."
Rolling my eyes, I smiled as Cam took the seat beside me. "What did they have?" Looking at Cam's sad eggs and dry toast, I gave a silent thanks that I'd decied to skip breakfast. "That doesn't look appiatezing."
Cam shrugged, talking a big bite of toast. "It's either eat now, or listen to my stomache growl until lunch." Cam wasn't a picky eater, but that didn't mean he had to eat everything that was 'edbile'. Watching him eat the toast that appeared drier then the Sahara, made my stomache gag. "I've completed fifty precent of the materiazlion program." He said causally.
"WHAT!!!!???" Lynn and I said in unison. Almost a year since we formed the Lyoko Defenders, Cam hadn't made alot of progress with the materizalion program. Getting half way done, is huge new. "How much longer do you think it'll take tp finish."
Cam took a sip of orange juice. "I was suppose to run test the other day, but then Alexei got himself kidnapped." He referred to our last misson. Alexei had somehow got trapped within a Guardian, which kept him suck on Lyoko during a return to the past. This left me to protect Emi and free Alexei, which prompted Cam calling Lynn to rejoining. "Once I've run the tests, I'll be able to procede to the next part. We might be able to materizal Emi before the end of the year."
Lynn and I stared at each other wide eyed. Emi would finally be able to join us on earth. We'd be able to fully shut down the supercomputer. We'd be free of X.A.N.A. and go back to being normal students. "When can we run the tests?" Lynn asked, execited.
Cam took a final bite of his eggs, then answered. "If we can find Alexei, then right after school." Glancing at his watch, Cam informed us school was starting soon. Lynn left first, since his classes were in a different area. Lynn is the oldest of the group, making him a grade higher as well. Often, this made getting out of class during attacks differcult.
"Where is Alexei?" I asked, while we walked to class.
Cam shrugged, "I haven't seen him since he left the manison. As you've probably guessed, I spent the night there." We stopped the discussion there upon arrving at class. We'd inform Alexei during lunch, if he ever showed up.
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Lynn's POV:
"This is ridcolus!" Kya paced in front of the vending manchines, while waiting for Alexei. It was our break between classes and we'd met up at our usual spot in the quad. "Where's Alexei this time!?" Alexei hadn't shown up for his first two classes, which rightly caused Cam and Kya to worry. The last time Alexei was missing, the Guardian had him trapped on Lyoko. Yesturday, Alexei had been in the caferia when Mara began bugging us. Which meant we could rule out him being on Lyoko.
"Maybe there's an activated tower." I suggested. "Wouldn't be the first time X.A.N.A.'s attacked without us noticing."
Kya shook her head, "Cam's checking with Alexei's friends. We'll connect Emi if Cam doesn't find anything."
My cell rung. "Hello?"
"Come to the imfarmy." Cam's voice was grim. "I've found Alexei." He hung up without explaining more.
"Alexei's in the infarmy." I informed Kya, before he went to meet up with Cam.
"What happened?" I asked, looking at a sleeping Alexei. Alexei's skin was flushed and hot to the touch. He was sleeping, but it looked anything but peaceful. The small imfarmy was completely filled with students passed out on beds, cots, and chairs.
"He's been here since late last night." Cam explained. "The nurse thought it was a cold or twenty-four hour stomache bug." He gestured to the other unconousis students. "Appearntly. there's a sickness spreading around the school."
"So Alexei's sick." Kya said. "We'll run the tests without him. We've done it before."
Cam shook his head, "This isn't a normally sickness, it's spreading to fast and most of the symtoms aren't the same." Cam learnt from the nurse that over twenty students had gotten sick over night and more had been arriving in the imfarmy that morning. Those that appear worst, were sent straight to the hospital, like Mara. "Mara's skin was burning like Alexei, but she also had dizziness, nause, and was dehyated. Alexei's main systoms are stomache related, nothing to serious from a stomache bug."
"What are we missing, general?" I asked, curious as to what we were missing.
Cam shook his head, "I'm not sure. I'm going to look into this." He turned to Kya. "Cover for me?"
Kya nodded, "Let us know when you find something."
Our break over, Kya and I left Cam and went to class.
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Cam's POV:
Finding Alexei in the imfarmy was the last place I exepcted him to be. His migranes have been improving, he hasn't had one in two months. Which is why I was shocked by his condison. From what the nurse had said, Alexei's condison wasn't bad enough to send him to the hopstial. Mara had been the sixth student sent this morning, but that number has tripled. What is happening?
"Have you found anything?" Emi popped up on my laptop montior. She'd been searching for a Key, when I called. If this is X.A.N.A. related, I wanted Emi to be on standby. "I haven't fought any pulsions." No plusion meant there wasn't an activated tower. Maybe this wasn't an attack. I still wanted to test my theroy.
Preparing the sample, I got the slide ready. "I'll know more once I check these." Before leaving the imfarmy, I snuck into the nurse's office and grabbed several saliva and blood samples. Some were Alexei's and some Mara's. SInce Mara was one of the first students sent to the hospital and Alexei's been in the hospail since last night, they're the best ones to begin with.
"What are you looking for?" Emi asked, curious as to what I was doing.
I placed Mara's blood sample under the micoscope. "Looking at samples I 'borrowed' from the nurse. I'm hoping there's something here that'll reveal the reason behind the sickness." Ajusting the micscope's fousc, I got a clear look at Mara's blood sample. Nothing usual there, the same with Alexei's blood sample. After several mintues of switching between them, I decided to look another students' sample. Each one looked the same. "I can't find anything." Pinning the bridge of my nose, I sighed in frustation. "What am I missing?"
"Have you looked through all the samples?" Emi asked. "Maybe there's another connecting factor."
"I'm not sure Emi, all of the students affected have alot in common." All of the students affected, got sick sometime between last night and this morning. The only other connection is that their all students of Kanna Academy.
"It's possblie they were all affected within the same place." Emi unhelpfully offered. Again, all of them are students at Kanna Acadamy. They could've gotten affected anywhere on campus. "Let's narrow it down by looking at the list of students sick and the areas on campus they'd all mostly be."
While Emi worked on her theroy, I began looking at the saliva samples. This also proved inaffactive. "Nothing! The only thing werid are these circles."
"Circles?" Emi looked up, "Can you zoom in closer? Or let me see?"
Adjusting the micscope, I plugged my laptop in to project the samples onto the screen. Emi brought up a view on her side to look through. "These black circles aren't suppose to be here." Looking closer, I noticed they were affecting the silva. "This isn't right."
"Oh no." Emi's cry got my attention. "Based on the imformation you've provded, I've narrowed down the times most of the students got sick." She brought up a data chart. "The earliest sytoms appear to have began around seven pm last night and seven am this morning." The chart changed to show different data. "The cafertira and library are the only two places most of the sick students could've been when they were affected."
Looking over her data, the answer became clear. "Dinner begins at seven-thirty pm and breakfast is served at seven am." Using this new information, I left the science lab and snuck into the caferita. Soup was last night's main course for dinner. While side dishes vary, the main course is the only item everyone gets. Which might anyone who ate dinner last night, would've at least eaten the soup.
The caferita was surpisingly quiet, given that lunch was less then an hour away. I wasn't going to question this, since it allowed me to get inside unnoticed. Once inside, I made my way to the kitchen's fidge. Sometimes left over food is left in the fridge for staff to take home or students who want a midnight snack. The left over soup was in a gaint container on the bottom shelf. Borrowing a lidal, I filled the pastlc container I carried half way with soup.
"Can you believe all of those kids got sick so suddenly?" A male voice asked, it was the gardner. The school's gardern was married to one of the caferia workers. So it wasn't unusal to see the two of them together.
"No one knows. It's like something out of a science movie." They're voices grew closer, they were going to find me soon.
Sample in hand, I quickly snuck out of teh cafetira. Back in te science lab, I put the soup sample under the mictoscoope. Everything appeared normal, until I zoomed in. Black cicles flowered throughout the sample, the same as in the blood and saliva samples. "This is strange." Putting the slide for Emi to see, I explained my concerns. "We've definetly found the cause of the sickness. Now we just need to figure out how and why. Maybe develop a cure."
"No need." Emi's voice was grim. "Look."
Glancing at the samples, I nearly freaked. The black circles glowed red now, revealing an all to familar symbol. "Xana."
Emi nodded, "I'll search for a tower. We need to deactivate it fast." She signed off, while I called the others. With Alexei sick, we're going to need Lynn.
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Kya's POV:
"Is this really because of Xana?" Cam called while I visited Alexei. News that Xana had caused this was shocking. This is the first biological attack, everything else before has been either weather or man-made used to attack us.
"Postive." Cam opened the hatch, than climbed into the acess tunnels. "Emi's looking for the tower now."
Cam grabbed a skateboard then lead the way. I follwered closely behind, doing small tricks on my skateboard. Mintues later, we climbed out of the tunnels, entering the mansion's supply shed. From here, we entered the manison's second floor. Cam valuted over the railing first, grabbed the rope adn swung to the first floor. Once I landed, we sprinted into the library, then hopped on the elevator.
"I'll head for the scanners." I started to hit the button, but Cam stopped me.
"We don't know where the tower is. WE also need to wait for Lynn." Cam hopped into the chair, then connect to Lyoko. "Emi?"
"Why would you call Lynn?" Annoyed, I paced the area behind Cam. "Just send me, I've managed alone before."
Cam turned to look at me, "What if you get devituarlzted? I can't go to Lyoko, you know this."
Before our agurement grew, Emi pooped onto the screen. "I'm in front of the tower. There are three krabs and two bloks protecting it."
Cam pulled up Emi's location. "Your in the ice sector. We haven't been there in a while."
"There's another problem." Emi uttred the three words that always grauated things were gonna get more differcult. "The virus making everyone sick takes twenty hours to fully take affect. Once twenty hours has been reached...."
She trailed off, although we knew what she meant. If a person dies, a return to the past can't bring them back.
"Dinner was at seven-thirty last night." Cam looked at the clock on the screen. "Twenty hours from than is three-thirty this afternoon. We only have twenty minutes to deactiviate the tower."
The elevator opened, revealing Lynn. "Ready to depart, general." Lynn saluted.
"Get to the scanners, your going to the ice sector." Cam waved to us as we got into the elevator.
Entering the scanners, Cam began the vitualztion procees. "Transfer Lynn, Transfer Kya. Scanner Lynn, Scanner Kya. Vitualztion!"
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Lynn's POV:
Dropping onto Lyoko, it took a moment to get use to my digital body. Like Kya and Cam, my avatar is based off of something.
"The tower's east of you." Cam's voice suprised me. "Emi's still hiding from the monsters. Hurry before they discover her."
"Ready?" Kya asked. I'm surpised she hasn't complained about me being here. It has been three months since my last trip to Lyoko. Three months of not seeing Emi and leaving the others with this burden. "We only have twenty mintues to deactivate the tower. If we don't, the virus will be irresverblie."
Kya lead the way, with me following close behind. The ice sector is a vast area covered in blue/white ice. Like the dersert and moutain sectors, there are caves and moutainous ridges and platforms. Kranlets often slip or slide along the ice crashing into things and destroying themselves. The sector is just as dangerous fro us, since the ice easily cracks and breaks.
"Over here!" Emi eaved, from her hidign spot. She hide behind a blouder, where she could see the tower. "They haven't moved, since I arrived."
"How about a crab salad?" I joked, to which the girls groaned.
"Leave the bad jokes for Alexei, Lynn." Cam ordered. "I've got to begin the hack now, this tower is requiring a ten digit code. It'll need the extra time to find it. But it also means you'll have less then twenty mintues."
Kya shook her head, "How much time are we talking?"
"Ten mintues." Cam didn't sound happy either. "If I mess up the code within the first ten mintues, we'll have another ten mintues left for a second try."
Taking out my chakram, I moved so that the monsters would see me. "Let's get everything right the first time." Glancing at the girls, I told them the plan. "There's to many to take on head on. We'll have to trick and trap them. Emi, can you make a lovely surpise for the krabs? Kya and I will lead them to you. We'll worry about the bloks later."
Normally when monsters are directly guarding a tower, two or three will break formation to purse us. Leaving fewer in front of the tower we'd have to destroy. If we could lead the krabs into a trap, Kya and I could each take out a blok.