Kya's POV:
"Stop playing around Alexei!" I chased my idoit friend around the quad. "Give it back! I haven't read it yet!" Earlier that morning, I recived another package of comics from my brothers. Alexei saw me reading one of them before classes this morning and has been bugging me all day to borrow them. Can't I enjoy them for one day before he asks to borrow them?
"Aww come on, Ky. You don't even like this series that much." Alexei ducked behind a tree. "I've been waiting months for this issue. It's the final one for this arc! Let me read it, I promise to give it back." He sprinted away the moment I rounded the tree. "Remember sharing is caring!"
"Not when it comes to you!" Finally, I had tim trapped. Alexei stood in front of a bench. If I can get close enough, I can snatch the comic back. "This is why I don't let you borrow my stufd. You keep taking it without asking!" I leapt forward, intending to grab my comic. Alexei was one step ahead. He jumped over the bench to the other side.
"Alexei!" I lost my footing and topicaled onto the bench. "Not funny."
Alexei didn't hide his snircking. "Lighten up, Kya."
Before I lanuch myself at the annoyance, Lynn snuck up behind me and wrapped both arms around my waist. "Ms. Tiya won't write us that letter of remmonandtion for Emi if you send her only son to the hopsital." That was enough to stop me from tackling Alexei.
"Yeah, Kya." Alexei struck his touge out and waved the comic trumpihly. "Thanks for the comic!"
Lynn shot Alexei a glare that wiped the smirk from his face. "Oh no you don't. Give Kya her comic, before I tell Mara what you were really doing last night."
Alexei face turned pale. "You wouldn't. You don't even like talking to them."
Lynn held his hand out for my comic. "Wanna bet? I have no problem ratting you out to the enemy if it means helping my best friend."
Defeated, Alexei handed over the comic. From behind Lynn, I struck my touge out to taunt Alexei. "Cut it, Kya." Dang, how does he do that? He seems to know what I'll do before I do it sometimes. "I know what your thinking and no. I can read you, because we're best friends." He placed the comic in my hands, before affectionly patting my head.
"So this is what you guys do when I'm not around." Emi's voice startled us. She causaly leaned against the tree Alexei hide behind earlier. "Why do you guys always give me that look? Still not use to me being on earth?"
I shook my head. "That's not it. We're suprised to see you here."
"Why? I visit all the time." She stepped away from the tree to move towards us.
"Yeah, but not during the school day." Lynn pointed out.
"How'd you leave Kadic without getting in trouble?" Alexei's mood did a one-eighty with Emi's appearence. He seemed to have calmed down and almost normal.
"Mrs. Hertz gave back out science test yesturday. I was the only one to get a hurdred on this one and the preouvis one." Emi proudly decleared. "She annouced yesturday she was gonna do review classes for the next few days. I got a hurderd on both tests, she said I could use her classes for the next few days as a study peroid, since it'd be pointless for me to sit through a review class. Instead of a study period today, I asked if I could go back into the forest to look for more plants to draw and catorgorize."
Alexei snorted, "Why do that? You could've used the time to watch a movie or take a nap."
I gave him a light shove. "Not everyone's as movie or sleep opssisted as you. Speaking of, if you'd stop watching movies all night, you might actually get enough sleep for once."
"I figured I could use that as an excuse to sneak off campus and onto Kanna Academy. Cam needs help analayizing the data from the other day." Emi looked at her watch. "Our schuldes matched up where we'd both have lunch around the same time. Mrs. Hertz science class is right after lunch. That gives me about an hour and a half before I gotta be back."
"Which means Cam will also be skipping class." I groaned, thinking of what excuse to give the teacher this time. Which reminds me, "How are you gonna explain not being there for lunch?"
Emi smiled, "Wave's got it covered." That's all she said before she dismissed herself to find Cam. Who's probably snuck into my dorm to work on Lyoko stuff.
"We should also get to lunch." Lynn lead the way to the cafetira where food awaited.
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Alexei's POV:
"Can't the school spring for cartaing for once?" Kya watched the mush called lunch slowly dip off of her spoon. The grey slop fell onto the tray with a plop. Kya pushed her tray away, disgust written all over her face. "Yeah, I'm not hungrey."
"It's not that bad." Lynn eagerly dug into his food. "A little salt some pepper and-"
"A trip to the infarmy." Kya took Lynn's plate from him. "As your best friend, I can't allow you to eat this. It looks like something my brother made.'
I nearly gagged at that reminder. "Did you have to bring that up?" Disgusted, I pushed my own tray away. "I was sick for a week after eating your brother's cooking." I made air quotes, letting them know I didn't consider that mess edible. "And I use the term 'cooking' very very loosely."
"We tried to warn you." Lynn had to sympathy for me that day. "But you insisted it couldn't be that bad and it'd be bad to waste food." He snorted. "That mess shouldn't even be considered food or edible."
When Kya and Lynn had returned for the new school year, one of Kya's older brothers came with them. He's a senior in his last year of high school. After dropping Kya and Lynn off, he went with some friends to visit a few of the colleges in the area. To Kya's shock, he gifted his little sister and her best friend some food he'd made. Needless to say, Kya and Lynn weren't to thrilled.
"How was I suppose to know? Kya doesn't exactly like me borrowing her things." I looked at the comic she wouldn't let me borrow.
"I don't mind you borrowing my things, after I've had a chance to enjoy them and you don't take them without permission." Kya placed said comic in her bag, out of my reach. "Speaking of permission, when's Cam gonna let us explore Sector Five? It's the only sector we haven't been to. It could provide helpful information."
Lynn nodded, "Espeically for Emi's visions, even through she hasn't had one since we discovered the other three sectors. We should still look into the cause of them, just in case she get them again."
"Don't you think we rely on Cam to much." Cam's the brains of the group and the only one able to work and use the supercomputer. If it weren't for him, I don't know what we would've done. At the same time, I think we've been relying on Cam to much. Thinking back, Cam's been the one to create all the programs we use, direct us on Lyoko, and so much more. On top of that, he has to maintain good grades and stay out of trouble to avoid upsetting his sister. She's made it perfectly clear, she'll pull Cam out of school and force him to move overseas with her. While their parents are busy traveling for work, something they've been doing for years now, Cam's sister is his legal guradian. Even through Kanna Academy is a boarding school, there's no way she'd allow Cam to live on campus as a boarder. If it wasn't for my mom, Cam would've had to move with his sister, when she went overseas to attend college.
"Be realize, Alexei." Kya's voice drew my attention back to the converstion. "We can't do half the things Cam can. Sure, I can viltuize you guys onto Lyoko. But that's it. If it weren't for the sub-hacking programs, I wouldn't be able to get rid of the firewall around the towers for Emi."
"We don't like putting all this pressure on Cam. But what else can we do, Alexei?" Lynn asked. "You know if we offered to help, he turn us down. Besides, we'd be more of a hindrance that a help."
They have a point. I've offered to help Cam several times. Each time he gives me a look and tells me to get out. Actually, that might have more to do with my lack of 'talent' with technology. I can't help it if my laptop keeps getting virus.
"There's gotta be some way we can help." I poked the slop of mush on my plate.
"Short of sneaking onto Lyoko and exploring Sector Five ourselves, there's nothing we can do." Kya said, than added. "Don't even think about it, Alexei. We're not doing it. There's to much unknown about these sectors, even with Cam."
"We could always look into the history of the Heritmage and the manison, in addition to if there's a connection between the took." Lynn causally said, as he tried to get his tray back from Kya. "There's always the the western wing to investage."
The manison has two wings, the eastern and western. The eastern wing is where the library and lab are, in addition to how to enter the mansion. The western wing is largely unexplored and unknown. After discovering Lyoko and forming the Defenders, we took time to explore the manison in hopes of learning more about the lab and Lyoko. The eastern wing turned up nothing. We didn't get far into the western wing because it's to much of a mess. We'd have to divide our time between cleaning and carefully exploring the western wing to have any hopes of finding anything.
"Perfect!" They were taken back by my sudden outburst, "We can also ask to see if Emi can take on some of Cam's work load. Maybe she can work on some of the smaller projects."
"I thought she was working on fixing the materlaztion program with him?" Kya asked, as she moved the tray further out of Lynn's reach.
"That was the plan. But after the visions started, Cam suggested she take it easy and adjust to her new life on earth first." Lynn gave up and settled for eating the apple Kya offered.
"She's been here for a month now. I'd say she's adjusted pretty well in that time." Kya took a second look at the food and wriggled her nose. "You'd never know she wasn't from here."
"Who isn't from here?" A voice asked making me jump. I glanced behind me to see Calex. Calex transferred into Kanna the same day Emi started at Kadic. I first saw him beleifly on Emi's first day since he was parntered with Kya. I'm not sure how he knows Kya, but Lynn appears to know him as well. "What are you guys talking about?"
"Nothing." Lynn answered in a dry, bored voice. "A better question is why were you easedrop-" His question was cut off with an 'ooff'. By the look on Kya's face, she either elbowed him in the ribs or stomped on his foot. Either way, that look is scary.
"What Lynn means," She gave him a pointed look, probably to keep him quiet. "You surpised us. Right, Alexei?" Great, now that look is aimed at me. I want nothing to do with this. But something tells me if I don't comply, I won't be reading that comic anytime soon.
"Yeah." I tried to think of something, anything to change the direction of this conversation. "I don't think we've been introduce. I'm Alexei."
"Calex." He said. "But you probably know that already, since your friends with Kya and Lynn."
Kya rolled her eyes. "You already know each other. We did archery together just the other day."
Lynn mutter something under his breath, to which Kya gave him another glare. "So Calex, do you like movies?" When in doubt, go with what you know. Kya groaned, but didn't say anything. She must be desparate for the converstaion to move to another topic if she's not whacking me or making snide comments about my taste in movies.
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Emi's POV:
"What do you think?" Cam asked as he moved aside, allowing me a better view of the screen. "I haven't had much time to work on it, since I've been spliting my foucs on several different things."
On the screen was the bit of data we collected just from being on Lyoko. Most of the information appeared to be random. How does knowning the color coding help us? Its not much, but there has to be something useful.
"Honestly, it's completely random." I said bluntly, "On a first look, there doesn't appear to be anything useful."
Cam nodded, "That's what I thought to. That's another reason I haven't spent more time on it. I don't want to waste time if there's nothing useful. But I also don't want to over look anything." He closed the program and took out the CD that held the data.
"Cam, your putting to much pressure on yourself." Is this what Cam was like before I came to earth? The others did say Cam spent most of his time working on different things for Lyoko. Now that I'm seeing it in person and not through a computer screen, it's eye opening. Cam is the sole brains and leader of our group. Without him, we wouldn't be able to combat Xana. Sure, I'm smart and good with techology as well. But Cam knows all of the interworkings of everything, espcailly his personal programs he's created. "Just because I live on earth now doesn't mean I can't help. Why don't you let me finish analzying the data and complete the vechiles?"
"Are you sure?" Cam asked. Maybe he's considering my idea. "It's not going to be like when you were on Lyoko helping me. You'll have to juggle this plus school and everything else. I don't want you worrying about this, when you've finally come to earth."
I took the CD out of his hands with a wink. "Don't worry Cam. I'm use to living on earth. Besides, you need rest just as much as I do. So let me continue to help as I have been."
"Fine." Cam placed a second CD into the computer. After several mintues of clicking and typing, he took the CD out and handed it to me. "I've copied all of my current work and data onto this CD. Make any changes and modifciations on here, we'll upload to the supercomputer later."
I placed both CDs inside my bag. "I'm suprised you don't want to check over my work."
Cam snorted, "I didn't say that. I may trust you, but we also need to double check everything." He turn the computer off and when to collect his bag. "It's no different than you checking over my work."
"True." I teased.
"Hush." Cam playfully shoved me, than opened the door of Kya's dorm. He stuck his head out, making sure no one was in the hall. Students at Kanna weren't suppose to be in the dorms during school hours. If Cam is caught that one thing. Being caught with a student from another school won't be good for either of us. "It's clear, let's go."
Like ninjas, we carefully made our way out of the dorms outside to the quad. Classes weren't do to be over for another fifteen mintues. This gives me enough time to make it back to school and to class. I waved bye to Cam, than dashed into the forest. Mrs. Hertz will want to see how I spend my time in the forset. Good thing I'd made extra drawings and never turned them in.
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Alexei's POV:
Afterschool
"I can't believe we agreed to this. Kya groaned. "Do you know how long it will take to sought through all of this?" She kicked at the debry.
Lynn aimed his flashlight into an empty room. "Kya's right. But this is the only part we haven't searched yet." He ucked uner a fallen beam to enter the western winf. "Coming?" He offered a hand to Kya.
She rolled her eyes, but took his hand. On the other side o the beam she looked around the unknown. "Do you really think we'll find anything?"
It was my turn to jounrey over to the other side. Once there, I took out my flashlight and made my way down the hall.
"We won't know what it is until we find it." Lynn answered. He lead the way further into the western wing. Our goal today was mainly to serve the area. We need an idea of how big this wing is before we can begin searching.
Kya drew a map as we walked. Each room was marked with a star on the map. Two stars meant there was alot of debris.
We continued deeper into the western wing, until we came to two locked rooms. "I think we should stop here for today." Lynn suggested.
Kya shook her head, "We can't afford to keep waiting. I think we can start searching in other rooms."
The two continued to discuss the pors and cons of stopping or begin searching. Lynn wanted the grop to discuss how we should begin our search. The debris alone will make searching differcult. On the other hand, we need answers. Each time we think we've found them more questions arise.
"Looks like our discussion will have to wait." My cell rang with a message from Cam. "Xana's procezed someone else and used them to send Emi alone Lyoko."
Lynn and Kya shared a look of confusion. "How'd we not hear anything?" Kya asked. "We would'be at least heard the eleavtor."
"Doesn't matter." Putting my cell away, I started to head for the lab. "We need to figure out how to get who ever Xana procuized away from the lab."
Lynn and Kya followed me to the library. We made it down to the lab with no problems. The elevoator doors clincked open. Lynn stepped into the lab first. He moved slowelt, surveying the room. Several moments passed, before he motioned for us to enter.
"It doesn't appear that anyone's here." Lynn began searching again. "Maybe the General made a mistake."
Kya hopped into the chair, logging into Lyoko. "It's no mistake. Emi's currently in the derest sector alone."
"Where's the activated tower?" I leaned againts the back of the chair.
Kya opened another window on the screen. "The mountain sector, that's where the tower's located."
"So, what's the plan?" Lynn asked. "We don't know who Xana pozied or where they are. Not to mention Cam isn't here."
"About that." Kya pulled up the sercuity camara's feed. "Xana must not have execpted us to be inside the mansion (already)." Outside of the mansion was a man, walking the primiere. "Looks like this is who Xana pozied."
Lynn peaked over Kya's shoulder. "Yeah, Cam won't be arriving anytime soon."
I nodded in agreement. "We'll have to do this one without him." This makes the third person Xana's prozied in less than a month. Our experience with Mr. C has taught us these proize are strong. To strong to fight. "How long do you think we have before Xana realizes we're already in the mansion?"
"Let's not find out." Kya began typing something. "Head for the scanners. I'll contact Cam. We'll have to figure out a plan B just in case Xana tries something.