I caught this off a Sheltered Reality song, but I replaced ONE word.

Don't own Code Lyoko or Kaitlyn Belpois. You know the drill. This was a collaborative effort between Hunter Moebius and me. Thank you so much.

There's no way to escape…VORTEX DAY!

The Night before ALL HELL ripped through the Code Lyoko Space-Time Continuum

A bespectacled brown haired girl, staggering and droopy-eyed under an armful of stuffed animals, shuffled towards Jeremie Belpois's dorm. Usually, boys and girls weren't allowed to frequent each other's floors after lights-out, but on this particular night, Cassidy René McGuire was subconsciously breaking that rule.

Jim had told her, Aelita, and the boys about it, but it confused them. She tried to run it through her brain as often as she could for reminders, but sometimes it slipped.

Carefully opening the door, she tottered into the room. She found Jeremie typing away at his computer, as usual, not even aware of his visitor and friend. Even the sound she made as she closed the door failed to disturb the blond genius.

She even went as far as to place her glasses on his table, near his computer, yet his eyes remained transfixed on its monitor, despite the dark circles underneath, and veins of blood that overtook, his eyes. Having failed to alert the bespectacled blond to her arrival, Cassidy soon dropped her pillow and stuffed animals onto the floor, following them only a second later, before covering herself with her blanket.

Despite all the commotion happening behind him, the young genius kept typing, completely absorbed in his work. His mind only filled itself with constant thoughts of XANA. The A.I. had to be destroyed before he could take over the world with an army of robots and computers from all across the globe. Jeremie couldn't afford to fail; to do so would be at the cost of the entire world.

Can't fail… Have to beat, he thought absently, his tired mind subconsciously creating incoherent sentences.

Cassidy's eyes slid closed, the girl falling into a deep, sound sleep, while Jeremie continued to work furiously, forcing his eyes to stay open, and his fingers to fly across his keyboard with blinding speed.

But what the two teens didn't realize, was that the next day was going to be completely different than anything they could have ever planned, or even fathomed.

Cassidy woke the next morning with a start, her mind unusually alert. Rising to a sitting position, she grabbed her glasses and fumbled with them for a moment, before finally managing to get them on. Her vision now cleared, the girl glanced around, finding her surroundings had drastically changed, as shock crossed her features.

"Oh, no," she squeaked, before coming to a startling realization.

Little did she know that those two words would be the last she would say, that day.

"What's wrong?" Jeremie, for the first time in over eight hours, stopped his typing and turned around in his chair, before getting a shock of his own. As his eyes beheld Cassidy sitting on the floor, looking as though a murder had been committed in front of her, surprise filled his entire being. It took him only a few moments to regain his composure. "C-Cassidy?! What are you doing here?! Weren't you with Aelita and Kaitlyn last night?!"

Cassidy went to reply, but as she opened her mouth, she suddenly found herself unable to speak. She continued making various faces, pushing her larynx to vibrate, all without success. Scared, yet undeterred, she reached for a pen and a piece of paper, and began to write in a messy scrawl:

Jeremie,

I don't know! I remember I was with Aelita and Kaitlyn; after that…nothing. I don't know how I got here. Oh…why didn't I listen to her when she first told me I was sleepwalking, and why didn't I listen to Jim when he warned me not to do so again…?!

After scribbling a paragraph's worth, Jeremie placed his hand upon hers, stopping her so he could read what she wrote. His eyes went back and forth as he scanned the note for a few seconds, then he looked up at her, his facial expression unchanging. "So you don't remember how you got here?"

Cassidy resumed her writing, her pen scratching the paper:

No, I don't, sadly.

"Why can't you speak?" was his next question.

Her expression turned sarcastic, as she rolled her eyes, before quickly scrawling:

My voice hitched a flight to three countries in three separate continents; Venezuela, Chad, and Perth, and left me behind. No, what does it look like?! And wouldn't you know it, my voice is holding itself for ransom!

Jeremie frowned, raising an eyebrow. She didn't miss a beat, even if she had lost her voice. "Ha, ha; very funny. Now tell me the truth."

In reply, she scribbled:

All I did was say "Oh, no…" and I lost my voice! It just…disappeared.

A concerned look appeared on Jeremie's face. "I'll call the others. Odd, Ulrich, Patrick, Yumi, and Kaitlyn should be at breakfast, and Aelita's either in her room, or in the showers."

Cassidy's eyes widened, a combination of surprise and anger overtaking her face, as she crumpled the paper, threw it at his head and grabbed a clean sheet. Then she scowled and wrote:

JEREMIE ELVIS/ALBERT BELPOIS! Do you SPY ON HER?!

"What?! No! I don't do that!" Jeremie protested, his eyebrows and eyes almost reaching his hairline. "Aelita told me!"

Relieved, she gave a small smile. Even if she had lost her voice, Cassidy was still perfectly capable of conveying emotion. She penned:

If I hear that you've been spying on her, I'll see to it that Yumi kicks you into next Sunday for all I care.

Jeremie didn't appear to like being threatened, but he knew that she had her reasons for doing so. He nodded as he got out his mobile, typing the first number he could think of.

"Ulrich, it's Jeremie!" A pause followed as Jeremie listened intently, then continued. "We have a problem! I don't know how, but Cassidy lost her voice, and now she has to write to communicate. The worst part is, she slept in my room, and didn't even tell me, beforehand!"

Ulrich's next reply caused a blush to appear on Jeremie's face. "I didn't even know she was in my room! She said—uh, wrote, that she might have sleepwalked to my dorm."

He covered the cell phone, and mouthed to the voiceless girl, "Text Ulrich."

Cassidy nodded. She slipped her own mobile out of her front pocket and texted:

Ulrich,

I didn't know what happened last night after crawling into bed. I don't have any memory of what happened after that, either.

C

She gave the genius a thumbs-up, after sending the text.

He nodded in response, before removing his hand from his phone. "Ulrich, Cassidy just sent you a text."

Cassidy blinked as she overheard Ulrich's voice from Jeremie's phone, "She'd better not have sent a fake text!"

She rolled her eyes and turned back to her mobile, quickly texting in reply:

U,

I'm not sending you a fake text.

C

After pressing a button to send it, she let her left hand drop idly into her lap. She sighed in silent annoyance, before writing:

If only I could still use my vocal chords...

"Meet me in my room, okay?" Jeremie continued, sighing in relief before he and Ulrich hung up. His attention then turned back to the brunette. "Cassidy, do you need anything?"

Cassidy detected a prominent note of concern in his voice, which made her smile gratefully. Whatever her needs might be, he seemed ready to help. She scrawled again, this time, in Spanish:

Necesito ayuda para recuperar mi voz...

She then wrote out the English translation, even though she had tutored Jeremie, and the others, endlessly on the linguistics of the language:

I need help to get my voice back…

Jeremie read the note and then nodded. "I understand."

This was more stressful than she could've imagined; being unable to speak unnerved her greatly. She sighed wistfully, longing for a hug, but refrained. She knew Jeremie wasn't the best with such gestures, if his reactions to Aelita's sudden displays of affection were anything to go by. If she had gotten a hug from him, and Ulrich and the others happened to walk in on them, she assumed they would be understanding, especially since they knew she and Odd were faithful to each other, and she wouldn't knowingly do anything to jeopardize that. Even when she dated William, she stayed as true to him until he broke up with her on false charges.

"Just try to calm down while I get you something to do," Jeremie instructed, as he walked through the door of his dorm room.

As Jeremie left the room, Cassidy made another attempt to force any kind of noise out of her vocal chords, but nothing came. Her eyes began to water. This is the worst day since the time I fell into the digital sea with Aelita, she thought to herself.

Closing her eyes, a few minutes passed in silence as she tried to calm herself down. She was in the middle of taking deep breaths when she heard footsteps and a jumble of voices from the hallway. Ulrich Stern stepped into the room first, with the rest of the group following after.

He walked up to Cassidy, before lowering himself to her level. A concerned look crossed his features as he surveyed the brunette. "You sure you can't say anything, Cassidy?"

For his sake, she made her best attempt to get her vocal chords working, but only a whoosh of air came out of her mouth. She couldn't even manage to utter a whisper or a squeak. She gave a sheepish pout, before writing on her hand in tiny lettering, Sorry, Ulrich.

Ulrich merely frowned, surprised that she suddenly found herself unable to speak, regardless of the description Jeremie gave him over the phone.

Aelita and Kaitlyn soon joined the German-named boy, bearing their own concerned expressions, before they began patting their roommate's shoulders comfortingly, as Ulrich caressed her back.

Aelita was next to inquire about Cassidy's condition. "Do you remember overworking your vocal chords?"

Shaking her head, Cassidy grabbed the same piece of paper and penned:

Not even one of my infamous battle cries.

"What about shouting?" Then it was Odd's turn, the wildcard frowning in confusion.

Not since I shouted at William for not following protocol, Cassidy scrawled in reply.

"Do you remember… screaming at all?" Jeremie crossed his arms, adding his own to the mix of questions.

She slumped forward, trying to convey her frustration through her body language. She shook her head again and wrote:

Not since he threw Aelita and me into the digital sea, while under XANA's control.

"Maybe you were singing too much?" Ulrich wondered aloud, raising his left index finger.

Not since the Subdigitals Concert when Aelita and I were the DJs, Cassidy scribbled.

"So she hasn't been overworking her voice at all," Jeremie realized, his eyes widening in surprise and fear.

"Do you think it could be XANA?" Aelita asked, her voice betraying her concern.

"I'll check." Jeremie replied, as he hurried over to his computer. With a few taps on the keyboard, he started up the Super-Scan, as the others gathered around him. As the atmosphere became quieter and tenser, Cassidy suddenly realized she could acutely pick up on the anxious moods of her friends as they all watched the progress of the scan.

After a few long moments, however, the Super-Scan returned a result Jeremie was neither expecting, nor wanting.

"Nothing!" Jeremie shouted, slamming his fist on his desk, next to the side of the keyboard. "XANA must be hiding—"

Before he could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by Odd, whose eyes quickly zoomed toward Cassidy's, finding something eerily wrong with them.

"Uh…Einstein?" he cried out, his entire body beginning to shake with fright. "Cassidy's eyes are going white!"

"That's not a good thing!" Jeremie fought to veil his own fear, as he knelt down beside her, before backhanding her across her face, in one quick motion.

Unlike every other time, where one whack to any part of her head would bring her back to normal in an instant, this one seemed to have no effect. Instead, Cassidy's pupils continued to shrink, and her eyes now shone a pure, eerie white. With calm decisiveness, Jeremie tried again; however his second attempt yielded no change, much to the disappointment and fear of everyone in the room.

"No, Cassidy!" Yumi yelled, staring at her Savior, horrified. "Don't let it control you! Snap out of—"

She tried to regain control of her body, quickly moving her pen-holding hand down toward the paper, but her movements began to slow considerably. Before the ink could touch the paper, she completely lost control of her arms, as they slumped to her sides.

Along with her sudden loss of control, the ground soon began to shake and rumble, as if an earthquake had suddenly appeared. Everyone in the room began to tremble uncontrollably, with the notable exception of Cassidy, who almost seemed frozen in place.

"N-now... w-w-what, EIN-S-S-STEIN!" Odd tried to reply, his words bouncing around unsteadily like kids on a trampoline.

"How sh-sh-should I know?!" Jeremie stuttered, equally confused.

Before Odd could reply, his eyes suddenly noticed a large crack slowly carving itself out of the floor. Confused, yet finding himself unable to speak, he watched the crack snake across the floor, before running up the wall, and connecting with a similar crack on the ceiling. Instantly, a chunk of the dorm broke apart from the rest of the room, before disappearing in a burst of light.

Everyone gasped and stood immobilized in shock, as they watched. In the background, Cassidy, now physically and mentally incognizant, suddenly stood up. As she rose to her feet, she stretched her arms outward, spread-eagle, as if she were being virtualized onto Lyoko, before great gusts of wind whipped up, seemingly from out of nowhere, and converged around her.

"Jeremie!" Aelita asked, fear greatly overtaking her voice as she raised her arms, reaching for something to grab onto. "What's going to happen to us?!"

"I d-don't know…" Jeremie's reply sounded grim, as he glanced all around the room, finding himself incredibly powerless, and unable to devise a solution.

Aelita wrapped her arms tightly around her knight in glasses, clinging to him for dear life, as tears began to slowly fill her closed eyes. Anyone could tell how scared out of her mind she was.

Nearby, Ulrich folded his arms, as if his body was cold, and he was trying to warm himself up. Fear filled his expression, no matter how he tried to hide it. You're not the only one, Princess, he thought to himself as he surveyed her face, immediately understanding the reason behind it. He felt exactly the same way, even if he wouldn't admit it.

Yumi, like Ulrich, also refused to show how much she was afraid of the current situation, yet found it increasingly more and more difficult to do so. Her gaze turned toward her brown-haired boyfriend, before trying her hardest to approach him, amid the constantly quaking environment, and wrap her arms around him, to give him comfort. Ulrich's eyes widened, as he glanced up at his beloved, who gave him a calm, borderline neutral glance, one which he took as reassurance, since his mind refused to let him react in his normal manner.

No matter how scared we are, she thought to herself, we'll get through this!

Nearby, Odd glanced over at his friends, watching how they huddled near each other, out of terror. He soon made his way toward them, not even trying to disguise his fear, and huddled close to Ulrich and Yumi. The two immediately turned their gazes on him, and without any words whatsoever, wrapped their arms around him, as well. Had these been any other circumstances, they might have had something to say to him, out of jest. But these weren't ordinary, and no matter what any of them felt, they all needed reassurance that they were there for each other, no matter how crazy anything got.

What's gonna happen to us? Odd wondered, fearfully. What's gonna happen to Cat Girl?

Jeremie looked down at his pink-haired beloved, wishing that he could do something to soothe her fear, had he not been equally terrified. To that end, he glanced at his three friends grouped together in a comfort huddle. He turned his attention down toward Aelita, before softly rubbing her back, a successful attempt to get her to open her eyes. His eyes meeting hers, he felt a painful sensation join the fear within him, as he realized he hated seeing her like this, especially when he felt as though there was nothing he could do to change the situation. All he could do was gesture with his face, toward the others.

She slowly turned her head, before beholding Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi in a group comfort huddle, and agreed with Jeremie's silent question. The two then began to slowly shuffle toward the three, soon joining them, as Jeremie's and Aelita's arms were met with Ulrich's, Yumi's, and Odd's, warmly accepting the two geniuses into their comfort huddle.

I feel so powerless, Jeremie's mind lamented, fearfully and disappointedly. I've never been so scared in my entire life…

As Jeremie and Aelita were assimilated into the group comfort huddle, Odd and Yumi immediately began searching for Kaitlyn and Patrick, hoping that they hadn't been lost in the sudden destruction of Jeremie's dorm. Once their eyes had finally settled on the two, they immediately waved them over.

What are you waiting for, huh? Yumi wondered. You two are a part of our group! Get over here!

Kaitlyn and Patrick didn't see Yumi's and Odd's gestures, right away; they had found places to sit upon Jeremie's bed, trying to figure out what exactly was going on. They hadn't known Cassidy as well as the others did, so they were at a loss for what to do.

As the two turned to look at each other, surprise and fear plastered across their faces, a high voice broke through the loud, gusting winds.

"C'MON, YOU TWO! HURRY UP!"

Their eyes widened, as their heads quickly snapped in the direction of the voice. It turned out to be Yumi, as she and Odd desperately gestured to them to join their group huddle, with looks of fear and determination painting their faces.

"YOU'RE PART OF OUR GROUP, TOO! WE'RE NOT LEAVING YOU BEHIND!" Jeremie found himself shouting.

This was all it took. Patrick and Kaitlyn immediately leaped to their feet, sharing another glance, before immediately running toward the group of five. Instantly, as they approached their friends, arms were extended in their direction, welcoming them into the comforting huddle.

One girl was capable of all this?! Kaitlyn found herself thinking.

Wow… she's a mystery, that's for sure, Patrick's thoughts echoed throughout his mind.

In Ulrich and Odd's room, Kiwi scratched at the door, barking madly. He hated earthquakes, as they were deeply distressing reminders of when he and Odd had gone to California. As the earthquakes showed no signs of stopping, Kiwi soon realized that he couldn't take it anymore, and let out a gut-wrenching howl, before covering his head with his paws. If Cassidy had been within range to hear his thoughts, she would have heard him yell in his mind, NO! NO! NO! STOP IT! STOP IT!

Back in Jeremie's room, he and the others remained huddled together, as Yumi and Ulrich pulled each other closer, their eyes squeezed shut, and Jeremie and Aelita locked in a similar gesture. Odd, Patrick, and Kaitlyn stared, wide eyed with gaping mouths, through the grid of loving, interlocking arms at Cassidy, who remained in the same state, even as the winds intensified to nearly deafening levels. It was at this point that Odd happened to notice another large crack snaking its way across the remains of Jeremie's room's floor. His eyes continued to follow the phenomenon, all the while finding himself unable to alert the others to its appearance. The crack soon completed a circuit along the remains of his room's ceiling, before another piece of it broke apart, and vanished before their eyes soon after, leaving behind nothing but the open, blue sky.

"This has XANA written all over it!" Odd shouted.

"But I told you that I couldn't find any activated towers!" Jeremie protested as loud as his voice would allow.

"What if he found a way to mess with the super-scan, again?!" Yumi suggested, in a similar tone.

"It doesn't matter!" The ninja-turned-cat-boy wailed, becoming more and more dispirited as he clung to Yumi. "It's all over! We're going to be sucked out of the room, fall into a black hole, and shot out of the solar system, to a series of planets several trillion light years away, inhabited only by the monsters created from humans by Doctor Shrank!"

While Odd continued to lose hope, Aelita suddenly opened her eyes, and noticed something strange happening out of their corners. On the floor nearby, several holes slowly began to open up all around them. Her eyes continued to bounce around, zooming toward each new hole as she discovered them, while wondering what it could all mean.

Suddenly, a bigger hole opened up in front of the friends' huddle, enabling Aelita to get a closer look. Within, a blinding combination of pink, purple, and black beams of light all swirled into a type of vortex.

"Look, Jeremie!" she cried out, her voice tinged with fear as she extended one finger in its direction.

Jeremie's eyes widened, as he let out a terrified yell. "Oh, no!"

At the blond genius' exclamation, Odd's eyes soon found the hole, as well.

"This is it!" he screamed. "It's the vortex of doom! It's gonna suck the whole floor out from under our feet, and then suck us in, too!"

Suddenly, a thought hit him. "Unless… what if I give it something to suck in, instead of us?"

Quickly, his eyes scanned the remains of Jeremie's dorm room, hoping to find an object that could be used in their place. He didn't have to look far, as he soon happened upon Cassidy's green stuffed bunny, Hippity, atop the pile of her stuffed animals.

The wildcard quickly ducked underneath the interlocking arms of his caring, adoring friends, amid their protests, and bolted toward the pile of stuffed animals, to retrieve the bunny. His next stop was the biggest hole, as he knelt down by it, stretching out his arms, hovering Hippity over the gaping opening by one of its ears.

"Please, please, please don't suck us in! We are merely mortals meant for this world, as we call it home! Please have mercy on our souls, set our friend free, rebuild our Einstein's room, as I, Odd Thomas Della Robbia, drop this sacrifice for your appeasement!"

With that, Odd's fingers released the stuffed bunny rabbit, which slowly sailed through the hole, gradually picking up speed, before landing within the vortex, all without making a single noise. Now all he could do was wait, and hope the strange phenomenon obeyed his wishes.

Nearby, Yumi glanced around the heads of her loving friends, dumbfounded by Odd's actions.

"Odd!" she cried out. "What are you doing?! It's not even a living being!"

"Well, I'm not sacrificing Kiwi, or myself either! And I won't dare sacrifice any of you!" Odd shouted, as he spun his head around to face her, his face still stricken with fear.

It wasn't long before Odd received his reply, and it turned out to be the exact opposite of what he was expecting. Without any warning, the furry object whizzed back up and landed neatly into Odd's hovering hands, quickly receiving his attention. The wildcard was immediately flabbergasted by this, and quickly threw the bunny back toward Cassidy's pile of other stuffed animals.

"THE GODS ARE ANGRY AT US!" he screamed in terror, his voice nearly reaching the top of his lungs.

His fear now reaching dramatic levels, he jumped to his feet, and began to frantically race toward Jeremie's dorm room door, in a similar manner to Cassidy's attempts to escape XANA-William in the Siberian lab. As he neared the door, his left hand thrusting out to grab the handle, it soon vanished, before he could grab it. Every hair on his body stood up on end, as he gazed through the opening where the door and its frame originally stood, causing the boy to scream once more. The fear soon made its way to every muscle in his body, impairing them with a form of temporary paralysis, moments before Jeremie and Aelita raced toward him, fighting the earthquake and damaging winds, to drag the wildcard back into the safety of the warm, comforting huddle.

Mere moments after Odd was surrounded by his loving, caring best friends once more, the howling winds and terrifying earthquakes suddenly reached a fever pitch. The seven huddled together, their collective fear intensifying, as the rest of the floor began to crumble, and fall apart all around them.

With one final shake, the last remaining portion of Jeremie's dorm room, a piece of floor that held the seven friends, vanished away.

However, before any of them could realize they were now floating in midair, the winds continued, before the blinding pink, purple and black beams of light began to grow closer, and closer. The seven all squeezed their eyes shut, wincing and gritting their teeth, as the loud winds threatened to destroy their eardrums. Worried, shaking noises erupted from Odd's, Ulrich's, and Jeremie's respective mouths, as the vortex began to slowly close in on the friends, the beams of light growing brighter and brighter behind their collective eyelids.

The next thing they knew, a whooshing sound, slightly louder than that of the howling winds, if such a thing were even possible, shattered through the gusts, bringing their surroundings to an eerie silence.

The seven slowly opened their eyes, their ears ringing from the sudden change in the ambient noise level, finding near complete darkness surrounding them; strangely, they could still see each other, as though each was illuminated by a hidden, ambient light. They looked around at their new surroundings, curiosity and confusion soon joining their fear, as they wondered what had happened.

Suddenly, a soft, feminine, raspy voice echoed through the silence, startling the friends. "The truth…"

"Who's there?!" Jeremie's voice trembled and shook, as his eyes quickly darted back and forth, determined to find the source of the voice. In an act of brilliance, displaying why he was known as the genius of the group, he turned a fearful, awe-filled gaze on Cassidy, who was in the same statuesque pose and state she had been in, prior to their arrival in the darkness, yet also illuminated in the same manner as them. Could she have said that?

He found his theory was quickly proven correct, as the psychic brunette repeated her previous utterance, gasping and breathing heavily between words. "The truth…must be…REVEALED!"

Her eyes immediately shot open, the eerie, milky white color of her irises supernaturally illuminated from behind, scaring the seven even further, while her breath rasped, as though she'd been stranded in the Sahara Desert for days.

"The truth? What truth?" Jeremie cried out in surprise, the fear further overtaking his voice.

His eyes quickly darted back and forth across his friends and cousins, hoping they were somehow more informed than he was, but they all shrugged, finding themselves as much in the dark as he was.

Cassidy interrupted the start of a panic attack and imperiously announced in a voice unlike her own, "The former lives will be revealed! This revelation should show…purpose."

She suddenly fell silent.

Everyone gulped. In a nightmare-like scenario they'd never, ever wanted to confront, Cassidy had been taken over by her own dangerous power.

"What do we do, Jeremie?!" Aelita tightened her grip around Jeremie and the others for comfort. "This is the first time that C—"

Before she could finish her sentence, a bright flash, accompanied by a loud whoosh, sounding almost as though the gusty winds were about to return, rang out, causing the pink-haired princess and her knight in glasses to wince. Turning around, the seven saw a bright light had mysteriously manifested itself in the center of the vortex. The seven stared in awe and curiosity, as Aelita's grip around her six best friends tightened further.

As the seven gawked, transfixed, at the bright light, a familiar face soon appeared within, as a voice, belonging to a certain well-regarded member of the group, filled everyone's ears.

"Diary of Jeremie Belpois," the voice began. To everyone's—especially the genius's—shock, the familiar face was none other than a younger Jeremie, who could be seen grabbing a file on his computer. "Kadic Academy 8th Grade Student—October 9th."

"That was the day you discovered the supercomputer," Aelita whispered in shock, recognizing the date the younger Jeremie mentioned.

"A few weeks ago, I was searching for parts for my miniature robots. I couldn't find anything here—"

"Where was here, Jeremie?" Odd spoke up, mysteriously causing the video to pause at nearly the exact moment he spoke.

"At the school," Jeremie clarified. "That day, Cassidy gave me some advice. 'If you need some supplies, go to the factory at night,' she told me. And if I was near a supercomputer, and I asked, 'Artificial Intelligence, are you there,' or something like that, and the A.I. asked me to call it a different name, I should call it—"

"My name," Aelita whispered, finishing his sentence, before raising her voice to its normal level. "But something about this video footage looks and feels different. I just don't know what it is."

She studied it intensely for a few seconds, but to her apparent chagrin, she found nothing of note.

"The first piece of advice that Cassidy gave me," Ulrich mentioned with a gulp, "was that I would soon have a roommate named Odd, and I didn't believe her until Odd came into the science room."

Odd sighed. "The first time she talked to me, well... I was talking to Ulrich about Sissi, and she said there were way more girls there, than just her."

A few moments after Odd finished talking, the video footage suddenly resumed playing. It now showed a younger, more inexperienced Jeremie slowly approaching the Supercomputer, hesitating for a moment, and turning it on. In the present, the boy in question gaped in disbelief at the actions of his past self.

The present Odd raised an eyebrow up to his hairline. "Jeremie, any advice is totally welcome!"

The blond genius in the present, however, was speechless.

They all continued watching, unable to pull their eyes away from the screen, as sequence through sequence continued to play. Before long, it had advanced to the first class of that day. After a few seconds of the video had played, Aelita's voice suddenly cut through the tentative quiet that had filled the room, noticing a glaring omission.

"Cassidy's not there!" she cried out, surprise contorting her face, and widening her eyes.

Scene after scene played, in seemingly chronological order, as their escapades, classes, and detentions were shown in full, vivid color. As the others continued to watch, in shock, amazement, and awe, they found Aelita's observation had been proven to be only too true. Their eyes beheld each of their adventures, from the gigantic teddy bear, Jeremie's Marabounta, to William's eventual XANA possession, and assimilation into the malevolent multi-agent system's army, only without any trace of Cassidy. It was as if they were being shown an alternate version of what they supposed had been their reality, for the last two years; the seven were surprised to find that, instead of William dating Cassidy, he tried to woo Yumi, much to Ulrich's jealousy; that Yumi fell into the Digital Sea, only to be revived by Jeremie's one-shot materialization program, instead of the psychic brunette; and rather than the normally brown-eyed girl being subjected to sharp, pointy beaks all across her body, it was the raven-haired Japanese girl. They were even surprised to find that, rather than negotiating with Cassidy, as they had remembered, XANA had instead locked Odd in a storm drain by the Hermitage, the week before the End of the Year Dance. Ulrich's eyes widened, as he relived who he thought was Odd, transforming into the orange and black clone of himself, before his eyes.

Perhaps the scariest, and most surprising moment of all, especially to Aelita, was the sacrifice of her father to fuel Jeremie's multi-agent program, utterly obliterating the malicious A.I. once and for all. She immediately felt her knees grow weak, tears welling in her eyes. This was the premonition she had this morning! Why wasn't it different when her first roommate lost her voice? Was it due to come true somewhere else?

After the seven watched XANA's total and complete destruction, they soon found their past selves in front of the supercomputer, once more, as Jeremie turned off the system, before it rescinded into the floor. Moments after the supercomputer was shut down, the screen went black. Another video quickly replaced it, and the screen didn't stay black for long. The next thing they saw was their past selves in the forest, joyously celebrating their victory.

They watched the Yumi on the screen walk through the woods leading to the Academy. She smiled with satisfaction, her face barely able to contain her happiness.

"Well, good-bye XANA, hello, FREEDOM!"

The present gang saw the past Odd nod in reply, moments before the current one broke from the huddle, swimming closer to the one on the screen, as though he was still on the International Space Station with Cassidy and Yumi. He gazed in awe, and wonder, at the version of himself in the video.

"Is that me?" He whispered, his voice piquing with wonder, and his eyes filling to the brim with warm tears, as though he found himself remembering his old self and all of his happy memories. "Is that truly me?"

Jeremie, in the present, shrugged. He still found himself at a loss for words. It was almost as if the entire situation was overloading him.

While he struggled to find some way to react at all, the Warriors' collective eyes suddenly widened, in shock, as their eyes beheld a massive Return to the Past blanketing the entire world. After a few seconds had passed, they suddenly found themselves face-to-face with a familiar psychic brunette, wearing her previous tiger-patterned outfit, standing in front of the gates to Kadic Academy, by herself.

"Wait," Ulrich spoke up, confused. "That's Cassidy! Does that mean that this thing is showing our—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Aelita quickly raised her index finger to her lips, shushing the samurai.

The eight watched, transfixed, as a summary of every adventure they had had, now with the additions of Cassidy, Kaitlyn, and Patrick, flashed before their eyes, like a virtual history lesson. It was after the end of their final adventure, one that was still quite fresh on their minds, that something terrible happened.

Upon the completion of the reel, Cassidy's eyes slowly closed, moments before the psychic suddenly fell forward, her head nearly slamming into her pillow, accompanied by a soft moan escaping her lips, as the floor brought her to a complete stop. Everyone's gazes immediately turned on her, in horror.

"Cassidy?!" Jeremie cried, as he left the sanctuary of his friends' comforting huddle, and rushed toward her.

Kneeling by her side, he quickly pressed his middle and ring fingers against her wrist, desperately checking for a pulse, not even noticing his computer, robots, electronics and the walls of his dorm gradually reappearing all around him, his friends, and cousins, as if nothing had happened. Fear crossed the collective features of Yumi, Ulrich, Odd, Patrick, Kaitlyn, and Aelita as they stared at the two, worriedly.

"Is… is she going to be okay?" Yumi and Kaitlyn asked, their faces pale and ashen, their bodies shaking.

Jeremie looked up at them, his face bearing a similar expression. "She's still breathing, but her pulse is a little slow—"

Before he had a chance to finish his sentence, or even say anything else afterward, the sound of thundering footsteps filled everyone's ears, slowly rising in volume, moments before the newly-replaced dorm room door was suddenly thrown open, and Mr. Delmas and Jim rushed in.

"Is everyone alright?!" the principal of the Academy asked in a frantic, concerned tone, his face giving the impression that he had just seen a ghost.

Jeremie immediately opened his mouth in an attempt to explain, but quickly found his words had become scrambled and twisted, leading to a barrage of noises erupting from his lips like an active volcano, instead. Aelita tried her hand at an explanation afterward, but soon fell short, her feelings and emotions threatening to send her into a meltdown. Yumi could barely move, finding her speech clogging her throat. Ulrich couldn't find his words, his hands shaking by his sides. Odd tried to play it off as no big deal, but soon fell into Jeremie's chair, pulling his knees to his chest. Patrick and Kaitlyn stood in shellshocked silence.

Noticing the seven were failing to come up with an adequate explanation, Mr. Delmas raised his hand. "Maybe you all should come with me to the infirmary. Jim, could you gently carry Miss McGuire?"

Everybody nodded, shocked and frightened by the turn of events, which had left them all with a gigantic barrage of feelings, and no way to sort through them. The girls' eyes welled up with tears, their hands shaking in their laps. The boys—most of them taught to be tough in the face of adversity—were almost at the point of breaking down. Even Ulrich and Patrick, the cool, unruffled ones of the group, had fearful looks in their eyes. Aelita wrapped her arms around Jeremie, cuddling the blond genius for support, who replied by wrapping his left arm around her, to help her walk, as the two followed Mr. Delmas and Jim, the latter cradling the unconscious psychic brunette. Kaitlyn held Patrick's hand, soon following the two geniuses. Yumi and Ulrich slumped against each other for comfort, and Odd, finding no better option, heavily leaned against the couple, resting his head on their seemingly-connected shoulders. Had he done so under normal circumstances, Ulrich would've elbowed him sharply, and Yumi would have shrieked or snapped his name in embarrassment and anger, but because of the vortex, they knew he needed his friends' encouragement and support, just as much as the rest of them did. It was all the group could do to keep each other from breaking down.

When they reached the infirmary, the seven were surprised to find Sissi already sitting upon one of the beds, looking nearly as shaken up as they were. Before the sequence of events befell them, she had gone to the infirmary to get some aspirin for a headache. Afterward, the sight of the vortex seemed to lock her into a perpetual loop, where she continuously fell onto her side, before sitting up again, only to fall over once more. She had never been so terrified of anything in her entire life, not even the spirit of Leon Corbet.

As the Warriors staggered into the infirmary, behind Mr. Delmas and Jim, Yolanda greeted them gently, and carefully inspected them, while the physical education teacher gently laid Cassidy atop an available bed, near Sissi. After taking a few moments to examine each of the eight, an unsettling look crossed the nurse's features.

"The vortex seemed to shock them far more than I expected," Yolanda remarked, trying her best to keep a professional air, as she turned to look at the principal. "The situation is far more than I can handle; it seems to have sent Cassidy into a coma. We need to call the hospital, right away."

Jean-Pierre nodded, reached into his pocket, and withdrew his cell phone. After quickly dialing a number, placing the device against his ear, and waiting a few seconds for the call to connect, he began to speak in an urgent tone.

"Hello, we need a few ambulances here at Kadic Academy, immediately. There's not enough time to explain. I will explain everything to you when you get here. Thank you. Goodbye."

After several tense minutes, sirens, slowly increasing in volume, filled the ears of the occupants in the infirmary, signaling the arrival of the ambulances. Ten paramedics soon rushed into the room, nine with stretchers in tow, while the tenth walked up to the principal.

"Okay, Mr. Delmas," he began, handing Jean-Pierre a clipboard, upon which several slips of paper were hooked underneath a metal clip, along with a pen chained to the top of it. "I'll need you to sign the paperwork and to elucidate the situation."

As Mr. Delmas explained the situation to the paramedic, Jeremie and the others, minus Cassidy, accepted the stretchers. Once he was lying upon his, Jeremie looked at the ceiling, wondering how this had happened.

Seeing the genius of the group in that state, Yumi immediately knew what he was thinking about. As she glanced over at him, while sitting atop another stretcher, she went to open her mouth, only for the blond to return her gaze, and speak first.

"How could this have happened?!" Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.

"Cassidy had the same nightmare for several months," Yumi grieved, finally getting her chance to reply, "and we ignored it, even in the beginning."

Her eyes began to cloud with guilt, as she began to contemplate the possibility that all of this could have been prevented. She wanted to punch herself for their actions, but at the same time, she felt the desire to hug Cassidy's unconscious form.

"Why did we?!" Aelita shouted, full of regret. "We should have known!"

"Now, we may never get her back!" Odd lamented, tears already streaming down his face. She's my girlfriend!

"If only we had listened to her," sorrow filled Ulrich's voice as he reminded the others of a now-painful memory, "when she warned us in Delmas's office that one time, we wouldn't be here, right now."

The samurai closed his eyes as the paramedics loaded him into the ambulance, along with the others, one by one.

The ambulances sped away through the Academy's gates, in hot pursuit of the hospital, sirens blaring. Within, its stretcher-bound occupants stared at the ceiling, some behind closed eyelids, in quiet contemplation. The effects of Cassidy's tentative possession and the vortex she summoned were still fresh in everyone's minds, and each person was handling it differently.

Yumi couldn't help but feel terrible for Cassidy. She remembered all of the signs she and the others had been given, her slowly fading powers, and especially in the psychic's nightmare. The feeling of missing the opportunity to preempt the vortex's appearance ate away at her, as it was something she was incredibly certain she and the others could have prevented.

Ulrich, for his part, while suffering silently, still felt nearly as terrible as his best friends. He felt as though he let Cassidy down. He could have protected her from the eventual coming of the vortex, yet he failed, antagonizing her—made her powers out to be evil. His father would have been disappointed, even though he still considered his friends "good for nothings." He wouldn't be surprised if the first thing he said was, "Good. One less miscreant to distract you from your studies." Odd's comatose state a while ago was minuscule compared to this.

Jeremie was still in a partial state of shock. Certainly, he seemed normal on the surface, but a mere glance at his eyes would shatter the illusion into a million tiny pieces. All of the signs were there. Everything that had recently happened to Cassidy could have been prevented, and he knew it. They all knew it. He was aware that they looked to him as their leader, and he couldn't even plan around something that had been foretold for weeks, months, even years in advance. Sure, Ulrich felt like a failure, but Jeremie felt even worse if such a thing were even possible.

However, Odd felt as though he could challenge that. While all of them felt as though they had lost one of their best friends, he felt as though he had lost something more: a companion. He loved her, and she did him. He was her novio, and she his novia. She was more than a best friend to him, and this alone hurt him the most. He wasn't one to let things bother him. He would much rather laugh them off, or try his hardest to stay positive. But this was like a knife through his heart. This wasn't just something he could laugh away. The pain of this loss reverberated throughout his entire being, sending him into waves of depression, the likes of which had only haunted Ulrich's craziest nightmares.

Kaitlyn and Patrick trembled. Jeremie told them in notes that Cassidy was "mystifying," but they thought that he meant that she was an enigma. Sure, they figured it out later, but that scene in the principal's office cemented that. They could have eased them away, even if they didn't know her that long. However, the damage had ripped dimensions. How would one girl cause the world this much? How would they have helped?

Aelita had also been figuratively stabbed in the heart, like Odd and Yumi. Her loss was much too great for the pink-haired girl to handle. While she was normally the calming, reassuring pillar of relief, encouraging herself that everything was going to be okay was something that was proving to be her greatest challenge, yet. The primary reason was that she really had no idea. Her roommate and best friend could be gone forever, for all she and the others knew, and the pain resulting from this feeling was much too great. So great, that her eyelids could barely contain the waterfall that gushed from her eyes.

She knew they could have prevented this from happening. Why did they ignore it? What did they think was going to happen? And how could they fix it? It wasn't something that could be easily fixed with a computer program, her love interest's handiwork, could it? So many questions filled her confused head, so many answers she sought. She tried her hardest to resist the feeling of hopelessness, but it crawled ever closer.

And what of Sissi? Sure, neither she nor her followers had been on the best of terms with the psychic, but after the vortex had subjected her to a history of everything she had done, since the start of her eighth-grade school year, the resulting barrage of memories left her feeling nearly overloaded.

A mixture of emotions had overtaken her body, and she felt she needed even more time than a standard week allowed, to sort through and process them all. Memories of how she had almost become a Lyoko Warrior herself, before acting on her conscience, leading to her expulsion, and subsequent treatment by the others, for something she technically hadn't done; memories of nearly every single attack XANA had launched against the school; memories of Cassidy, and how she managed to stop most of XANA's attacks, initially. And now here she was, lying motionless on a stretcher as if acting as an effective full-stop to her adventures as a Lyoko Warrior.

Honestly, she wasn't sure what to feel, what to think, or even how to act. Part of her wanted to feel anger, bitterness, and resentment, especially in regards to every single one of the psychic's dirty tricks. That this was her just desserts, for everything evil she had done to her. And yet part of her felt the opposite. Part of her saw the caring, comforting friend, who always helped her friends, and gave them hope. The one who always had her friends' best interests at heart.

It was this that she mourned for, like the others. It was as though she truly got to meet the real Cassidy McGuire for the first time. But what if it was the last time? Could she really be…dead? After everything that had transpired, she, too, hoped for a more favorable outcome. She had to pull through. This couldn't end like this.

After a ride, which seemed like an eternity, regardless of the speed of the ambulances, the next thing everyone knew, their stretchers were being removed from the back of the vehicles and quickly rushed through the emergency room's double sliding doors. The paramedics wheeled them into the waiting arms of multiple doctors, desiring to know the status of their patients.

"Okay, what do we got?" a bearded doctor was the first to speak, quickly putting on his stethoscope, as he raced alongside the stretchers.

"Adolescents, varying ages," the paramedic listed. "One in a coma, the rest in shock."

"Put them all in room three."

Each was wheeled into one room, before the restraints on each stretcher were released. Once freed, Jeremie was the first to move, sitting up slowly while bringing his knees up to his chest. "Was anyone else slightly unnerved by all that?"

Everyone raised their hands or fingers, whichever felt comfortable for them to use.

"Great. Let's never do that again, okay?" He forced a grin, but from outside perspective, it did nothing to ebb away the shock. When he realized it, his face crumpled into a frown.

Everyone nodded.

It was at this point that the effects of the ambulance's ride finally began to take their toll on Sissi, rendering her completely unstable. Her eyes welling up with tears, she immediately wrapped her arms around Odd and began sobbing uncontrollably into his shoulder. "Oh, Odd, I'm so sorry!" she wailed, to the increasingly confused cat boy.

"Huh?" was all he could muster, the surprise of Sissi's reaction adding to the multitude of feelings he already had, from everything that had happened, up to that point.

"I'm sorry for everything I've ever done to you and your friends! Even the things I don't remember doing!" she clarified.

His eyes widened, an outward sign of the blond's inward confusion from the principal's daughter's confession. Even Ulrich, who had overheard most of the conversation between the two, had been caught off-guard. He had seen her kinder, gentler side on many an occasion, usually before a Return to the Past rendered it null and void. With the vortex having completely unveiled every exploit they previously kept secret to nearly everyone back at Kadic, the brown-haired boy began to wonder if his and his friends' harsh treatment of her was truly justified.

It was only a short period of time before Sissi was calmed, and she and the others were soon situated in their spacious hospital room. They hoped their stay would be brief, and that Cassidy would pull through quickly, but they knew that all they could do was wait.

Wait for her body to heal.

Wait for their bodies to heal.

Wait for time to heal every last one of their wounds, even if the duration was out of their control.

While the others appeared to be starting down the path of recovery, Cassidy's pulse continued to remain low. Life-support equipment was soon wheeled in and attached to Cassidy, with doctors constantly monitoring her heart rate in the hopes that she would soon regain consciousness.

As the days and weeks passed, Sissi, Jeremie, Aelita, Odd, Yumi, Ulrich, Patrick and Kaitlyn slowly began to recover. The lingering effects of their shock, the by-product of the vortex, completely dissipated within a week, and their bodies began to return to normal, as a result. Jeremie soon found his brain was no longer figuratively jammed from the shock's effects and was able to think more clearly. Each of them was able to leave their beds, and walk around the room, albeit with the help of nurses, at first. Once their legs no longer felt stiff, or prone to buckling from the lack of use, they were granted nearly full freedom of motion.

However, no matter how happy they tried to be, as their health continued to improve, Cassidy's unchanging health quickly dampened that. For weeks on end, somber faces glanced in the direction of, and even approached, the fallen psychic, hoping for any positive change in her heart rate, or appearance, but nothing happened. No matter how many positive words were said, no matter how many reassuring phrases were uttered, or even gentle caresses of her arms, hands or face, Cassidy remained unconscious, and her pulse remained low.

More weeks went by, without any change in Cassidy's health. As she lay motionless upon her hospital bed, doctors and nurses had come and gone, checking her vitals for any signs of development, and changing the intravenous liquids going into her system. The situation began to seem more and more hopeless, no matter how much the others absolutely loathed or even hated the thought. Their health had nearly fully recovered over time; yet, seeing the opposite happen, right before their eyes, was nothing short of disheartening. It only served to twist the metaphorical knives in each of their hearts even further. How could they have foreseen that this would happen as a result of their negligence?

Even Ulrich and Yumi, ones who were known to suffer silently, couldn't help the downtrodden looks that painted their faces. It was a constant reminder of their own mortality, as well as that of one of their best friends. After everything they had been through, every XANA attack, every Lyoko mission, every prank, every celebration, to think that it could all end very soon, and in one of the worst ways possible, was something none of them wanted to consider. But when it stared them in the eyes, nearly anywhere they looked, how could it not occupy their thoughts? They didn't want her powers to overcome her, and send her into a coma, yet it happened, anyway. Now, they didn't want Cassidy to die.

That was the most prevalent thought in Ulrich's mind. We should have heeded her warnings. We should have heeded her warnings. Every time he thought about the very real possibility that he could lose one of his best friends, a tear cruised down his cheek. He had stopped thinking about hiding his emotions, as everyone else in the room felt exactly the same way he did, and he knew it. How could he be strong, if nobody else was? Even Yumi, his girlfriend, had several wet lines streaming down her cheeks. She was nearly as strong-willed as he was, and she couldn't hold herself back, either. Each of them knew the other wanted to scream their lungs out and bawl their eyes out.

Any one of them would have gladly taken her place, without a second thought, if the opportunity arose. They had come close to losing their friends before, but Yumi and Cassidy's false cellular degeneration and the latter's terrific time in a fighter jet were child's play compared to what they were faced with, now.

If Ulrich and Yumi felt absolutely terrible about the state of their best friend, how much worse could Odd feel? The once shining, laughter-filled beacon of happiness that was Cassidy's boyfriend had been extinguished by the sudden, harsh reality. It had normally proven to be a worthy adversary, one that he could always best, no matter how many fiery arrows, or sharp swords, were thrust in his direction. But with his other half lying horizontally upon a bed, it was as if the barrier surrounding the light had fallen, enabling an ice cold wind to take the flame that fueled the grin that frequently adorned his face. He couldn't be happy. Not when the threat of his girlfriend's death loomed over him like a storm cloud. This was truly a feeling he couldn't shake, no matter how rapidly his body vibrated. He honestly never thought he could feel this way.

Jeremie and Aelita were not faring any better. While Jeremie wasn't one to hide his emotions when possible, like Ulrich, even his face had become lightly soaked. He, too, felt personally responsible and knew that he would experience incredible emotional pain if the fear on everyone's minds ended up becoming real. But it couldn't; it just couldn't. Cassidy had to hang on.

Whenever something terrible happened to one of his friends, especially as the result of a Lyoko mission, or a XANA attack, he would often call his leadership abilities into question. What could he have done to prevent such a thing from happening? This wasn't something that he could fix, by debugging a program, or having her carried into a scanner, and virtualized onto Lyoko. This was much worse. And like Ulrich, it made him feel useless. Especially when he knew that he and the others could've prevented Cassidy from falling into a coma. That ate away at him nearly as much as it did Odd, if not more so. It was always one more Lyoko mission. One more counter-attack against XANA, all the while never thinking of the possible ramifications or consequences one such attack could bring about.

His girlfriend was nearly as much of a wreck as Ulrich's was. Before, when they started their road to recovery, Aelita couldn't look in Cassidy's direction without turning to him, and sobbing into his brown sweater. It was all she could do to stop herself from becoming a basket case. As her physical and mental wounds healed, so did her emotional wounds, but every so often, thoughts about Cassidy's unchanging status would destroy her composure, and cause tears to gush from her eyes. She never wanted this to happen, not to Cassidy, nor any of her best friends.

This had been one of her absolute worst fears since she first met Jeremie and his friends. They were like family to her. Aside from Franz Hopper, whom they had yet to find on the Internet, they were the only family she had. To see one of them at death's door was as if XANA had dropped a two-ton weight onto her heart, and no matter how hard it fought to keep a handle on the load that had been introduced, it was a losing battle.

Patrick and Kaitlyn were suffering, much like their new friends, but to a lesser extent. They had only recently met her; in Patrick's case, it was thanks to her that his cousin had even realized that their clashing personalities were only a figment of his imagination. But after everything they had heard about the psychic, to see her end up like this was heartbreaking, even for them. Glancing around the room, they could feel their friends' pain, almost as if it were their own. Each one silently told a story, and it was from this, that they knew exactly what Cassidy meant to each of them. All they could do was comfort the others, and hope that, in time, Cassidy would awaken, invalidating every single one of their fears. This was what they all truly wanted. They felt as though they had to be the beacons of hope, when no one else was able to step up to the task, no matter how tough the challenge might be.

Sissi felt terrible, as well. By this time, all of her negative feelings toward Cassidy had completely evaporated, as fear and sadness kept their grip firm upon her disposition. She couldn't stay mad at the psychic forever, even if her mean, bratty attitude were only a front, and Cassidy's, not to mention the others' mutual negativity toward her had harbored bad blood between them.

That wasn't her anymore; not at this point, at least. Now all she could think about was Cassidy's health and well-being. She had just recently begun to see her as a friend, and that friend was on the verge of dying. Her already fragile will had already been broken before, and the pieces were getting increasingly harder to find. She felt like Humpty Dumpty, only her great fall had already happened, and the after-effects were worse than she could have ever imagined. And what could she do? She could only draw blanks.