“Excuse-me.” A girl said as she walked into the gym. “Is this the Pencak Silat class?”

        Ulrich and Yumi looked up from their stretching. “Ya.” Ulrich said.       

“My name’s Jordan Malince. I just got here and found out about this.” Jordan said.

         “I’m Ulrich and this is Yumi.” Ulrich said. “Jim should be here soon.” 

       “Who is Jim?” Jordan asked.

        “Our phys ed teacher.” Yumi said. 

       “Doesn’t he get mad about you calling him by his first name?” Jordan asked. 

       “No, not really.” Ulrich said.

        The door opened again and Jim walked in.

        “Jordan Malince.” Jim said as he saw the girl.

        “Oh, so you’re the phys ed teacher?” Jordan asked. 

       “Yes.”  

      “Sympa.” 

       “How much of Pencak Silat do you know?” Jim asked, changing the subject.

        “Not much, I’m afraid.” Jordan said.

        “Than Stern and Ishiyama here will help you during your first days.” Jim said. “Have you done any other marshal arts?” 

       “I took a couple of years of Tie-Kwan-Do.” Jordan said.

        “Good, so your not a beginner.” Jim said. He got himself to the side of the room and said, “Stern, Ishiyama.” 

       The two got up and walked over to Jordan.  

      “A little three on three.” Jim said. 

       The three bowed to each other. While Jordan was going up, she used her legs and flipped herself over the two, confusing them. She slid her feet underneath the two and tripped them to the ground.  

      Jordan turned herself over and landed where she had a hand on each of her opponent’s back.  

      After a second to let her opponents to find defeat, Jordan got up and let Ulrich and Yumi up. 

       “Wow, how many years did you take Tie-Kwon-Do?” Jim asked as he walked over.  

      “Only two.” Jordan said. “I didn’t even know I could do that.” 

       “Well, you did it perfectly.” Ulrich said. “It took me awhile to even learn that.”  

      The door opened to the gym and Delmas walked in. 

       “Oh shit.” Jordan said under her breath.  

       “Did you forget something?” Delmas asked. 

       “Sorry sir.” Jordan said as she ran off to Delmas. 

       “Couldn’t she stay for a little while longer?” Jim asked.

        “No.” Delmas said, sounding like he got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. 

       The two walked out and left Yumi, Ulrich and Jim.

        “What got on his bad side?” Yumi asked. 

       “Didn’t you hear?” Ulrich said. “Jordan’s not exactly on a lot of teacher’s high lists. She got transferred here from America because her mom got tired of her messing things up. That’s why she was good at knocking us down.” 

       “Why’s Delmas even approve of her coming here than?” Yumi asked. 

       “Because I’m her uncle.” Jim said. 

       “Whoa.” Yumi said. “So she’s related to Chris too?”  

      “Ya, Chris’ sister is her mother.”

        Ulrich went over to the room he had heard that Jordan was in and knocked on the door.

        “Come in!” Jordan called. 

       Ulrich opened the door and saw that she had done a lot with her room. Posters were on the wall almost covering it completely. Ulrich saw that some were of the Subdigitals. Than he saw what was hanging from the ceiling. Lanterns, drawings, and a black bed curtain hung down to cover the bed. 

       “Wow, nice room.” Ulrich said. 

       “Thanks.” Jordan said as she turned down the music she had playing.

        “How’d ya get the stuff to hand from the ceiling?”

        “Paper clips.”

        “Is that the Subdigitals?” Ulrich asked her.

        “Ya, why, you like them?”  

      “Ya, they’re cool.” 

       “Here’s a little thing I’m sure you don’t know. They have CDs in at least eleven different languages.” 

       “Cool.” Ulrich said, wondering if Japanese was one of the eleven. 

       “What’d you want anyway?” Jordan asked. 

       “I was just wondering if the rumors were true about you.” Ulrich said, taking his eyes away from the room and to her. “I’ve heard that you’ve had some...trouble in the past.”  

      “You probably haven’t heard the half of it by the looks of thing.” Jordan said. “Actually I ended up in juvie because of what I’ve done. Though I am trying to go strait. Oh, here. I think this is yours.” 

       She tossed Ulrich a set of keys he had had in his pocket a second ago. “How’d you get them?” 

       “I wasn’t called the present Houdini for nothing.” Jordan smiled. “I can just pass someone and end up with what ever was in their pocket. But, like I said, I’m trying to go straight.” 

       “Ok.” Ulrich said, swinging his keys around his pointer finger once before putting them back in his pocket. “Well, I better get going. I promised Jeremie I’d play him a game of chess.” 

       “Your friend plays chess?” Jordan asked. 

       “Ya, do you?”  

       “Sometimes.” 

       “Jeremie might want to play against you instead of me.”

        “Lead the way.”  

      Ulrich and Jordan walked out of the dorms and found Jeremie, Aelita, Odd, and Yumi on a bench. Jeremie had the chess board out and it was sitting on his laptop.  

      “I heard you can play chess.” Jordan said. “You mind if I play?” 

       “If Ulrich doesn’t mind.” Jeremie said. “Name’s Jeremie.”   

     “Jordan.” She sat down next to Jeremie and asked, “What color you want?” 

       “Well, the guest gets white.” Jeremie said.

        “Ok.” Jordan mover her pawn and they went and played their game. 

       “I didn’t figure you for a chess player.” Yumi said after a while of Jordan getting Jeremie’s pieces.

        “Chess was first created to teach people how to become generals in the Chinese wars, at least I think it was the Chinese.” Jordan said as she moved her queen to over by Jeremie’s king. “Shah Mat.” 

       “Zut.” Jeremie said as he laid down his king. 

       “What’d you mean?” Aelita asked. 

       “My friend is a gang leader and he can beet me in both chess and Stratego. Actually, the lower people are, the smarter they are. The smartest people I know are serial killers that were in jovie with me.” 

       “I never thought of jovie being full of people playing chess.” Aelita said.        “Well, not everyone would play chess. Some were more interested in lifting weights, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to get muscles at all. They end up being just flab.” 

       “Jordan!” a male voice called. 

       The whole group looked up as they saw Jim and Delmas coming their way. Jordan stud up and looked at them. 

       “Miss Malince.” Delmas said sternly. “I know this is your first day here but I’ve already got a list of things I could kick you right out of this school.” 

       Jordan looked strait ahead and said with a dead beat face, “I am sorry sir but I have no idea what you are talking about.” 

       “Ms. Hertz and a number of the students saw you sneaking off from the science lab with a number of different tools.” Delmas said, bending down so that he was looking into her eyes.

        “Not to be rude, but your sources were wrong.” Jordan said. “You can check my room and my person, you will not find anything you say I have stolen. If I may, I think Catie Astion has followed me here and is trying to set me up again.” 

       “Catie Astion in deed.” Delmas said, not believing any of it. He turned to Jim and said, “Search her room and if you find anything at all, I want to know about it.”

        “Yes sir.” Jim said, clearly shaken about how the principal was becoming around Jordan. 

       The two adults walked away, leaving Jordan standing there with her hands clenched. She unclenched them and turned around to face her new friends. They, too, had faces of surprise. 

       “Who’s Catie Astion?” Aelita asked. 

       “An ex-friend of mine.” Jordan said. “We met in kindergarden and from then on we played a game, if you want to call it that, of getting each other in trouble. It crossed the line when my boyfriend went missing and I was pinned for it. Since I couldn’t tell anyone where he was, he was never found. I believed Catie killed him. She is very dangerous and will hurt anyone in her way to try to get me killed.” 

       “What’d you do to tick her off?” Yumi asked.  

      “I ruined her face on accident. I didn’t know someone had changed the dish soap to something she was allergic to and it sort of burned her face.” Jordan said. “I told her I didn’t know it had been changed but she clamed I knew and that also got me in trouble.”  

      Jordan  

      “What was that?” Aelita asked, hearing the name called out. 

       “What was what?” Jeremie asked, not hearing it.

        “I guess it was nothing.” Aelita said, dismissing it. 

       “It wasn’t nothing, it was Catie.” Jordan said. “I heard it too. I shouldn’t have played that game with you Jeremie, now you and your friends are in grave danger.”

        “Nothing more than we normally are.” Odd said quietly enough that Jordan wouldn’t here but Ulrich did. 

       “Don’t worry about us.” Aelita said, seeing Jordan was clearly worried for their safety. “We’ll be fine. Come on, suppers about to be served.”

         The diner bell rang as Odd’s stomach growled.

        Ulrich and Aelita laughed as it sounded louder than the bell. 

       “Hey, I’ve got to get going home.” Yumi said. 

       “See ya.” Aelita said, waving.

        “Look out for Catie!” Jordan called as Yumi walked over to the gate. 

       “I’ll be fine.” Yumi called back, smiling.

        Yumi walked down the street she normally goes but Jordan’s stories had her spooked.

        The Japanese girl thought she kept hearing things. A twig snap behind her. A pebble move when no one hit it.

        I must be loosing my mind. Yumi thought as she turned down a corner to go down her street. 

       “HUH!?” Yumi’s breath got knocked out of her lungs as she asked the simple question.

        “Yumi Ishiyama, I presume.” A female voice said from the person holding Yumi to the ground. 

       “What do you want!?” Yumi demanded as she tried to free herself. 

       “You and your friends out of the way.” The female said as she stuck a gun to Yumi’s back.  

       Yumi heard a click and used all her weight to role over on top of her attacker. Instead of freeing herself, she had just shoved the gun barrel deeper into her back.

        BANG! 

       Yumi’s dead weight was pushed off of a blond haired girl as she ran away from the seen, but not before grabbing the emptied cartridge.

        A woman ran out of the near by house and saw the Japanese girl on the street. She looked back to the house and yelled, “Call 1-5! The Ishiyama’s girl’s shot!” 

       The woman ran out to Yumi and kneeled down to her. “Yumi, can you hear me? I’m gonna stay with you in till the ambulance gets here, alright?” 

       Yumi couldn’t nod her head. Her bottom lip was bleeding from her front teeth bighting down into it. A pool of her blood was colleting around her. 

       A man ran out from a house down a ways and saw who it was on the ground. He ran over to the fenced in house and climbed the locked fence. He knocked hard on the door to get their attention and was greeted by a little black haired boy.        “Hiroki, is your mother home?” the man asked, sort of out of breath.  

      “No.” Hiroki said, looking worried.  

       “How about your dad?” 

       “No, he’s still at work. What’s happened Mr. Dente?”

         “Your sister’s been hurt very badly, we need to get in contact with your parents.”

        A siren was coming up the street in the background as Hiroki ran back into the house and grabbed a cell that was used in emergencies. He ran back to Mr. Dente and hit memo 1, instantly calling his mother.

        “Excuse me!” Delmas’ voice called over the cafeteria. Standing next to him was five police officers. Everyone quieted down and Delmas continued. “One of our students, Miss Ishiyama, was fatally wounded today on her walk home.” Everyone started to talk to their friends about the news in till Jim blew his whistle, causing everyone to quiet down again. “One witness says it was some one she had seen from this school. The police would like to talk to,” he lifted up a piece of paper that was in his hand and read, “Milly Solovieff, Odd Della Robbia, Jordan Malince, Elizabeth Delmas, Emily LeDuc, Claire Girard, Heïdi Klinger, Jeanne Le Bihan, Sorya Abulabbas, Magali De Vasseur, Sophie Florenceau, Tania Grandjean, Caroline Savorani, Maïtena L'Ecuyer, and Anaïs Fiquet.” Delmas put the paper down and said, “The 15 of you meet in the administrative office now, please.” 

       “Do I wanna know why you where the only guy called on that list, Odd?” Jordan said as she and Odd got up.  

      “Who knows.” Odd said as he and Jordan walked away with the 13 others that were called.  

      “Hey Jeremie, any chance Xana’s behind this all?” Ulrich asked, hopping it all could be fixed and Yumi’s live wasn’t in the balance.

        Jeremie shook his head, “No, there’s no tower activated and I’ve checked any other way of Xana possibly possessing some one or creating a polymorphic clone. This is all a human’s doing.”

        “Could it be Catie?” Aelita asked. 

       “That’d be something you’d ask Jordan and she’s with the police right now.” Jeremie said.

        “But with the way she was talking,” Ulrich continued for Jeremie, “I wouldn’t put it past the girl.” 

       “I just wish we could see Yumi.” Aelita said. 

       “Who says we can’t.” Jeremie said.

        “But if she’s in critical condition…” Ulrich started to say but couldn’t get himself to finish. 

       “There’s camera all over the hospital.” Jeremie said, hinting to his ability to hack into anything on Earth.

        The three walked into Jeremie’s room and Jeremie went away at trying to get into the hospital’s security cameras. Jeremie was able to get in on the first try and found his way around the roster to find Yumi’s name. He found it and typed in a few more codes. In a mere matter of seconds, Jeremie had a camera pointed on the Japanese girl in the hospital. IVs were attached to her as she slept. It looked like they had just finished surgery.

         That’s it, as soon as I get over there, I’ll tell her. Ulrich thought as he looked down at his friend. I can’t let her die. Not without knowing.

        Where am I? Yumi asked as she opened her eyes and saw white walls. In her arms she felt something inside like a needle, but wasn’t sure. All she knew was there was a killer pain in her back.

        Oh, right. Catie shot me. At lest, I think it was Catie.

         Yumi saw something to her right and looked over to see Ulrich sitting by her side. 

       At lest she thought it was Ulrich, but he didn’t say anything, do anything, he just sat there as if he was dead. Yumi blinked and he was gone.

        She looked over at the TV and saw that some one had put on a cartoon. Yumi couldn’t remember what the name of it was. All she remembered about it was that it was from America.

        Yumi turned so that she could look out the window and wondered What’s happening to my friends? Catie might be after them too.

        Ulrich couldn’t stand it any longer and had to see Yumi and tell her before it was too late. He couldn’t figure out what he was going to say but he had to. Ulrich remembered that he had told Odd and Jeremie where he was going after Odd and Jordan had come back. Jordan was going to stay over in Aelita’s room for protection and Jeremie had set up some sort of an alarm with Jordan watching him so that Catie couldn’t attack at night. Ulrich thought Jordan was going overboard but really didn’t care.

        Ulrich walked down the road to the hospital and realized someone was behind him.

        He turned around to see a blond haired girl. Her head was down so that the blond hair was covering her face, but Ulrich could see that a part of her face was damaged.

        “Catie?” Ulrich asked, not really knowing what to do. 

       “So she did tell you, didn’t she?” Catie said as she pulled out a gun from behind her. She pointed it at Ulrich and looked at him to show him her face and said, “You see what she did! This is why she must be stopped!” 

       “But why us?” Ulrich asked to stall for time and prayed for some one to help. “Why Jordan’s boyfriend?” 

       “Just people in the way.” Catie said as she pulled the trigger. 

       Ulrich fell to the ground as Catie ran away. He felt like he was falling into darkness. He saw a light and voices were telling him he wasn’t done on Earth. The next thing he noticed was that he was looking down on his body as it was in surgery.

         “Scary, isn’t it?” a female voice asked from next to him in the air. 

       Ulrich turned to the voice and saw a girl that in a strange way, reminded him of Odd. “Yes, it is.” 

       “You must stop Catie, Ulrich Stern. You and your friends. Jordan is in grave danger and if she doesn’t survive all of this, the world will not survive. She is as important to the survival of this world as you and your friends are.” The girl said.

         Around Ulrich, every thing began to change. He found himself standing in a rocky area that was full of fog. In front of him was a battle. And in that battle was all his friends and Jordan, plus many more that he didn’t recognize.

        “You see, you and your friends, as well as Jordan, are part of a group of people that have been given lives to save the Earth. Yours started when you said that you would help Jeremie in getting a girl out of a computer. Hers started when her real family was killed by aliens and she was shot with a supersonic ray gun created by these aliens that had strange effects on her.” 

       “May I ask, who are you?” Ulrich couldn’t help but ask. 

       “Just a friend of the dead and of the living.” The girl said. “Tell Odd that I haven’t forgotten.” 

       Ulrich felt himself falling down. He found himself opening his eyes and seeing his father’s stern face above him with his mother’s kind one.

        His father lightened up for once and smiled at seeing his son open his eyes. “How you feeling son?”

        “Sore.” Ulrich said bluntly.

        “You have some people that would like to see you.” His mother said as the two of them got up and walked out of the room.

         After they left, Jeremie, Odd, Jordan, Aelita, and Yumi came in. Yumi had to roll in in a wheelchair. 

       “Hey buddy.” Odd said as he sat down in the chair his father had just left.

        Aelita walked over to Ulrich and handed him a bunch of flowers. “We thought it would do something for the room.” Aelita said with a smile. 

       Ulrich smiled and said, “Thanks.” As he sat the flowers on the table next to the bed. 

       “What happened?” Jordan asked, standing next to Odd.

        “You were right, Catie is trying to get rid of us.” Ulrich said as he tried to reposition himself, but his chest started to hurt, so he stopped moving. 

       “Are you ok?” Yumi asked, seeing his pain in his face. 

       “I’m fine.” Ulrich lied. “I’m just glad Catie is a lousy shot.” 

       “What do you mean?” Jeremie asked.

         “Well, when you’re about a meter away from the person you are trying to kill and the person is still alive, I’d call that a lousy shot.” Ulrich said with a smile. His smile faded when he saw that no one else was smiling, not even Odd. 

       “They haven’t told you yet, have they?” Aelita asked. 

       “Told me what?” 

       “You were dead, for at least a day.” Odd said. “They were about to send you to the morgue when you started to breath again.” 

       “What!” Ulrich asked in surprise. Than he remembered the talk with that girl that looked like Odd. “Hey Odd, this may sound really random, but do you know a girl that had blond hair like yours, with the purple diamond?” 

       “Ya, why?”

        “She said she still remembered.”  

      “You talked to her, but how, she’s been dead for a couple of years now!?”

        “Who is she, she wouldn’t tell me her name.”

         “Candie.” Odd said. “But how did you talk to her?” 

              “You said that I was dead.”

        “People that have been dead have been able to talk to people from their past before.” Jeremie said. “It wouldn’t be surprising if you were able to talk to her while you where dead.” 

       “Oh, uh, guys, we need to get back to school.” Aelita said, looking at Yumi more than at Odd, Jeremie, or Jordan. 

       “Oh, right.” Odd said as he got up. “See ya.” 

       “Bye guys.” Yumi said as the two watched their friends leave for school.

        As soon as they left, the room fell into complete silence, except for the different calls over the inter calm.  

            “I guess you where wondering why I’m in a wheelchair.” Yumi said, not looking at Ulrich. 

       “It did come into my mind.” Ulrich said. 

       “They said that when I was shot, it hit my spinal cord, causing it to make me paralyzed from the waist down.” 

       “What!” 

       “They said that there was only a 10 present chance that I could walk again.” Yumi still didn’t look at Ulrich but he made himself move so that he could get face to face with her. He grabbed her chin and moved her head so that she was looking him in the eyes. 

       “You will walk again.” Ulrich said. “I believe that you can, and I’ll be there the whole way through.” 

       “Thanks Ulrich.” Yumi said as Ulrich let go of her chin. She took her chances and went forward and kissed him on the lips.

        Ulrich was surprised at first and then was able to get his arm around her back as he went deeper with the kiss.

        The two let go after a few seconds and looked at each other, blushing.

         “Sorry.” Yumi said as Ulrich let go.

        “No, don’t be sorry.” Ulrich said as he sat back down so that his chest didn’t hurt so badly. “What got me to get in all this mess was that I was going to see you and tell you that I love you and that I am tired of all this. Not knowing if you’re going to see anyone the next day, or that your best friend might get killed without them knowing the truth. I love you Yumi.” 

       “I love-“ Yumi got cut off as a new voice popped its way into Ulrich’s head. 

       “Ulrich! Wake up!” it sounded like Odd. 

       Ulrich opened his eyes and looked at Odd with evil in his eyes. “You couldn’t have waited one second, could you?” 

       “What, was Yumi about to say I love you?” Odd asked, jokingly.  

      Ulrich threw off the blankets and started to get ready for school.

The End